Calgary always puts me into a state of angst. From getting up at 5 am to make the first ferry out, to eating horrific amounts of junk food on the road to stay awake and to pass the 15-16 hours of time, to pulling into the urban sprawl at 11 pm and seeing the brown-ness of the surroundings—everything about the trip just makes me feel blah.
Our latest trip was no different. Sure, we had a few mudslide detours and even a baby shower to mix things up a bit, but other than that, everything was the same. We pulled into Calgary around 11 pm on Friday night, and sure enough, we were offered soup and cake by the inlaws. Nothing like some sugar and flour to ease your way into a good night’s sleep! Saturday was spent running errands, switching Marty’s art around, and generally driving around the city. Then today we visited our storage unit and crammed as much crap into our van as was humanly possible. Then I caught a flight back and came home to prepare for another week at work. Angst, I tell you. Angst.
There are some things that I miss about Calgary: My favourite local yarn store. Certain tea houses and coffee shops. Family. Friends. CJSW radio. The Coup restaurant. And oddly enough, the camaraderie that comes along with bitching about conservative governments (though I still prefer a more liberal government in office to bitching about a conservative government hands down!). So many things about the city, however, make me feel really disgusting and just plain heavy. I associate Calgary with being expected (forced?) to overeat foods that really don’t do my digestive system any favours, and every night I go to bed feeling bloated and greasy. During the days, because Marty and I are trying to cram in as many errands as we can during our short stays, we run around from mall to mall with the equivalent of a brick of wax in our bellies and then wonder why we come back in the evenings feeling like ass (in a very bad way—nothing sexual implied here at all). I know our friends and family mean well when they offer us meals and a place to stay, but somehow I always end up coming back to Victoria feeling like an ungrateful wench for trying to refuse at least half of the sugary/white flour-y/fried/cabbage family concoctions that are spooned onto my plate. (The other half I eat mostly out of guilt or to assuage the gnawing sense of wench-ness eating away at my insides. ANGST!!!!)
Gah!! I’ll report on the baby shower in a future post, after Marty brings the camera back home and after I cleanse myself of any lingering loathing of the trip back to Calgary. Maybe it was the blatant tsk-tsk look I got when I declined to take thirteen open-faced sandwiches with me to the airport (for a one hour flight!!! Right after a HUGE lunch!! I am not a burly man!!!), or maybe it was the ‘random’ full-body search I had to endure at the airport (during which I was frisked naked-like with no shoes on in front of hundreds of people, but then later got to relish the sight of the security person combing through a weekend’s worth of dirty laundry to uncover any phantom drugs… in front of those same hundreds of people… serves them right), but I really don’t feel my best right now. It must be time to soothe my chapped skin/lips/throat with some salty ocean air, click my shoes together, and repeat “We’re not in Calgary anymore, we’re not in Calgary anymore…” (though poor Marty still is! Ach.)
3 comments:
I agree Dana. Part of our contract is a free flight home each year, and all I can think is Why? Why would I want to go there? Sure there are certain things and people I miss and will always pine for, but I have to say there are so many more things (and people) that I am ecstatic to be AWAY FROM. Hopefully for good.
Welcome home. When will Marty be back?
That was a really neat post because I felt very much the same way when I first moved to the island. I had to go back to Vancouver at least once a month (which has much less angst than going to Calgary, but pretty much the same idea) and I have to wade through the crazy busy streets, have to make sure I make enough time to visit family and what about my friends? I never really had time to see them because we were only over for the weekend. It's like a hurricane blew through town and Jon and I were the eye of the storm. Always felt like we needed a vacation afterwards!
It took a while, but eventually we told people, you know, *you* can come visit us too! Why does it have to be a one way street? We still visit about once a month, but feel less guilty about it if we miss a month. Victoria is our home now, not Vancouver. :)
Hey Yo...
There's always Wendy's place, where flax oil, lemons, tea, quiet email checking, coziness, and yarn crafts for every gender are the way of the day.
I like living here because I can do whatever I want and there is room to do it in. (And because our cat, who can also roam the city doing whatever he wants, lives here too.)
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