Sowing seeds

Molly sets her tee up on the 15th green. Above, black crows and seagulls and eagles swoop in and out of view between tall pines. The smell of lilacs and sea and cut grass wafts on the air, the breeze a forgiving pace and temperate compared to the harsh winds off the Pacific on Manly beach only a week ago. The sun is warm on my shoulders, and even the clouds seem complacent to shift and dissipate on the affable blue canopy. Framing the sky, the Rockies sink slowly into azure as the day nears dusk. My heart is quiet and still, set on listening to the sound of bees in the rododendrums. Something seems familiar about this setting, something beyond the fact that it belongs to a country I grew up in - the place I call “home”. I want to label it as a moment of returning, to temperatures and accents and vegetation I recognize, but that doesn’t seem entirely illustrative. “Every step we take takes us farther from home”. If that is the case, I am miles away from where I was. But still I feel an immense sense of homecoming.

The travel bug bit me long ago, and I believe it is true that you never recovery from this addiction. It follows you wherever you go, sits wait until you have become accustomed to a place, threaded yourself into its identity the best you can, and then unleashes its influence on the soul, compelling you once again to journey to somewhere unfamiliar, to feel the immediacy of experience that can only be encountered when surrounded by the exotic and unfamiliar. But having been transient now for four years I feel an opposing urge to stand on solid ground. It is the first time I have felt this way, possibly in my whole life, and it will no doubt pass once accomplished. But there is something to be said for roots, for stability, and for not having to so frequently say goodbye. I have had fear in the past few years that I will never find a place that calls to me, in that special way that says here is where you want to be. Take off your coat and stay awhile. But circumstances have brought me here, back to Canada, and to a city I have never lived in before. And this city feels like home, as much as any place can. I now have friends and family dispersed all over the world, and my heart belongs to people and places that could never be contained within the limits of a city. So to choose one place to stay, besides for a job or an opportunity or a loved one or a tragedy, has to come from some place deep within. And whether it is the warmth of the early summer sun, the smell of wildflowers, or the pulse and vibrancy of the culture here, something has whispered to me that this is where I am supposed to be. For now, however long now extends to.

I am not naïve enough to think I will hold onto this sentiment forever. I have always known that I am one of those people that could quite honestly live just about anywhere. But the conditions of my life, the independent nature of my decision making process at this juncture, has forced me to really consider what it is that makes a life a life in a place. There is work everywhere, love everywhere, beautiful people everywhere and possibility everywhere, but one has to make a choice. And standing on the green today feeling the breeze and the heat and the gentle rhythm of the wind and the voices and the ocean has given me some confidence that this decision, in whatever direction it may propel me, is a good one.

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