This is the start of a new thread or a series of conversations with myself (and anyone who happens to stumble across my ramblings).
I am thinking of moving.......again. I appreciate that thousands if not millions of people move every day. Many of them move even further away than I am thinking of. Of the millions of people who move each day, many if not most of them are gambling (and losing) far more than I am. But still, for me, moving is a big deal - even thinking about moving 500 kilometers to a different part of the province is mentally exhausting. Moving 5,000 kilometers across the country is almost beyond thinking about. The very thought of moving could make one question one's sanity. While I am surprised that I have I have come to the point where moving is a possibility, people I have talked to are not. In fact it seems as if they are surprised that it has taken so long for me to make the decision.
So why am I doing it? Why would anyone think about moving for the fifth time in 10-11 years? That is an absurd amount of work and expense. One could think, with some legitimacy, that I didn't know what I wanted or that I was infected with a particularly virulent form of the " grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" syndrome. The fact of the matter is that I do know what I want (but what I want/need changes over time) and with one exception, I have only made the previous four moves after much soul searching, anxiety and profound reluctance.Three of the four moves have been painful and even as I watched the truck with all of my possessions drive away I would have done almost anything to change my mind. But I didn't then and I suspect that I will not this time.
I am 66. While my health, with one small exception is reasonably good, I can feel that my body (and sometimes my mind) is getting older. I don't move as much or as fast as I use to. While I like to think that I use my energy in a smarter, better planned way, the fact is that I have less energy to use. And there are certainly days when I wonder if my brain is deteriorating at a faster rate than my body.
I live alone, in a beautiful city with all of the needed supports. I have a great dentist, a doctor and a cardiologist. Peterborough has great food, music, two post secondary institutions, lots of green space and nice people. It is also five hours by road from my daughter and six ( not counting getting to the airport) hours by plane from where my son lives.When (not if) I need some help (as I age) both are too far away to help. If I needed a lot of help, they would have to make some major sacrifices to be there. While I know that they would want to help, it seems to me that that is far too much to ask.
It is not that I don't have friends in Peterborough - I do. Some of them I have known for well over twenty years. But most are my age. All are busy, all have families. I don't think that that they are that much healthier than I am. While it is tempting to fantasize that we would all grow old together - and then die around the same time - that seems an unlikely fantasy.
So if I need to move closer to family, and given that one "child" lives in central Canada and the other on the West Coast - where should I move to? It is not as easy of a question as it would seem to be.Moving
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Sunday, August 16, 2015
On the Road Again 2015 Interim #10
When I was first invited to Hornby a few years ago I was warned that one needed to get a ride from someone on the Buckley Bay to Denman ferry as there was very little chance of getting a ride from anyone once on Denman Island. Once the ferry traffic has disembarked from the ferry, there is no one else travelling to the other side of the island to catch the next ferry to Hornby. This complication was the primary reason why I had not visited Hornby. I don't like asking for a ride. I don't mind standing somewhere with my thumb out - if people choose not to stop - I don't feel as if it is a rejection of me personally. But if I ask them face to face and they say no - then it is a direct rejection. I prefer to not be exposed to such possibilities. It also feels like begging or asking for charity - I don't like that feeling either. Which may be a bit strange as I spend some summers travelling through the help/charity of other people.
I, because my hosts had picked me up in Nanaimo on their way to Hornby, had had no problem getting across Denman Island the first time. I was concerned however, about my return trip. On Wednesday morning my host drove me to the Hornby ferry terminal. He had only time to ask one driver if they were going all the way (the answer was no) before the ferry was loaded. I walked to the front of the small ferry and hoped for the best. I was the first off the boat and as soon as I could, I stuck out my thumb hoping that someone who was going across the island and ideally south on highway #19 towards Duncan would pick me up. I was fortunate in that the person who my host had spoken to took pity on me and while he hadn't planned on going to the ferry terminal, did so just to drop me off.
I was feeling pretty lucky and in my silliness assumed that the hard part of the trip was over. I was wrong. It is a bit of a hike up the hill from the Buckley Bay terminal to the entrance ramp on the highway 19 heading south. While I suspect the ambient temperature was about the same as it had been on the smaller islands, the lack of a sea breeze and the heat being reflected off of the dark pavement made it feel much hotter. Halfway up the ramp there is a notice saying that pedestrians (and farm machinery) were not allowed on the four lane divided highway. It is perhaps interesting to note that bicycles are allowed. The shoulders are very wide and are great for hitchhiking and biking. I remain unconvinced that someone on a bike is at less of a risk than a pedestrian. At the very top of the ramp there was a large sign stating that hitchhiking was not allowed and that drivers could get charged for stopping. Clearly not a spot that was conducive to getting a ride.
After experimenting with standing at various places over an hour or two - I gave up following the law by standing by the entrance ramp and headed down the highway for a kilometer or two. I felt that I needed to be far away from the sign warning drivers to have a reasonable chance of getting someone to stop. The speed limit on this part of the highway is 120 KPH. That is pretty fast and there were times when I wished the shoulders were a wee bit wider.
