I’m waiting for my new passport. I’m sad to give up my last one, but there was less than 6 months left on it. The new passport is blank. No visas to China, Japan, India, Egypt. No stamps, and not sure if there will be any. Many countries do it all electronically, post-Covid, and I’m … Continue reading There is a Season
I glance in the mirror, and I look old. And haggard. My last birthday, friends were still joking that I was doing a Benjamin Button, getting younger every year. 2024 has not been easy. My ruptured appendix in January, compounded by a melanoma, put paid to my surfing season and led to cancelling of travel … Continue reading Sorrow
We drive over the Malahat. They have added bright orange posts between the north and south bound lanes of this coastal mountain highway, to prevent turns on and off it in dangerous places. As we come to each of these, I remember the fatal accidents: here, two motorcyclists; there, three members of a family in … Continue reading Surrounded by My History
We took our friend Richard to the airport. We’ve been neighbours for a year and a half; we’ve shared a rental car for a year. We would walk into each other’s houses after yelling a token “knock knock!” would see each other almost daily on the water, surfing, and would get together for drinks and … Continue reading Coming Back to Barbados?
The DNA results came back. I’m 100% Finnish. It was a surprise— I expected some Swedish, maybe a little Russian. Family myth had that there was some Roma in the bloodlines. Yup. No measurable amount of anything but Finnish. I’m 100% Canadian. I was born there, educated there, from kindergarten to all three of my … Continue reading 100% Finnish. 100% Canadian. Or Bajan?
“I’m heading home.” But what does that mean? It’s a fundamental question for me right now. Sometimes I solved it by putting air quotes around “home.” Other times I avoided it altogether by specifying: back to Canada, back to Barbados. Which way is the plane facing, when I’m going home? I thought Canada, my home, … Continue reading Home After a Year— or After a Month?
“We’re leaving tomorrow.” Kaity and François are going back to New York. I’ve watched their daughter Louise become a full fledged toddler as she traveled down our street over the last five months, with whichever parent wasn’t surfing. The semi-tamed cats on the street learned to move more quickly in tandem. Once it rains, no … Continue reading To Stay or To Go?
My beach at Freight’s Bay is different again this morning. The tide is low, but some of the sand that had returned after the scouring of the winter storms has been scooped away again. The beach is angled instead of flat, and fist sized pieces of coral lay scattered on the soft sand. The same … Continue reading On the Beach in Barbados
“What about these books?“ “Do you want us to pack up the Iitala glasses?” “One of the bookcases has to go, or the cabinet in the bedroom. Are there any extra duvets anywhere?” Someone else packing up my stuff My head is spinning as my sisters video chat through the apartment I haven’t seen for … Continue reading Letting Go, Yet Again
For the second time since I was 11 years old, I did not stay awake to see the old year out. My only other missing of the countdown was 7 years ago, when my flu turned to bronchitis turned to pneumonia. I canceled the party and went back to bed. I still remember my first … Continue reading Ringing in a New Year
Brave Travels 