16.05.06::self portrait tuesday
i've been in edmonton since thursday. for those of you who have never visited the great northern prairies of alberta, canada, here's a little rundown:
e-town is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. 3-4 hours from the rocky mountains and the british columbia border, about 8 hours north of the montana border and surrounded by farmer fields of wheat and cattle. it's very, very green in the summer and very, very brown/grey/white in the winter. apart from this past winter, and possible future winters due to global warming, it regularly is between -20 and -35ºC from mid-november to mid-march. the first snowfall every year is incredibly beautiful and used to create a small space in my chest that was both at absolute peace and filled with quiet dread. snow muffles sound so winter was calm and silent and dead except for the sounds of street clearers and boots crunching up the path. over a million people live in the city and surrounding suburbs but it somehow seems trapped between being a small hick town and a thriving metropolis, a little bit of each and not quite either. it has a very large blue collar population and therefore a fairly small arts crowd which was both lovely and suffocating. by your mid-twenties you pretty much knew everyone who liked the same music/style/"scene" or you knew their friends or their sisters or brothers or that they worked here or there and used to date so-and-so, or at least it felt that way. by 26 i had to get the hell out of here. not because i don't love my family very much or recognize that i have some of the best friends i'll have in my entire life here but because i needed to get away from the slow complacency of this city. i knew too many people who were so unhappy with their lives/careers/futures and who were doing nothing about it, utterly defeated, and i felt i was on a path to end up the same.
reflection in my snowy car window on a visit home, 2003.
i'm happy to be back for now. i don't feel the same overwhelming joy at every turn that i feel when i'm in vancouver (what's that all about anyway? i just love, love, love.) but it's comfortable and i soak up every moment i get to spend with people who have known me for 30, 18, 12 years and still are thrilled to see me. my friends here rock. truly.
e-town is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. 3-4 hours from the rocky mountains and the british columbia border, about 8 hours north of the montana border and surrounded by farmer fields of wheat and cattle. it's very, very green in the summer and very, very brown/grey/white in the winter. apart from this past winter, and possible future winters due to global warming, it regularly is between -20 and -35ºC from mid-november to mid-march. the first snowfall every year is incredibly beautiful and used to create a small space in my chest that was both at absolute peace and filled with quiet dread. snow muffles sound so winter was calm and silent and dead except for the sounds of street clearers and boots crunching up the path. over a million people live in the city and surrounding suburbs but it somehow seems trapped between being a small hick town and a thriving metropolis, a little bit of each and not quite either. it has a very large blue collar population and therefore a fairly small arts crowd which was both lovely and suffocating. by your mid-twenties you pretty much knew everyone who liked the same music/style/"scene" or you knew their friends or their sisters or brothers or that they worked here or there and used to date so-and-so, or at least it felt that way. by 26 i had to get the hell out of here. not because i don't love my family very much or recognize that i have some of the best friends i'll have in my entire life here but because i needed to get away from the slow complacency of this city. i knew too many people who were so unhappy with their lives/careers/futures and who were doing nothing about it, utterly defeated, and i felt i was on a path to end up the same.
reflection in my snowy car window on a visit home, 2003.
i'm happy to be back for now. i don't feel the same overwhelming joy at every turn that i feel when i'm in vancouver (what's that all about anyway? i just love, love, love.) but it's comfortable and i soak up every moment i get to spend with people who have known me for 30, 18, 12 years and still are thrilled to see me. my friends here rock. truly.
posted by leslie at 2:30 AM
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