i have this theory about this peculiar type of nostalgia that you get only if you're one of those people that moved around a lot as a kid. you were too young to consciously fondly reflect on your old hangout spots, so these old houses, yards, towns of your childhood are stockpiled way in the back of your memory and they seep out in pieces, randomly, in your night-time dreams in form of inexplicable images of places and people that you feel like you *know* but can't explain.
by the time i was 12, i had moved about 7 times. and in the last several years, i've moved another half a dozen times. that's a lot of different bedrooms and backyards to store up, so i constantly dream about neighbourhood streets and parks that i can't consciously remember but know they must be spots i'd once lived in. they get so mixed up that i seem to now dream about fictional worlds, a pastiche of places made up of a combination of new york, waterloo, hamilton, amsterdam, ottawa, vancouver, toronto, that don't actually exist anywhere except in my mind. but they seem pretty real, even when i wake up.
well, time to add to the confusion. today i leave for Windhoek, Namibia, a long journey (i don't actually arrive till later this week) that has suddenly become a lot more complicated by the fact that my body has decided to get sick now, hours before i'm scheduled to leave. ah well. while i'm not looking forward to the fun of nursing a stuffed nose during changing altitudes, i have some gravol that will hopefully knock me out for a good chunk of the flights, so i can keep on dreaming about new york-waterloo-hamilton-amsterdam-ottawa-vancouvver-torontoland.
see you guys on the other side!
