homesickness

i am homesick for the city i haven’t lived in for over 10 years, which really begs the question of what home feels like anyways.

in part, it is because i am in the middle of an insomniac bout, and vancouver seems too large and populated and wet today. exhaustion thins my patience with the “message-factory” my workplace has become as we spoonfeed politicians soundbites the appease the public with. exhaustion makes the umbrellas moving above the sidewalks seem like an obstacle course of annoying colours and patterns, all impeding me from quick movement on my errands. exhaustion drives me to eat sugary things looking for a cheap high, despite the fact they make me sick to my stomach. all of which conspires to make me just a little bit miserable despite the fact it is payday.

but more than that off-kilter track, is the fact that ryefield, acquaintance of mine and close friend of my friends – is still in a coma which he has been now for 6 days (though apparently responded to voice yesterday by moving a little). my friend julia emailed me her blog address which she has been posting updates on, and from there i found the blogs of other friends from that way-long-ago-life in victoria – and there were pictures on them – some which i have taken in the last year – and despite the fact i have vowed never to return to live on vancouver island, i felt the unmistakeable tingling feeling of homesickness rising to the corners of my eyes as i wished that i was there, in a small city, curled up in the corner of an apartment in fernwood, with candles and incense and a small pot of coffee and a newspaper – and perhaps even a lover. it made me want to turn the corner down the street to enter the house where 4 or 5 people who know me would be, to smoke a cigarette on the porch and share a bottle of beer while whispering about fears and worries. it is what i miss about that place, those people ten years ago and now who imprinted on my as a teenager, and who always belong to me because of it.

i think i need to go for a visit to my friends in victoria soon, because i miss them like a warm bed on a rainy morning – and because every small tragedy calls me home. though each event makes home a different place because the people involved are different – obviously homesickness is about something much more rooted than place.