(Late Post: Summer 2017)
One of my all-time favourite TV shows is NBC’s Community, from creator Dan Harmon. It remains the only show I’ve ever willingly bought the DVD box set for. I remember randomly coming across the pilot episode one evening and thinking to myself, “This is hilarious!” A group of diverse characters who attend the same community college and who themselves form a community. Brilliant!
Like typical TV viewers, I generally just watched Community to be entertained; and it did that very well. I recently came to realize, however, that there was more to the show – a big fat (important) travelling message – that I had never quite clued in on until now, in doing a four-month internship away from home in Ottawa this summer: The key to discovering where your place is in this world lies in discovering where your community is.
And no, I’m not saying to go to community college. I am however suggesting that the people you’re with can really make a place you’re in.
Be it the country’s capital, Ottawa is a beautiful place: very clean, close to nature and outdoor activities, and very family-friendly. All great features which would seemingly make it the perfect place to live. Yet when people continually asked me, “How are you liking Ottawa?” I could only tell them the truth. It’s a great place – but it’s not for me.
For most of this summer, I’ve struggled to understand why I’ve felt this way: I rented a beautiful apartment on the edge of downtown, not too deep in the mix but not too far from it either. I have a fascinating job that has taught me lessons for my professional (and personal) career which I will carry with me forever. And I’ve been given the chance to relax and get in touch with my own self-care after a year of doing a lot that wasn’t always the best for me.
Yet, all I can recall feeling every other day this summer was just a strong want to return home and be with my loved ones. Shocking for me, the self-proclaimed lover of travels and eternal wanderer. Still, the feelings were there, and, as much as I tried to go out, meet new people and discover new spaces, they never went away.
Things became a bit clearer after attending a party with an old schoolmate. While there, I got into conversation with a young woman who reiterated to me my exact feelings, but from the opposite end. Unlike me, she had moved from Ottawa to Toronto to do her schooling. And unlike me, her core community of friends and family were here, not in Toronto. She proceeded to tell me how difficult it was for her at times to stay positive in a city where you can’t find your place or your people.
And so, it all made sense. Being a part of a community wherever you are is so important, even when far from home.
I had never truly understood this before because I had always been at stages in my life where I was open to discovering new places and people, and developing new, deep – though brief – friendships. However, I realized this summer that I’ve taken a shift in how I develop and maintain relationships, and I’ve come to realize a lot of who I am and my sense of belonging really flows from those who I love and surround me.
And that’s what it was like in Community too. Though the characters were in a community college overflowing with new, different people to meet and get to know, the dynamic energy between Troy and Abed was unbreakable. When Troy (aka Childish Gambino) left the show, things weren’t the same and Abed wasn’t his full creative, loony self. Furthermore, when Piers got sick, the mood of the group changed because one of their own could not be fully present.
Community is a hilarious show. It’s got wit, oozing creativity and a weighty moral of the story to boot.
If you’ve got a community, cherish it. If you don’t, keep searching to find yours.
À la prochaine. #SixSeasonsAndAMovie
Moi
Music of the Moment:
An Ode to the Trips
You know those friends that always say they can’t chill because they’re “busy”? Well, travel blog, sorry for being that friend for a while.
This year has indeed been a busy one. Still, I did manage to get in a bit of site-seeing and linguistic exercise when I could catch my breath. As such, before the year starts afresh, I thought it best to take a look back at some of the traveling I forgot to mention but which were nevertheless unforgettable.
The last time we spoke, I described my beautiful adventures to the #westside in Vancouver, B.C.; yet, that hadn’t been the rest of the best.
Just after that trip, I was whisked away by my knight-in-shining armour (boyfriend) to the wonderful island of Hawaii (Boston, Massachusetts) for a relaxing vacation (a week-long business trip). At first, I was less than enthused: “You mean the place with those donuts, yeah?” Craving for more adventure, I went along anyways.
Downtown Pier: Best clam chowder ever.
Surprisingly, it was an absolute blast! Our Airbnb was near to everything: the universities; historic monuments; and the various downtown cores. Boston is also very walkable, a feature we loved and took advantage of.
But the best part of the trip came right at the end.
