Notes on Two Coasts, Old Cameras, and Keeping Rituals Small
What moving from Toronto to Montreal, Boston, and San Francisco taught me about traveling light without feeling unmoored.
At twenty-five, four cities already hold distinct versions of my habits: Toronto has family kitchen noise and ravine trails; Montreal has snowy walks down Rue Sherbrooke after pharmacology labs; Boston has brick sidewalks along the Charles River; San Francisco has eucalyptus mist rolling over Pacific Heights.
Splitting life across coasts could easily feel fragmented if you waited for uninterrupted weekends to live your real life. Instead I’ve learned to shrink rituals until they fit inside a carry-on: a 35-minute morning run to learn a new neighborhood’s geography, loose-leaf high-mountain oolong leaves in a tin, and calling home while chopping garlic for dinner.