Some of the many reasons I love this country I call home, thanks to 35 Million Directors:
Keep Exploring Canada
November 27, 2012 by 2 Comments
Megan’s My Vancouver – That Idea of Home
June 12, 2012 by 5 Comments
Prologue from Erica: Every summer we work with a couple of aspiring creatives to help them hone their crafts and introduce them to various tools of the trade. This summer, we are working with two wonderfully talented UBC Students ~ Megan Ho and Hannia Curi. As an introduction to Roamancing, I had them each do a post on ‘My Vancouver’. Here is Megan’s.
“What does Vancouver mean to you?”
Recently, I was asked this question and I didn’t know how to answer. For me, Vancouver has always been home. I’ve lived twenty-odd years in the city and so Vancouver has meant different things to me at different times. I spent my childhood with my nose in books, dreaming of the different countries and worlds I read about. Regular trips to Vancouver Island caused me to long for the smaller-town feel of Victoria; I often felt restricted in the “big city”. But as I grew older I came to love the city I called home. At seventeen, I learned that Vancouver was ranked the world’s most liveable city and realized I was lucky to live in an apparently world-renowned city. After graduating high school, I chose to attend UBC and stay in the city – after all, I loved Vancouver, so why should I leave? I had come to think of Vancouver as the best city, the perfect home, the place to which I would always return. I loved the tree-lined sidewalks, the nearby ocean, the diverse cuisine, and the mountains that perpetually indicated north. I even loved the rain. It was mine and it was home.
Vancouver's Skyline from on top of the Law Courts
And then I went away for a year on exchange to Bristol, United Kingdom and everything changed. I never thought I could think of somewhere else as home, but I did. Suddenly, my world was cobble-stoned streets, centuries-old buildings, and the student dorms where I had been placed. When I longed for home, it was no longer the house I’d grown up in. It was my regulation dorm room and constantly messy kitchen. When I wanted to sleep in my own bed, it was the standard size single covered with cheap bed sheets that called.
Bristol, United Kingodm
When people in Bristol asked me about Vancouver, I tried my best to paint them a picture of my Vancouver. I told them about the neighbourhoods, the cherry blossoms, the sushi and butter chicken and poutine. I told them about Gastown and warm summer nights spent in deep conversation by an unlit Olympic torch. I told them about cycling along the Richmond Dyke, the nude beach on university campus, and the ubiquitous rainboots that covered the sidewalks in the winter.
Wreck Beach on UBC campus
But when I came home last September, I found none of that was my Vancouver anymore. While I had missed it all at first, I had learned to live without all of it in Bristol. Home was no longer a certain street of restaurants and shops or a tasty dish or the weather. No, home was – and always should have been - the simple feeling of not wanting to be anywhere else. It was belonging. And in those first few months back in Vancouver, all I wanted was to be back in Bristol where it felt like my “real life” was waiting for me. But as time went by, I learned that while I could never quite capture the way I felt when I lived in Bristol, I could still feel at home in Vancouver. Shortly after I returned to Vancouver, a friend took me sailing at Jericho Beach. As we glided over the water and the salt water sprayed at me, I felt a giddiness build inside me. I looked back at the shore and at the city and I felt a happiness for being exactly where I was. At home.
A rainy west coast day, the kind that makes me feel at home
There are still days when I wish I was back in the UK and days where I think it can’t get much better than exactly where I am. Vancouver is still home, but it’s home in a different way now and it’s one of many homes. It may no longer be the place I will always return to, but I know it’s the place that will always be there for me. And in that way, what could be a better home?
Hannia’s Experience Finding ‘My Vancouver’
June 11, 2012 by 3 Comments
Prologue from Erica: Every summer we work with a couple of aspiring creatives to help them hone their crafts and introduce them to various tools of the trade. This summer, we are working with two wonderfully talented UBC Students ~ Hannia Curi and Megan Ho. As an introduction to Roamancing, I had them each do a post on ‘My Vancouver’. Here is Hannia’s.
Recently, I visited my parents in Mississauga. Being blessed with more free time than I really knew what to do with, I listened to my mother when she suggested I book an appointment with a local hypnotist. This was something she’d been telling me about for about a week before I arrived; she’d tried it and seemed to have found something worth recommending in the experience. “You should try it,” she said. “It could really help you.”
One of my favourite views of the downtown skyline.
Did it help? Well, I can’t really tell. I learned that I sorely need to master the art of relaxation by way of deep breathing and that my mind is wont to wander even if there’s a nice lady trying to guide it in a specific direction. No matter how many times I tried, I could never quite picture that perfect room the hypnotist kept asking me to envision as part of the therapy. I did, however, picture a lovely slice of chocolate cake. The hypnotist did make some rather insightful observations about me, one of which has stuck with me since: I live most of my life locked up inside my own mind. I tend to experience the world from a safe distance; usually, I prefer to stay inside where it’s warm and cozy rather than go outside and frolic with the seagulls and squirrels. It’s not entirely because I like being on my own, though I do need my alone time. I like the freedom of being on my own, but when it comes to exploring a new place or seeing a movie, I can’t bring myself to do it alone.
Customized signs for my dorm. Drawings by Me.
Vancouver is not my hometown; I was born in Cartagena, Colombia, making that my hometown, technically speaking. However, almost a decade of my life was lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and when I came to Vancouver to attend UBC that’s the place I’d refer to when asked where I was from. I actually lived here for two years when I was a little girl, but that time feels more like a pit stop. It muddles my feelings towards this city when I can walk down Granville Street from Broadway and come across a park I used to play at when I was 8 with my friend Urooj and another little boy I don’t remember by name, who once told me I was pretty at a time where I was already convinced otherwise. I can still point out the building where my parents and I made a home of sorts for two years; the 99 drives right past it, and I once pointed excitedly at it while on my way to see a movie with my friends, saying “I lived there once!”
Majestic view from my dorm @ UBC
After eight years in cold, blustery Winnipeg I was drawn back by the promise of milder temperatures and a new start. My first year on my own was spent enclosed within the safety of the UBC campus, a town in and of itself, though one where everything closes at 6pm. Due to my reticent nature, the farthest I would travel on an average day was to my classes. One of my classmates would tell me all about how she and all the girls on her floors would take impromptu trips to Richmond just because and… I envied her. I couldn’t manage to make a group of friends who would chaperone my wanderings. I could only get as far as the Japanese convenience store on Robson, motivated by my love of milk tea. Really, the campus has everything; there’s even a movie theater, albeit a tiny one. But it often gave me awful bouts of cabin fever. I was glad to move off campus for my second year, because at least it would give me a change of scenery. And I definitely have been getting out more than I did that first year. But there’s still that nagging feeling that I have yet to integrate, that I don’t really belong yet. I’m still not at the point where I can do much exploring on my own. But one of my summer resolutions is to leave the perceived safety of my room and get to know the city more. Like a person, it might get less intimidating the more we interact.
Delicious milk tea... next to the mango Calpico.
I lived here once but returning didn’t feel like coming home, and I’m still in the process of creating a new one. The first thought that came to my head when I tried to conceive of ‘my Vancouver’ all I got is that Vancouver is not really my city, not yet. Maybe in time, it will be. Or maybe I’ll move on to a different one. For now, my Vancouver is still in the making.
