A sense of home? Chronicle of the City of Kingston

People ask me where I'm from, and where I'm living, and I'm having a great deal of trouble answering. Quito doesn't really fit, and Vancouver, at times seems to do so less and less.

Today I was in Kingston, my former "home" for 5 years. In fact, for 3 of those years I lived on this street, and 2 of those years were in the house that once stood on this crater.

I was giving a guest lecture at Queen's university this morning. It was a great honour to return to the old Alma Mater, not as a drunken buffoon during homecoming but as a recognized lecturer.

Things always change when you come back. New restaurants, new buildings, new students, and other little changes. I knew that the university was going to destroy my old house, but seeing it was a little shocking...truly the end of an era.

The wild times on Clergy Street will never be again. Never again will 200 people be jammed into 101 Clergy for a house party, and never again would we have the opportunity to send the overflow to 85 Clergy Street.

Sure these houses were dives, and ready to collapse at any point. We had rats the size of skunks and skunks the size of raccoons, and raccoons living in their own special rooms but not paying rent.

A strange feeling it is to return to Canada for a short week between 4 different cities, while officially on the road in South America. Stranger feeling yet to stay in a hotel in your old town, and see your old house blown away in the winds of time.