Reflections of a Nomad.

This is my third trip to Toronto where I have attempted to move out of my beautiful home on Brunswick and College. Once in May 2006, once in September 2006, and now in July 2007. Each time I take out another load of my stuff, either shipping it to my parents’ house in Vancouver, or spreading the burden to new households across Toronto.

I've been travelling around the world visiting old friends for over four months now. It certainly takes the bite out of being unemployed [and plants it squarely on the wallet].

Constantly visiting dear friends has finally gotten me used to answering questions about myself. Going to my High School reunion, a mini-elementary school reunion, and having a facebook reunion with people I grew up with in summer swimming has given me a lot of practice. It's been lovely seeing everyone -- everyone looks the exact same and it all feels very ordinary and familiar to me. Yet everyone I've reunited with -- especially at my High School reunion -- has been struck by how surreal it is to see each other, and how different everyone looks.

-So, do you still live in Burnaby?
-Um. I don’t really live anywhere.
-What do you mean?
-Well, I just came back from living in Africa and am probably moving to the Middle East.
-How long are you in town then?
-I don’t really know.
-What do you do?
-I’m an urban planner.
-Where do you work?
-Um, well I do contracts, so I'm sort of a freelancer.
-Ok, so your last contract was as an urban planner, working for whom?
-My last job was in international development, and my job before that was as a researcher.
-But before that you were an urban planner?
-No.

My facebook reunion asked the question more simply: what are you all doing now? I replied as such:

Story #1 - I'm unemployed, unmarried, and stay at my parents' house in Burnaby.
Story #2 - I'm an international woman of mystery who, since ending her swim coaching career in 2000, works half the year abroad as an archaeologist/teacher/waitress/urban planner, and spends the other half jet-setting around the globe.
Story #3 - I secretly married a spy back in 1997 in Scotland.

The life of a nomad can be a balancing act sometimes. Having pockets of possessions dotted around the world can leave one feeling stretched out and un-gathered. But removing all your stuff from a place makes one feel like there’s nothing left there to go back to – the final slamming of the door behind you. The symbolic gesture of having wine glasses, chopsticks, a duvet, and a carpet leave the door open slightly ajar for a possible return.

Stuff.
Place.
Self.
Friends.
Heart.
Head.

They’re rarely all in the same space. The luxury/burden of being spread out across the world. Always everywhere, yet never anywhere.

Whenever I leave a place, I can safely say that I’ll probably see that community of friends again. After living in Japan in 2001, I went back to enjoy my Japanese community in 2003 and 2004. I have had several reunions – in Toronto, Vancouver, and Cape Town – with my Istanbul community. I revisited my Austrian community of France in 2002 when I went to Sicily in 2003. And the list continues. It’s a comforting thing to know that leaving a place is more of an “Aurevoir” than a “Goodbye”.

I have become a bit of a chameleon – immediately adjusting to whatever environment I find myself in, and effortlessly revisiting the facets of myself that surface from familiar friends, no matter how much time has passed since I last saw them. “Every time I see you, it’s as if no time has passed!” It’s like I live neither geographically nor chronologically, actually forgetting all the various time-space experiences that have passed since I last said “aurevoir” to any given community.

If that wasn't confusing enough, I also have a whole community of people whom I only see abroad. We meet under very temporal and contextual circumstances, yet we seem to be one of the few consistent things in each other’s lives. The few people we can really count on seeing are each other, because we literally could be anywhere [and therefore everywhere]. Experiences which seem surreal to others are common for us, and what’s common for others is surreal for us.

Sometimes it can be difficult to explain to people exactly what I do, and it can be a lot easier to be mysterious than to give direct answers. Direct answers always result in the same direct question: how do you afford to do what you do?

I hate to burst everyone’s bubbles, but I am none of the following: an heiress; the beneficiary of a rich Japanese business man; secretly on a CSIS salary; multilingual; have unknowing husbands all over the world writing cheques for me; nor do I take some sort of miracle pill that enables me to do what I do.

I wouldn’t change my life for a minute, but I do what I do because I made sacrifices [and because I have very understanding friends and family who are fabulous and share their lives and stuff with me so I don’t have to transport my own of everything, everywhere I go].

We are constantly making priorities in our life, adjusting and re-prioritising elements of our lives in the face of changes to our own definitions of self-success. No one has all of everything. It’s like you have a pool with all sorts of toys you can fit inside, but the size of everyone’s pools are pretty much the same. I’ve filled mine with traveling and learning, and made sacrifices in the home-ownership and marriage departments. Most people do a better job at balancing which departments they fill their lives with. Whenever people are like “you have the coolest life” I say “but I don’t have anything except pictures and memories. I don’t even actually own my suitcases – I borrowed them from my mother.”

Just when we nomads think we’ve got it all under control, floating around the globe with only our blogs knowing exactly where to find us, it’s when we are packing that it all catches up with us [or when we’re trying to find someone to insure us!]. It can be deeply scary packing everything into a suitcase or two, putting it in a corner by the door. Like THERE IT IS. All you have to show for your life fits into a small corner. But it also fits onto your back, so you can take it anywhere!

I pack the wine glasses and decanter Paul gave me for my birthday when I first moved to Toronto. I’ll donate them to Danielle and Andrea. My duvet that was my grandmas and I brought out east my first winter in Montreal six years ago is at Chrisa’s. My sushi dishes from Japan in 2001, my chopsticks my brother gave me in 1999. They really are nice wine glasses. The kind I would love to have in my own place someday.

The only thing I can’t seem to find are my speakers. How much joy did those speakers bring to my life! I don’t have my phone numbers with me, so I can’t call my Brunswick roommates to ask where I left them. What a convenient lack of organisation on my part -- I guess the door is still open for a return some day. I flick the glass of wine and listen to the long ring that persists, pour some wine in it, and toast to myself a final glass before I give the set to Danielle. I smile and realise I'm not going to find my speakers -- despite three moves, I'm still managing to leave some trace of myself at my beautiful Brunswick and College home after all.