boomerang.

Once upon a time, in 2008, I moved to Australia.  Like any graduate student preparing for the field work portion of the show, I proceeded to do all the research I could prior to the move to prepare me for a lessened culture shock (or to become a walking Lonely Planet guidebook). I was fascinated with Australia, because it was so different to my life up to that point in Canada, and the traditions that made the country so unique to anywhere else I had been. I loved the notion of the boomerang, as someone who wasn’t necessarily hand to ball coordinated, I thought the boomerang concept was genius, here is something that you literally throw into the universe and it comes back to you, giving you a second chance. This was not without strategic thinking and orchestration, of course the thrower needs to be thoughtful and deliberate in their action in order for the boomerang actions to be successful. To me this seemed like a perfect combination of both physics and folklore. According to Wikipedia, the science behind the boomerang is certain aerodynamic qualities that make it possible for it to return to sender, combined with the various stories of how the boomerang was created and used by Indigenous Australians, its pure magic.

Moving to Australia, the physics were obvious, get on a plane, the plane will get you to the destination. The folklore was your typical urban legend, girl from small-ish town decides to find herself on the other side of the world, makes some poor life choices, blogs about it then finds happily ever after. End Scene, Next Chapter.

There was some good Canadian folklore with my current chapter, the girl from the west packs her bags and tries her luck in the big city, Canada’s centre of the universe. As Newton said, an object will remain at rest or in a uniform state of motion unless that state is changed by an external force. Beau was a welcome  and much needed external force that moved me out of my uniform state and propelled me forward and for that I could not regret the move to Toronto. I had been craving a change, I just didn’t think that was going to mean giving up my first love, Vancouver in all its glory, that had welcomed me back home from my 5 year stint overseas and been my source of inspiration, hilarity and comfort for 3 years.

In my travelling roadshow days circa 2014, I remember reading countless issues of En-Route magazine, you know that publication in the airplane seat pocket on airplanes when you fly Air Canada? Or maybe I should take a step back here, remember airplanes? Remember travel? Somewhere Babs is belting out “The way we were’ as I write this.  I digress. I loved reading the En-Route interviews with high flying Canadian executives about their travel philosophy, what to pack, how to maximize your productivity in the air etc and the common theme was that they had all moved to TO wide eyed and full of hope, where the city had broke them down, and as a result they all had to build themselves back up. They licked their wounds, threw themselves out into the universe to try again and again. This resonated, I completely had my break down moments, as I went after opportunities, but the thought that kept bommerang-ing back to me was you’re doing this to challenge yourself and advance your career and its all going to be worth it. You don’t quit running  a marathon when it starts to get hilly, you keep going. I kept going, and it was the best thing I could have done, something I hope my 25 year old bright eyed graduate student self circa 2008 would be proud of. I was capable of change, of throwing myself out into the universe, but I was also capable of causing the right amount of force, and having a strategic enough throw to orchestrate a boomerang, leading me to exactly where I was meant to be.