Subject:
Back home
Date: November
22, 1994 18:09
16:50 Vancouver, BC-Canada :: 22 NOV 94
What's interesting about returning home is how little it has changed,
even after five months. To be sure there're a few new construction sites
and what were once holes in the ground are now completed or soontobe buildings;
an old West End landmark, The Pacific Palisades, one of Hollywood North's
favourite billets, imploded from a 23 story apartment complex to a small
pile of rubble in a ditch. But to scan the local and national newspapers
is kind of like watching your favourite soap opera after a several year
hiatus. A couple characters change but the plot lines remain all too familiar.
For the last five months every day brought some new experience. New places,
landscapes, cultural ways, political systems and a vastly different daily
existence: lessons at every turn, more than I could possibly absorb. For
a month every day will bring primarily familiar experiences.
While Vancouver life remains essentially unchanged, these lessons force
me to perceive it in new ways. For five months I existed largely external
to any "system" whether government, industrial, community. Today
I re-insured my car which has been in storage in Burnaby since I left.
Getting insured required first purchasing a one day policy so that the
car could be driven to an Air Care inspection station. With a passing
inspection document in hand, I could then drive back to my Autoplan broker
and pay for three month's insurance, two months more than I need before
departing again for Australia.
In the last five months I have not received one piece of junk mail. Wait
a minit. I did receive one piece, but I also had the unique experience
of thoroughly chastising the originator.
Of course, there's a stack of it waiting for me at my permanent address
in Whistler. I know, having just talked to my Aunt there, that amongst
the rubbish I will find an unpaid speeding ticket and a Revenue Canada
bill for $167 (negotiated down from $1600 via three lengthy calls from
Brisbane last August). My medical insurance expired at the end of October
so I have to renew that.
Tomorrow brings decisions concerning what items in storage remain there
and what I drag out for just one month. The contents of that 5X7X8' room
feel more like an anchor than material wealth, than the fruits of prosperity.
For five months I could carry every useful possession on my back.
People claim that this rigmarole, this recipe for stress, forms the basis
of a quality existence. I'm currently re-evaluating this position.
At least while I'm standing still I can catch up on some of the 7 or
8 entries I've started but never quite completed.
Patrick. -- Responses Sought --
The number of rational hypotheses that can explain any given phenomenon
is infinite.
