They hesitated before smiling with each other. They had learned hesitancy here. They had learned caution. It wasn't proper to yell each other's names across a street here. It wasn't right to blare music out of windows for neighbors to hear. Heaven knows enough policemen had come knocking on their doors for that faux pas. Here, all that was courtesy became insult; all that was human turned to signs of backwardness. They had traded bold-facedness for high-rise apartments. Going home, they sized up each other's clothing and hairstyles. Did they look good enough to have lived here, did they look good enough to return and not have someone notice that life here wasn't all that rosy. Did they look good enough to inspire envy. They waited for the doors of the plane to close behind them. They sensed their ordinary cheerfulness rising to be released. They knew it would be embarrassing to let go in the airport. Behind the doors they would breathe out the relief of leaving Toronto, that uncomfortable name of a city, where their lives were tight and deceptive. What a joy it would be to talk and have people answer, to settle into gregariousness and frown on reserve.

— Sans Souci by Dionne Brand (Page 178)