earth-shaped universe (gone west)
Mamí in BC, Summer 1993. Shot on film by Dad.
In early December I found my mother sitting in her closet and poring over old photo boxes that had been stored for years, throwing duplicates in the garbage and sitting with the weight of moments lived and passed. The photos themselves are sort of haphazardly organized, there's no specific categorization to the years, neither are there enough label tabs to properly divide the stacks of photos. Luckily enough, the pictures are roughly kept together on theme. One half of a box is filed with 'Mexico,' another is 'Christmas.'
I love looking through photos with my mother because she'll tell me all the stories. She is a good storyteller, which (if i can be so presumptuous) is where I think I get some of my abilities from. I can see so many of her memories in my own mind's eye in vivid detail. A vibrant coloured life, across an entire continent and back and forth again and again.
It has never really been hard for me to imagine the life that my mother had before I was born. I can picture all the ways in which I am like her young self, and the ways in which I am becoming more and more like her as time passes. I see the ways she dressed and the ways she documented her life in her 20s and I think about how I am doing the same now. I wonder if in an alternate universe we are not mother and daughter but instead best friends.
In what felt like a meaningful coincidence, she pulled out a box of photos that I had never seen before. A trip to BC she took with my dad in 1993. I had never heard a story, never heard a mention of this trip up until December, just a week before I would be blowing up my whole life and moving to BC permanently (for now). Why did these photos come up now? Maybe a reminder of the cycles of our lives, of movement, of youth, of exploration. We can never really run far away from the people that we love, can we?
-I never knew you went there.
-We loved it.
In that photo, she is standing on the exact same boat that Leon and I took to Vancouver Island back in March. I think I have a photo of myself standing in nearly the same place. In each of the photos my parents look quite content, there's even one of my mother in her very 90s jogging outfit, posing on the side of a highway, mid-rest from a run. Not unlike me in my little running shorts and my big t-shirts nowadays.
-I never knew you ran.
-I was very active.
I think it is a small comfort to know that Mamí is smiling in every photo she ever took out here on the west coast. I think about these pictures now that I live here, walking down the street and wondering what it used to look like in 1993, wondering what my parents thought of the mountains and the ocean and the big city with its infinite interesting people.
If you are at all a keen reader of this blog, you may remember my post from March of last year, nowhere to journey but west, which was a travel post for my first real vacation on the west coast. Having read that, I think it should be no surprise to you that I ended up moving here. A cross-country move years in the making. I took flight from my hometown very suddenly at the end of December, landing in a place that feels a little more like where I'm meant to be right now.
It feels very monumental to be here, finally, sitting in my warm little apartment in the quiet content company of my new roommates and the cat (the baby). Things have been very good in 2026, maybe a little too good? I have to stop always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The last few weeks have been very busy - my first week here I was attempting to keep the cat alive (I succeeded), and driving around with Leon to try and find a bunch of furniture. He bullied the car rental people into giving us a pickup truck, without which it would have been impossible to accomplish any tasks. I am so grateful that he helped me assemble all my furniture and kept me company during the quiet nothingness of late December days. This is our first time living in the same city, despite our nearly 7 year friendship and I think it will be a riotous adventure, as things usually are when we are in the same place. I also spent a lot of time at the library that week, writing and working in company of the many seniors in this neighbourhood who frequent the library every day to read the new newspapers in English, Mandarin, Spanish and French. There are so many things to do and places to see and people to meet, I am trying not to be too overwhelmed by the newness of it all. I am finding places slowly where I would like to be a regular.
Em came to visit all the way from her mother's home on the Island - I hadn't seen her in over two years and it was glorious to just be in each other's company for 24 hours, it felt like undergrad again in the best way - running household errands for the day, afternoon napping on the couch, cooking dinner, putting makeup on together and heading out on a Friday night. I'm not sure when we'll see each other again, we live about as far away from each other as we possibly can while being in the same country. Though, everything feels far from here - we're hidden behind the mountains.
My roommates returned from their holidays last week, and we've been slowly developing some sort of routine in our shared living space. I am grateful to them both for two handfuls of things, including for setting up the apartment enough for me to enjoy it upon my arrival, for having great reading material, for being genuinely great company. I am sure there will be some stories to share in time.
I've launched myself back into a variety of activities to ease the nervous energy that my body emits while at rest. I've been kickboxing, I've gone back to dancing (ballet and contemporary), and attending my friend S's very great yoga classes. I'm starting BJJ again. I'm also running and training quite intensely for a race. S imparted some good wisdom when we grabbed beers last week, you don't need to look to join a run club. everyone in this city runs. they will find you. She was right, I've already been recruited to join 2 different clubs while doing non-running activities. Leon and O and I also went line dancing at a divey bar and encountered some of the most enchanting dancing I have ever seen in my life. Those people were very synchronized and VERY talented. I haven't heard a whole room yell the words to Sam Hunt's House Party in years and I forgot how much I miss poppy country music in exactly the right environment.
It's really been very little time but I already feel like I've lived here for years - something about finding the right place at the right time. I think I've been holding my breath for so long that finally being able to breathe here feels so much better. I walk to the ocean nearly every day just to touch it and remember that this is my reality and I am so grateful for it. I always call the people I love when I am by the water, some halfway around the world, some just one province over. I like to think they can feel the peace of the beach through the phone.
I hope you can feel it too.
love and hugs,
sam
p.s. In writing the beginning of this I was reminded of Tessa's short film someday my daughter will make art about when i was young, which I hadn't rewatched in ages. Always worth seeing again.
for you: "Well the universe is shaped exactly like the earth /If you go straight long enough you'll end up where you were."