Funny, how it seems like – no matter how long you’ve been away – you’ve never really left as soon as you return and cross the threshold into that familiar place called home.
Diana and I pulled into the drive at 3298 Cook Street Oct. 11, after catching the 3:15pm sailing from Tsawwassen to Duke point. Our son Ian greeted us, along with Sophie, our retriever, who has been hoarding all our shoes and slippers since we left as placeboes for our real essence. We waved hello to our neighbours across the street, but warned of our ‘radioactive’ state and promised to catch up once we’re fully recovered.
We’ll process our tsunami of cross-Canada memories and impressions in the coming weeks, but for the moment it feels good to simply be in the centre of gravity exerted by the place that is truly our own.
We’ve put off this final Realta Road 2022 update because we didn’t want people to know we were back right away. It’s taken a couple of days to feel we’re recovered enough from our illness. Our COVID tests came up negative, so we’re guessing it was an especially virulent flu… whatever it is, we don’t want to pass on.
Now that we’ve discovered so many amazing aspects to this country called Canada, we’ll have to rediscover Chemainus and see how everything fits into our new perspective. In that sense, the place we call ‘home’ is a sort of touch stone that we come back to again and again as we plan our next excursions out onto Realta Road.
(PS: One of Ian’s friends, whom I will never forgive, pointed out that the name of our RV is ‘Rialta’ not ‘Realta’. As far as I’m concerned some mistakes were simply meant to be, and our imagination on ramp merges onto Realta Road.)