By Lucy

I realized that I forgot to mention the Tuatara in Queen’s Park. 120 year old dinosaurs! I did not see them, but I did walk past their exhibit. The sun had not yet burned off the morning dew on the glass.

I discovered in the morning a volcano had erupted nearby (nearby being relative on a geological scale). I wonder if the volcano had been the cause of the rumbling the night before.

Last day here. I ate my last 4 eggs and the rest of the zucchini with breakfast, then snacked on my leftover yogurt.

I figured the Transport museum would take me about 2 hours, then I could come back this way and have a pie at Fat Bastard, then meet the ladies for the conference. Around 9 it occurred to me that I need extra time to catch the bus, so I hurried to get dressed, packed up my things, and left.

I walked around the corner to the Kelvin hotel and dropped off my luggage, then went to the downtown bus “depot”.

The bus here is not like Toronto’s bus. I got on the right one, making sure it stopped by the museum; there was only 2 of us when he took off from the downtown “depot”. At one point he stopped and picked up another person. The other two were dropped off before me, and then we drove past the Transport museum.

“Oh, why didn’t you press the button?” He asked, stopping the bus for me, which was nice of him. I’m used to the Toronto buses announcing which stop it is. How am I supposed to know which street is which on the bus? Ran across the road and into the museum.

It’s a nice museum. My dad would be in here for days. I like the shiny cars, although I wish some of them had the hoods popped so you could see the engine. That’s the heart of any motor vehicle, after all.

I noted that Bill Richardson looks kind of like Jack Nicholson. Come to think of it, so does Richard! I also noted the mention of a man named Edward Challis who helped with the collection. I know the motorcycle shop near the estate is called Challis; I wonder if there is a relation there. The problem when the entire island was settled by 10 white guys! Everyone has the same name and looks the same.

I noticed some old timber framed trucks and texted Regan about Gary’s fondness for them. I debated texting Simo, but she hasn’t replied to me since she dropped my hat off at the hostel. I decide it’s because the idea of not seeing me anymore is too painful for her, because the other option is that she was just using me.

There was also some little “historical” section unrelated to cars, cuz if you have the space why not?

I was right about the museum taking me about 2 hours. I just missed the bus, which is hourly at this point, so I wait around a bit longer and then walk up to the stop.

Fat Bastard Pies are the best, which is easy to see because the line-up was out the door when I got there. I got the steak and mushroom pie, which had thick savory gravy and big chunks of fall-off-the-bone tender beef. I wanted a second one, but I was stuffed!

Back to the Kelvin hotel.

I was early, but I stuck my head in the lobby just in case someone was there. Flights can be a fickle thing, after all. Two women were there, who I would later learn was Joanne, the president of the Invercargill club, and Wendy. I expected that the clubs all had the same members who went to every New-Zealand-wide conference, but I later learned that they hadn’t actually formed the entirety of New Zealand as one singular region until the last few years. There’s still a fair number of members who don’t know who everyone is, although everyone knows Anthea and Yvonne.

People slowly filtered in. I talked to Wendy for a bit, and discovered she used to be on the international board with Rosemary. There was a few men in attendance, some women brought their husbands.

They gave me a goodie bag, which I stashed with my luggage, and then I changed into my new pencil skirt. It looked hilarious with my new short boots; the Reikers had a low profile, even when they were bright red, but here I am; pencil skirt, nice shirt, and sport coat, plus big stompy boots.

Once everyone had more or less arrived, we started getting organized on rides. We were driving down to Bluff for the Marae.

“You’re never been to a marae before, right?” Yvonne asked me.

“What’s a marae?”

She passed me a piece of paper as a reply, as someone waved her over. “The song lyrics are on there.” She called behind her.

Song lyrics?

Anna came in and we hugged. “You ready for the marae?” She onced me over. “That’s a nice skirt.”

“Thanks, I grabbed it from the op shop yesterday.” I said with a cheeky grin and a curtsy. “I might even take it home with me!”

“It looks good on you. The marae is a Maori… meeting place? Church? You have to take your shoes off….” Brenda grabbed Anne’s attention.

