This summer, I finally made the move back to Toronto after giving Stratford, Ont., – the well-known rural home of Shakespeare, swine and swans – the five-year college try.

To say that small-town life didn’t agree with me is probably putting it mildly. To say that living in this seemingly bucolic but actually often bleak and occasionally sinister spot led to a slippery slope from which I am gradually climbing back to health and happiness is only partially true. What I do now know is that too much change at once, living alone for the first time in my life and misguidedly choosing an isolated, alienating environment located in Ontario’s snow belt as my new locale was a geographical cure that, as is usually the case, didn’t work.

Coincidentally, I have met several people who have made midlife decisions to leave their urban home for what seem like greener pastures in the countryside, only to return. No one is wrong or right here but, to quote my brother Eric, who recently moved to West Harlem and claims these words are from Andy Warhol: “The best thing about a small town is that, when you leave, there is nothing to miss.” Read more…