minor tectonic shifts

I’m leaving Canada again; leaving family, leaving friends. When I come here to visit from living abroad I often find myself inserting myself into the lives of others. Yes, I take their time and energy and interrupt their schedules with the demands of my less ordered lifestyle – which I must emphasize is really mostly so because I’m on holiday while everyone else is working. However I am the one who is actually more flexible and it’s not for altruistic reasons. In fact it’s like trying on clothing you wouldn’t usually wear or borrowing someone else’s facial expression to see how it works on your own face. There is a voyeuristic appeal in savouring the aroma of the different stews they all are busy cooking while my pot is simmering away elsewhere. Or so it feels when I arrive, disoriented and reaching for ingredients that aren’t readily available here. Later there is a bittersweet melancholy in anticipating everyone sitting down for a communal meal I will not be able to share from half a world away.

The west coast of Canada is a truly beautiful place; lush, moist and fecund. The fog rolling over the ocean, into the ancient green forest, curling around me fills me with a sense of mystery and peace. The vast beach near Tofino stretches laterally out to the horizon. The surfers, the families, the couples, the stoners, the loners, the barking dogs chasing laconic seagulls are isolated vignettes on an out of scale landscape that could at any moment tilt and slide us all into the pacific.

The world is full of places as beautiful, as mysterious as this and I am going back out to discover some more of them, like a child who ignores the dinner bell. Pavlov be damned. It's a wonderful life.

I'm looking forward to seeing my family and my friends, old and new all over the world, discovering and understanding, if only just a little. Thank you for a lovely visit.
Peace.