…My sister met me at the station then took me to their abode in the downtown core. They had rented an apartment in the City’s west end, very close to the beach of a British sounding bay with water that was so cold as to render it un-swimmable. One would have an extremely difficult time finding one’s privates and taking a piss after a swim in waters such as this. And who was one anyway? Close to that were funky looking shops and high rise concourses that spread their way along narrow streets, avenues and boulevards toward a massive green expanse of a park that adorned itself with towering trees of old growth forest. But in the rain these towering, magnificent giants of nature were mostly obscured by the fog in the midst of a city that was blanketed for the most part of the year by a canopy of clouds and mist. With all of this rain the buildings of the downtown core exuded a depressed aura of doom and gloom being grey on the mind, grey on one’s thoughts with an outlook of a grey depressing world in the midst of all of this precipitation. “But at least it’s not snow, you don’t have to shovel it,” I heard over and over again. Yes, but saying this was really a defensive mechanism on one’s part, a sense of insecurity or rationalization by some idiot who chose, regrettably, to live in such a grey expanse of concrete within what is, in reality, an urban concrete rain forest. After a few days of this I wondered how anyone in their right mind could live here. The dampness of the place was bone chilling and mould worthy. But then again I guess home is where the heart is.
I don’t want to dwell too much on this place; needless to say I got a job at a paper, cardboard packaging company that had an international flavour to it. My sister and her partner welcomed me with open arms and made me feel at home. In their old beater, they took me on day trips around the city and surrounding country side. I must admit that when the sun did come out on those rare occasions, the city’s natural, geographical setting was spectacular. Only problem was that these occasions were as remote as a west coast hippy’s tendency to find a job. Me, I worked…