The sweetness and the bittersweetness

I came back to Churchill. Shortly after I got there I knew that I was no longer going to be working there and staying there. My boss was crazy and abusive and I simply decided that I would not and could not put up with working with that kind of person. I've suffered plenty of abuse in my life, and now its time to stop. I'm too old to be putting up with it any more...
So that was upsetting. I was sad as it seemed like my only chance to be in Churchill more permanently. But I was lucky enough to be permitted to return to the wonderful study centre and be a volunteer for a while again. This stint in the centre was much harder than before. The cook that I was working with seemed to take an instant dislike to me- and I can't say I was all that crazy about her either!! So there was a tension in the kitchen that I was not used to. I was also very adapted to working with Rob and Audrey- 2 people who were relaxed and easy going and who constantly appreciated any work or effort that was done for them, and this time that was not the case. So that was difficult. The centre was also very very quiet- very few people around, no other volunteers....I've come to realise how important fellow volunteers are while I've been travelling. They are people to work with and to play with, people to laugh and cry with, people to whom you can reveal your heart, or have a screaming match with. But most importantly they are the only other people who can appreciate the experience that you are having. Because they are having a similar one themselves. They know how it feels to be the person on the outside, the person that perhaps others don't make so much of an effort to get to know, since you are only going to leave anyway. They appreciate how confusing it can be to have workers responsibilities but none of the workers rights. And they understand a bit more about how it is to have such a cultural gap, which makes for a very interesting life. They are important people and I've realised that afresh with every new experience.

But the sweetness was coming back to Churchill at all. And coming back to the centre to spend time with people that I know and love and admire and respect. Even though I spent a lot of time on my own, it was still good to be here. The sweetness was going out running in the mornings with Silver as a bear guard, enjoying the clear resounding boom of the winter blue sky above me. The sweetness was stopping for just a few seconds on each run to listen and hear nothing. And to be able to just enjoy the silence with no vehicles destroying the peace. To be able to look out at the bay and marvel anew at the fact that the sea- the moving, restless sea!!- is frozen over and motionless. To marvel at the size of the snow drifts after a 3 day blizzard. To go snowmobiling with my friends and hear them laugh and spend time with them. The sweetness is to witness, for the first time, the return of the spring to this frozen land. To see and hear the geese as they pair up for spring mating. To see the ptarmigan turn from white to brown again. To feel the sun on my face. To hear the silence of winter turn to the busy calls of the birds as they return.

The bittersweetness. Ah. Thats a different story. That was knowing that Churchill also held the person who I have become too attached to. Knowing that after I split up with the last person I loved, 4 years ago, I was fairly certain that I was incapable of loving anyone again. And finding out when I came to Churchill that I was wrong. But that it was not to be, now or next year. I was happy to discover that I can still love and be in love. But that is truly bittersweet when you know that it won't be returned. That once again you must be on the outside looking in what you want most in the world. Also knowing that I must leave the person I care for and the land that I love most in the world, and return to my own country which I can no longer call home. And hope with all my heart to return. At some point soon.