[xtypo_dropcap]S[/xtypo_dropcap]ometimes a person lives in one place long enough that it seeps into their bones and nowhere else looks as good. For me, that place is the Okanagan Valley but in Canada’s big cities, where first generation immigrants can make up half the population, home is often the land they left behind that looks better from afar than it ever did when they lived there.
This week my wife and I crossed the country for her sister’s wedding in Edmonton, Alberta and then a trip back to my hometown in Vernon, British Columbia. I’m embarrassed to say that since we got to Vernon, I have been overwhelmed by my love of this sunny valley. Sounding like a sentimental sycophant trying to get my old hometown to love me again after leaving it for so many years, I keep making inane observations about dirt roadways getting upgraded to sidewalk that wasn’t here when I grew up, and restaurants where I washed dishes as a teenager.
Looking over these rolling Okanagan hills that snuggle next to two warm welcoming blue and emerald lakes that lavish themselves on Vernon, I am struck by how much more spectacular this scene is now than it was when I lived here. How much of what I am seeing now is tinged by rose-colored sentiments? Why could I never truly appreciate this place when I lived here? Was it because it sat there ever doleful like a parent that asked for nothing more than that I eat all my sunshine and sandy beaches. Or is it simply my penchant for focusing more on the flaws of Toronto where I now live, or Ottawa, where I spend most of the year? How many likeable features am I missing of those two cities by comparing them to selective memories of the Okanagan in the fruition of late summer.
A man I met at my sister-in-law’s wedding called Vernon the armpit of the Okanagan. He hailed from Halifax and beamed like an infomercial when he recalled its varied charms, especially the overwhelming hospitality of the people there. His mom would invite hitchhikers to the family house for a home-cooked meal and he painted for me a wall of family photos taken during the holidays that included a veritable busload of orphaned travelers caught on a lonely highway when they should have been with family eating themselves to agony.
He now lives in Northern B.C. and his words recalled for me the point that we remember with fondness the best parts of home and forget with forgiveness the many things that drove us to leave. In countries like Canada, the United States and Australia, which are made up of an ever-growing ratio of people from foreign lands with customs sometimes incompatible with our own, it becomes an issue of public debate as much as personal preference. As descendants of Europe make way for the children of Asia, India and elsewhere, we are challenged by how to make a home for people still loyal to places they wanted to leave that look ever brighter from the distance.
After a day of swimming on secret beaches I have to wonder, how long would I delight in this buffet of sun and swim before remembering that Vernon never gave me a chance to write and survive by it and live out my dream to become a journalist. Sure, I can hardly imagine a place I would rather visit, but why would I not think more about what I like in Toronto and Ottawa than what I miss about the Okanagan? The people that live in those cities love them deeply, and I would be remiss not to join them.
This week my wife and I crossed the country for her sister’s wedding in Edmonton, Alberta and then a trip back to my hometown in Vernon, British Columbia. I’m embarrassed to say that since we got to Vernon, I have been overwhelmed by my love of this sunny valley. Sounding like a sentimental sycophant trying to get my old hometown to love me again after leaving it for so many years, I keep making inane observations about dirt roadways getting upgraded to sidewalk that wasn’t here when I grew up, and restaurants where I washed dishes as a teenager.
Looking over these rolling Okanagan hills that snuggle next to two warm welcoming blue and emerald lakes that lavish themselves on Vernon, I am struck by how much more spectacular this scene is now than it was when I lived here. How much of what I am seeing now is tinged by rose-colored sentiments? Why could I never truly appreciate this place when I lived here? Was it because it sat there ever doleful like a parent that asked for nothing more than that I eat all my sunshine and sandy beaches. Or is it simply my penchant for focusing more on the flaws of Toronto where I now live, or Ottawa, where I spend most of the year? How many likeable features am I missing of those two cities by comparing them to selective memories of the Okanagan in the fruition of late summer.
A man I met at my sister-in-law’s wedding called Vernon the armpit of the Okanagan. He hailed from Halifax and beamed like an infomercial when he recalled its varied charms, especially the overwhelming hospitality of the people there. His mom would invite hitchhikers to the family house for a home-cooked meal and he painted for me a wall of family photos taken during the holidays that included a veritable busload of orphaned travelers caught on a lonely highway when they should have been with family eating themselves to agony.
He now lives in Northern B.C. and his words recalled for me the point that we remember with fondness the best parts of home and forget with forgiveness the many things that drove us to leave. In countries like Canada, the United States and Australia, which are made up of an ever-growing ratio of people from foreign lands with customs sometimes incompatible with our own, it becomes an issue of public debate as much as personal preference. As descendants of Europe make way for the children of Asia, India and elsewhere, we are challenged by how to make a home for people still loyal to places they wanted to leave that look ever brighter from the distance.
After a day of swimming on secret beaches I have to wonder, how long would I delight in this buffet of sun and swim before remembering that Vernon never gave me a chance to write and survive by it and live out my dream to become a journalist. Sure, I can hardly imagine a place I would rather visit, but why would I not think more about what I like in Toronto and Ottawa than what I miss about the Okanagan? The people that live in those cities love them deeply, and I would be remiss not to join them.
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