I got my first ride from a young lady from one of the First Nation communities. I say young because she looked no more than 16 - very small/petite. She was driving a large pick-up truck. Within a few minutes we had established that I knew her uncle on Salt Spring, that she had at least one child, and that I was her first hitchhiker (she had seen me from the back as I was walking along and thought I was a woman). It was a very efficient conversation. She was bright, enthusiastic about life - an absolute charmer. I think I must have misjudged her age by half a decade or so. She was just too mature and knowledgeable to be only 16. Just before she made the turn to Port Albernie (which meant that I had to get out), my driver said that she was doing some work developing a community plan for her community. I passed on some quick suggestions about lending cameras to the young people and the elders so that they could take pictures of their favourite parts of their community. This helps the planners develop community plans based on strengths as opposed to looking at what the community doesn't have. Community plans that evolve from strengths are always, in my mind, better than plans that evolve from deficits.
In relatively quick succession I got a ride from an older gentleman who had taught welding at the local community college for 18 years and a Duncan contractor who had a crew of three or four working for him. Each of the gentlemen were interesting and we could have talked for another hour or two without a break. In fact the last driver and I chatted in the parking lot of Thrifty's for ten minutes. It was a relatively short walk to my son's house and I was home by 4:30. It had been a long day. I had only travelled a fairly short distance but it was a tricky hitchhike considering that I had had to cross two islands, take two ferries and encourage three drivers to ignore a really silly law about not stopping to pick up hitchhikers.
I, because my hosts had picked me up in Nanaimo on their way to Hornby, had had no problem getting across Denman Island the first time. I was concerned however, about my return trip. On Wednesday morning my host drove me to the Hornby ferry terminal. He had only time to ask one driver if they were going all the way (the answer was no) before the ferry was loaded. I walked to the front of the small ferry and hoped for the best. I was the first off the boat and as soon as I could, I stuck out my thumb hoping that someone who was going across the island and ideally south on highway #19 towards Duncan would pick me up. I was fortunate in that the person who my host had spoken to took pity on me and while he hadn't planned on going to the ferry terminal, did so just to drop me off.
I was feeling pretty lucky and in my silliness assumed that the hard part of the trip was over. I was wrong. It is a bit of a hike up the hill from the Buckley Bay terminal to the entrance ramp on the highway 19 heading south. While I suspect the ambient temperature was about the same as it had been on the smaller islands, the lack of a sea breeze and the heat being reflected off of the dark pavement made it feel much hotter. Halfway up the ramp there is a notice saying that pedestrians (and farm machinery) were not allowed on the four lane divided highway. It is perhaps interesting to note that bicycles are allowed. The shoulders are very wide and are great for hitchhiking and biking. I remain unconvinced that someone on a bike is at less of a risk than a pedestrian. At the very top of the ramp there was a large sign stating that hitchhiking was not allowed and that drivers could get charged for stopping. Clearly not a spot that was conducive to getting a ride.
After experimenting with standing at various places over an hour or two - I gave up following the law by standing by the entrance ramp and headed down the highway for a kilometer or two. I felt that I needed to be far away from the sign warning drivers to have a reasonable chance of getting someone to stop. The speed limit on this part of the highway is 120 KPH. That is pretty fast and there were times when I wished the shoulders were a wee bit wider.
I got my first ride from a young lady from one of the First Nation communities. I say young because she looked no more than 16 - very small/petite. She was driving a large pick-up truck. Within a few minutes we had established that I knew her uncle on Salt Spring, that she had at least one child, and that I was her first hitchhiker (she had seen me from the back as I was walking along and thought I was a woman). It was a very efficient conversation. She was bright, enthusiastic about life - an absolute charmer. I think I must have misjudged her age by half a decade or so. She was just too mature and knowledgeable to be only 16. Just before she made the turn to Port Albernie (which meant that I had to get out), my driver said that she was doing some work developing a community plan for her community. I passed on some quick suggestions about lending cameras to the young people and the elders so that they could take pictures of their favourite parts of their community. This helps the planners develop community plans based on strengths as opposed to looking at what the community doesn't have. Community plans that evolve from strengths are always, in my mind, better than plans that evolve from deficits.
In relatively quick succession I got a ride from an older gentleman who had taught welding at the local community college for 18 years and a Duncan contractor who had a crew of three or four working for him. Each of the gentlemen were interesting and we could have talked for another hour or two without a break. In fact the last driver and I chatted in the parking lot of Thrifty's for ten minutes. It was a relatively short walk to my son's house and I was home by 4:30. It had been a long day. I had only travelled a fairly short distance but it was a tricky hitchhike considering that I had had to cross two islands, take two ferries and encourage three drivers to ignore a really silly law about not stopping to pick up hitchhikers.
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