RAMBLINGS ON HOME

Home is a funny thing… sometimes it moves, shifting with the seasons of life. Other times it collapses in on us and we’re left searching for home within ourselves. For many of us, home is where we grew up - that one constant in our lives that will never change regardless of how we do. For others, it’s the people - our families, close friends and good neighbours who can make any place feel like home. I think ultimately home is the place where we feel most at peace, where we can let our guards down and retreat from the pressures of life around us.

These days for me home is our beautiful city of North Vancouver - not just the apartment I live in with my wife and daughter, nor just the people I spend my days with. For me, home has always been a geographical phenomenon. These mountains and this ocean provide me that sense of peace where my retreat comes from. The daycare my daughter attends, the restaurants we frequent, the trails we ride - these make up home in my heart.

I can honestly say that I never legitimately envisioned life as a small business owner… for the first decade of my career as a woodworker I was content with just that, woodworking. The efforts of tracking taxes and marketing my business always seemed like adminstrative hassle that I would do everything I could to avoid. While that is still true a lot of days, I press on as an entrepeneur in the hopes of North Vancouver being home for my family and I for the long haul - our little gang is adding one more before the end of the year, and this small woodworking operation seems like the best way for us to press on here and contribute to the community. And it is enough.

After five years of living here, weathering a pandemic, pushing a stroller around Lower Lonsdale just about daily, those places which felt like home before begin to feel strange now. Memories begin to feel like dreams that every once in a while surprise me by their historicity. ‘I forgot about this place’ is often on my mind.

Wherever you put down roots in this world, make sure to do what it takes to make it home.