An Ode, of Sorts

   I have never lived in Vancouver.
   Not really.


   I lived in Hong Kong for 6 years.
   Delta for 2.
   Richmond for 17.
   London for under 1.
   Haines Junction for 2.


        

So when I was abroad (ha, abroad! How pretentious) or up north, and I would answer "Vancouver" to someone's query of "where are you from".... I was being a big, stinking liar.

Growing up in suburbia, I don't think I wanted for much. All my best friends lived bike rides away; we had water fights in pedestrian friendly neighborhoods; there were Mac's and Danny's for us to squander our pocket money over. My adolescence was not deprived of entertainment. I had no conception that the suburbs were drab or grey-- anything but: they were full of the hot pink of cream soda Screamers, the spring green of huge, grassy lawns to lay on.




It was only in university when I began to feel contained by the invisible gates of my city. I had an hour and a half bus ride to UBC from Richmond every morning, an hour and a half ride back home in the late afternoon. My work was close to my house, but because of the particularities of being someone who Takes Transit, it still meant that from leaving my house, to waiting at the bus stop, to finally getting to work took 40 min. I was a twenty-something-year-old that still asked my dad to come get me from the Richmond Centre bus stop if I had been out late in Vancouver, and I had missed the hourly night bus home.

I deeply wanted to live in a place where I could be autonomous without having to be automobile-d.

-------------------------


Yesterday was the one month anniversary of our "'living" in Vancouver. As we predicted, it has flown by. My days are characterized by hopping on my bike, and being able to ride through the neighborhoods of Mt. Pleasant, South Granville, Kits in order to get to my destination. I've been on the bus once or twice, and the time it takes to get to somewhere else in the city when you're already in the city is REMARKABLE. If I forget to buy salad while on the daily grocery run, it is not an apocalyptic mistake.

I pick mint + kale from our backyard.

I eat crepes from the Farmer's Market.

I buy beautiful oxfords and wear them to jazzy concerts.

I am part of collaborative, audience based projects at Fuse.

I photograph (and then consume) tasty food with my restaurant reviewing momma.

Yay.

Yay.

Yay.