Back in the Air
Thursday August 31, 2023
It feels like a long time since I’ve been at the airport - really only five and a half months - but it seemed momentous to be back at Pearson on this sunny Friday morning as we embarked on our flight to Newfoundland.
Summer has been busy. Just the way I like it. There’s been festivals and food and events. There’s been hikes and dinners and visits. There’s been cause for celebration, and moments of grief and reflection. I always tell people how alive the city is during summer and this year is the first year without COVID restrictions, so people were keen to get back into how things were pre-2020.
I’d basically recovered from my back injury by the time Charlotte, my old flatmate, had come to visit me in May. She was here for an academic conference at York University, but had a few days to explore the highlights of Toronto. I took her to all my favourite restaurants; there were too many to go to and she didn’t have enough stomach space for all the ice cream. We took a day trip to Niagara on the Lake and had lunch at a winery specialising in ice wine cocktails, and then did the Whirlpool Cable Car and the boat tour into the Niagara Falls in the afternoon. The next day, we went to the zoo and suffered through 90 minutes on the 401 because they’d closed all but one lane on Collectors for construction. She was really lucky on this trip; she managed to see a raccoon when I took her to High Park Zoo, and a groundhog wandering the zoo grounds, as well as my two favourite neighbourhood cats, Dobby and Lhasa.
Rohit was in from Calgary for a couple of days for work, so I caught up with him for the usual dumplings in Chinatown. I went to the Pride Parade too, which was a really welcoming, jovial atmosphere. We had a hotpot and barbeque picnic out in Milliken Park for Canada Day and stayed to watch the fireworks. I went to watch a couple of drone shows too, one out in Woodbine Beach and the other by Ontario Place.
Perhaps the most significant event in the past few months is that I’ve become a dual New Zealand and Canadian citizen. I drove all the way out to Mississauga to attend my citizenship ceremony with 100 other people, and we were presided over by Judge Albert Wong, who was born in Malaysia and came to Canada and served in the armed forces. His story was fascinating and he was hilarious, and the fact that we were both born in Malaysia made the ceremony so much more poignant. It was a memorable event, and a few weeks later, I got my passport.
This is important because I’ll be travelling the to US next month for a work conference, and since I had to surrender my PR card at the ceremony, the Canadian passport is my only ticket back into the country. I’m looking forward to the event though, the company had planned to do it in Vancouver but Beyoncé’s concert was at the same time and we couldn’t get accommodation, so we shifted it to Los Angeles. I’m hoping there will be visits to Universal and Disneyland!
I mentioned in my last post that in May, Mum's eldest sister passed away. Imagine my horror when, on a Sunday night after badminton in July, I got a text from my sister that another of Mum's sisters passed away, this time the aunt that was closest in age to her. I managed to see her in December, and in my heart I knew it may be the last opportunity I had, but I didn't expect it to be this soon. This one really hurt. On the night that my mother passed away, my aunt was already on her way to Auckland from Kuala Lumpur, unaware that she was too late. She was devastated when she arrived. Because of my citizenship ceremony, I wasn't able to leave the country, but I still tried to watch what I could on Zoom. In her memory, I snuck "Power of Your Love" into the church service the following Sunday. We sang it at Mum's funeral too, its poignant first line "Lord I come to you; let my heart be changed, renewed" so rich in meaning for the occasion.
The week ahead will be a refreshing break from the busyness of summer, as we explore Canada’s easternmost province and all its rugged beauty. Like New Zealand, Newfoundland's scenery is largely unspoiled and untouched by human civilisation, so it's not uncommon for the best views to be hidden behind strenuous four hour hikes; in fact, our trip highlight is the eight hour hike up Gros Morne, the second highest peak on the island. Looking forward to it!
Posted by Jeremy at 3:57am on Thursday August 31, 2023 :: 0 comments :: 