One of my favourite podcasts to listen to, made in part by the New York Times, is produced at a local Boston radio station, WBUR, called Modern Love. Earlier in the week, I had the idea that maybe we could drop in to say hello and fangirl for a few minutes about how great the show is to the show’s host.
Unfortunately, once we got there, we were told that the host was busy. Instead, they invited us to meet the show’s producer, Anne Marie Sivertson, who spontaneously gave us a tour of the station. Cool!
But it gets better.
Harvard Stadium: the American Dream.
She then proceeded to sit us down and offer us the chance to ask her anything about the show, a great treat as I had so many questions. To top it all off, she offered us free tickets to see a live taping of another popular podcast, The Moth, and gave us her contact info to stay in touch. Much better than donuts. Awesome.
The next destination took me just across the border to Connecticut (pronounced /CONNECT-IT-CUT:/ according to my ever stubborn, Jamaican mother) for a cricket tournament. Boy, was that a trip.
Though it coincided with my birthday, the trip was anything but celebratory. Stuck on a bus full of country, city and “farrin” Jamaicans all-in-one from morning till night; I can still hear the slams of dominos echoing in my ear drums to this day. Between the cricket matches and discount shopping stops, not much time was left to explore the city.
Again, what a trip.
La chute Montmorency: une belle vue.
Fast-forward a few months, it was as if I took a trip back in time to visit the place where it all began: Vieux-Quèbec, Quèbec.
My travel bug really took its first bite when I worked at a musical camp there in Gr. 11 for five weeks, away from anything I really knew. That trip was the first, since migrating, that really made me feel different, and which forced me to open my eyes to the differences between cultures; even one that was just about a day’s drive up north.
This was probably the best trip to end on, too, for this year, as it brought back a few of those feelings and thoughts of discovery I experienced during that period of my life. In fact, as I write this post from my family home for the holidays, I recall a night a few days ago I spent going through some of my old creative writing pieces and chemistry quizzes, stuffed in my closet, from high school.
“The more they search, the more they doubt.”
High school was definitely something, but it was a lot of other things too. Please leave the acne, “emotional turmoil”, friendship break-ups and all other unnecessary (though entertaining, now looking back) drama in the past. But do bring back the excited nervousness of school plays; the joy of vocal classes; the passion to complete magnum opus projects and english essays.
2016 was not a bad year, though it was definitely uninspiring. And so with that, 2017 will be The Year of Creativity.
It will be the year where I do the absolute most with the things I love: singing, dancing, cooking, baking, traveling, writing. When we are our most creative, I find, we are our best selves. It’s human nature. All that we do that is different, innovative, transformative, and progressive, is creative.
Quèbec Pride Week – allons-y les gars!
This year, I allowed myself to get lost in the popular societal, adult habit of focusing on what I have to do and how to do it, severely neglecting what I love to do and when to do it. But not this round.
Next year is gonna be good as hell.
À la prochaine,
Moi
Music of the Moment:
Comme les Éléphants
While wondering the halls of the musée Dauphinois right by my French residence, I happened upon a quote by mountaineer, Caroline Villeneuve, that read, “Mon rêve, c’était de faire comme les éléphants, de revenir où je suis née” or in English, “My dream, it was to do as the elephants, to come back to where I was born.” For some reason, this has resonated with me since then and I did not really know why until now.
I recently returned from a fulfilling trip back to Jamaica. It was the first time I travelled for the holidays since moving further north, and I have decided that travel during the winter season to a warmer destination can cause some painful withdrawals, upon return, which I do not admire at this time.
Uptown Kingston at prime-time: hop on while you can!
Still, though I have taken this trip before, I had never taken it like this. The fragile innocence of youth can blind one to the realities that they have lived, and this trip exposed me to many of these facts and figures I had not concretely defined before.
Simply put, it was a family trip to celebrate the start of the end and the end of the start.
Nevertheless I went into this with an agenda; comme les éléphants, I knew that there was much to rediscover and I only had two weeks. I prepared myself as I had during last summer’s European adventure: I made a list of destinations after a quick search on TripAdvisor and I made a promise to myself that no time would be wasted; at least once every day, the sun would shine on my face. Soon I came to realise that my agenda was becoming of something more.
