On an emotion level, it feels as if two months have passed, maybe even two years.
Vancouver and I… it was love at first sight and it is love at second sight.
I totally blend in here.
Most of the time, it really feels as if I have a life here.
A great life -to be precise- with a past and also a future.
I have my own Canadian phone number and I know my way home from almost anywhere in the city. I know my neighbors by name and I have my favorite market places. I know where all the pots and pans are stored in the kitchen and I know that “Banyen’s Bookstore” had its annual sales this weekend. Even better; I was there today, all by myself. J
With a few new “Carlos Castaneda’s” in my backpack, I drove home on my bike, without any map or any help from anyone! “Home”… where there’s people who hug me when I walk into the door.
I really love being here.
Tasting a new culture opens my eyes in so many different ways. It enriches me on numerous levels.
I get to grow into a foreign language with ‘daily life’ as my teacher. I’m getting free classes all day every day. Imagine that!?
I get to see so many different perspectives through the eyes of all the people that I meet.
It already made me more humble and even more curious about ‘life’.
There’s tons of things that I love about Vancouver .
Above all that, there’s so many more adventures yet to be experienced
and so many new friends yet to meet.
What is there not to love?
I realized yesterday how little I had thought about Belgium during the past week. A little shame accompanied that thought. How could I think so seldom about the people that I love so deeply and so dearly?
But then I realized that I had been really ‘present’ the whole time. There was simply no room for other thoughts than the ones that came with the experience at hand.
I am learning to be "present" here, 'cause when my mind starts to travel into the past… I get really confused. Part of me is still attached to my Belgian life and the comfort that comes with that.
For as long as I remember, I’ve been surrounded by a web of love in Belgium and that web has not been spun here yet. I guess it takes a little time.
And thus whenever I ponder on the acquaintance of "my first home”, I get a little sad.
Those moments are my greatest teachers in disguise. They teach me to shift my focus from the external world to my inner world. And what I discovered there, is that nothing existential has changed one bit;
I’m still there. I’m still there…for “me”.
I’m still the one who’s listening.
I’m still the one who is aware of everything.
That has never changed.
Happiness
feels the same here in Vancouver
and laughter sounds the same.
Sadness feels just the same here
and tears still taste the same.
Love feels exactly the same here in Vancouver
and it contains just as many colors and flavors.
Bottom line; no matter how different the outside looks,
the inner landscape has stayed intact.
And that makes me throw my hands in the air
while I’m having the ride of my life in Vancouver BC.
and laughter sounds the same.
Sadness feels just the same here
and tears still taste the same.
Love feels exactly the same here in Vancouver
and it contains just as many colors and flavors.
Bottom line; no matter how different the outside looks,
the inner landscape has stayed intact.
And that makes me throw my hands in the air
while I’m having the ride of my life in Vancouver BC.
