Music, as you know, Dear Reader, can stir the soul. When entwined with long-forgotten, heady visual memories, its effect is impassioned—almost anthemic. While sitting on a deck chair in the brilliant morning sunshine this Easter Sunday, spirited by the singing of Requiem by Rebecca Noelle, I drifted in my absent-thinking mind to another bright day.

Several years ago, we had taken the train from Smiths Falls to Toronto to attend a memorial gathering for a dear friend lately deceased. Upon our arrival at Union Station an agent of the station…recognizing my difficulty walking, brought me a wheelchair and pushed me (aboard) up the long exit ramp, across Front Street and into the lobby of the Royal York Hotel where we had booked a suite for the weekend. The cloudless blue sky heralded what proved to be an exhilarating foregathering of friends of the deceased. My partner set about an early reunion because he knew the parties best.

Again, owing to my immobility, I chose to remain in the hotel rather than pretend to wander the city or convene early with friends. I would have loved to walk along Front Street, curiously inspecting the windows of the lavish shops (closed during the weekend absence of the financial district brokers and the legal and accounting crowd). Instead, I took to the hotel’s sauna and pool—my modest way of marking the day. My resort afterwards was the exceedingly busy and ebullient Library Bar, a lounge located in a private area at the western end of the lobby.

Having then abandoned liquor, I probably ordered a Club soda (with a lemon twist) and a plate of something to eat. Being alone in a bar is itself a novel experience. I fed the novelty by blissfully absorbing the chatter of the people gathered about me; revelling in the indolence of the moment in a polished urban environment. Our suite on the Fairmont Gold Floor of the hotel afforded us a lakefront view in spacious accommodation.  The high ceilings throughout the historic railway hotel added another indescribable sensation. Everything in the suite wore shades of grey and white—colours I’ve always cherished for evoking gulls, sea mist, and open water.

Quite apart from the memorial feature of the weekend (which proved to be animated and buoyant as one would expect of ancient friends), there was for me a mournful and yearning element of our visit. Toronto had been the metropolis I grew up in and first began visiting while at boarding school located outside Toronto.  Though one summer – at seventeen years of age –  I had attended Alliance Française in Paris (and naturally adored all there was to see), it was Toronto which attached to my undergraduate studies at Glendon Hall on Bayview Avenue at Lawrence Avenue East. Nurturing this venue were recollections of social correspondence on nearby Park Lane Circle, High Point Road and the Bridle Path. And there were many others along Avenue Road (Upper Canada College), Lonsdale Road, St Clair Avenue West and Yorkville Avenue; and extending westward to St George Street (Rochdale College) and Madison Avenue (Creation 2 theatre company) plus of course Hoskin Street (Devonshire House and Trinity College) and University Avenue (Osgoode Hall).

Relaxing in the Library lounge at the hotel, these youthful memories fizzed throughout my mind. I recalled the time I and my undergraduate and boarding school colleague attended the newly constructed Toronto-Dominion Centre on a windy, grey Saturday afternoon to watch the movie Alfie. The theatre was almost empty aside from us.

My partner and I had stayed at the Royal York hotel in the past when joining my nieces for a buttered lobster dinner. And, as a Past Master, I had gathered many other memorable moments when Grand Lodge of the Ancient Free & Accepted Masons held its annual conference at the hotel.

I am proud of these bygone experiences. Seldom do I wander that far afield, perhaps not fully trusting my memory, or just having no further connection with the city. It is likely a trait of aging to ponder matters wistfully. Meanwhile, as I write and stare blankly up river, I am nonetheless thoroughly content with the present circumstances. To drift deliberately among such tranquil thoughts is, for me, a cherished privilege. At the same time I regularly remind myself of all that currently surrounds me. I would never change a thing. Today we punctuated the enormity of this serenity and wilful complacency when my partner unwittingly discovered on the precious Persian a lost, tiny piece of silver critical to the attachment of my Aspinal of London bumble bee brooch.

And the music in my head continues, circulating from opera to Baroque masters to modern and popular. The sky is painted with a broad drape of flat white along its southern platform.