Going home: part 1

One spring, in between one job ending and the other beginning, there’s a chance to go home. My sister’s up for an award and my brother has a birthday planned. I have no excuses not to go so before I know it, the travel agency is giving me a printed itinerary and they wish me a happy trip. As the plane leaves the terminal at Heathrow, I almost cry, my head leaning on the window to watch the gentle roll of green, the thatched cottages and the tiny estates surrounding each house as the world fades into clouds. England is where my life is and though my return ticket is nestled in my bag, it feels like I’m never coming back. As if by going home, I’m regressing and will somehow lose the worldliness I’ve gained.

It’s not until 8 hours later when the clouds part again and I can see patchwork fields that spread to the horizon, that I realize I’ve missed the place I never thought I would. It’s Alberta. It’s home. I feel like I’ve been eating sugar for the entire trip, I’m so excited. I float through customs with a smile on my face passed squalling babies, a Japanese couple with cowboy hats and matching cameras and the British family who looks a little bit lost – like the English they’re hearing here is foreign to them. At the gate, my family stands with flowers and a pair of friends who tagged along. It was a group of faces that have been photographs in my drawer for the past 4 years. It’s like they all see me at once and start to run – my brother throws himself at me as the others crowd around. The smell of my mom’s shampoo embraces me, the kind I get for myself when I’m homesick.

In the car, the radio blasts familiar sounds but it feels like I’m hearing them for the first time. The DJ’s accent is a thick Canadian sort, far removed from the BBC ones I’ve grown used to. The roads are straight and wide, and I’m transported back to being a kid. It’s all I can do to stop myself from jumping in my seat, my stomach gurgling to my throat in anticipation. I point out the window. There’s the car lot my friend’s dad owns. It’s where we borrowed a Lincoln from to go to grad in style in, a luxury of all leather interior with seats that warmed themselves. We had ummed and ahhed over that self-heating function but were ecstatic with our choice when it snowed that May, the day before the big celebrations. Our grad dresses were merely flimsy, frilly glamour, sleeveless, cleavage revealers that we would never had dreamed of wearing before that day.

Over the next hill, and it’s the same. More flat, the fences spreading across the landscape like transparent Berlin walls. The trapped cows stare at us wide-eyed as they chew and the smell of manure begins to permeate the car. We beg our dad to roll up the windows. Who cares about the warm breeze of prairie spring flooding the car when it comes with an odd spot of cow.

Amongst the familiar fields, the face of the highway is different. As we approach Edmonton, I notice the sign welcoming us to this great city has been modified. For the whole of my existence, we have been known as the City of Champions. This was the city Wayne Gretzky became great in as he led the Oilers to win multiple Stanley Cup Hockey championships in the eighties. But. As we haven’t won anything in a long time, I understand why we had to add a little something else to the signage. But winner of the Cities in Bloom competition? I didn’t understand how we could have won such a prestigious award until my mom pointed out the big blue tubs half filled with marigolds and weedy flowers that littered the sides of the road. The moral must be: if you can’t get a name based on the talent of the city, then find a title you could have and stick some money towards it. Works every time.