We welcome Dairn Alexandre back as a guest blogger this week. Dairn (a pseudonym) works as a teacher in Alberta. He has a Diplôme d’Études Collégiales in Illustration & Design at Dawson College, a Bachelor of Education degree from McGill University, and is currently finishing up a Master of Education degree at Bishop’s University while also continuing to work as an illustrator. Dairn has two paintings on exhibition at the Avmor permanent collection in Montreal; has been a presenter and guest-lecturer at McGill University and at the University of Calgary; and has hosted sessions for Alberta’s Fine Arts Council. He lives with his wife, two kids, and dog.
My wife and I never thought that we would move back to Quebec. For years, we both spoke of leaving Calgary in hypothetical terms. But that was it.
It was only after my wife miscarried a few days before Christmas seven years ago – likely brought on by the stress of working at a high-needs and under-resourced school – that we both started discussing the likelihood of moving back to the province that we were both born and raised in; the place we once called our home.
After giving up our full-time teaching positions in Calgary in June, 2015, we packed up whatever we were unable to sell and headed back east, hoping for a simpler, better life. When we arrived that August, the town that I grew up in seemed somehow strangely foreign to us. So much had changed since we had left over eight years ago that we couldn’t help but feel homesick for a place that no longer existed.
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