Vancouver Journal #1

For those who are new, this is a break from my typical poem + reflections post to share on my move from NYC to Canada for grad school, a big life event that many of you have cheered me on through. Poetry will be back next week!

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my photo - my first time downtown

Well, friends, I made it! I’m sitting in my new dining room almost a full week into being here in Canada, all of which is a crazy sentence to write. I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to do life updates on substack but since this is the calm before the storm of classes starting, I figured I should seize the moment.

The Anticipation

the many emotions of parting with my wonderful airport crew; flying over Moose Jaw!

Before I reflect on Vancouver and Regent and all my first impressions, I want to paint a picture of leaving, because it’s just as important as arriving.

I was incredibly anxious the week before my move. I think it all hit me when I finally wrapped up work and say goodbye to my dear coworkers and the office where I’ve spent so much time the past 2.5 years. I stood in the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror, remembering all the times God met me there—when I was catching my breath in the midst of intense anxiety, when I was laughing from some lighthearted conversation with a coworker, when I was tired from sleeping badly or worried about the tickle in my throat or exuberant about a successful project. That bathroom, that office, held so many memories, and while I’d prepared myself for saying goodbye to the people there, I’d forgotten the pain of leaving that place. Even the walk home through Times Square gave me a lump in my throat (not too big of one, though … I will not miss that commute.)

And then it was just a gauntlet of anxiety for the next four days as the reality of everything ending seized my body. There were several nights I slept for only two hours, and I stumbled through the days afterward in a fog of exhaustion and fear. I felt nauseous most of the time, and eating filled me with dread. I took a Motrin for days to control the stress fever that lit up my the back of my neck. (Isn’t it fun how our bodies respond to things?)

I realized somewhere in the midst of it that the anticipation of leaving dug up every one of my deepest fears and insecurities. All I could remember were the times—college being the most drastic—when I had desperately wanted to do something, and I hadn’t been able to.¹ All I could remember were the times my body had failed me, and all I could imagine was the ways it would fail me again and take this dream too. As my friends planned beautiful gatherings and special moments around my leaving, all I could think was how I was going to drop the ball and let them down and make a mess of all the goodbyes. I was going to leave everyone in a state of chaos and they’d all breathe a sigh of relief that I was finally done burdening them … yes, it sounds irrational to say now, but you know how it goes when you’re in the thick of it.

I say all this because as I describe all the good things that have happened since, I want to rewrite the story in my head that accompanies big changes. I want to remember how scared I was and how every fear melted like a morning mist under the sun of reality. I’m trying to burrow into my bones the memories not only of the times that my body betrayed me and my hopes ran aground, but also the times that my body help up and better than I could imagine actually happened. And I want to say it for you, too, in case you feel a bit bruised right now and look at my life and feel that you’re just too broken for good things like this.

My friend looked in the eyes as we sat on the couch the night before I flew out and said, “I want you to remember this: you didn’t run out.” I didn’t run out of energy or capacity, and I didn’t run out of the love and grace of my friends or my God. I truly felt, and I told them this, that I had an army around me carrying me across the finish line (which was Newark airport, the sexiest of finish lines).

The Reality

so much beauty

So: I made it to the airport, on the plane, across the border, into my new house. With my own room! And windows! (I say this because I came from a four-person-two-room-one-bath basement apartment.) My kind housemates taped a welcome sign on my door, took me out for a sushi lunch, showed me grocery stores, and even hauled a desk from Facebook Marketplace into my room on my second day here. I got various library cards and IDs, unpacked and organized my room (complete with a new art gallery wall that really makes it feel like home), visited downtown Vancouver twice, went to the beach several times at both sunset and sunrise (some of those visits were failed attempts to recover a lost bracelet, which was the great tragedy of the week), walked around Stanley Park, and finished some writing projects I wanted to complete before classes begin. Basically: thank you, God.

It was strange to have so much free time, and there were moments when I felt uncomfortable and unmoored with so few set plans and expectations. Who am I if I’m not checking something off a list?? But then I sat on my floor and put my hands on my stomach and breathed in and out and listened to the distant noises through my open window and felt the distinct lines on my bare foot where the sunlight fell on it. And I thought: this too is good. This too honors God.

I look back on this week and feel it in my body as a week full of space, an abundance of time that I needed. I slept long hours and took naps. I walked many thousands of steps a day. I settled all the little things in my room that make it feel like my space. I know the full-to-the-brim days are coming so I’m trying to savor these.

