When I was a pre-teen my dad opened a recycle depot. Green Tree Recycling.
I don’t think his intentions were to rid the world of unwanted garbage or to help the environment (although these are good benefits). This was the 90s and the “let’s use canvas bags!” thing was only a twinkle in someone’s eye. I think he did it because there was government funding to open a depot and potential to make some money. He worked really hard and had employees and everything. Instead of just walking home after school, my brother and I started taking the bus to Green Tree to help sort cans and bottles. To this day whenever I walk by a bank of recycle bins, get stuck beside a bottle collector on the bus, or clean up after a big party, the smell transports me back to that big smelly depot.
My dad has always been a schemer, a planner and an opportunist. He’s opinionated, brave, creative and smart. However, his stint as the owner of the depot eventually ended. He sold Green Tree (the new owners kept the name!) and went back to his original trade. In spite of the sale, his DIY and entrepreneurial spirit remains in tact. He almost always fixes and builds stuff himself (cars, the house, headboards, outdoor decorations) and he balks at paying for anything that looks remotely like it was built by hand.
Now that I am back home and continue to gain a sense of perspective on my move West (and subsequent return) I can see more and more similarities between my dad’s personality and my own. I portray traits of my mother, too (shopping addiction, sensitivity, and nail beds to name a few), but these of my father have been building a pit in my stomach - creating a nervous feeling - even before I left Vancouver.
There’s so much I want to do. I want to take on every task that interests me and start something from the ground up:
Film making
Photography
Baking
Decorating
Art making
[Web] Design (of course)
The internet (it’s a task, okay?)
Shop keeping
Curator
Realistically I will only become awesome at two … maybe three of this ever-growing list of things. Although (thankfully) I have gainful employment that I enjoy, I’m always wondering what else I’m capable of. Ironically, it’s the place in which I find myself now that facilitates dreaming about what other things I could be doing “someday”. The comfort of home and security of the familiar makes the most far-fetched, daunting projects seem possible.
As I get settled in, I’m going to start transforming these lists of “want to do” into lists of “how to do” and then implement.
