Yesterday we bee-lined from Ottawa to Wawa. Today it was Wawa to the 'peg. Zipped by 1200kms of Ontario. Crossed the longitudinal center of Canada (it's just east of Winnipeg). Tomorrow is a whole lotta prairie. Lis is feeling the baby kick as I write. I'm giddy with excitement about getting out to Vancouver. We saw a moose, a lynx, and a bunch of deer today. Our cat is a huge trooper, and is exploring the hotel room at the moment. I'd imagine hotel rooms have a fascinating blend of odours for a kitteh.
I think the biggest thing on my mind today is just how weird and awesome it's going to be to see all of our planning on the West Coast start to materialize. By this time Saturday, we will be in the house we'll live in when the baby's born. We can start looking for our crib, stroller, change table, etc. We can decorate and start to make a home. Everything has been abstract until this point, but the wheels are now irreversibly set in motion.
We had a funny conversation today about backtracking. We were looking for lunch in one of the innumerable villages in northern Ontario (Upsala, I think) and we had just driven by some possible options when suddenly the town ended. We were both pretty hungry by that point, and considered the possibility of turning around to grab a bite at one of the places we'd just seen. But it's hard to explain just how wrong it felt for both of us. Lis summed it up nicely when she said, "I'd rather drive 200 kilometers to the next town than to go back one minute." We were going forward, and to take even one step in the other direction felt impossible.
That's what this whole West Coast move feels like, at least for me. It has everything to do with the realization of a dream. It is so crazy to me that we will be raising our son in a city I've adored for my whole life, and now that it's starting to happen, I feel that anything else just couldn't make sense. It is extremely hard for both of us to leave friends and family in Ontario, and we are going to do everything humanly possible to stay close with people there, but for us, this is what had to be. It is the adventure of a lifetime, and it has just the kind of otherworldly blessedness to it that I want to bring our baby boy into.
Anyway, there's probably a hint of delirium in that description, but the 'peg will do funny things to the mind. Tomorrow when you are wherever you are, I invite you imagine your way along with us as we fly by fields of wheat and corn in pursuit of the continent's western edge. Those Rockies will loom on the horizon (or possibly all round us) by the time the sun goes down.
I think the biggest thing on my mind today is just how weird and awesome it's going to be to see all of our planning on the West Coast start to materialize. By this time Saturday, we will be in the house we'll live in when the baby's born. We can start looking for our crib, stroller, change table, etc. We can decorate and start to make a home. Everything has been abstract until this point, but the wheels are now irreversibly set in motion.
We had a funny conversation today about backtracking. We were looking for lunch in one of the innumerable villages in northern Ontario (Upsala, I think) and we had just driven by some possible options when suddenly the town ended. We were both pretty hungry by that point, and considered the possibility of turning around to grab a bite at one of the places we'd just seen. But it's hard to explain just how wrong it felt for both of us. Lis summed it up nicely when she said, "I'd rather drive 200 kilometers to the next town than to go back one minute." We were going forward, and to take even one step in the other direction felt impossible.
That's what this whole West Coast move feels like, at least for me. It has everything to do with the realization of a dream. It is so crazy to me that we will be raising our son in a city I've adored for my whole life, and now that it's starting to happen, I feel that anything else just couldn't make sense. It is extremely hard for both of us to leave friends and family in Ontario, and we are going to do everything humanly possible to stay close with people there, but for us, this is what had to be. It is the adventure of a lifetime, and it has just the kind of otherworldly blessedness to it that I want to bring our baby boy into.
Anyway, there's probably a hint of delirium in that description, but the 'peg will do funny things to the mind. Tomorrow when you are wherever you are, I invite you imagine your way along with us as we fly by fields of wheat and corn in pursuit of the continent's western edge. Those Rockies will loom on the horizon (or possibly all round us) by the time the sun goes down.
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