Ah, ok, so the marae is like the… longhouse? Sacred fire? I’m not sure the Ojibwe have a directly comparable building, but I’m sort of back on my feet again. I’m going to a marae? That’s so cool, that just made my weekend! Worth all of that for this.

I was bundled into a white van and ended up sitting next to a woman who moved here from Britain, another Joanne. We just called her Jo. She was a lot of fun to talk to, not the least of which because she was a biologist who worked in medical research labs. The drive to Bluff is scenic as it winds along the coast. There’s a big aluminum refinery in Bluff, which made me wonder if I should settle down here for a bit and maybe get a job there. I liked the whole vibe of the area; petrolheads and seafood.

We unloaded at the marae and stood around at the gate for half an hour, both to make sure everyone had arrived and because you have to be “called” into a marae. The regional president had a cloak wrapped around her shoulders, a traditional Maori cloak woven from flax and decorated with the feathers of local birds.

A man came down from the marae to talk to us. He gave us a speech that was part serious information and part jokey ribbing, which reminded me a lot of most Ojibwe elders. Then a woman came down who would be “calling” us in. We assembled behind her – men traditionally at the back, to protect us from being “attacked” – and went up the hill. The woman at the door sang something Maori and the woman leading us up the hill sang back in response, gesturing with her hands.

When we got to the door, they thanked us, welcomed us to the marae, told us no pictures, and bid us to take our shoes off, which I was glad for cuz mine aren’t broken in yet and my feet hurt.

We sat in the assembled chairs – men at the front this time – and a different Māori man gave us a speech entirely in untranslated Māori, although I could follow bit and pieces of it from what I know. Then we stood – I hastily pulled the paper with the song lyrics out of my pocket and smoothed it out – and we sang the songs. I will say the lyrics were slightly useless, because they are helpfully spelled in Roman alphabet letters, but Māori pronunciation is so different from any language I know that it would have been better if it was written phonetically. Māori language has a quirk I’ve noticed from following along with Japanese subtitles, where the pause might be in the middle of a word and not between 2 words, which is what really throws me.

After we sang, the man gave another untranslated speech, then an assembled group of children, about half of which were white, sang a couple songs of their own before being dismissed. The regional president gave a speech in return. Then the man talked to us in English, before telling us it was time for “kai”, which in Māori means food but he meant a tea/ light lunch.

Then everyone lined up.

What I had just witnessed was a ceremony called a powhiri, which ends with a hongi. Which is when you press noses and foreheads together. Which slightly freaked me out, because I hadn’t had time to research or practice it. Do you press foreheads first and rotate down to nose, or the other way around? Close or open eyes? Eye contact? Gah!

I shuffled my way towards the end of the line and tried to watch everyone else before me carefully, but when it was my turn I still got flustered and broke the hongi as quickly as possible. Hopefully I seemed anxious and not rude. We were going to an attached room to eat – eating in the ceremony room is tapu, taboo – and I spent the entire walk kicking myself and feeling culturally insensitive.

Now I will add; the rooms in the marae were beyond gorgeous. They were festooned with intricate and dyed wood carvings. It was clearly hand-carved, and every wall was a feast for the eyes with unique designs.

I grabbed some food quickly – for whatever reason, I was starving – and Anne set herself up as lunch lady, dolling out tea and coffee for everyone. I grabbed a random seat and the Māori man who spoke, Dean, invited us to ask him anything we wanted, so we immediately started asking about the carvings. Apparently this marae is unusual, firstly because it is so beautifully decorated and most don’t look like this, but secondly because the figures in the ceremony room are female (when I politely asked the woman next to me how everyone knew they were female, she told me male Māori carvings have obvious penises, so anything without a penis is probably female).

It’s unusual for me to feel out of my depth like this. I know quite a bit about many cultures, and I know more about North American indigenous people than the average white person, but this I knew nothing about. I was quite pleased, however, to be alone in this, even if I was uncomfortable about it. Everyone had forgotten to warn me because all of this was background noise to them. Everyone says Kia Ora, everyone has the songs memorized, they know about taking shoes off and the hongi. More of them had been to a marae than North Americans have been to a pow wow.

