Miles From Monday: Toronto's Moore Park

June 4, 2012, Toronto: Our old hometown has grown up considerably since we left just like we have. Real estate prices are high, construction teams are busy, and the city of Toronto has come into its own. Six miles from the massive condos and highrises in the center of the city's core, the changes are equally apparent in the family-friendly urban neighborhood of Moore Park. This weekend, we returned to the very street where we lived thirty years ago to visit an old friend now raising a family of his own just down the block. Our old house is looking older and wiser these days. More settled in its foundation. More comfortable in its own skin.

The trees, too, are a striking indicator of how much this place has grown. Through the lens of one 30-something year old photograph of my dad and I sitting on the front steps of our old place, I'd imagined we lived in a part of town that was open and bright without much shade. On the contrary, it is lush and green and full of life teeming from a lovely mixture of old and modern homes packed tightly together on flat, shaded streets. I suppose it should come as no surprise that the neighborhood has aged like the rest of us, and that the landscaping and tree cover is more mature too.

Today in Toronto, we are miles from the start of our work week. For our old friends waking up in Moore Park, this is a typical Monday morning.