Walking down memory lane part 2: Have I really changed this much?

Huh- title but no post. time to try this one again I guess.

So I went home for the wedding, as any of you who read this blog will know. Perhaps the one comment that came back the most from the flock of people that I ran into every day for a week was of how much I had changed.

This forces me to reflect: Have I really changed that much in the last 7 years? There are some notable differences, sure- but enough that people feel this incessant need to comment on it every time they see me.

Let's see: Physically, a lot of the same- I'll post my grad picture when I get home along with a recent pic from the wedding. I look older, maybe not wiser, certainly not as thin (SADNESS) but nonetheless, i'm the same person. Huh- I somehow don't think that's what they are referring too.

There are certainly a great deal of changes in terms of my lifestyle- I'm still a student, but an older (and hopefully better) one. I can drink LEGALLY now- priviledge that I indulge in more than I should, I still walk to work/school- but if I could afford it, I TECHNICALLY COULD drive there, I'm no longer dating my long time highschool sweetheart- but that was over by the time I graduated.

So what is the change? To tell you the truth, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that when people disappear for a long time, people create images for themselves of how that person used to be. Often it is largely glorified or inacurrate- kinder or crueller than it should be. If you were to ask someone to describe a kid they knew in highschool that they hadn't seen in 10 years, they likely would remember them differently than they actually were- particularly if they only knew them a little bit.

Katrine-Anne, as these people from the past knew me, no longer exists- she has become a relic of the past- a figment of their imaginations. They can not understand or process the differences that can occur through the years- they weren't there for all the long and difficult moments of tragedy or of glory. I have become to them a portrait frozen in time.

It was very strange to have to give a 7-year-long update to the question of "what have you been up to?". Where do you begin? Well, since I've moved away I have attended university, met people, broken up with them, been sick, gotten better, gone to school, left school, went back to school, etc. It's really quite the monologue when you think about it.

Though I wouldn't say that any of these conversations were unpleasant persay, it was a little disconcerting to think that, to an entire community, I am still 18 years old and bound for a great career as an opera singer. Many of them couldn't understand why I would leave music "behind" (explaining that I just don't want to do it professionally is not an acceptable answer....you can't be an amateur singer.) for an undecided career in poliics (you can't do anything with a poli-sci degree that is not "politics"-another fact I learned up north).

I miss home- I miss the people. But I certainly got the hard wake up calll that you can never really go back.

Zita

Walking down memory lane Part One: The Beauty of the North

I have never been one for retrospective contemplation. Many times in my life I have picked up and walked away from everything never to return again. Though I may visit places of my past, I don't tend to feel the need to, or even the desire to very often. I miss the people and the friends I make but am usually comfortable with only having the memory and accept that friendships generally do not last a life time. The time that one spends in another life is often fleeting and should be cherished while there and remembered while gone but not pined for- you can not relive the past.

Or so I thought. Then I went home for the wedding. This is the first post of a series of reflections I have had during this trip.

Home for me is a small town far up in the Great White Alberta North. It's a place that I remember bittersweetly, as the home of so many of my favorite and saddest childhood memories. It's a place that though I loved, I happily left in my quest for bigger, better things; I didn't look back for somewhere around 7 years. (Well, that's not entirely true- I made a casual appearance there last summer for another friend's wedding but it was so brief that I didn't have much time to take it all in and I spent a few days there 4 years ago but I was so ill that I was confined to bed for most of it). So this week was the first real quality time I had spent back in Falher/Donnelly area, commonly (and appropriately)referred to as the Peace Country.

Though the whole week was a flurry, I am finally now able to organize my thoughts and allow my brain to sink in the experiences, most which were brought on by the beauty of the North. I'm a little like Scarlett O'Hara, I think. I take my stregth, my appreciate for nature and a great deal more of my character from the beauty of my small farming community- I am never happier than when I am there, surrounded by field upon field of gold and silver-blue, spending my nights staring at the dancing northern lights as they paint pictures in the sky, and feeling the warm northern wind on my face and in my hair.

I cried when I first got home.
I couldn't help it.
I doubt anyone could.


If I have ever felt the presence of a Creator, it was during my first five minutes driving the highway that leads me to Falher. All I can remember thinking was that when God (or whatever creative being you may believe it) painted the planet, he must have used the Peace as his palette, with every color imaginable. I wonder if I ever appreciated it as a child- was I ever able to understand the gift that I had in my own backyard? I think I did- I think that it has always serve as my inspiration; though my memories can't capture the image the same way, I think I have always carried the North very closely to my heart. At the very least I hope I did.

I am glad to be back to my every day life- I need to resume a routine and get some sleep. But I would trade a million Edmontons for Canola, Flax, and Forest anyday. Even if it means living in Falher.

Homesick,

Zita

Stay tuned for post number two: The more things change, the more they stay the same