Often when I meet people, I get mistaken for an American. I don’t mind so much but the person who made the error gets extremely apologetic about the mistaken nationality. As I’m from the prairies, I think I sound like those in the American Mid-West – how would they know the difference if I can’t always?
Other than this first question – “ Where in America are you from?” , the second most asked question is “why would you move here and when are you going home?” I don’t think they are trying to get rid of me but can’t seem to imagine why anyone would give up the pristine streets and wildlife of Canada. Now this is not meant as a slam on my own country but I live in LONDON. There is a lot that goes on here. More than a lot. Granted, I don’t think London is the 24 hour culture it makes itself out to be. Tubes shut by midnight, most pubs still stop serving at 11 despite the new 24 hour drinking bill put into effect and there are no 24 hour gyms, diners, coffee shops, and restaurants that North America has. The upside of living in a place like Alberta with its regular influx of truckers through your town means you can get breakfast whenever your heart desires. 3 am after dancing used to be a popular time for me and my friends.
But other than the 4 am fry-ups I seem to be missing, London is chock full of stuff to do. There are 43 theatres in central London alone and then there are the cinemas and galleries, concerts and sporting events. – it’s a long list I can barely keep track of. Then there’s the architecture. There are buildings here older than my own country. I crane my neck on a regular occasion and I still get that cheesy warm fuzzy feeling every time I cross the Thames as I make my way to the modernized Southbank, St. Paul’s nestled amongst the classical architecture to the North, a long row of patchwork concrete buildings to the south.
Most of all I love the people. Sitting in a coffee shop in the centre of town and it’s a virtual UN in relaxed coffee mode. The accents and foreign phrases hang thick in the air – Italian, French, German, Mandarin, Bengali. In my time here, I’ve met so many people from around the world that I never expected to meet when I lived in Alberta.
The only problem with living so far from home is that you don’t get the family time you crave (and are sometimes annoyed with) that you can get when you live nearby. I’d like to think if I was at home, I’d be over on Sunday afternoons having food Grandma used to be good at cooking but has lost the touch of now that her sense of timing has decreased and her forgetfulness has increased. I’d be the one holding the camera for my brother’s stage debut as the dog in Peter Pan as I try not to laugh too much and shake the camera. And I’d be there when my sister’s new crush ends in a break-up and she needs hugs, tea and a shot or two of Jack Daniels.
Instead, we communicate in zeros and ones in the world of MSN messenger, phone calls left for the announcement of bad news or birthday greetings. I think this is why I look to my friends and my relationships for some local sense of family. My good friend Lindsay allowed me two Christmases with her in Leicester, in the middle of England. Her mum learned what I could and couldn’t eat concocting vegan sausage rolls from scratch. I made them home-made perogies like we had every holiday and made friends with their cats after a healthy double dose of allergy meds. We played Trivial Pursuit, watched the standard Television Christmas specials that are on here every year and they didn’t say anything when I disappeared upstairs to wish my family a Merry Christmas as I had a little cry because I missed them so much.
Missing this element of family hit me the most in the last year or so as my aunt was diagnosed with cancer. I had already planned to be home to visit for Christmas for the first time in five years so when we found out she was terminal in November, it was also a chance to see her for what may have been the last time. I can still remember our last night together...
The couch is crowded with cousins so I lie on the floor by her feet. The oxygen pump works double time as she gasps each breath, no one asking if everything is alright anymore as we know the answer will always be no. Dinner eaten, we put on Labyrinth, her favourite film. She loves David Bowie even in tights and I laugh enough for the both of us as heads bob off Henson Creations and worms talk in funny British accents.
The film seems too short just like the days and the moments she’s not sleeping become our living room features. My time at home is purgatory as I use those moments there as a waiting game for when I can return as if being here will change something, holding her hand a lifeline.
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