It's been a long time since I've written a post. I'd like to think that it isn't because I find my home and native land uninspiring, but rather that I spend less time sitting alone on the computer, feeling slightly lonely, and having no one to talk to other than the cyberspace, a place in which my blog is like a discount movie theatre with only a handful of people present, and most of them are napping.
I met F.'s family this weekend. We took his sister and some of her friends, including a German exchange student, out on my family's boat to watch the fireworks. I guess the boat is shabby: it has chunks missing from the upholstery, and the carpet is worn right through in places. The [Mani]toban girls seemed apprehensive. We waited in the boat at the edge of the water, just outside the space that was off-limits because it was too close to the fireworks. The restricted area was not marked in any way, we knew it was out of bounds because there was a police boat patrolling and occasionally flashing its lights. We packed 12 people into our boat. We saw people packed even tighter in boats. We waited almost an hour for the fireworks to start.
The fireworks were, according to F., the best he's seen in his life.
It's hard to capture this kind of moment in words. I was just thinking that it would be exactly the kind of thing I would want to stumble upon if I were a German exchange student in Canada... the kind of authentic experience, doing what the locals do, hearing what they talk about...
It was the kind of moment I felt happy to stumble upon myself.
