It's been 383 days since I left Vancouver and today my every movement is tinged with melancholy. For the last six months in particular, I've been packing and unpacking without end: more intimately acquainted with my luggage than a home. My trusty backpack is indicative of my state of being; its 13 year old self shedding waterproof lining like dandruff flakes on its contents, its exterior bathed in a layer of travel grime. My soul too is battered and grey, littering sheets of hope in its rapidly traveling wake. I miss a sense of place, roots and connections, routine.
Using the chopsticks, I stir the contents of the bowl, idly watching the seaweed float up and sink, the swirling scallions, the thinly-sliced mushrooms slowly cooking in the broth. It's not just the variation of mushrooms for tofu that seeps into my thoughts with its difference. My eventual return to the familiar will be all too different as well. Same place of work, but with a new perspective and classes for which I'm trying to muster enthusiasm. There have been drastic changes in relationship status in my circle - not the least my own. The usual activities, face, plans - no longer. A new home and neighbourhood to find, connections to make, dreams to pursue - all within the loose context of my previous life. What still fits? What needs to be remade? Exciting, daunting, uncertain.
I take a sip of the steaming broth, this time allowing its familiar warmth to flood my senses with hope. This yearning for a home, a life that no longer exists as I know it - this too shall pass. The adventurous spirit will renew, the joy of discovery in constant surroundings will be reborn.
And for now, I have a bowl of miso soup to soothe my travel-weary bones with memories of rainy afternoons on the Wet Coast. And Di, a living, breathing representative of all that's right about home, across the table from me, her eyes sparkling over the rim of her bowl.
