Friday, June 27, 2003
One time, years ago, my brother Chris wrote me a maudlin letter from university. He was older than me, and out in the world, a three-hour drive from home. Not only can you go home again, he wrote, you must. Indeed. At the time -- a long time ago, he was around 19 and I was around 17 -- I'm pretty sure we both thought that was tremendously profound. Like earth-shattering. Now? Yeah, I still think so.
I was filled with trepidation, on and off, at the thought of coming home this time. Even though it's where the heart -- and my cat, and all my stuff -- lives. The heart, see, is exactly the problem. Stupid emotions. In Winnipeg, where I lived for ten months last year, and where I'll live again for ten months starting soon, it was easy to get over the horrible-car-crash-in-which-my-arms-were-torn-off-and-thrown-clear-of-the-wreck feeling that came with the abrupt end of the most intense friendship of my life. After that day last December, that dark day, that day when Timmy (not, of course, his real name) let me walk out of his house and out of his life without lifting so much as an eyebrow to try to get me to stay, I wasn't sure Halifax would ever be able to feel like home again, cat, stuff and lovely little north end house notwithstanding. Maybe, I thought, from the minus-45 degree Winnipeg winter spent slipping and sliding over the frozen river and checking myself to make sure I'd remembered to put pants on, so cold was it, maybe Halifax only feels like home because of Timmy. Maybe my seven years there are based solely on him, though I'd never thought I could become that kind of girl. Turns out, much to my continuing relief, I haven't. Also? Arms can grow back. Who knew?
Those self-same arms have browned up nicely in the Halifax summer sun, which finally came out about a week ago. The house is a shambles, ready to be renovated to within an inch of its life, which should happen just in time for me to go back to Winnipeg, leaving it in the care of Kravitz and CA. And Sparky? He has a big nasty dreadlock on his back, just as he did this time last summer. He fell asleep wrapped around my arm last night, and his deep nasal breathing kept me company when I ran out of sleep myself. He still knocks the crunchies out of my hand most mornings by bumping against my fist when I try to feed him. Some things do not change. For that, I am eternally grateful.
And some things do. This place is no longer about that person, for me. I am not consumed with nostalgia as I walk the streets I know and love so well. I do not think here, we did this, there we saw that. And I admit, for a week or two, I walked these streets with caution, with a frisson of fear and dread -- and also a strange excitement -- that I would run into him, or worse yet, run into his new girlfriend. It passed. These things do. For one thing, I got over it. For another, he's too nervous about me, I think, to so much as leave his house. And so my bravado about this being my city just as much as it is his, and I'll go wherever I like, thanks very much, has proved unnecessary, since it's clearly much more mine than Timmy's.
And now? Now I just breathe in the green of the trees, the blue of the sky, the salt of the air, and feel only slightly less maudlin than a letter written fourteen years ago by a brother who will never go home again, unless you consider heaven home, if you even believe in heaven. If there even is one.
So. Basically, happy to be home. I've chased away the demons of maybe-this-can't-be-home-after-all. I've been to the beach and the lake and concluded that this town could be full of every frigging frigger who's ever broken my heart or even merely kissed me and never called again, and it would still be irrevocably home. And those friggers can simply eat me. Because I've stood in my backyard in the morning, glorying in the pansies and feeling a deep down contentment. I've driven along Chebucto Road on my way home from somewhere with Kravitz and La Gillan, all of us singing Two Out of Three Ain't Bad so loud I almost lost my voice. I've walked over Citadel Hill and surveyed the city and seen that it is good. I've dipped my toes in the waters of someone else, even, and been glad that arms grow back after all is said and done, because they really come in handy. As Josh Rouse would sing, home is where I always want to be.
And that's right here.
I was filled with trepidation, on and off, at the thought of coming home this time. Even though it's where the heart -- and my cat, and all my stuff -- lives. The heart, see, is exactly the problem. Stupid emotions. In Winnipeg, where I lived for ten months last year, and where I'll live again for ten months starting soon, it was easy to get over the horrible-car-crash-in-which-my-arms-were-torn-off-and-thrown-clear-of-the-wreck feeling that came with the abrupt end of the most intense friendship of my life. After that day last December, that dark day, that day when Timmy (not, of course, his real name) let me walk out of his house and out of his life without lifting so much as an eyebrow to try to get me to stay, I wasn't sure Halifax would ever be able to feel like home again, cat, stuff and lovely little north end house notwithstanding. Maybe, I thought, from the minus-45 degree Winnipeg winter spent slipping and sliding over the frozen river and checking myself to make sure I'd remembered to put pants on, so cold was it, maybe Halifax only feels like home because of Timmy. Maybe my seven years there are based solely on him, though I'd never thought I could become that kind of girl. Turns out, much to my continuing relief, I haven't. Also? Arms can grow back. Who knew?
Those self-same arms have browned up nicely in the Halifax summer sun, which finally came out about a week ago. The house is a shambles, ready to be renovated to within an inch of its life, which should happen just in time for me to go back to Winnipeg, leaving it in the care of Kravitz and CA. And Sparky? He has a big nasty dreadlock on his back, just as he did this time last summer. He fell asleep wrapped around my arm last night, and his deep nasal breathing kept me company when I ran out of sleep myself. He still knocks the crunchies out of my hand most mornings by bumping against my fist when I try to feed him. Some things do not change. For that, I am eternally grateful.
And some things do. This place is no longer about that person, for me. I am not consumed with nostalgia as I walk the streets I know and love so well. I do not think here, we did this, there we saw that. And I admit, for a week or two, I walked these streets with caution, with a frisson of fear and dread -- and also a strange excitement -- that I would run into him, or worse yet, run into his new girlfriend. It passed. These things do. For one thing, I got over it. For another, he's too nervous about me, I think, to so much as leave his house. And so my bravado about this being my city just as much as it is his, and I'll go wherever I like, thanks very much, has proved unnecessary, since it's clearly much more mine than Timmy's.
And now? Now I just breathe in the green of the trees, the blue of the sky, the salt of the air, and feel only slightly less maudlin than a letter written fourteen years ago by a brother who will never go home again, unless you consider heaven home, if you even believe in heaven. If there even is one.
So. Basically, happy to be home. I've chased away the demons of maybe-this-can't-be-home-after-all. I've been to the beach and the lake and concluded that this town could be full of every frigging frigger who's ever broken my heart or even merely kissed me and never called again, and it would still be irrevocably home. And those friggers can simply eat me. Because I've stood in my backyard in the morning, glorying in the pansies and feeling a deep down contentment. I've driven along Chebucto Road on my way home from somewhere with Kravitz and La Gillan, all of us singing Two Out of Three Ain't Bad so loud I almost lost my voice. I've walked over Citadel Hill and surveyed the city and seen that it is good. I've dipped my toes in the waters of someone else, even, and been glad that arms grow back after all is said and done, because they really come in handy. As Josh Rouse would sing, home is where I always want to be.
And that's right here.
