Why are we here?

There are a good collection of reasons why we - Colin and I - are here.  In Squamish.  We were born with with the receptors and innate characteristics which feed off this kind of place.  We each individually had the privilege of being raised in an established first world home, which provided the freedom and opportunity to pursue education, play, and earn a sustainable living.  And we drove here.

The U-haul truck left Calgary in June of 2015 with us, all of Colin's possessions and half of mine (the rest came later), and made its way across the three major mountain ranges that separate the Alberta prairies from the BC coast.

Rogers Pass, BC - in the Columbia Mountains

Colin arrived via Hungerton, Thurleston, Croft, Bristol, Leeds, Bristol, London, Bristol - all UK, Hong Kong, Ulaan Bataar - Mongolia, The Maldives, Bangkok, Jubail - Saudi Arabia, London, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Calgary (where we met), Canmore, and Calgary.

I arrived via Edmonton, Reading - UK, Edmonton, Reading, Edmonton, Vancouver, Edmonton, Red Deer, Edmonton, Calgary, short stints in Montreal / Revelstoke / Coquitlam / St.Paul-Minneapolis / Moose Jaw / Chicago, Cranbrook, Golden, and lastly Calgary.

We rolled into Squamish, consolidated our "stuff" into our new house and now shared quarters, and here we are.

I got a telescope for Christmas, and you know what?  You have to zoom out to a 20 light-year cube centred around the earth just to get another 17 stars into the area of our solar system [1].  That's a 189,000,000,000,000-km cube,  The closest star to earth is the Alpha Centauri system at 4.3 light years away.  That's astronomical.  Ha.  The space in between the stars contains less than one atom per cubic cm (on earth, there are about 10 million trillion (10^18) atoms per cubic cm of air at sea level) [1].

All that to say, it's truly confounding that we exist, nevermind that we are here.  In Squamish.

As for why, we'll get to that...


[1] "Nightwatch" - Terence Dickenson, Revised Fourth Edition