It’s nearly 7:30 in the morning Toronto time, and I’m awake on account of sleeping much of the flight away. I’ve been wanting to make this trip for so long that when the time came to get on the plane, I didn’t want to think too much about it. I wanted it to be like any other flight, just a routine trip across the country. Most of my journeys this year have been under tragic circumstances or to serve a purpose, and even the trip to New York in February and Orlando a couple of weeks ago were — although for leisure — to complete travel within a certain timeframe.
But here I am, one year after leaving Vancouver in a terrible rush, returning with a crop of grey hair and an odd feeling of familiarity mixed with more than a tinge of sadness. All the hope and excitement last summer of planning our wedding and returning eventually with David has been replaced with something else entirely, but what that is I can’t describe other than the sensation of the heart and the mind occupying two different places at the same time. This separation seems to characterise much of how I’ve been feeling since late 2004, and until I’m settled for more than a few months in one place, I don’t expect that sensation to subside any time soon.
There are a lot of things I want to do while I’m in Vancouver, and I’ve set up my ticketing to allow myself some return date flexibility in case my friend Claire in France decides to fly later than planned to Toronto.
In the meantime, for those in Vancouver: if I haven’t gotten in touch with you already, contact me at gail [at] gailatlarge.com and we’ll set up a time/place to meet!
