This month, I said my last airport goodbye to Isaac.
It’s the last one because I have decided it will be the last one. I’m serious; I’m putting it in my wedding vows. (The past year-and-a-half has given both of us a bit of a complex.)
Admittedly I am being supported in this decision by the Consular Section of the Department of State. My interview should take place first thing in the morning on 17 October.1 We’ve booked a (flexible, don’t worry) ticket for a little over two weeks after that – barring major incident, I’m flying to San Francisco on Halloween. It’s nearly over. We’re nearly there.
We met up in British Columbia, this time. It was supposed to be Yellowknife, but they’ve only just let people back into the city after wildfires got dangerously close to the edge of it, so we made a last-minute pivot to BC. No regrets; it has been a wonderful trip, and a great way to reacquaint myself with Vancouver after visiting first under weird circumstances in 2017.
We actually started in Victoria, the provincial capital which is inexplicably located on an island just off the BC coast. We stayed in a very cute little rental suite a bus ride away from the downtown core – the ideal balance of convenience and quiet.
On our first day, Isaac got stung by a wasp and we had to smear him gently with hydrocortisone. Other than that? The city was delightful. We went down to the harbour on the day of a boat festival we hadn’t known about in advance, which meant Isaac got to roam the marina and gaze at a huge array of very nice boats. (One boat had a job – it was a lifeboat, and that was the one we chose to clamber on, though many yachts were open to guests too. Like dogs, it’s always fun when a boat has a job.)
The next day we took a long bus ride out to Butchart Gardens, built by rich people about whom we actively avoided learning anything. This was the only day it rained, and we were lucky that the gardens were prepared for such an eventuality; within minutes of the rain starting to fall, they had umbrella receptacles out so everyone could stay dry. It was totally worth braving the weather, anyway; the views were gorgeous, the plants were varied and beautiful, and we got to smell a rose named after Pope John Paul II (inexplicably it smelled very good).
After some debate about what to do the day after that, we went whale watching. This was the big expense of the trip, and our expectations were pretty low; the company promised at least one whale sighting, but we weren’t exactly sure how anyone could guarantee a whale. Still, we reasoned that we both love the sea enough that it would be a worthwhile expenditure, even if we did not see any actual ocean life.
Spoiler alert: we’re cynical dipshits and we saw like eight whales!! Within about half an hour of leaving the harbour, we encountered a pod of four orcas who were out hunting with a friend orca. Then we cruised around Race Rocks (a lighthouse and adjoining nature reserve), which was absolutely crawling with sea lions. The honking could be heard for miles around. (The stench? Overwhelming; glad you asked.) Then we sailed out until we could see Port Angeles, Washington in the distance, at which point:
a humpback whale named Scuttle (SCUTTLE) emerged
then he dived, displaying his tail to tremendous effect
then he came back!
then a different humpback whale swam under the boat and emerged really close
we think she had a baby humpback whale in tow
truly miraculous whale scenes in the Salish Sea
For a while there, we were still on the water waiting for Scuttle to resurface. I will never forget the silence while we all watched the water; the best word I have for it is religious. Just a perfect unity of purpose and commitment. I have never really understood God, but I understand the sea, I think.
Anyway, my phone is old and my reflexes are dreadful so I have precisely 0 good whale photos. But I have one million excellent whale memories, so who is the real winner?
The next morning, we went to the archives at UVic so that Isaac could see some documents first-hand. Did you know that the University of Victoria Libraries has a really substantial transgender archive? We looked at some of Virginia Prince’s old papers, as well as Reed Erickson’s. Then it was off to catch a ferry to Vancouver for the last few days of the trip. (Props to BC Ferries; the food on board was way better than expected, and the views of the islands were unbelievable.)
Last time I was in Vancouver, I took myself on a date to the Vancouver Aquarium. It was right after Christmas, I was existentially exhausted, and I wanted to look at some sea life. It’s one of my most enduring memories of that whole trip: standing by their outdoor sea lion and seal pools, watching a sea lion bark and pose on a rock in the sun, feeling a highly specific kind of autistic joy and satisfaction that genuinely restored me.
So obviously I took Isaac on that date, this time around. We were there for about four hours, and we visited the sea lion and seal pools three times (four, if you count the ten minutes we spent watching from an underwater vantage point). It’s genuinely hard to explain the joy I feel when I get to see a marine mammal just hanging out and doing its thing. Extra nice to know: all the creatures in those pools were rescues deemed unreleasable, so they were there for a reason and they were all receiving important care.
