Welcome to Human Pursuits, the column that features need-to-know names and stories in media and other creative spaces. Today, lore and chunes to mark a personal milestone.
Ten years ago, my life changed for the better.
It had changed before, of course, and it would change again. But those changes, before and after, were always more disruptive, a drunk redrawing of the boundary between what had been and what would be. September 5, 2015, was not so wanton or blurry-eyed. If anything, it was the moment my life snapped sharply into focus. It was the day I arrived in Vancouver.
i. The City
I had spent the 347 days prior to my arrival on the other side of the Rockies, in the continent’s northernmost major city. Edmonton is my home by birth, but not necessarily by choice. Given the choice, I would’ve stayed in Ontario. But I wasn’t given the choice. My mother subtly insisted that I book a one-way flight back to Wildrose Country. I arrived at the house my sister and her now-husband were renting, a new grad with no job, no car, and $10,000 in credit card debt. I never asked my mother about her abrupt decision — about whether she intuited something beyond my comprehension. I should have. Because on paper, I was headed west with no real direction.
For a while, my life in Edmonton could be summarized in four words: mattress on the floor. I owned almost nothing. What I did possess was a large golf bag full of my worldly possessions, which lay half-zipped on the floor next to the mattress. At night, I would stare at the gypsum tiles overhead and wonder, sincerely, what the fuck I was going to do. I began to experience insomnia.
In the weeks that followed, I found a temp job doing data entry at a construction company whose name I don’t remember. I tried to save my money and pay off my credit card. To wit, I began to view food as nothing more than fuel. Lunch was almost always vegan burritos, stuffed with baked chickpeas and broccoli. I never drank, and I rarely saw anybody besides whoever was home.
Everything was flat. The sky. The meals. The hours.
At work, I spent most of the day listening to Radio 1 Breakfast with Greg James through wired headphones and trying to look busy. In many ways, that sensation of faking it — of filling my days with nothing while secretly desiring something — defined this brief period of my life. I knew almost nothing about adult life, and even less about construction. But I wasn’t given a choice, and so I had to do something. Even if that meant acquiescing.
Really, I meandered. Because I didn’t have a car, I spent a lot of time transferring from one city bus to the next to get to work or, on my days off, walking aimlessly around the suburbs. Almost nobody was on the sidewalks. If they had been, they might’ve seen my lips move. They might’ve wondered who was on the other end of the line.
ii. Fallingforyou
Leah and I fell in love over the phone. For a long time, she refused to call it that — refused to acknowledge, understandably, that our calls, which spanned hours, provinces, and topics, were rooted in love and not regular friendship. I have no idea who dialed whom first. But I do know that, by the fall of 2014, we were calling each other several times a day.
Leah had moved to Vancouver in 2013, and while it seemed clear to me that we were more than friends, it was also clear that she was correct in thinking there was no future in a long-distance relationship. British Columbia and Ontario were on opposite sides of the country. And besides that, we had never actually been a couple. Whatever romance existed between us was a memory of lost summers and half-forgotten phone calls.
We were in a sort of limbo. Together but not. In love but not.
Alberta made it slightly easier. Our lives were still out of sync, but only by an hour — not three, like when I was living in Hamilton. My new home had terrible cell reception, so I spent most of that fall talking to Leah outside, seated on the cold cement steps or pacing around the cracked driveway, where a neighborhood cat would sometimes perform figure eights through my legs. When winter came — in early October, as it did for most of my childhood — I retreated indoors, seeking refuge on the couch that ran parallel to the front window, my phone pushed against the glass.
I don’t remember if I called Leah to tell her I had somehow gotten work as a journalist, that I might be able to quit my temp job. I do remember the night shifts that followed, and how I would spend my breaks wandering around downtown Edmonton talking to her — how most nights she would take the call while shopping at Metrotown Mall. I also remember calling my temp agency from a McDonald’s parking lot to tell them I had found a better opportunity. I remember that I still didn’t have a car, so I bought an expensive parka from Fjällräven to keep me warm as I waited for the bus.
Most Sundays, my sister would let me borrow her Ford Focus so I could drive the 30 minutes from our house to my new office downtown. I’d slide along the ever-icy streets, alternating between two records — which I played front to back, on repeat: The 1975 and If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late — both of which reminded me of Leah, and I would try to answer the question that kept me up at night.
Shortly after I turned 24, I got my answer.
iii. Settle Down
That March, I flew to Vancouver to see Leah. I knew other people in the city, but she was the one I was there for. I knew that we needed to talk. I knew that my life needed direction.
We spent a week further blurring the line between friendship and romance — until the Venn diagram separating the two seemed like a giant circle. Until it was obvious what needed to happen.
We were on a long, meandering walk along the seawall when I told her I wanted to move to Vancouver. It was March 2, and so cold that her hands were turning blue. She asked if I was serious, and I told her that I was.
She said she didn’t want me to move there just for her, and I told her that I wasn’t. It really was better for my job.
“Vancouver’s a bigger market than Edmonton,” I said. “There’s no guarantee they’ll give me shifts here, but I don’t have any guarantees in Alberta either. If it doesn’t work, I’m in the exact same situation.”
“Well,” she said, “I think I’d be okay with that.”
Seven months later, I boarded the plane. My two loves — Dan Zajac and Leah — picked me up at the airport. The sun was shining and the whle city smelled like ocean. It was the second-happiest day of my life. I was no longer faking it.
Happy anniversary.