This is my dream.

So, the carvings. The roof was semi-obvious; the sun is the sun, making his way across the sky. The other sky atua, the moon and its phases. The flat parts of the wall were painted with the foods the Maori in this area ate; muttonbirds, oysters and mussels, fish, and the baskets to catch them. In between were panels of woven flax, fashioned to look like the trees and hills of the surrounding area. It was even modelled so that one wall was supposed to simulate the tide coming in and the other wall, the tide going out.

The man’s name was Dean and he mentioned the last few years have been bad for oysters, so I decided to take trying a local oyster off the “to-do” list.

After tea, we went back into the other room and he talked more about the carvings there. The Māori practice a form of ancestor worship; the reason there are no pictures of that room is because there are effigies of their ancestors and taking a picture without permission of the descendants would be tapu. All the effigies are female because, a few hundred years ago when New Zealand was popular with Dutch whalers (before the British ‘discovered’ it) the tribe got mostly wiped out by small pox. A group of about 8 women married the Dutch whalers and had a bunch of kids; more than one woman had more than 10! When the tribe was working on the marae and deciding who to have in effigy, they figured out that almost everyone was related to one of these 8 women, so they decided to have them be the effigies. The effigies were really cool; each had an effigy of a small child on them for each actual child they gave birth to, so you could tell at a glance how many they had. The abdomen of each wooden sculpture (they were about 7 feet tall) opened up, and had sacred artifacts from each family in there for ceremonies. Each effigy only had three fingers and Dean couldn’t remember why; he suspects just for ease of carving, but there is a trinity in Maori myth, tokotoru.

There was other sculptures on the wall here, as well, even more lavishly decorated than the tea room. One wall depicted the creation story of the Māori, one the story of how Maui tried to give men eternal life, a wall dedicated to the Waitangi signing (it was an eight-sided room).

Before we left, the president gave Dean a koha, a gift, for hosting us. We gave him a dragon tree. I suppose the Ojibwe would do the same, but with tobacco in addition.

Eventually it was time to pile back into the vehicles and go back to the hotel.

Since we were in Bluff, the furthest south you can go without getting on a boat, we drove down where the sign is. The driver asked if anyone wanted a picture with the sign, and I said yes, but either he didn’t hear me or he didn’t care, cuz he turned the van around and left without stopping! We went up to a lookout at the top of the island and got a couple snaps, but it was a hot, hazy day and you couldn’t see much,

Anne and Brenda got back to the hotel before me. I waited around at the lobby for a few minutes before asking at the desk. They gave me a key and directed me to the correct room.

I had a shower before dinner and flaked on the bed. My tattoo hadn’t really been scabbing over, but this time when I jumped in the shower I noticed it flaking, so I gave it a bit of a scrub and it schlorped off in one piece! Well, it is mostly healed at this point, then.

Anne and Brenda had brought 3 suitcases each, for 2 days! They were arguing over dresses and make-up. Meanwhile, there was me with just the one carry-on, wearing the same clothes because I had no others, and I’ve never bothered with make-up.

The room was nice, clearly a luxury hotel. There was 2 queen sized beds and one single, which was mine, against the wall with the giant windows. There was a curious alcove at the foot of my bed with a chair shoved into it.

Dinner was exhausting.

The marae had been cool and interesting. Dinner was meeting every single person at the event that I hadn’t met yet, 30 odd older ladies, 30 names, occupations, locations to remember. Every single one wanted to know where I had come from – cuz no one has heard of Thunder Bay – why I joined Soroptimists, why I came to New Zealand, and as much as I enjoy talking about myself, you get tired of repeating it.

Surprisingly, though, one woman had been through Thunder Bay, one day 30 years ago.

I did finally meet the elusive Maddie, returned to New Zealand for the first time in 2 years.

I also had one woman, slightly gung-ho because she just got on the board for “Friendship Links”, who was hounding me because she wanted the gold star for starting an international friend link. I mean, I was more than happy to oblige, but her devotion was sort of comical.

