vacationing at home

Since moving to Ontario three years ago, I loosely conceptualize my 'home' as my general places of origin and socialization: Vancouver city, the surrounding Lower Mainland, and several villages and towns in the rural Southern Interior where my parents grew up and where my siblings and I spent most holidays as a kid and continue to spend summers and every other Christmas. Now that I live 5000 kilometers away from these places, most of my vacation time is spent hopping between them. Home is my vacation destination. I feel lucky to have these spaces and people in my memory and lucky that they seem all the more special now that I no longer live here.


A hot, dry afternoon in Kelowna feels worlds away from Ottawa. I gaze out my window at desert hills: dotted with oaks and cedars, striped with rich vineyard rows, scarred with new townhomes and wartime bungalows, crawling with pick-ups and Harleys. It's not like any place I've seen, but is like a hybrid of Tucson, AZ and Niagara on the Lake, ON in my mind.


The entire southern interior of British Columbia is a strange place to me. Kelowna and the Okanagan have been Conservative since the 60s. The major industries are construction, retail, hospitality (from fancy winery bistros to fast-food... K-town ranks 2nd highest in fast-food restaurants per capita in Canada) and health (the hospital here serves the sickest patients of the BC interior). I imagine it also scores high in tanning beds and tattoo parlours per capita. Unemployment and immigration are way below the provincial and national averages, and home ownership is high.


Kelowna/Okanagan is also one of the most naturally beautiful regions I have ever seen, and boasts the best climate in the country. In every season, I lust after the lifestyle here: skiing in the winter (but not too cold), wakeboarding in the summer (hot but dry), triathlon training all year round, affordable lakeside property, fresh produce all year, a lively arts scene, and a UBC campus on the hill. What Kelowna lacks in diversity and international influence, it certainly boasts in lifestyle. If only this playground weren't couched in what I see as a totally backward and insular sociopolitical atmosphere, I'd probably already live here.


Juxtaposing the healthy living and conservative urban/rural valley community of Kelowna (should these be put against each other) feels especially strange to me as I begin to view the infrastructure of my childhood through critical eyes. As I'm sure is common for many of us when returning "home," sweet nostalgia is often disrupted by cultural awakenings and a loss of innocence. This sensation is unsettling to say the least, and can even feel depressing (see Garden State). For me, it is also wrapped in pleasure seeking, family love, leisure time, consumption, general self-indulgence and corresponding guilt.


Home has become tied up in feeling compelled to determine to which parts of my history I am attached, and how these construct my present behaviour and goals for the future. To cope with the stress of this, I will roll over on my water floatie and request a glass of wine from my dad.