Identity.

Identity is all to an Atlantic Canadian.We view ourselves as distinct from other Canadians in much the same way as those from the American South view themselves in relation to those Americans who are from other regions.And,perhaps what we see as distinction,other Canadians see as peculiarity.We might well be peculiar too.We can be clannish,inhabiting the same watering holes,working together,sleeping on each others couches and living in the same neighborhoods when we are away.We tend to be aware of someone recently met as being from home by the way that they talk.Some of us can even pin down the particular region of origin,within a few miles by accent alone.But,wherever we find ourselves,home,that is,Atlantic Canada is never far from us,from our hearts and minds.Many,if not all have longed to go home,at least at some point in their exile to other regions.Whether we return or remain away,home has a pull,as strong and as real as gravity.That is something that those who have remained at home,in the region do not always understand,and it is sometimes a source of tension,even division among Atlantic Canadians.

This has become a central issue in my life.It probably was always so,but it's taken years for me to become fully aware of it.You see,my childhood was spent in Atlantic Canada.But I left,as many Atlantic Canadians do to find opportunity elsewhere.The four Atlantic Provinces are economically poor in comparison to other parts of Canada and that takes many of our number away.

My adult life,to this point has been spent in Alberta and in  Ontario.I found work in Edmonton,Alberta in the late 1970's.I married there  and had my only child there.I still have family there.So my ties are deep in the west too,and,Canada is such a vast place,it changes from region to region and even from town to town.But,without really thinking about it much,I became one of those who other Atlantic Canadians refer to as being "From Away."But of course I don't really view myself that way.

In Atlantic Canada,there are those "From Away" such as I am.Then there are those "From Here",those who either never left home,who stayed and made their lives at home,or who left for a time and returned.In a sense it's a factual sort of division,just a description of what is.But what bothers me about it,if I were to be fully honest is that it is a dichotomy dictated by those who live in the region,as though it is their prerogative to decide who is and who isn't ,who belongs and who does not.To say someone is from away is not always said with an unkind intent.But sometimes it is.Sometimes it's a kind of xenophobia as extreme as any other.

For my part,I say without the least hesitation that I admire those of us who have stayed in the communities where their roots are.It's never really been easy to do that,and most of those that I know who have done that have struggled.I've known so few who have really prospered.But decisions are hard,and I often wonder if those "From Here" have ever thought that the decision to leave might have been hard as well.

Over the most recent decade,I've felt that gravitational pull.that force of nature called being more intensely,calling me back.My parents passed,each on the Family Day Week-end three years apart,nearly to the day.My mother was killed in a car accident in Moncton,less than ten minutes from home.I never had a chance to say good-bye,and that was so incredibly difficult.My father passed in 2009,the last twenty years,at least,of his life being lived in poor health,until nothing remained but for him to draw a last breath and find his peace.

We buried my mother in June of 2006.People in Atlantic Canada,because of the climate are never buried in the dead of winter.I was home for two weeks then,and I guess I could have stayed.On the night before I left,I visited the sight of my mothers accident and received God's assurance that she was in a better place when I stepped down into the ditch and viewed the white cross that my sister had erected there.My friend David waited beside his truck while I visited.Earlier that evening David and my friend Robyn and I went for a drive,out to what we in Moncton refer to as The Mountain.David had taken a picture of Robyn and I together too in the driveway of the home I grew up in.We had our arms around each other in the manner of old friends and she wore a pair of jaunty yellow knee highs.It's the only picture of us together that was ever taken.It was the single night in my life when I felt most like an Atlantic Canadian,when I allowed myself to think of possibility in terms of returning.There were things I'd missed out on and still wanted.I wonder if either of my friends really knew me that night,knew my thoughts.But the visit ended badly,with my sister questioning that very identity that I was beginning to discover.And I went west again,two more times.

For about a year in 2009-2010,I stayed in Moncton.It was a brief interlude before moving on to Toronto,deciding again that I really couldn't get by at home.Then,in 2012 I moved on ,back to Calgary where work was plentiful.That trip I now view as a disaster,and on May 23,2015,I'd finally had enough and started out for Toronto again,with twenty five dollars and a left foot and ankle that I was not sure would make the trip.But I was wonderfully cared for,fed by ravens so to speak.It only took twenty-three rides to get to Richmond Hill and I walked into downtown Toronto from there.I was getting a bit closer to home.

When I say that the last trip out west was a disaster,I do not mean that no good came from it.On the way out I came to a decision about what I really wanted in my life,and began to think of what I would need to do to bring it about.I met a woman named Michele when we were working together at a factory that makes fruit juices and over those few days of packing skids we talked and became good friends.We talked about our lives.Michele was a tough,gritty sort of a person.Tough enough to beat both addiction and cancer.So we'd both gotten some hard earned wisdom about life from The School Of Hard Knocks.She imparted me with a single piece of advice,and I considered it a bit forward of her at the time,but it was good advice,and I wondered if I might have come to know her for the sole purpose of that advice.She said"We don't always get to choose who we love."

Some time passed,I got up each day and went to work.The city of Calgary flooded and there was much restoration to be done.I spent much of that time doing asbestos abatement,until my foot grew sore to the point where work became so difficult and medical  care hard to find.Many days I was unable to work.

Then came June 4th,2014,another day that pointed out to me,in not such a subtle fashion how important my identity was.On that day I gotten up early and gone to check my email,intending to be just a few minutes before getting on with my day.But when I opened up my Facebook account I discovered that Moncton was in a state of lock down because a gunman had murdered three policemen the night before and still had not been captured.So I ended up spending the day talking to various people in Moncton as the story developed.What was worse was that all of this was going down in my old neighborhood,where many people I know still lived.My sister lived there,as did my nephew.And so did Robyn.

By mid afternoon there were pictures of an armored personnel carrier going down Mountain Road,along the route we used to walk to church when I was small,and to high school when I was older.And I can't begin to tell you how violated I felt,that my town was being desecrated when I was far away,when I was sitting in a far city following it all on Facebook when I really should have been home with my family.Calgary,like Moncton is a train town.So I sat and looked across at the tracks,at east bound trains,trying to imagine where the tracks led,thinking of how far they went and of how different the various places they went through were.Thinking of where I belonged,of how life should be and wondering how to get there from where I sat.And I decided that from that point onward my footsteps needed to be leading me eastward.But it took another year almost for me to take those first steps and even then I stopped short,thinking there's still plenty of time. But there wasn't.

It's been hard to get this memoir started.The words I want are sometimes elusive or don't come out in a way that I'm satisfied with,so I scrap it and start again.I could be satisfied with it all.It's not so much that I'm being picky.But things change,and they change in a way that,for me implies a different way of telling.It was only so recently that I understood the importance of identity in the way I do and that changes so many things.