My main reflection on the past week is how non-disoriented (just plain oriented?) I’ve felt. Normally when I move or travel somewhere new, I feel a little off the first few days. But this time, the most surreal part happened during the before, as Newark airport came into view across the highway. It happened the morning it hit me that I had only twenty-four hours left in New York. Once I got on the plane, I felt sad and shaky and amazed but mostly I just felt right. And that feeling has stayed with me. I’m so thankful. I think I’d anticipated this for so long that the overwhelming relief of the reality of it superseded anything else.

Two more notes on things people might find interesting: First, Vancouver impressions! Here’s what I like about it so far:

• The thorough recycling system, excellent bike paths, and lack of AC remind me of Germany in all the best ways.

• My bedroom window is always open and I feel like the fresh air is literally healing me.

• The vast parks right next to urban downtowns is my ideal.

• Downtown Vancouver reminds me of Dumbo/Brooklyn Heights/Midtown East/Batter Park City, which is all lovely. It’s more the suburbs that feel very different—I haven’t found an equivalent to Brooklyn or Harlem (although I’m sure there are patches of that in places I haven’t seen yet). It just transitions from urban metropolis into calm, green neighborhoods with gardens and hedges, which is both beautiful and weird to me.

• I’m surrounded by water! I’ve decided this always needs to be the case (as if I didn't know that already).

• There have been some heartwarming moments on the buses, because public transportation here is pretty relational, as people look out for moms with strollers, the elderly, the disabled, and children in ways I’m not used to.

On that note, things I don’t love or am still adjusting to:

• That interactiveness on public transportation is also annoying to me, lol. I’m used to barging my way in and out of subway cars and turning on my blank stare and generally ignoring what happens around me. There are all these subtle etiquette rules and expectations that I have to learn.

• I miss walking two minutes to a bodega, dry cleaner, bakery, and ten coffee shops. I love the peace of my new neighborhood but it’s not like living in a city.

• There’s no Target—and, worse, no real Target equivalent. I’ve figured out where to go for most things but I didn’t realize how much I relied on big stores like that haha.

• I miss my people, of course. I miss being in ten active groupchats with tons of plans to choose from each night. I miss knowing everyone at church and sitting on the couch at night reading next to my roommates.

• The diversity here is different from what I’m used to. It’s far more Asian, and there are almost no Hispanic or Black communities (that I’ve seen). This obviously isn’t bad, it’s just a very noticeable difference.

• Good lord, the prices. They’ve actually quite comparable to New York prices, once you do the exchange rate (and I’m lucky that I’m still earning USD for a bit), but it’s startling to see such high numbers on all my receipts. Back to my broke student budget!

More thoughts about Vancouver and Canada to come, I am sure!

The second thing I wanted to note was the classes I'm taking, since that is why I am here in the first place. I'm doing a required class on theology and life, intro to Hebrew, and contemporary art and theology. The latter is an elective that I angsted about because there were several others that also looked good and felt a bit more immediately relevant to my interests of the theology of embodiment and suffering. But one of my main regrets from my undergrad is not doing more art-related, creative classes, and I am also a big believer in the liberal arts ideal, that interdisciplinary classes are not only valuable but essential to forming you both as a person and as an expert in your field. I’m far from being an expert in any field anyway, so now is the time to branch out and try fun stuff. And I believe in serendipity, that I will discover ideas and language in this class that will enrich my other research interests and make them come alive in ways that they wouldn’t have if I just stuck to the obviously applicable classes.

I have orientation this week and classes begin next Monday, so you may hear from me about them—or you may not, depending on how crazy things are. But I’ve got some poetry posts scheduled at the very least! Thank you all again for the ways you have cheered me on from afar. I have felt it, and it made things easier.

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In Other Words…

Book Reviews 📚

I’ve caught up on all my reviews and am, alas, three books behind my goal. I’m trying to use this last week before classes start to finish a few more—we’ll see! Some real winners this round:

• Handle with Care: How Jesus Redeems the Power of Touch in Life and Ministry by Lore Wilbert | 5 stars

  • This is the book I wish I could give to every church congregation in the U.S. We need to think about how we touch each other—and how we don’t. We’re (rightfully) cautious about the dangers of touch, but the solution isn’t to just stop touching. Jesus offers a better way, and Lore does a beautiful, brilliant job of inviting us to consider it.

• The Book of Hours by Rainer Maria Rilke | 5 stars

  • Haunting, surprising, honest, relentless poem-prayers to God (mostly). All that I hoped it would be. On to his sonnets and elegies next!

• Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton | 5 stars (reread)

  • This reread cemented this novel about fathers and sons in early-Apartheid South Africa as one of my favorites. Paton sees the world the way I hope to.

Happy early fall (Sept 1 marks that season for me, whatever the lunar calendar says)!

to staying awake—

Aberdeen

1. New readers, you can learn more about my journey with chronic pain and the ways it’s impacted my life here or in my Plough article.