Pulling up stakes and starting anew: Moving pictures

My friend Kevin is moving way up north; he and his wife are driving across four provinces to reach their new life and I am with them — in my mind. Their journey is bringing memories flooding back of my own cross-province trip almost four decades ago when I moved from Alberta to Nova Scotia. In a Toyota Tercel. Packed full of possessions that did not include a bed. Or a table. Or a chair.

Those were the days. My former partner (FP) and I were young, open to adventure and keen, so keen, to begin this new chapter in our lives, precipitated by her first post-PhD job offer.

1986: Halifax is where beautiful
Bountiful came into my life.

We arrived in Halifax after a week of driving and, after just two days of serious home hunting, found a lovely second-floor flat overlooking Bedford Basin. We slept on the floor, used a Pepsi crate as our ‘dining’ table, and, after a little while, gratefully borrowed a sofa and armchair from our friendly landlords who took pity on us and who, quickly and easily, became fast friends.

Through old fashioned letters and cross-country connections, I made my way into the women’s community, where I was embraced by friendly feminists eager to have me join their organizing efforts. 

Through a new friend who taught in it, I discovered the post-degree journalism program at King’s College and was accepted into it for the following year. That intensive 8-month learning experience set me up for my future success in the larger communication field.

Over the two years FP and I lived in Nova Scotia life was very good, due in large part to the people we met and the work and studies we ended up being engaged in.

I was pretty happy to receive my
Bachelor of Journalism/Spring 1988

When FP’s next job offer came from a university in New Brunswick, we moved to Fredericton and then, a year later, to Winnipeg. Three moves in three years for FP’s work. All exciting and exhausting in equal measure. I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything. No. Wait. That’s not entirely true. I would change one thing: I would, if I could, go back to seek my own adventure in Toronto. After having completed journalism school and after having very successfully attended a summer publishing workshop in Banff, I could have pursued my own leads for work in Canada’s big city of big publishers. But I’ll never know what might have happened. I swallowed my own adventure to make that third move for my then partner’s work. In the long run, it turned out just fine, but not pursuing my own ambition in the publishing field way back then is a life’s regret for me. I don’t have many, but that is one.

Today, I live in a house that my now partner, Val, and I first moved into almost 24 years ago, and the thought of moving immobilizes me. First, all that sorting and chucking before packing, and then more effort to unpack and sort and chuck some more. Even just as an idea, moving house — never mind moving across four provinces — makes me tired. Although, I think it’s true to say, the new things that would face me, were I to make the effort, would be exciting, but getting myself to that point stops me in my tracks. I am content where I am, settled.

Nonetheless, I sometimes find myself daydreaming of moving somewhere new, anywhere, really, that has empty rooms and clean cupboards — fresh blank canvasses to make my own. The excitement of the new beginning — that’s the appeal. The mind wanders, but the body stays decidedly rooted. 

While Kevin and his wife forge their new paths up north, I hope to find it in me to head downstairs to tackle those shelves of things and boxes of papers that have accumulated over the years. The result, though likely not as exciting as a cross-country drive and a new rented flat, might open up new vistas of possibilities in the form of open space and well organized possessions. And for me in this moment, that's a decently exciting prospect. 

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation.