| Sunny Side Up April 9, 2003 � 2003, Kathleen Gibson There�s No Place Like Home I flew to B.C. recently. Left my March-cold, white, ever-winter-and-never-spring Saskatchewan home for greener meadows. My father and a friend picked me up at the Abbotsford airport. They brought flowers�a large bouquet of daffodils and freesia. Fritz pulled a single green sucker from his pocket, presented it with a flourish. �Welcome to B.C., where everything is green,� he said. We bypassed the freeway and drove to Chilliwack on the scenic route. Past long greenhouses, a field of snoozing trumpeter swans, and strangely shaped homes nestled snugly against the mountainside. Past acres of raspberry canes tied together�bowing south in perfect unison, like a collection of stick people playing Simon Says. Past one flock of red chickens pecking at the dirt. And past miniature farms, one particularly memorable for its charming moniker: �The Udder Palace�. I emailed friends. �Everything really is green! The pussy willows are out. Heather, daffodils, tulips, flowering plum, and forsythia too. And I can�t stop ogling the mountains.� To the Preacher I emailed, �I�m not coming home till you can guarantee spring.� Figuring if anyone could arrange it with the Boss, he could. It poured the day I traveled into Vancouver. Through the droplet-distorted van window the city took on the mood of an impressionist painting. Pedestrians scurried. Some strode through the deluge, clothes plastered to skin, hair to cheek. Others sheltered under splashy umbrellas, some decorated with sunflowers or pansies or frogs--green, of course. At the Stanley Park Aquarium I had a staring contest with a pufferfish. Fell in love with a sea otter. Chuckled at a clown in a joker hat, red spandex and a pair of giant flippers. Standing on his head he was, doing Tai-Chi with his legs, and buzzing �Send in the clowns� on a kazoo. (Some people have all the talent.) I sailed to Nanaimo to lunch with friends. On the way back I talked with a woman who wondered aloud what could possibly keep me in Saskatchewan. I looked out the ferry windows at the passing emerald isles and wondered too, for a moment. Then I scanned the leaden sky. That�s the problem with the green, I realized. It takes too much rain to maintain it. �Well,� I said. �We have the best skies. I�d miss those.� Two weeks later the Preacher met me with a hug at the Regina airport. We drove through a frozen landscape of brown and white, under a dome of blue and a yellow, yellow sun. Straight home. And I loved every mile. The world is full of loveliness, but no beauty compares with the smile on the face of a friend. The road is full of scenery, but no road is as enticing as the way home. And no matter how green the landscape, no comfort is as warming as the hugs of the friends who know and love you best. In that circle, wherever it is, it�s forever spring, and never winter. It�s simply�.home. Even if it�s not green. You can respond to this article at [email protected] |
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