The True North Strong & Free

We've returned, from the land of the mosquitos and the maple leaves, and the eternally young grandparents. It's always such a rush to go go go, and so hard to get back into the car and come home.

When I was young, and still dating Noah (pre-Ark days, doncha know), I couldn't sleep the night before we'd leave to go to Canada. Those were the days when no passport was required, the border patrol didn't mind we were travelling in the back of a truck with only a shell to protect us, and we had to knock on 2 sets of sliding windows to report our need of a "snake-infested" rest area. Those were the days of no-air-conditioning in the old Suburban and cheap gasoline... Where we'd count the telephone poles and actually play the A-B-C game.

Oh, I love where I live where my children play with their grandparents and cousins---but oh, I miss where home is and the flag blows stiff in a chinook and the Hutterite granaries are built into the sides of the coolees. Each year, as I leave, I realize it's one more year that I'll never live in Canada again. Of course, I know that as long as my parents and family live in the States, I'll never live in Canada again, but it's one more click of the door on time. One more moment, one more realization that time is not how one would have it, but of how one creates it.

I asked my sister Kristen if she didn't feel like we were living the same week over and over again, with a year interspersed. She replied that we were actually living the same Sunday afternoon over and over again, and even the conversation was only slightly different. What have they done in Frog Bottom? Who's built their house in Wally World? How did Disneyland get built in our old cow pasture? Of course, that's been Scovil land as long as anyone could remember!!

Dad had his 40th high school reunion this year. Of a class of 50, 31 one classmate were there. 8 of them had already retired and asked when Dad would retire. I can't imagine a day when he might, and yet... some day he *might.* How strange that seems. I guess time creeps ever forward. I noticed that the table I colored on as a child is in Joan's kitchen, and the table from Joan's kitchen is now in Steele's, but the overlap of the familiar is always there. The more things change---the more they stay the same.

O, Canada, when next we meet again,

I meet you there with my American Passport in hand

Oh, they all might call it Canada, but I'll always call it home!