Still, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t seductive, this high level of attention. This is what I was talking about before, desiring power. I think this is a healthy way of channeling it; a volunteer organization that badly needs an enthusiastic member and some inspiration. Leaders who are willing to train and pass the baton.

It wasn’t a proper dinner but canapes and drinks. Someone insisted on buying me a glass of wine, which I had to resist chugging.

It also turns out that Invercargill is run by a shadowy cabal called the Invercargill Licensing Trust. They control the sale of alcohol within city limits – hence no wine at the grocery store – but they also plow that money back into the city. The reason the cost of the conference was so cheap was because the ILT was picking up the tab, which was nice. The Eastern Canada conference has been suffering from a lack of interest, probably mostly due to cost.

By 8:30 I was done for the night and retired to bed even before Brenda and Anne. They both came in after 9 and Anne jumped in the shower before bed. She has a little reading light that hangs around her neck for reading in bed.

I went thru the goodie bags. There was the usual small bottles of moisturizer and face cream, although now that I was living out of a suitcase, those are gold to me. Some small chocolates – Anne threw hers at me – some brochures about sightseeing.

I woke up around 5:30. Oh yay, my insomnia is back.

All this sitting has not been great for me. Gross things time! People with my condition are prone to certain skin conditions, although skin conditions are part and parcel of being human so few notice or care. I am prone to getting an infected coccyx, oh, about every 5 years or so. It makes it painful to sit, but I can’t exactly go to the doctor here.

I’ve also noticed some odd bumps on my hands. They look like little insect bites, but they’re not red, itchy, or painful, so they’re almost certainly cysts. They’ve been resolving by themselves, but that doesn’t reassure me at all. In fact, I’ve been worried I’m developing epithelioid sarcoma, like what Jess Ainscough died of, and at one point I called Paul on the verge of tears to confess I was worried I’m dying. But again, nothing I can do. I am too far from medical help.

I laid in bed ’til 6:30, when Brenda stirred. We had to be at the meetings again for 8. Brenda roused Anne, and I went downstairs to the restaurant cafe for breakfast on my own. Some of the other ladies were down there, including Berenice, who grilled me about building standards in Canada. I had a breakfast burger that was absolutely ginormous. I saved half of it for the next day.

Then the meetings started.

What a long day.

After the usual meeting stuff, we had a brief presentation by a police sergeant. She’s working on a program where they try to support people involved with crime, with the understanding that if you just lock people up for possession and then release them and do nothing to support them, they’ll probably go back to crime. Her program mostly seems to work with the families of criminals, for example, since the man was the breadwinner (thru dealing) and is now in jail, they might connect the family to housing support so they don’t become homeless. Trying to break the cycle.

Then we had a general meeting, which involved things like club finances. Which wasn’t super relevant to me, but everything can be useful; an idea of how other regions finances are isn’t a useless thing.

At 10:30 there was a short tea break and I ran to Pak’N’Save. I’d been eating too healthy again; my hands were shaking from low electrolytes.

After they got the old ladies all hopped up on tea, we had a short speech from the local MP, Penny Simmonds, and the member of city council who had set us up with the ILT, Lesley Soper.

Then we had more club meetings. Despite the healthy turnout from most of the clubs in NZ (13 out of 18 clubs), Soroptimist NZ has experienced a 20% membership loss in the last year, including one club folding. Which is quite dramatic!

Then we had lunch, which was toasties and little finger sandwiches, steamed broccoli, fruit and some spanakopita.

Some people rushed over to ask me about membership in Canada. Everyone seems to hope that I represent the beginning of a youthful renewal in Soroptimism and club membership in general, which is unlikely insomuch as I don’t represent people my age well. I joined for my own oddball reasons that I doubt you could apply generally.

