Very contemplative review at this time of the year. For me, I stopped "would've could've should've" a while ago. I'm going to keep on going until I can't. Happy travels.
Very nice piece, Philip, and one that resonates powerfully with me due to my reluctant return to Canada from graduate school in London so many decades ago. But guess I put the lie to Thomas Wolfe's famous line, "You can never go go home again." I am very very happy I returned.
I often contemplate the roads not travelled. It’s usually accompanied by yet another reexamination of the ‘how the hell did I get here’ question. I’m not where I planned to be at 68, no where near it, but most of what has derailed me were bombs dropped by that thing we call bad luck. And no matter what road I travelled, those bombs may still have dropped.
In 1966 my mother, 11 yr-old brother, and I travelled by ship (The Empress of Canada) from Northern Ireland via Liverpool to Montreal, then boarded an overnight train to Toronto. I was age 7. I was glad to see land after a week at sea. My father and 12 yr-old sister flew ahead to Canada the year before to settle my sister in school. I didn't see them during that year. I feel the loneliness as I write this. That long-distance move fragmented our family, displaced us from our own lovely home, neighbours, and the close women friends of my mother's - women I called Auntie Margaret, Auntie Mary, Auntie Greta, etc. My mother slit her wrists twice during that first year of our living in a Toronto suburban apartment. She returned to Ireland to be with her parents and recuperate. I don't remember her leaving or returning; although she did return, reluctantly, because she didn't want to leave me - her youngest child - in the care of my father and his new woman-friend. My parents divorced two years later. I needed those women friends of my mother's as much as she did, as I had no one to turn to throughout the years that she suffered from depression, isolation, and loneliness, her life having been uprooted. My sister returned to Ireland at the age of 21 and has lived there ever since. My father eventually returned to Ireland with his second wife - a poetic injustice perhaps. He remained there until his death in 2013. Canada has never felt like home to me just as it was never home to my mother. I still miss the sea and the smell of the moist air.
Very contemplative review at this time of the year. For me, I stopped "would've could've should've" a while ago. I'm going to keep on going until I can't. Happy travels.
Very nice piece, Philip, and one that resonates powerfully with me due to my reluctant return to Canada from graduate school in London so many decades ago. But guess I put the lie to Thomas Wolfe's famous line, "You can never go go home again." I am very very happy I returned.
Regret ;too much pain; Gina.
I have no real idea what it means to suffer the abandonment of your real home,
I”ve lived in central Toronto all my life
My wife Anna from 1956 Budapest [Molotov. Cocktails]supplies the immigrant spirit.
I am so grateful for this invigorating life changing experience
Julian
I often contemplate the roads not travelled. It’s usually accompanied by yet another reexamination of the ‘how the hell did I get here’ question. I’m not where I planned to be at 68, no where near it, but most of what has derailed me were bombs dropped by that thing we call bad luck. And no matter what road I travelled, those bombs may still have dropped.
In 1966 my mother, 11 yr-old brother, and I travelled by ship (The Empress of Canada) from Northern Ireland via Liverpool to Montreal, then boarded an overnight train to Toronto. I was age 7. I was glad to see land after a week at sea. My father and 12 yr-old sister flew ahead to Canada the year before to settle my sister in school. I didn't see them during that year. I feel the loneliness as I write this. That long-distance move fragmented our family, displaced us from our own lovely home, neighbours, and the close women friends of my mother's - women I called Auntie Margaret, Auntie Mary, Auntie Greta, etc. My mother slit her wrists twice during that first year of our living in a Toronto suburban apartment. She returned to Ireland to be with her parents and recuperate. I don't remember her leaving or returning; although she did return, reluctantly, because she didn't want to leave me - her youngest child - in the care of my father and his new woman-friend. My parents divorced two years later. I needed those women friends of my mother's as much as she did, as I had no one to turn to throughout the years that she suffered from depression, isolation, and loneliness, her life having been uprooted. My sister returned to Ireland at the age of 21 and has lived there ever since. My father eventually returned to Ireland with his second wife - a poetic injustice perhaps. He remained there until his death in 2013. Canada has never felt like home to me just as it was never home to my mother. I still miss the sea and the smell of the moist air.