A few months ago, I decided that it might be a good time for me to go on an adventure. I’ve been feeling a bit listless lately and when I go back and read my previous columns, I see a sense of freneticism and unhingedness to my writing. With stories about sexy vegetables in the Coop and unmanageable facial hair, I could see that perhaps Haida Gwaii was beginning to adversely affect my state of mind. A normal person would probably attend this perceived affliction with bouts of meditation or cutting back on alcohol and processed foods, but because I really love alcohol and processed foods and I can barely even spell meditation, I decided to do something a little easier. So I chose to move to Newfoundland.
On the surface, it may seem like it would be more difficult to move to Newfoundland than just maybe making a salad over heating a frozen pizza, but you would be wrong. At least in my case. To move to Newfoundland, all I need to do is find a job there, arrange for the safe and timely transfer of my finances, sell all my belongings that I can’t take with me, say goodbye to all my friends who love me, despite how I smell, find an apartment in a place 7500kms away and learn a new language.
Whereas making a salad involves buying lettuce and whatever else goes into a salad (licorice?), which is waaaaayyyy beyond what I am willing to do.
As people I know find out about my plan, they come by my house to say goodbye. We sit around a small fire in my backyard and enjoy the incredibly beautiful evenings we have been so lucky to have lately. We laugh. We cry (from the smoke not from any kind of fraternal emotions cuz we don’t have those) and recount all the ways I have offended people and made social situations unbearably awkward. It’s been a lot of fun and we laugh until our diapers are full. But it also causes me some doubt as to whether or not I am making the right decision.
Am I an idiot to leave all this love? Is it the right move to turn away from a good job, a beautiful house that only needs another 5 years of work before it can truly be called “livable” and an ocean full of fish that other people catch for me? Might I be making a mistake in abandoning 16 years of merrymaking and self-amusement at the expense of other people’s feelings for the shores of a place that doesn’t even have a real name after 500 years of existence? I can’t answer these questions with any kind of certainty nor will I until I get there and settle in. But I do know this: these last few weeks have made it very difficult to say goodbye.
Sunny days and warm, breezy nights, coupled with an outpouring of love from all my friends and acquaintances, certainly tempt me into staying. But if I am anything, I am a man that does not give into temptation unless that temptation involves chocolate, licorice or very realistic looking toupees and since no one came by with any of those, I’m afraid that I must take the easy route and move to a place where the snow replaces the rain and the accent replaces any notion of understanding what people are talking about.
So godspeed, Haida Gwaii! I tip my dirty, smelly baseball cap to you. Ha’ waa for everything and who knows, maybe I’ll keep contributing to this feisty little paper from the other coast. It all depends on if Stacey wants me to or not. (Although you may have some impact in that department if you write her a letter saying you want to hear more about how microplastics might actually be healthy for us.)
