Wherever you hang your ten gallon hat/touque, that's your home (Part 1 of 5)
An Introduction
With the wife off visiting relatives and some free time from work looming, I've decided to delve into an exercise in serial daylogging. Over the next two weeks, I will sumbit five daylogs (including this one) that will detail my experiences with uprooting myself and immigrating to another country. This series will not catalogue things like passports, visas, work permits and formal citizenship (as much of this has been discussed in other places). Instead, this project will delve into the intangible longings for home, and the newfound curiosities that counterbalance them.
In late-June/early-July 2001, I packed my worldly possessions into a horse trailer, crossed into the U.S., married my wife (an natural-born American citizen) and set up shop in a strange and foreign land. Since that summer, I have been compiling lists of what I do and do not like about my new home, and what I miss most and least about Winnipeg (and, in a broader sense, Canada as a whole). The following four writeups in the series will break down these lists.
While these daylogs will be available to Everythingians in general, they're more for me. Although I've been working on these lists steadily since my arrival in North Texas, they've never been put to paper or transcribed in full. I intend this to be a cathartic process. Whether or not you enjoy it, is up to you. (Frankly, I don't give a rat's ass.)
But why now, after almost three years? One reason is that the initial regret of what has been left behind has faded, giving me a clearer perspective on the pros and cons of moving. The solitude my wife and I experienced upon arriving in a strange city has been ground away by new friendships and associations. But there is another reason. One of my best friends is planning a similar move, leaving Winnipeg behind for a job in the Pacific Northwest. Once completed, I intend these writeups to be a guide providing her with an inkling of what to expect. While the new locales may be vastly different, and in three years her completed lists probably won't resemble mine as much, the base emotions are the same. And it helps knowing someone's been there before.
The Daylogs
Part 1: An Introduction -- March 13, 2004
Part 2: What I miss most about Winnipeg -- March 18, 2004