Pint and a Pourd

Going back to your own country isn't easy. Most of you reading this have no idea what I mean by this; what it is like to reject your own culture, language and essentially family and friends for another form of all of these things. In this rejection it is not the environment that should be considered that which is rejected; rather, it is the rejector that is receiving the rejection. Right, that doesn't make sense. But it is the best I can do to explain the confusion I felt for my entire three week trip back 'home'. Couple this confusion and rejection and distaste for everything around you (and for no real reason) and then imagine yourself with your two parents, at any point in your adult life, just the three of you. Then, put the three of you into a car and drive for 3000km through an area none of you have been. I think it is safe to say that most of you at this point can at the very least understand a bit of the potential for my discomfort; most of you understand you would not be all too settled, nor ecstatic to say the least in this situation. That's not to say my parents aren't the coolest out there. They are amazing human beings and I am fortunate to have any moment with them.

But I'll tell you, due to all the previously mentioned environmental factors, it wasn't an easy trip. Unfortunately as it stands right now in my mind and where I'm at right now in the process of processing this trip; this is what I will remember most about it.

There have been many times in China this year where I was smiling and laughing so much my face hurt. I'd smile so much during a week or month that I started worrying about the wrinkles I will (and do) get at the sides of my eyes. These last few weeks in Canada I noticed my face making quite a different set of wrinkles; those ones between the eyebrows; finding my face in a worried-scowl. Where I grew up and should feel most comfortable and at ease, I suddenly remembered how to worry; suddenly remembered how to make a face that at points this past year I'd not have been able to make if I tried for days. Was it not only 3 posts ago where I wrote a long-winded letter home saying how much I missed it~ Always wanting what I can't have. Can I get over that already!~ So why, then, once I am back home and with people who love me, (and of course I love them!) am I so unhappy and unrelaxed~ DO I regress back into some state or states I've endured in the past - or do I just not belong~

While I was back in Canada, I felt like I was out running beside a partner - but we're both running at different paces and both trying to accommodate one another - in the end neither person has a good run (one too tired, one not at all or a variety of consequences) the footsteps the entire time never connecting; never in synch. I wrote in my traveling diary that "I am not myself here in my own country. I am a lesser person - I say things I don't mean; I say mean things. I do not feel settled. I do not feel happy. I feel like I am handcuffed, blindfolded, and being pushed into a cage.I don't want to communicate with anyone here. They can't offer me anything and I don't want them to suck all that I can offer them out of me."

Wow, intense, eh~ It is no wonder I felt a little less than my happy-go-lucky self. However, it would be very uncharacteristic of me to not only start but also leave on a negative note. So I must say that it wasn't ALL bad!

Halfway between the equator and the north pole, my mum and dad and I explored (read: ate, drank and drove our way through) Nova Scotia and PEI. The culture and history in the Maritimes blew my mind. For example, Samuel de Champlain actually landed on the very land I bought when he first arrived to the new world!

On our second day exploring my property (called "the cling" by the locals) we brought a box of goodies (axe for the trees, chissle for the gold, matches for the cold, etc) and hid it on my property for the next time. And I wrote in my first ever 'cabin journal'.


We had some good times, most of which involved beer and the occasional Pourd.


But as the wise Homer Simpson once said: "alcohol - the cause and the solution to all of life's problems."
And maybe one day someone will quote the wise Phil McGrew as saying: "You've gotta watch out for those Fisticuff's."

 
Besides my gorgeous property and all the gold on it, we saw some of the more beautiful parts of Canada, like Cape Breton, for instance.

We found things we planned on finding (like peggy's cove, the Halifax citadel, a unesco heritage site or two and some fossils in the side of a cliff); and other's we'd have ever expected to come across; both of which made for some great photo-ops.

 

We did things I'd never thought I'd do (um, a bus that turns into a boat then back into a car!) and we got to see and learn about most of Nova Scotia, which at times made me proud to be Canadian as I learned about some of the history; but more often embarrassed about the way things were - and are still being - done (google: Mi'kmaq).  Oh, wait, trailing down the dark road of cynicism again... And how could I forget the food! (phewf! back on track!) 2 lb lobsters, a bowl of mussels, lobster rolls, nachos, nachos, nachos, nachos.


I also took a side trip or two while home. The highlights were seeing my Granny in Ontario.

And chillin with Gina and her peeps in New York.

All the while, finding beauty both in simplicity and chaos.


And mostly trying not to go crazy.