Morning drive through the canyon. The rising sun casts long shadows from the sage brush and pines. I wash my face at a gas station.

In the city we ride. The kilometers of pavement give way to forest and ocean and sky. A city so rich with my memories. A small dimly lit park lined with paving stones where I kissed Gordon. A house where I drunkenly asked Tony to go out with me(he said no). The house where I slept tangled up with Dave, in his childhood bed, the sheets worn, soft streetlight shining through the high basement windows. The bar that I parked behind, carried Tim's guitars in through the back door. The grocery store where Rob gave me his phone number while I was facing the spice aisle. The cruise ship terminal where I spent asummer perpetually cold from the drafty corridors wearing a polyester government issued uniform. The intersection where a car hit me, where I hurtled through the air, where I seizured upon impact, where I woke looking into the eyes of a prostitute. The oddly placed stables, where I rode a retired racehorse in circles bareback. The backyard of my childhood friend who spurned me at age 13.

I walk with my Dad through a ravine that I used to go to after school as a teenager. I show him where I used to watch the crayfish, where I used to pick the salmon berries. I show him where the creek crossing - a fallen tree - used to be. As we climb up the far side, I remember that this is where I learned who I was: amongst the cedars and swordferns.

This place, these memories. To just walk away from them all?

When I came back from three months in Europe, I swore that I'd see more of Canada before leaving the continent ever again. And now, coming back to Vancouver, I find myself with the same feeling again, only this time the scale reduces another fold.

As we leave town, his phone rings. We sit on the side of the highway, passing trucks buffeting the small car. We turn around. We print his resume at a library. I drop him off outside of city hall.

Two hours of interview. Two weeks of waiting.