Going Home Part 1

I was 18 years old when I left home.  It was a school thing.  I don't remember being scared.  Excitement overrode fear for this new adventure in life.  However, leaving my family left my emotions raw and I bawled for days beforehand at almost any quasi-related trigger and for half the plane ride to Winnipeg.  I didn't leave to marry but it happened anyways.  I fell in love with someone who was not an Ontarian.  We have lived mostly in Manitoba ever since.

Truth is, I still have strong ties to my home town.  I love family and friends who still live there.  I feel like I'm in paradise with my feet buried in the sand of my "growing up" beach at Long Point; (every beach I visit is always ranked according to Long Point...just ask anyone in my family!)  when surrounded at all turns by lush vegetation and tall, broad trees that turn many brilliant colours in Autumn.

Although we as family work to see each other, it has been FOUR years since I've last visited home.  Apart from me, the rest of my family lived there, in Port Rowan even four years ago. Now, as if blown by spring winds, we are spread apart like dandelion seeds.  We meet different places now.

As our seeds root deeper into our new-for-some soil, it is proving harder and harder to get home.

Money, time, commitments, the work of finding the right time, all grow alongside and somehow, when permitted, lengthen the distance.  As we struggled to decide which option might work for our family this summer, the thoughts that clarified the decision were persuasive.
My oldest niece was going off to college!
And...I hadn't been home for four years!

There, hidden far from sight, was family:  worth the money, time and commitment.

I had a lot of people ask me what I wanted to do on our trip.   My family is good for hanging out, almost to a fault.  And that's what I wanted to do.  To visit the hours away, look through old photos, to see the cousins together, to walk along the beach, to taste the sweetness of fresh cucumbers in vinegar dressing, to walk the streets and see our school yard and to remember the feeling of air that hugs your skin so tight.  To be so familiar with a place that stories leak out of every step and glance.  To be re-immersed in niece and nephew world, what ice cream they like, what music they play and listen to, school stories and hobbies and hair braiding.  To bring along a book that I knew wouldn't likely make it out of the suitcase - it was no competition to the stories being played out in real.  I also wanted to see our house from growing up.

This was the unspoken long answer for when I said I was excited to hang out with family.