As luck would have it, I found myself in the east end this morning walking past the vegetable sellers and coffee shops of Gerrard. There was a time when I spent a lot of time east of the Don River scouring antique shops for old lamps and fabric trims and scoffing down pancakes at some diner or another. Our home was filled with things snapped up on lazy Sundays in Leslieville. A Finn Juhl chair (or so we were told) upholstered in tangerine microsuede. A wooden bowl shaped like a pineapple. Mid-century salt and pepper shakers. One of my first jobs out of journalism college was at a design magazine with a tiny office in a building on River Street. My first byline there was an article on a beautiful Siamak Hariri project with a white spiral staircase not so dissimilar to the one in our home. The best ideas need time to percolate. To travel through. These days, I’m rarely in the east end. I rarely leave the Annex, to be honest. My world is small and intense. And when I do step out, like I did today, I discover a world of nostalgia and possibility.