A home. Or something like it

“I’m so fucking cold.” I turned to my Nurse Friend and the words came out of numb face as we made our way up the mountain on Stairway to Heaven chairlift. 

As the chair peaked at the top of the Kicking Horse ski hill, we both covered our faces to protect any exposed skin from the ruthless wind. She looked at me rather pathetically and slowly shook her head: “It’s, like, minus 6...”. Clearly I needed a bit more time to acclimatize back to these Canadian Winters.

I’m currently writing a post from Golden, BC sipping a latte and typing away with country music filling the comfortable silence. Hugo and I have once again comfortably taken the spare room at my Nurse Friend’s place for the last three nights. Oh how quickly I adjust to the lifestyle of local wine and boarding. We’ve hit up our favorite bookstore and coffee shops and had our regular lunch on top of the ski hill, poutine no less; it was a fabulous reintroduction to Canada.

With beer induced giggles, I was easily sent a few years back, when, despite my work life was hitting the fan, my personal life was flourishing with weekends spent cross country skiing, snowboarding with my two Nurse BFF’s and a hippy boy, whose memory still knocks the wind out of me. I’ve made a mental note to move back to this Transient Town, perhaps in a year or two. It’s the best part of being so Nomadic, the feeling of home really does become east to imitate regardless of the city, province or country.

I flew into Canada a little over a week ago, where I was greeted by my mom, with longer hair, who keenly showed up at the airport a little late, quite naturally. Shortly after a hug and a hi, I dropped my backpack in her ceramic tiled entrance way and vigorously pet and attempt a hug one very happy Hugo. For sometime like the fourth time in my adult life, I was once again making my mom’s house, my home.

I made the best out of my short week in Alberta where I was able to hit up the Italian market and visit two lovely friends and mentors who provided me with both lifestyle and career advice. I was also able to meet up with the Lovely Amber, who knows all too well on how Asia will change your life, as she traveled there just a few short years ago, and came back with a partner (and now fiancé). I left their apartment after promises of wedding attendance, which was really just me vocalizing my expected invitation. I also had the privileged to play with my two nieces, a less breakable Heidi and her sister, and mine too!

I saw the BC boarder only after my mom and I attended the Pechakucha event where I quite randomly got bellowed at from a few feet away by an old friend in Calgary who I quite adore and have very much looked up to. She’s promised me updates of her and her sisters adventure on hiking the camino de santiago that will take place in a few months (perhaps I can convince her to be a guest poster: Hint Hint). Although I could never live in Calgary again, a great part about visiting old stomping grounds is seeing all those friends who helped make you who you are today. And those friends I was fortunate enough to visit, despite multiple location and time changes on my behalf, or sporadically see on a whim, most certainly had an effect on my life.

Both my Nurse Friend and I have our laptops out on her kitchen table. She’s paying bills and I’m once again successfully avoiding Adulting, well, for a few more days. I’ll be headed up north tomorrow afternoon and I’m genuinely thrilled to see my lovely Northern girlfriends and family. After securing a car, a contract and a cabin, I’m excited to announce that I’ll be spending the next twelve months in the ‘hoof where I will be once again, calling that place home.

Signed,

An Adult-er

My kitchen is for Dancing.