Oh, the places you’ll go

What a time it’s been! November passed in a blur of airports and timezones and visits with nieces and nephew, mother and siblings, aunts and uncles and friends. I travelled from Halifax to Toronto in early November and from there on to San Francisco and Half Moon Bay, to oversee the gorgeous launch party for this remarkable book. Then back to Toronto for some family time before once again heading to the west coast, this time to Victoria, BC, for a company retreat, and then finally back to Toronto to see my nephew perform in a production of Seussical Jr, which was pretty much the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And then finally, two days in the car and I’m back home in Halifax, a little tired, but pretty satisfied overall.

First, San Francisco has long been on my list of places to go, and it was just so great that Katy wanted to have the launch for Movement Matters in nearby Half Moon Bay. I drove the Pacific Coast highway, ate an artichoke omelette in Pescadero, got soaked by the ocean, walked San Francisco’s streets for hours, ascended the staircase at City Lights bookstore, imagining all the hands that had held the handrail before mine, sat in the Poet’s Chair and looked out the window and thought about this life, and how every day it falls into place a little more clearly and a little more perfectly. I ate a burrito in the Mission and I sat in Dolores Park and basked in the sunshine. I made a list of things to see and do next time, and began scheming about how to make that next time happen, with Kev in tow. 

Then, the retreat in Victoria. This almost-year of working with Propriometrics Press has been transformative in many ways, but the weekend we five spent together in Victoria was a whole other level of transformative. So great to spend face to face time with colleagues I hang out with for hours a week online, and to discover that we all really love each other in person. I learn so much from these colleagues, about the work we’re doing, and about the life it’s possible to lead. Plus, the Pacific Ocean was in our front yard, and we ate foraged madrone berries on our walks, and there was a cozy fireplace, and we laughed so hard we stopped making sound. It was perfect.

And of course, the family time. It was a glorious month of seeing my people just about every day, tagging along to my sister’s jewellery shows, making dinner for my mom, walking to meet my niece and nephew on their walk home from school. And the jewel in the crown of all that was the boy’s outing as Wickersham Brother 2 in Seussical Jr. The Nephew reminds me of myself at his age: a little anxious, kind of scared of everything, feeling like everyone else knows the score, a bit dreamy, a singular worldview. I buried myself in books, he chooses video games. I tried to hide being anxious and scared, he speaks of it freely, in a way I admire so hard. He told me regularly during our visits that he was scared to go on stage and perform, that he was concerned that he had missed a rehearsal in which everyone else learned the first part of one of the dances, and that he’d never had a chance to catch up. He told me on Thursday night, as I drove him to his dress rehearsal, that he had never before wished the weekend wouldn’t come. But at the theatre he was comfortable, at home, more himself than I’ve ever seen him.

And on Saturday night, when the curtain finally went up and he came on stage in his little denim vest, with monkey ears adorably askew, I started crying with happiness and didn’t stop till the final ovation ebbed. He friggin’ nailed it. He danced, he sang, he projected, he smiled with his whole heart. He overcame that fear…or he felt it and went on stage anyway. I love that kid.  So much.

As for me, it’s coming up on a year since I left my work at CBC behind. I continue to not regret it for even a moment. I did not feel fear when I gave my notice, and I haven’t felt it in the almost-year since I embarked on this new life. The kind of smile I saw on my nephew’s face on Saturday night, that’s the smile I feel on my own face every day. This life is where I am comfortable, at home, more myself than I’ve ever been.