The milestone that struck me—it hit me as I was sitting in the break room, bored with the day, mostly spent walking around waiting for customers to talk to me; and depressed about what passes for a future there, which was mostly the hope of slightly cushier versions of the same keeping me afloat while I made time to write—was that, if I found a way back to Montreal, if I were to be offered a job with writing, or possibly anything, sometime when I was in town, I would take it. And I would go back. It hit me over the head. I had not realized the moment would come where I would think that and I would know it was true. But the question had come up enough in my head and even out of my mouth while I was there. “I am basically a Montreal writer even though I live in Vancouver, so I try to get over here once for twice a year.” What is this? How sustainable is this? Do I want to be doing this?

I remember Tawdiha talking about the difference between writing when you have a day job and writing full time. The feeling, when you made that jump, that you were doing what you were always supposed to be doing. I’ll never do that in Vancouver. Montreal seems like a place for it. When I go there I remember how much I forget that possibility exists.

Ah, but I’m here. I’m applying to the Product Consultant job opening, time number four. I don’t know the future. That would be fine. Nothing has changed. And could be I’ll move on somewhere else again, to somewhere else in my soul I mean, before I blink. I don’t even know how much of that first paragraph is true and how much of it was an illusion of an fleeting epiphany. I am here in Vancouver; the summer heat is coming on; I think, days like this, I do feel my life creeping onwards.