on moose & freedom

Sometimes life has a way of showing us that we’re being looked out for, that our needs are being met. Sometimes this comes in the form of a much needed work bonus, a freelance opportunity, or a connection with a mentor. For me, it took the form of a moose.

A few months ago, at the beginning of May, I was savoring my last few months as a student and resident of New Brunswick. I spent many weeks living on my partner’s family farm and our evenings consisted of walks through the nearly untouched hills and watching herds of deer that called the old corn fields home bound away from us with every step. I knew that it was time to move onwards to a new chapter in life and although I did not want to leave, I was content with how my three years had transpired. However, there was one part of me that remained unsettled, a near vision and deep yearning that haunted those last few weeks - I had yet to see a moose.

Before moving 5000 kilometers from my hometown and family three years prior, I decided that the only thing I wanted out of my experience was to see a moose. I talked to friends about my moose non stop; in fact, one of the first conversations that my partner Tyler and I had was how I was going to hire him to hijack a bus and drive me around until we saw the incredible creature. But almost three years in New Brunswick had passed, and still, no moose.

By this point, finding the moose was about more than just finding an animal. My time in New Brunswick, although life changing and incredible, was not as I thought it would be. All the other plans and expectations that I had for my university life shattered and crumbled somewhere along the path. Seeing a moose was the one goal that I was able to hold onto throughout the years, the one possibility that remained. However, time was drawing to an end. My apartment was vacant and I only had 6 days left before I packed up for good - yet still the creature remained elusive.

She found me when I finally stopped looking.

The sun was streaming through my car windows as I drove alongside the Saint John River with my love in the front seat and my father (who had flown cross country for my graduation) in behind. The river had recently flooded and its force created marshland from what was previously rich farmland and provincial park. My dad was reading quietly and I was lost in my thoughts as my love tapped patterns on my thigh that matched the rhythm of the country radio station. I was taking everything in, creating mental photographs so that I would not forget the sights of my beloved province. 

 Suddenly, I heard both Tyler and my father cry out in jumbled words. When I realized that they were excitedly trying to communicate to me that we had just passed a moose, I stopped breathing for a moment. I turned my car around as fast as I could and slowly went back the way I came. Time stood still as I saw her - my moose, lying down at the side of the road.

She rose slowly when she saw us, and I turned off the ignition not daring to make a sound. She was a young moose, not quite a calf but not yet a full grown cow either. As she flexed her muscles and stood fully erect at about four feet, I feared she would run away but instead she just turned towards me. Despite her size, she was anything but intimidating - her ears twitched towards me as her eyes met mine as if she was expecting me. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.

Our silence was interrupted by my father throwing an apple that he found rolling on the car floor towards my moose. At first I was terrified she’d bolt at the sudden movement, but when the fruit rolled to the edge of the road just out of reach of her comfort zone, I decided I needed to meet my moose face to face.

Slowly I got out of the car, whispering to my companions to signal if they saw momma or daddy moose heading my way. With my head lowered and hands exposed, I started walking towards her. With every step I took I feared she would bolt but she calmly stood her ground. As I lowered myself to the ground our eyes met once again. I tossed the apple towards her but she showed little interest in anything but holding my gaze. There was no fear between the two of us, nor was there any pride. Neither of us was hunting nor being hunted, as is so often the case between man and moose, and so we simply communicated through spirit - just as man and creature have been doing for thousands of years. After what seemed like forever, we both turned our backs simultaneously and went our separate ways.

My eyes filled with tears as I got back in the car, and my heart finally felt at peace. I no longer felt hesitant about moving on to the next chapter, but instead felt free to move forward. The moose had settled the storm rooted in me, for I no longer felt as though I was leaving incomplete. Without saying a word, she reminded me that the wind will change directions and I will lose my footing now and again but that sometimes its the simplest desires are the ones that mean the most.

New Beginnings & Old Dreams

Somehow, it seems the older you get the faster the days fly by. Tomorrow is the last class of my undergraduate degree, and in one month I'll be walking across the stage to get my diploma. The past few months have been filled with long winters and record snowfalls, joyous family reunions and sorrowful last minute flights to a beloved family member's funeral, the stress of a senior year workload and the joyful fear that comes from thinking of life beyond school. My apartment lease expires in 20 days, and then I will no longer be living in this little maritime town, a place that has cradled me through some of the most difficult yet most triumphant years of my life.

Sometimes I feel like I'm always leaving, and this particular move comes with mixed feelings. New Brunswick was a great escape to me, and although I hope to be back, if there's one thing I've learned these past few years it's that nothing is for certain. I've spent the last few days looking back on things I wish I did and things I regret, but mostly, reminding myself that I beat the odds and that I'm on my way to a new adventure. I'll find my way, regardless of the town. They say your heart will lead you home, and while I'm not sure where it's pointing just yet I trust I'll find out eventually. I'm starting to come to terms with the fact that it's okay not to know all the answers.

