Note: I wrote this on the Greyhound back from Kelowna. I seem to pontificate on such rides.
Homewards Bound
After six and a half weeks away, traveling home from Kelowna. The hills, mountains, and other sights are clouded in a grey fog. “Must be a forest fire somewhere,” my billeter told me before dropping me off at the terminal. Apparently smoke from fires blow into Kelowna all the way from Colorado, Alberta, and even Alaska. Wouldn’t have even occurred to me. My still-city-mind thought smog instead.
My legs feel weak, like I’m tired of standing, or haven’t done so in a long time. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed my Kelowna adventure and had some great times with my collaborators which I doubt I’ll forget. They say the best way to hold onto a memory is to make sure you learn something in it, and I did, whether from going wine-tasting to learning how not to use a barbeque (and accidentally flooding the stage with smoke in the process). But with five weeks at the Voice Intensive and then near seven weeks out here, feels like my homes have moved out from under me, be they my new home in Vancouver or the one I was hoping still existed in Victoria.
I’m heading there next. A few days of hard work in Vancouver, then off to the Victoria Fringe Festival on Saturday, off to a city that was home for seven years, a home I feel I’ll need to rediscover. Make new memories on old streets.
I am grateful for all the wonderful people I knew in all of these spaces. I’ve heard it said that gratitude is the way to get out of the satisfaction trap – that trap where satisfaction never lasts because we get used to the blessings around us, and then want more. Gratitude reminds us of the blessings we have. But it is also typically a somewhat backwards-facing emotion. Being grateful for times past.
What would it be like to be grateful for the unknown which is to come? Is that part of hope? Is that satisfying?
Another journey to explore, I suppose.
Andrew Wade 