Negril: Rick’s Café at sunset is a must.
It is quite difficult to explain exactly my experience; to analogize, it is as if I have been telling a story I once remembered so clearly as a kid, as clear as real life. Every time I retold this story, something was added to it or taken away; and so everytime I retold this story, it felt less true, less authentic, like I had never really known it before. So once I began seeing characters and objects from this story again, things slowly came back to me, still faint but ever so familiar.
Unlike my European escapades where walking was a must, we drove everywhere; it was a blessing and a curse as the heat could kill, but I had to absorb everything in 5 seconds or less. Even so, for the things that took more time, like going to the supermarket or meeting my father’s friend from high school, I was like a sponge in water.
St. Catherine : on the road to Flat Bridge.
Conversations had more depth, people and places had more features, and my memories had more flavour. I concluded then that, in all my denial as a proud immigrant against acclimatization, I could now properly justify my multinationality as the proof was right there.
I did indeed live a part of this story, but a long time ago; when trees grow, their roots stretch out, reaching ends once unknown to that same trunk. So I may have lost my accent, and I cannot easily differenciate between uptown and downtown as other locals; but my roots all started from the same spot that I can and will always return to.
It never hurts to learn what you have always known.
À la prochaine,
Moi
Music of the Moment:
The Feels.
So I’m back home from my semester-long exchange in Grenoble, France; have been for about a month now.
At first, even actually before I returned, I longed for the familiarity I was once surrounded by day-in day-out. I longed for my family, my friends, my school, my old life while still holding tight to the memories of the near past.
But as time came and went at and around home, a certain feeling grew on me, one which felt inexplicable and unnatural.
Then, tonight, I read this article by Kellie Donnelley, and my feelings not so much subsided, but in themselves, felt comforted at the thought that they were understood; that I was not alone in these series of feelings, and that it was in fact somewhat normal to feel such a way.
Here’s the link to the short but ever so sweet article: http://thoughtcatalog.com/kellie-donnelly/2014/07/the-hardest-part-about-traveling-no-one-talks-about/
À la prochaine,
Moi
A Change is Gonna Come
What a way to end off a wonderful trip. Atlanta, like any other place I am sure, is a wonder to behold.
No, it does not house snow-topped mountains; nor does it exhibit medieval castles. Still, it, like any other place on this beautiful Earth, holds dear to it a very beautiful history.
I am writing this after recently returning from a visit to the Martin Luther King Jr. Centre on Auburn Avenue, where my family and I visited his previous residence, walked past his and his wife, Coretta’s graves, and studied videos and observed still photos about his life’s journey, from the beginning until the tragic end; and my mind is just swirling with thoughts.
It is easy to simply open up a textbook or a pamphlet and semi-consciously read about a land’s history; but to actually be physically present where the events described on paper are put in place brings everything to the front – right in one’s face – where the truth of the past can neither be denied, questioned, nor forgotten.
MLK Jr. At A Glance: The comings and goings of the center..
King Jr.’s life was bittersweet, and as I read small information stands, I wondered why when positive change happens, there is one, if not many, who try to prevent it.
This reflection made me begin to reflect on my own life, and the changes I see coming…and am purposefully preventing. Of all the things I predicted I would get out of this trip, an epiphany was not one of them.
Still, I can only assume that this is to be expected, and can only hope that I do encounter more moments like these as my travels continue because I do want to grow as I experience and absorb the livelihoods of others transfer and transform around me.
In terms of how I spent my other days in Atlanta: the ‘Peach State’, it was a mixture of everything, as this trip was planned to go unplanned. Hot spots to visit may include (and are not limited to) Atlantic Station, the Georgian Aquarium, Centennial Park, and just the regular neighbourhood stops to chat with local people who can tell you about ways in which Atlanta was, is, and will always be a place they call home.
Georgia Aquarium: Me taking a picture of him taking a picture of them taking…
Alas, now it’s time for me to gather my things and head out of the state that houses Tyler Perry’s Madea, and the one of the only places where one can freely exercise the term “y’all” without a sideways look from another end.
Georgia, you will always be on my mind.
À la prochaine,
Moi
Music for the Moment:
BanannaTravels 