Other good things we saw in the aquarium:
so many jellyfish
three ‘alien frogs’ from a species not native to BC, but it was okay because they were contained in their frog home (I decided that one of them was named Froginald)
an electric eel with a bizarrely smiley face
so many corals
sea otters!! did you know that sea otters’ skin is only attached to them at two points, and the rest of the time it’s just like a baggy set of onesie pyjamas?
a river turtle whose whole body is camouflaged to look like riverbed detritus (all the better to swallow smaller fish discreetly)
Also, they did not play music at us at any point during the experience. Wonderful.
There’s one more Vancouver anecdote I want to share, which took place after Isaac and I had said that last airport goodbye. Walking back to find my gate, I ran into a small dog on a wheely cart which proclaimed “The Dogtor Is In”. She was dressed in a doctor’s outfit, complete with tiny gloves and a little hat. Her name was Freya, she was a trained therapy dog, and I was in such obvious distress that I was allowed to sit and hold her for a minute.
Freya is up there with the best dogs I’ve ever met. She sat in my lap and let me pet her until I had calmed down somewhat, at which point her owner demonstrated that she knows how to ring a bell to ask for a treat. May we all learn such effective ways to assert our needs and make ourselves heard.
Anyway, then I ended up stuck in the airport for twelve hours because of concatenating flight problems. But at least I met Freya. It’s hard to be too mad.
Since getting back to Halifax, I’ve been trying to fit a lot in. Not just the admin requirements of moving – I mean things like seeing friends, soaking in my surroundings, and (inevitably) not succumbing to my own abject hypochondria, the latest manifestation of my immigration anxiety.
We also had a tropical storm which took out power for 24 hours and caused me tremendous anxiety in the lead-up. Things I won’t miss about this otherwise lovely city include its aggressively shitty for-profit power grid.
But I’m getting there. My flight is on Monday, which at last count gives me six more days. I’m reaching the point where there’s less to do than I thought there was, which means I have a bit of room to breathe. Today I actually walked to an appointment instead of taking the bus, so I could drink in the city a little bit. Halifax is a beautiful town in a very specific way; it feels like a place that has seen history, been weathered and worn-down by it over time. It’s proud of its scars. It’s unassuming and polite in a way that belies its toughness, and I’m going to miss it terribly when I leave.
I miss everywhere, in the end. I wish that I could take everywhere I’ve ever loved and put them all next to each other, just as they were when I loved them. I want to walk through University Parks in Oxford and find myself at the Halifax waterfront, watching the waves lap at the steps; I want to see the Bay Bridge shimmer in the distance between the MacDonald and the MacKay.
Not that this precludes my restlessness. Bless me anyway; I want more life.
Probably the last list of good things I’ll write before I leave Halifax, wow:
I waited out the tropical storm with Dawn and Elliott. We played a board game which got me thinking about an idea for an academic admin board game, which I genuinely think I might try to build while I’m unemployed in San Francisco. (Then we ordered desserts and cocktails and got slightly day-drunk before the sun went down.)
I told my colleagues at the web content agency I freelance for that I’m stopping work for a while, and everyone was so nice to me about it. Content writing has been a huge career adjustment in a lot of ways, but it’s good to know I have done an okay job at it.
For the remainder of my time in Halifax, I live in a room that doesn’t leak when it rains. Fucking finally!!
Last night I went for leaving drinks with my local writing friends. We went to the same bar where I first met most of them, which felt pleasingly circular. I really cannot overstate the difference it makes to have such a kind and welcoming social circle when you move to a new place. From helping me wrangle my huge awful shipping box to the UPS store to letting me crash on a couch when it rained, I owe my Halifax friends such a lot.
And speaking of Halifax friends: I went to a wedding two days after returning from Vancouver! My wonderful friend Shannon and her partner got married in their back garden on the last sunny day before the tropical storm; it was a beautiful ceremony and I was genuinely honoured to be present for it. Love is extraordinary, guys.
If the imminent and increasingly inevitable US government shutdown doesn’t stop the US embassy in the UK from functioning. It didn’t last time, hence my cautious optimism! Let’s all cross our fingers.