12 great days in Ontario

David Dennis, the son of a good friend (photographed for a story in 2019). Toronto skyline

behind him!

By Caitlin Kelly

As some of you know, I grew up in Toronto, ages five to 30, and left — gladly — to try work and life in Montreal, New Hampshire and New York, where I’ve stayed for decades.

But my Canadian friendships, thankfully, have endured, and social media makes it even easier to keep up. I had only been back once in 2023, last June, and Jose hadn’t been back in years. So we decided to splurge on a very good hotel — the Royal York — and some nice meals and just chill out. We’ve both been happily busy with a lot of work projects but at a fairly hectic pace.

We drove the 5.5 hours from our home to the border, then another hour west into Kingston, a handsome small city on Lake Ontario with a terrific restaurant we love returning to, Chez Piggy. From there it was another two hours west to Peterborough, another small city, where my father lives in a retirement home. We spent two days visiting him, and I had a stunning morning, the first of my life, explaining to him how his pretty much constant chosen absence from my life has hurt me. I had never dared say any of this, assuming he wouldn’t listen. But he did.

He had insisted we catch up….and so we did.

I left his care at 19 and he moved that month to live on a boat in Europe with his girlfriend, later wife. I had no effective way to reach him, and was also having to manage my mother’s manic episodes all over Europe while I lived alone, had no one to turn to, was attending a challenging university, living alone and freelancing. He knew none of this, or hadn’t cared.

So it was a tiring morning for us both but a necessary one. We’ll see, going forward, if he is kinder.

We drove another two hours further west to Toronto and checked into a luxuriously large room. I confess, we ordered room service every morning! What a joy to have a white-linen-covered table wheeled in, with no need to dress up or crutch the distance from our room across the lobby to the restaurant; (my hip is a mess.)

We caught up for dinner one night with two high school friends who also donate to the prize I created last year at our old school. Another night, with a dear friend, a fellow former newspaper reporter and her husband, a super creative architect. Mid-week dinner we ate with a woman I’ve known since my early 20s when she gave me amazing stories to write, like performing as an extra in Sleeping Beauty at Lincoln Center with the Canadian National Ballet. She married much later in life and her husband, a retired professor, is a gem.

The gorgeous lobby bar at the Royal York

I saw a great show of wildlife photos with another friend, and treated her to tea at Holt’s Cafe, an elegant hideaway in a very nice department store; we were lucky to enjoy a stupidly favorable exchange rate — the U.S. dollar worth $1.37 Canadian these days.

We enjoyed a great Italian meal out but also took a few days to rest and relax. We live and work in a one bedroom apartment, so having a lot of room was lovely.

I even took in a Blue Jays-NY Yankees baseball game — my excellent ticket in Toronto cost literally one-tenth the price of what we pay here.

We had an extraordinary moment the day we left — Jose is a Tibetan Buddhist — and the bellhop was as well, his name (!) Karma, and a photographer, which Jose is as well. Jose gave him his business card and asked him to stay in touch. As we loaded the car to leave, he gave us (!) two beautiful hand-woven textiles from his aunt, full of familiar Buddhist images.

I skipped the legendary St. Lawrence market this time

We spent our final vacation night back in Kingston, enjoyed another fantastic meal at Chez Piggy, savored a lakeside view from our hotel. Also stocked up at Pan Chancho, after breakfast there, with pretty mugs and dish towels and some delicious food for our first meals back at home.

I was very happy to enjoy our 21-inch deep bathtub again.

It was a well needed break!