I spent a bit of lunch dodging these people and trying to craft a plan for getting back to Christchurch. I was hoping to find someone who was travelling that way to save myself a bit of money and another day wasted on the bus. The best I did was a member from Dunedin who offered to drive me as far as Dunedin and let me crash at her place. I was pleased to notice there are 2 buses from Dunedin to Christchurch, one at 7:30 AM, which is quite early but at least I’m not getting to the hostel late in the evening. Later on I heard Maddie was driving back to Christchurch on Monday, but I don’t like changing my plans constantly so I didn’t ask.

After lunch, we had a little bit of drama. Turns out the SI NZ has a scholarship award named after Yvonne because she’s such a big presence in the club. At one point there was a debate about applications to a board and when the cut-off was, which incensed Yvonne to the point that she got up and went up to the main table to argue with them about it. We were all aflutter, but a couple of us privately admitted that we wished we had her bravery.

More tea. This time we had scones with cream and jam. Remembering my trip to England, I put jam on the scone first and was commended by several people for my good breeding and knowledge of proper scone etiquette, which made me laugh cuz I would usually just put the cream on first, hah! Just like a savage from the provinces. I still pronounced scone incorrectly.

The afternoon speaker was quite an occasion. Since SI NZ is focused on ovarian cancer, we had a speaker from an organization they support. They’re training dogs to smell cancer in urine samples (although since in Canada, we pronounce it “ur-in” and they pronounce it “ur-eyen”, I had to suppress a few giggles). She spoke for a while about everything they were doing, trying to get the dogs to 100% accuracy while controlling for anything that might cause a false positive/ negative. Obviously there’s lot of applications for such an option, but the focus for the conference was the fact there is no real test for early ovarian cancer. The only thing that really works is a laparoscopic exploration, until you are stage 3 or 4 when it is much less likely to be survivable.

That’s one of those things where men say we have equality but they are wrong. The comparable thing would be prostate cancer. Everyone knows about the finger up the bum, but it’s also fairly easy to get a blood test as well. Once they confirm it, you move into surgery and radiation fairly quickly. The symptoms are pretty definitive too, like blood in the urine. But for ovarian cancer, there is no real blood test for it. You can test for some markers, but it’s not definitive and a lot of places won’t do it at all. The early symptoms tend to be generic things like bloating and pain in the lady parts, which doctors quickly dismiss. And I can testify to that! When I was bleeding out from my adhesions, the doctor even asked me if I had somehow confused menstrual blood for active bleeding from my bowels before complaining that I was wasting hospital resources and sending me home. If I’d had an active bowel perforation or strangulation, which was a real possibility, they would have killed me. As it is, the only reason I didn’t have either of those things is because I am so adept at managing my health.

So yeah, when a man complains of blood in his pee and get sent home with antidepressants because “it’s all in his head” and then dies of prostate cancer, let me know and we can declare equality.

We had another speaker who really excited me, partially because she had a high energy, fun way of presenting her pitch. She works with Chip Packet Project, which collects chip bags to make foil survival blankets.

I love it! My kryptonite is chips and the bags are so unrecyclable. Plus, the unhoused are so incredibly common in Thunder Bay, we’d be going thru blankets faster than we could make them.

At 4:30 we were kicked out of the room so they could clean it and set up for the Gala dinner. One of the girls from Dunedin, Amanda, wanted a place to change into her Gala dress, so I offered my room. While she changed, I wrote several lengthy emails for new plans I had when I got back to Thunder Bay. No rest for the wicked. Brenda and Anne went shopping for dresses and then argued over which they should wear to dinner. I changed back into my pencil skirt and sport coat.

Dinner had assigned seating. I ended up sitting at the front, next to the president of New Zealand regional, which made me wonder who assigned the seats and if this was intentional. As much as I enjoyed the attention, I was starting to feel like the shiny new toy being passed around for entertainment.

There was more speeches. Awards were handed out for long-time members; they give out special badges for each 5 years anniversary of membership. After 30 years you get a lifetime membership, which is what I am aiming for!

Dinner was typical “fancy dinner” buffet fair. Various salads, baked potatoes and carrots, and some meat. They had beef with gravy, roast chicken, and thinly sliced lamb on offer. Another glass of wine.

