On SNOWFLAKE

February 26th

On SNOWFLAKE
Whenever I think of my childhood, I feel sad. I didn’t have bad parents or live in a harsh environment – quite the opposite. We had everything we needed, but weren’t too spoiled. Some of the time I had few friends, and that made me sad, bitter and alone, especially in grade six and grade eight. When I think of me as a kid, though, I think of unfulfilled potential and feel ashamed.
When I was very young, my parents took me skating at the skating rink at Mississauga City Hall. Mississauga doesn’t have a real downtown, being a collection of suburban developments clustered around villages, like Port Credit, Clarkson, or Streetsville. City Hall is right beside Square One, the biggest mall in Mississauga and the biggest in Ontario. When it was built in the early 70s, before Mississauga existed, it was the second shopping centre in Canada, and it was surrounded by farmers fields. Then they formed Mississauga in 1974, and put City Hall, the Central Library and the Living Arts Centre next to the mall, Mississauga’s raison d’etre.
I didn’t last long skating. It was hard, and I wasn’t getting anywhere fast. Instead I went and played in the nearby snowbanks, imagining them to be castles that I ruled by tromping around the parapets in my boots, making tunnels
My mother later related this story as the reason se never enrolled me in hockey. When I was 13, I was struck with Maple Leafs fever and an idolization of Felix Potvin. I decided one day to make a last ditch attempt at becoming a hockey player, a goalie specifically. My mom suggested I start by taking skating lessons. I bought a Cooper hockey helmet, which I thought looked atrocious on me (I don’t know why, it was a normal hockey helmet). A lot of the other kids in the beginner’s skating class I took at the local arena didn’t speak English, and wore bicycle helmets. I was never completely satisfied with how tight my skates were, and my feet hurt a lot when I skated. I think I stuck it out for the whole class, but then I hung up my helmet. It was too scary, and all my hockey-playing friends were years and years ahead of me. I was never going to win the Stanley Cup, and play goal for the Leafs.
If I had consistently played and just wasn’t good enough, or had no interest at all in the sport, I would have felt better about it. It was just that I barely tried, and turned back at the first sign of adversity, that makes me sad. It makes me doubt (not all the time, but sometimes) whether I have what it takes to stick it out and follow my dreams.
I conclusion, I grew up in an extremely suburban setting, with suburban Canadian dreams, which I barely pursued. Another interpretation of the story, though, is that my real destiny is making snow castles, and that my mom was right to think I wasn’t a hockey player. That in a cookie cutter world, I, Dave, was a completely individual individual, who danced to the beat of a different drummer, and was my own unique snowflake. That’s why I am a comedian now, an outsider, laughing at the world, and using my pain for good. It’s open to interpretation.