Homesick

Mango trench
Oak + Fort tank (similar)
Mango jeans
Rouje boots (similar)
Gucci handbag
RayBan sunglasses
Celine necklace
Stella & Dot ring
Maris Pearl Co. earrings (similar)
Location: The Manitoba Legislature – Winnipeg, Manitoba

This outfit belongs in Paris. Anything with a trench coat does, really. The classic trench is a true Parisian staple, perfect for the rainy weather that makes spring in the French capital so notably lovely.

I’ve had Paris on my mind lately. I’ve had everywhere on my mind lately, if I’m honest. Seven months is the longest I’ve ever spent in one place in my adult life. That place, of course, is home. But for me, the idea of home is a bit complicated. It’s true that I was born in Winnipeg, that I grew up here, and that I’ve lived here now for a little over three years. That means that in the strictest sense of the word, the place is home.

But I’ve never once felt homesick for Winnipeg. (Months ago, in the early days of lockdown, I made a feeble but true joke that I’d learned my favourite place in the city, and the one I was most anxious to visit again when things reopened, was the airport.) I’m not sure that I even knew what it meant to feel homesick until my mid-teens, when I started traveling beyond my own country and the one immediately south of it. I didn’t even like Acapulco much when we visited family there over Christmas in the year 2000. But the minute we got home, I ached to be back. That post-holiday hangover, my first ever, lasted well into the new year.

Some days, I’m homesick for places I’ve never seen – places I’m missing the chance to see while we all remain homebound. Other days, I’m homesick for the homes I’ve left behind. Even before the pandemic, missing Paris was practically a state of being for me. I reminisce about old apartments, romanticising their lack of space as charming and quaint rather than inconvenient. I follow reports about new hotel and restaurant openings, making lists of places I want to visit when we can get back again. And even though I shake my head at the totally unrealistic depiction of expat life in Paris portrayed in the world’s new favourite series, Emily in Paris, I find myself dreaming of the realities of expat life. The crowded metro cars. The regular trips to queue at the local mairie and prefecture for document renewals. All aspects of the infuriatingly officious bureaucracy of La Poste.

Life in Paris is a grind. But it was my grind, my place, and although I wasn’t born there, it will always be home. This outfit belongs in Paris, and so do I.

…but I am equally homesick for Athens and Florence and Rome and every city I’ve ever loved. As I type this, a lone plane flies by outside my window. I used to see dozens every day sitting at this desk, but now they’re rare. I wonder who is on it, who is able to master their anxiety or suspend their disbelief in a way I’m sure I couldn’t manage to venture out into the world. And I admit, I almost envy them.

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