After dinner, we had a somewhat sobering speech by a woman who works on a program for teen moms. It sounds like a lovely program by a woman who goes above and beyond her job description to support her girls – including taking on 35 students when they only have funding for 30, and paying out of pocket for housing – but she did lapse into condescension a bit. She also hinted at the fact that she is pro-life, although unlike a lot of pro-lifers she does support mothers for as long as necessary and she has driven some of the girls to get abortions despite her objections, so I respect that.

At one point when she was telling us about the progress of a 14 year old mother, one of the other ladies questioned where the parents of these girls are, if they are part of the process, and Kim fully stated a lot of the parents are not part of the girls lives and have little interest or capability to reconnect.

“Really?” She said, clearly unable to comprehend abandoning family.

I let out a bitter laugh, a little too loudly but I couldn’t hold it in. Some heads turned my way.

Yes.

Really.

And to be honest, probably about half the girls were related to the fathers of their babies. When you’re a predator, why go across the street when you can just go down the hall…

I retired fairly early again, although obviously some of the older ladies had had a day and were falling asleep in their seats.

The morning came early, as usual. Anne had fallen asleep sitting up with her reading light on.

Time to pack up again, as we’d be checking out before the meetings started, and then everyone would be on their way around noon. Eat my cold burger, because the hotel rooms didn’t have microwaves for some reason. Too fancy for microwaves.

I was confronted with a bible verse when we got to the meeting room. Apparently we were starting the day with a church service. Which is nice for all the usual church-goers, but I’m good, thanks. I slipped out before the service started, while everyone was still getting settled. We’re supposed to be a secular club… giving out a pamphlet of scripture to every member without asking seems quite rude.

I walked around downtown for a bit. How long is a church service? It had rained all day on Saturday, and the ground was quite damp and the sun not quite risen yet.

I got into a bit of a falling out with Peter. It had been itching my brain for a while… you know, sometimes talking to someone just makes you feel drained? I couldn’t put my finger on it and I didn’t want to say “talking to you makes me feel exhausted so let’s not talk anymore”. Talking to Lynda did put it in perspective a bit, so I was trying to let him down easy. As happens so often, however, he could tell I was winding up to tell him to hit the road, so he cycled thru the five stages of grief quite rapidly. The nail in the coffin was when he followed up several unanswered rapid-fire texts with “how many older men have you dated”. Which is such a trap question! Firstly, it isn’t relevant, cuz we aren’t dating and I have expressed that I’m not interested and not likely to change my mind. But secondly, there is no good answer. Either the answer is too many and I’m a gold-digging harlot, or not enough and I “just don’t understand older men”.

I sat on that text for a couple of days, telling myself I was just cooling down before crafting a rational reply, and then eventually I just archived the chat without replying. I knew that any reply would probably cause another deluge of texts and I just… I just can’t. I feel crappy about leaving people hanging, but I do feel better now that I’m not dreading any texts from him.

I wandered back to the hotel after half an hour but then sat in the lobby. When would service be over? Would people comment on me joining late? I played on my phone for a bit; I could just say I had an urgent call/ email. The lady who was visiting from Australia wandered by and admitted she wasn’t in the meeting because she was watching an overseas rugby game, and we went up together. The church service was well over, thank goodness.

Sunday’s meetings were short and sweet. Everything was over and everyone just wanted to head home.

The member who was driving me to Dunedin surprised me by informing me something had come up last minute, so she could drop me off anywhere in Dunedin but I couldn’t stay the night anymore. Bollocks. I found a hostel close to the bus station and booked it for the night.

The drive was long, probably longer than the bus ride. I was mentally wiped out from the enforced socializing. She insisted on stopping, first in Gore for some lunch, then in a small town at an art shop that caught her eye as we drove past, chatting with the owner for-ever. I did my best to maintain a good humor about it, but at this point the only thing I had accomplished was that I’d get to Christchurch about 4 hours early. I wasn’t even saving any money, because the bus from Invercargill and the bus from Dunedin both cost 70$.

The hostel was fine, quite boutique. There was a large plush lounge area, but it was dominated all night by a large group watching a Drag Race marathon.

