When you ask people what they miss about home, family and friends usually comes first (and they do for me as well, OF COURSE), but beyond that it’s usually aspects quite specific to a place. Whether it’s the coffeeshops in your hometown, easy access to the beach or the local landscape. These are the little signifiers that tell your brain and your heart that you’re back, you belong here, you’re home.
For many fellow Pacific Northwesterners and “Coastal Elites” alike, this biggest signifier of home is the ocean. I’ve had many hometown friends tell me they could never live somewhere landlocked. And I get that, to an extent.
Since arriving in Québec, I’ve gone a bit claustrophobic anytime I didn’t see water. In our first place on the South Shore of Montréal, we lived near a nice park with a decent sized lake that I felt the urge to gaze upon multiple times a day.
In Québec City, we were never far from the St Lawrence, and all of our excursions out of the city took us to nearby rivers, lakes and waterfalls. Back on the island of Montréal now, I’m frequently drawn to the Lachine Canal or any views of the Fleuve.
However, on a daily basis, what I really feel an unexplainable pull to, is Mont Royal. Although honestly it pains me a bit to call it a mountain as, by my PNW standards, it’s more of a large hill. I’m lucky enough to live a mere 10 minutes away and am there pretty much everyday for walks, jogs and to just feel like I’m not in the city anymore.
But beyond Mont Royal and a few of the surrounding…hills erhmm…Québec’s version of mountains, the greater area always surprises me with how flat it is. I’m going to be sorely out of shape whenever I do return to the PNW – where every terrain may not include a mountain, but rest assured any excursion does involve multiple inclines!
So anyways, this is a very, very lengthy way of saying what I miss most about home are the mountains.
It’s something I always very stupidly took for granted. Seattle is usually known as a city surrounded by water, the Puget Sound to the west, Lake Washington to the East and the Pacific Ocean a bit further afield. It’s a feature commonly cited by Seattleites who have left as something they miss if they’ve gone to a more landlocked locale (as per friends mentioned above).
However, I think this is a bit short-sighted, as water in some form is typically not too hard to come by, (unless you’re in the desert of course). Sure, it might not always be the Pacific Ocean or even salt water, but you can find rivers, lakes, bays and sounds in most places.
Mountains though, man are they harder to come by, particularly when your standards are the likes of the Olympics and Cascades. Sure, there’s Mont Royal in Montréal, but come on, it pales in comparison to Rainier or Baker, or anything Out West.
Back home, Mount Rainier is often used as a measure for how nice the weather is – if “the mountain is out” that means it’s a beautiful sunny day in the Emerald City. No matter what direction or suburb you’re in, one or more of the ranges is never far from view.
Sure, to actually be amongst these giants, it’s a bit of a driver from the city limits and most suburbs, but the proximity is something I definitely overlooked until it went missing from my day-to-day life. But now that I’ve said this, I’ve got a serious urge to see some larger peaks and summits ASAP.
I’m going home soon and you better believe it’s going to be the summer of mountains and me.
How about you, what do you miss most about where you grew up?
Featured Image Credit: Pavl Polo
Image 4: Emma Smith