So, I finally saw the obnoxious blog, I Hate Van, and what more can I say but what a wanker! The author claims to be a prominent local politician and being a coward as politicians often tend to be he insists on anonymity. He does say that he belongs to a visible minority, and seems like rather a miserable fellow. I can't say that I entirely disagree with him though. I'm not going to say that Vancouverites do too much yoga but yoga is something that I do not do and likely never will. Likewise tai chi. I don't feel that I can comment on Vancouverites being standoffish and shallow and perhaps anonymous non-white miserable politician and I inhabit different social circles. I also find his ranting against vegetarians a bit ludicrous and tiresome, being myself vegetarian. His liberal use of bad language doesn't exactly endear me either.
I love Vancouver. I was born here and will likely die here. I had to begin to travel a bit before I could really begin to appreciate this city. I say this after my own share of unpleasant experiences of living in Vancouver. When I became homeless I felt that Vancouver, the city of my birth and nurturing, had brutally betrayed me. I also find our crisis of homelessness and our ridiculous high cost of housing to be something criminal. On the other hand our current civic government and many local citizens are stepping up to the plate in defence and advocacy for our homeless residents though more needs to be done to very forcefully persuade the provincial and federal levels of government to pony up.
I began to love Vancouver following six months, September to February, spent in Toronto in the seventies. It wasn't that there was no snow since Toronto had been through a February thaw and one day the mercury even hit twenty. But in Vancouver, throughout the winter, everything is still green, not as green as during the summer but green enough to suggest that winter is but a cold and chilly blink of the eye between autumn and spring. For two years I was in love with this city then it all became again tiresomely familiar.
In 1991 I was thirty-five and my mother died from cancer leaving me a little money on which I spent a couple of months in Europe. Even after two and a half months of culture and history and such beautiful gothic architecture that could make one weep the natural beauty, the wide open space and especially the wonderful good and fresh food that we take for granted in Vancouver opened my eyes again to the bounty we ill appreciate.
In 1994 I sold some paintings that paid my way to Costa Rica. Finally a worthy rival. Still there was something about coming home, and that home being Vancouver, that left me feeling all warm and glad when I got off the plane even though our summer weather still felt a bit chilly after two weeks spent in tropical climes.
I have been travelling every year now since 2008, spending a month or longer in Mexico, Costa Rica and soon, Colombia. Each country has history, culture, charm and beauty that I can only wish for my dear city. I am always glad to come home. The traffic, the noise, the dirt, the toxic air and water, in places the squalor and poverty that comes with the appealing travel package has done more to make me homesick than anything else I could imagine. I return home to quiet Vancouver, civil Vancouver, clean Vancouver, fragrant fresh air, mountains, ocean, forests and wonderful food and pure sweet tap water Vancouver. I return to a country with a reasonably sound public health care system and a social safety net, even though it is unravelling.
I also come home to street homelessness, poverty and our own kind of squalor and this reminds me not to get smug.
No comments:
Post a Comment