ONCE UPON A TIME | I lived in Vancouver. It was in my twenties and as a direct result, my time there feels significant in that way that all things that took place in those strange and formative years do. A freshly-developed frontal cortex it a terrible thing to waste, but waste it I did. I wasn’t a lot of time in that period — on a man who was awful to me, on a city that knocked me down again, on a job that traumatized me, on family that othered me. And I have spent far too long thinking about all that loss — time I can never get back.

I left British Columbia in 2007, visited once for a wedding in 2008, and haven’t been back since. Not a single time, though I still have friends there, and even some family (not bio, but beloved).

Couldn’t face it. I had my reasons, trauma being the most obvious.

For years after leaving the province, I even had a recurring nightmare in which I was back in Vancouver, trapped in the city, but lost, with nowhere to stay, no money. The reasons for this were nebulous and shifting, changing depending on the dream or the day. Once, I was “swimming” through the Burrard Inlet, hiding, essentially (from what? I cannot say). I only remember the panic, the mouthfuls of choking water, as I dived and dived and dived, repeatedly, rising for breath, gasping, as searchlights swept the surface.

I don’t know what I was afraid of or what these dreams meant, only that I had them. But I haven’t had one for a very long time. I think they stopped around the time I gave birth to my child in 2015. Since, other stress dreams have taken their place centre-stage in my subconscious. Motherhood dreams. Pandemic dreams. Life, inevitably, moves on.

The Lions Gate Bridge as seen from my car in 2026 (on left) versus 2006 (on the right).

At this very moment, I am looking out my window at the Coast Mountains of Whistler, BC. Clouds move all around me, repeatedly hiding the peaks from view. There are crows. And leaves on the ground. And little-to-no-snow on the ski hills. The drive here from the airport yesterday took me right past my old haunting grounds. I saw my old apartment from the window of the bus. A few things were the same. The Pottery Barn. The Chapters bookstore (though like most, if not all, it has been rebranded as Indigo). The library on my block. The firehouse.

Everything else was different.

On the sea-to-sky highway, the natural views were familiar: the roadway itself, the rocky cliffs, but again, much had changed. I left BC before the 2010 Olympic Games arrived and transformed everything.

Still, I was overwhelmed by memory. I suppose I courted this. I put a headphone in and choose the first song from a mix-tape a friend gave me back in the day, when I first moved West. “Northern Holiday” by Emm Gryner, released in 2002, the year I graduated from Queen’s, and went to BC full-time (having previously only been here for summers). The music streaming service gremlins took over and did the rest. I felt like crying approximately every 17 minutes for the duration of the drive.

It is now near midnight on the Friday. My major festival obligations are complete. I have lunched with my fellow WIBA finalists, I have read from my poetry collection, Landmarks & Beacons. I have chatted and schmoozed. I have attended the 25th anniversary “gala” and reading event. I’ve sold some books. I’m tired. It is 3:00am at home and I feel it in my body, if not in my mind.

For those waiting to hear if I won the WIBA … I did not. And that’s okay. It was awarded, sort of amusingly, to the one person among the finalists who didn’t come to the event. This signifies nothing, and yet. I will say that it was nice to not have to do the awkward smile exchange with Robyn Marie Butt, my fellow poetry finalist, after the announcement. We were in the same boat, fellow losers, though as Robyn correctly put it, as a top-three finalist, in truth we are both winners. Still.

One might think that because I didn’t win the WIBA, after just having not won the MIPP, that I’d be sad, but I’m honestly fine. Contests are nice, but you can’t take this sort of thing to heart in any way. Just the way the cookie crumbles. You win some, you lose some, or you win none. It doesn’t matter!

One of the things I said during my reading yesterday was that I was knocked back in my twenties and went into hiding for a very long time. Even stopped trying, but I am a different person now, and I see things differently. I suppose I felt those knocks so keenly because I was young and sensitive and I didn’t really understand that life is long, and that I would change, nor how much I would change (how much everything would change). A lovely festival attendee came up to me afterwards to buy my book for her 20 year old son because she liked what I said about how it’s never too late, and you don’t have to think in terms of a binary (which I was very prone to do as a younger person — all or nothing). I signed her book with a message for her son that may sound pithy and canned, but that I meant very sincerely:

Keep writing. Your story is important.

Anyway. I am exhausted, but I know I will feel better in the morning. Tomorrow, I will be back at the Fairmont Whistler (a very fancy hotel, where the festival is largely being held) selling books and hanging out. If you are around, come by and say hi. The hotel is already decked out for Christmas, with twinkle lights everywhere. It is beautiful. On my way home, I hope to meet up with a friend I haven’t seen in 12 years. Tomorrow, I will shift back to listening to my usual podcasts on Spotify and dispense with the time traveling tunes.

I am glad I came.

And P.S. Many of you know this already, but the truth is that the WIBA is not even a financial award. Would have been nice to get it, but practically speaking, I have bigger fish to fry and I have been awarded something much better that I still need to post about … and will, soon! So don’t feel too sorry for me. I AM having my moment in terms of good luck. No need to worry.