I wandered out. I went to a grocery store that was supposed to have Ocho chocolate as the factory is closed on the weekend, but no luck. Actually, a lot of things were closed because it was a long weekend, Otago day on Monday. I grabbed some breakfast and went in search of dinner. I ended up getting ramen at the same place as last time.

The kitchen at the hostel was fairly quiet, compared to the lounge, so I set myself up in a corner for the evening. No alcohol this time.

I was rudely awoken at 1 AM by a night owl who apparently didn’t realize or didn’t care that the ceiling light is next to my head. I resisted the urge to throw my cell phone and instead opted to go to the bathroom for a moment, turning the light off as I went past. It did not come back on.

I was awake before the clock even struck 6, like usual. I was still mostly asleep, and debated just rolling over and falling asleep again, but decided against it. I changed in my bunk, gathered my belongings and stripped the bed, tossing everything off the edge. Put the sheets in the indicated basket, ate my breakfast of yogurt parfait and canned coffee, and off I go to the bus station before the sun has even kissed the sky.

Back thru the rolling Scottish highlands hills around Dunedin.

We stopped in Timaru this time for lunch, but there’s no real spots to get lunch there. I wasn’t feeling hungry either, after such a busy weekend. I just wandered around and took some pictures.

As we got into Christchurch, it occurred to me that there are multiple bus stops and I had absent-mindedly chosen the one downtown when I should have selected one closer to the hostel. Oops. I ubered over to the hostel.

I unlocked my phone and checked my email for the code for the door. I laughed; same room, same bunk even. On purpose? Does someone here have a sense of humor? Or just a twist of fate?

I reclaimed my toque from the front desk. Yes! Oh how I had twisted myself into knots with worry!

When I walked up the stairs, I stopped to glance out the window. The same window I had spent hours gazing at when I first got here, at the snow-capped mountains I didn’t realize I would be living in the shadow of. I couldn’t see them through the thick clouds today. No final glance.

It’s almost a metaphor for this trip. They seemed so distant and unattainable, but they were actually much closer than I thought.

As I deposited my bag inside the room, I looked in the mirror. I no longer recognized myself; wild-haired, tanned, covered in tattoos. I resent admitting that the trip changed me, but it did. It’s fitting that it should end where it began.

You know, before if people asked where I had been before, I would say Europe. Which is true, but now I would be tempted to say I had never really left Canada. Those memories are so distant and dusty, filtered through a smaller mind, a more claustrophobic view. I had no control over where I was or who I was, it was just the theme-park ride version of a trip, ushered around by my parents.

I texted Richard to see if he was free, but he was not, so I went out and bought some fried chicken for dinner. The server was chatty, annoyingly so. I came back and threw my laundry in the wash, then called Jeremy so we could watch the finale of Severance.

I mean… I’ve seen worse finales. It answered some questions and left others as cliffhangers, which I am satisfied with. Jeremy enjoyed it, although I think both of our enjoyments was tied more to the shared nature of the activity than the actual quality of the show.

I had to leave fairly quickly once we were done. I needed to grab my laundry out of the machine before it got turfed, shower so I had enough time for my hair to dry before bed, and pack up. At this point, anything I didn’t want to bring with me back to Canada (or legally couldn’t) was going in the bin. No food. No liquids. Some papers and receipts I don’t need. Some of the toiletries.

This is it, it was over. 6 months come and gone. The moment that had seemed so far away was upon me. I might never see this land again. I might never see Anne, Anthea, Yvonne or Simonetta. Gary might shoot Earl in a couple of weeks. Ethan will go back to Texas eventually.

I have talked at length with Chris about what it takes to travel like this. It requires bravery, more for the returning than the leaving. If you always stay home, things might change, but some things are certain. Taxes. The changing of the seasons. The languages everyone speaks. But when you travel, the more you gain, the more there is to lose. People and places you won’t see again. How small your hometown seems now that you’ve been to bigger places.

As they say…. you can never go home again.

You can go as far as you want. But you can never go back.