While you’re looking forward to partying, all I’m thinking about is two weeks indoors.
Gates Annai (she/they) // Literature Editor
Tin (they/them) // Illustrator
I picture it often. The last exam has been written, there’s a crisp chill to the air, maybe a light snow has begun to cling to the pavement of the city, and I am already driving down the Trans-Canada Highway, through mountainscapes and long stretches of flat farmland that seems endless. I’m headed home to Calgary.
The end of the semester means stepping out of the car into a pile of snow as high as my waist, the moisture freezing on my eyelashes and the cold burning up my nose as I race up my childhood home’s front steps. My dog is waiting for me beyond the threshold of the front door–too much of a princess to place her paws onto the ice–but still hopping onto her back legs at the sight of me. The holidays mean being taken care of for a couple weeks, when the burden of making meals and a hundred decisions a day is lifted off of my shoulders in place of my mom’s warm, home cooked dinners and funny, boisterous conversation with my dad. It looks like hugging a mug of hot apple cider (alcohol optional) as we settle into the couch in the living room. Because I live away from home eleven months out of the year, I get to force everyone to watch whatever Disney musical is my favourite at the moment.
Mostly, it means spending some quiet moments away from the constant movement and hustle of Vancouver to read with a dog in my lap, or the unimposing company of my brother or to catch up on all the TV shows I let dangle unfinished throughout the busy semester. I’m able to recharge for the first time in recent months, letting go of the stress of constantly having some task I need to get done. Allowing myself to fall into the familiar patterns of living at home and having close connections at my fingertips whenever I need them.
When I catch up with friends, it looks like board game nights and gingerbread house creation. Like baking sweets to pack up into decorated boxes and share with each other. They grew up in Calgary so they’re already used to our sleeping city–where life moves just a little bit slower, a bit more patiently. Friends who have visited me from Vancouver call it boring, but they’re missing out on the best part.
We’re often told that we aren’t living if we aren’t spending our weekends taking an endless chain of transit to get into some stuffy club, or throwing house parties that would annoy the neighbours or passing out on park benches. But to me, living is this still moment at the end of the semester, when my dog is curled up in my lap, my holiday cookies are baking in the oven, and all I have in the day ahead of me is to finish a good book, and maybe consider changing out of my pajamas if I feel like it.