There is sometime about being home that makes you grateful for where you are, where you’re going and, maybe most of all… where you came from. I am aware that I am often guilty of not knowing what I have right in front of my face until I leave it behind. As someone with self proclaimed commitment issues it’s easy for me to feign disinterest or apathy until the hole in my heart where that was is too big to ignore.
Calgary gets a bad rap sometimes. Being conservative, brutally cold in winter, not being as metropolitan as its counterparts west in Vancouver or east in Montreal and Toronto. Always seen as the underdogs, always talked about as a place where people move “for work”, and rarely for anything else. There is something more though, and I for one am happy people aren’t dying to live here, it keeps the housing prices reasonable. Beyond that the startling light in the evening, the air, the way people are so excited that for a month the weather is stunning and the grass is finally green. It is home. That heart filling feeling. It is here, away from the spectacular ocean, the beautiful coastal range, that I feel most inspired, most lit up.
My favourite high school teacher used to say that there were three types of people: Prairie people, mountain people and ocean people. I wasn't sure which I was growing up but now I'm sure. My heart resides in the Rockies and the foot hills and stretches to the flat nutrient rich farm land. I never understood how it affected me but being home I am lucky to figure it out. Calgary is a small town. It is in every way impossible to go anywhere with out running into at least someone you know, and likely love. It is a tight knit community where yes, everyone knows everyone else’s business but … that’s the beauty. The sense of community and comradery is astounding. And even in the gong show that is Stampede it is still beautiful in the chaos.
We do not remember days, we remember moments. There were many times this weekend when I looked around in disbelief at how lucky I was that this is my home, this is where I’m from. I looked at my friends and couldn’t believe that I was blessed enough to have them in my life. I can say without a doubt I have the best people in my life. They are dance monsters, they hold me accountable to my greatness, they let me cry and they keep me laughing till I puke. Honestly. Sometimes.
This weekend has been a lesson in what I want, what I value, what lights me up, inspires me, what I need in my life to be. I will always be from Calgary.
In the words of Paul Brandt (yes, this is the cheesiest thing I have ever writtern):
It Doesn't matter where I go this place will always be my home yeah I've been Alberta Bound for all my life and I'll be Alberta Bound until I die.
No comments:
Post a Comment