Sunday afternoon saw me ducking through the dusty second levels of an antique store in Chinatown. Yes, I found many things and I didn't buy anything, but I know exactly where to go when I'm ready to buy an oversized, hand-carved armoire. I just need to figure out where to put it first. I had one of those What am I doing here? moments when I realized my phone was still muted from the night before and none of the boys knew where I was.
I'm just here, I thought. In a strange city, in a strange neighborhood, upstairs in a strange little cramped store full of red lanterns and golden candles. Surrounded by people who don't speak English and without a dollar in my handbag, just my mastercard and my silent Blackberry.
I returned downstairs swiftly, making my way to the front of the shop, to the street outside where I ran into Ben before I noticed I wasn't actually outside yet. He had followed me and was waiting patiently at the bottom of the stairs, because going up is for small people, and he is like a bull in a china shop in most of these places, a huge beast of a man trying to navigate aisles full of delicate imports piled floor to ceiling, with signs everywhere saying if you break it, you buy it.
Familiarity in a face I have studied for years and in it I see the mirrored expression of wonderment at how we ended up here where everything is strange and new and we have to adjust and change and bend and adapt, almost like a miniature geographical evolution in gentle surroundings, as change hopefully should be but isn't.
Usually it's quick and painful and dark and sudden, like a rollercoaster that dips into a tunnel before shooting out into the sunlight and you swear you'll never ever ever go on it again. Then someone forces you to ride it until you vomit into the grass behind the lineup and they admit they pushed you too hard.
Yes, usually it's like that.
Today we went up into the mountains again. We're trying to fit in tiny afternoons of exploring so we can get to know the area, get to know what there is to do and to find fun and a break from unpacking and putting things away and because we are used to embracing t-shirt weather because we spent too long on the prairies and we're used to having a few weeks only to be outdoors in the sun without seventeen layers of wool and thinsulate between our flesh and certain death.
Habitual, ridiculous.
That doesn't happen here but we were out anyway, in spite of the cool cloudy weather. I have a bit of color in my face. The children are turning brown. Ben even got a little pink to make him less pale and he won't be rocking his vampire completion into this summer and is going to have to plan for something different, perhaps rockstar farmer or tan-pire. I'm not sure which but it makes me laugh.
The boys have gold fever suddenly, a thirst for vacation and a yearning for a huge block of time off just to keep going, keep exploring what's around the next corner or the next bend in the road. Maybe it's a symptom of wanderlust or the hallmark of true nomadism. Maybe it's just to make the strange familiar now.
Maybe I'm crazy and nothing will ever be familiar again.
Maybe I'm just good at playing along and finding neat things in dark places.
