The Beginning
Trip Start
Aug 23, 2007
1
61
Trip End
Jul 17, 2008
Gatineau, Quebec, Canada
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Upon my return from my first trip to the arctic in 1984, my teacher taught me a lesson that I have always remembered and seems appropriate today. She said that the impact of that trip would not be clear to me at first and that, likely, I would forever continue to learn the extent to which it had altered the course of my life and my perception of the world. That's the thing about travel. Once you go, you never really come home.
Throughout my youth, travels were viewed as isolated events, short unrelated periods of great inspiration to which an end was marked with re-entry to the work or studies that had been briefly abandoned. It is only with the passing of time that patterns begin to appear. My return home from two years spent in Schefferville, Quebec, were marked with intense periods of loneliness and hostility directed at a life that had been familiar and loved, but I returned to find it loathsome and shallow. My mum will confirm that I was equally unpleasant to live with after that first trip to the North as I am certain I was in the months following the Schefferville experience. It has become clear to me that these were not isolated events. Each was a stone in constructing a pathway to find my way home from travels I took inside of myself this year. I’m quite certain that I haven’t been a peach over the last several months, but only those of you who see me often can confirm that if you so wish. My return has followed the pattern, but there is something intangibly different about it this time. I won’t put you through reading about a process for which I will never find the words. Simply, I don’t think I’m coming home.
Meanwhile, it is a rare minute that passes without a memory of the sounds, sights and smells I experienced on the road last year. I was recently asked where I was this time last year. My prompt answer without a moment to reflect was met with an understanding smile and a nod and the words, "You’re not really home yet."
Many of you have asked about the highlights of the year, which is next to impossible to answer, but here is the short list for the record. Watching the dolphins playing from the deck of the Ragamuffin while sailing through the Whitsunday Islands in Australia and realizing that I no longer remembered what I did for a living, catching wild kangaroos and their Joeys grazing at the foot of the Grampians, attending the Santa Claus parade in Auckland just to see if he wore a red suit and then nursing my sunburn with a beer on a terrace, feeling the pressure from a Thai audience as I learned how to roll up spring rolls after nearly ruining my pad Thai at cooking school, reflecting on the school children I had just left while sailing in a slowboat down the Me Kong, gliding down the Nam Song River in an inner tube from bamboo pub to bamboo pub for BeerLao, learning how to cross the street in Hanoi and learning that I didn’t have to do it alone, spending the night on a boat anchored in UNESCO’s magical Ha Long Bay, deciding to fly back to Darren’s to see the 'better beaches’ in Australia, walking along the perfect beach in Currarrong and picking up grilled Kingfish and a bottle of Cab Sav for supper, watching the sun set over the desert at the top of Mt. Sinai, gliding over the Valley of the Kings in a hot air balloon at sunrise, riding in the back of an open Jeep through the Jordanian desert to have tea with the Bedouins, getting dressed in appropriate clothing to explore the Omayyad Mosque in Damascus, hiking through the fairy chimneys and Rose Valley in Cappadocia, watching Muslim Turks praying in the street upon the call to prayer and realizing that the call to prayer hadn’t woken me up the last few mornings, soaking in the Androssy Mineral Baths and then soaking in the Spring sun in Budapest, making the pilgrimage to the John Lennon wall in Prague with my mom, using the spectacular washrooms at Le Sachre in Vienna (forget the torte), hiking through Glen Nevis on a gorgeous Scottish Spring day, smelling the beautiful wet air of Vancouver, and finally, my first glorious night back in my own bed. If you catch me staring into space, these are the places you will find me.
I am so grateful for the gift of this adventure. I am so grateful to so many people. To my neighbours who reminded me that I meant to sign up for that deferred salary plan; to my friends, colleagues and family who reassured me and celebrated with me and welcomed me home; to all the people who took me in for a night, or two, or three, or more like Angela in Melbourne, Liz and Peter in Hobart, Angela and Craig in Singapore, Darren and his family in Shoalhaven Heads, Uncle Andrew and Mary near London, Great Aunt Margaret in Cockermouth, Iain and Maureen in Monifieth, Ann in Keith, Isla in Edinburgh, Julienne in Vancouver and Uncle Ken on the island; to Mom, Cindy, and Annick who visited; to those who wrote emails, answered blogs and sent letters and pictures from home; to Laurie and James for meeting me at the airport in Toronto and taking me on a wine tour; to the people I met along the way whose laughter still echoes where I left them; and to Darren for finding me and for setting me free for a wee bit longer.
And there it is. The ending is the beginning. Cheers, mates!