Last night my love and I went for a walk through town together, reminiscing on the past few years and reliving memories. These photos were taken only a 5 minute walk from campus - going to university in a rural area provides a very different experience than the traditional big city campus. The divide between wealthy students and lower income townspeople is very apparent, and it provides for some really interesting interactions between people as well as architecture. The lighting in the night seemed to fit the mood perfect - the light pushed through the clouds, just as it always does, and as the snow melted into the street I took a deep breath and reminded myself that everything would work out to be alright.

Coming to terms with home

“I was born very far from where I belong and I am on my way home.” 
For many of my teenage years, I carried this quote with my like a child carries a comfort blanket. I felt as though I did not and could not properly belong to a physical place that could entrance and encompass me – and I ran. I started becoming a chronic wanderer, from city to city, country to country, province to province. I didn't wander to travel, however; I wandered to find a home. I adopted every new town in which I inhabited a bedroom as though it was a breathing organism that could offer me comfort and answers. Every new address put more miles between myself and where I came from; even now, I have a health card for one province and a driver's license for another, despite living in a third province completely separate from the aforementioned.

When I was younger I got my energy from the city – I could feel the pulse of its people through the streets, see their triumphs through the skyscraper lights, hear their sorrows through the raindrops on cardboard boxes. Growing up in two different suburbs as the oldest child, I was never exposed much to the downtown core of Vancouver, but when I attended an adult upgrading school in my 12th grade nestled in her heartland, I felt as though a new part of me had been opened up. I spent most of my free time skateboarding along the seawall in my then regular attire of either leather pants or a leather biker jacket, walking the streets until they were embedded into me like the veins in my body, and meeting new people while learning their stories. Many of my new friends were homeless or at risk of being homeless and although this terrified my poor mother, they were some of the only people whose eyes I could meet during conversation. See, I had just gotten back from yet another home that I had made in Nashville where 6 months were spent sorting out some stories of my own. I felt as though I had to pretend my story was free of uncertainties and setbacks once I was back with the people who helped me continue when I wanted my story to end. With my new friends of Vancouver, I never had to be anything. I know now that the people who had walked alongside me all those years loved me no matter what, but at the time I was just a kid trying to learn how to walk for a second time.

I looked to the city to heal me, but the city didn't know how. I quickly began to feel lost again when I started university, and with Capilano being the 7th school in 4 years graced with my semi-present state, I felt as though it was time to move on from Vancouver and the five different homes I had occupied. So when a then-current long distance boyfriend who I had been with for a year suggested I go to school in his province, I considered it. When I was rejected from UBC, told my grades were not good enough for a second year in my program at Cap, and was urged by my grandfather to go to Mount Allison, I packed up and moved 5000 kms across the country from a city of 2 million to a town of 5000. I figured that since I had been with my now ex-boyfriend for almost 2 years at that point and enjoyed the province, I could spend a year before moving on yet again. I got accepted, and 4 months later I entered the province in which I would eventually choose to plant my roots.

That was 2.5 years ago. Since then, I've never spent more than a few weeks in Vancouver, save for one 3 month summer where I realized how I had moved on from the city just as I had moved on from the relationship that took me away from her. Concrete no longer gives me an energy rush; instead, that comes from driving on an empty highway with my love beside me and Johnny Cash singing to me through my speakers. I no longer need to connect only with the broken; although I reach out whenever possible, I've learned to make eye contact as a result I've learned a conversation with a staff at the local bookstore can lead to a wonderful friendship. There's no busy grid to internalize into my body, but hay from the neighboring farms seems to always find its way onto my clothes.

I'm 21 now, and I feel like I'm only now just coming out of the mindset of my 17 year old self, constantly looking for where I belong - for home. I just came from a summer where I ventured to another new place, with a new bedroom, in a new province – but this time, I did not go to adopt a home, for it adopted me. And when the summer was over, and I had a brand new apartment to move into back in the familiar town of Sackville, I did not leave by running away – I left it with gratitude, but most importantly, I left it looking forward to the next time I would return.

That's the thing about homes left behind. You can always return – you don't have to leave forever. Home isn't one physical location, it's not simply just the place you lay your head at night. It's a combination of all the places where you've left pieces of yourself. And once I begin life after college, first in a little Ontario town and eventually on a large New Brunswick farm, I will let my roots grow deep with migrant Maritime pride - but I will water them with saltwater from the Pacific and creekwater from the Mad River, honoring all the places I will continue to return to and refer to as home.