A few days ago Google Photos sent me a “memories” alert. I usually ignore them. This time I opened it. Coal Harbour on a morning, mountains behind, a sky that hadn’t made up its mind yet. 2018 or 2019, I’m not sure anymore.
I looked at that photo longer than I should have.
A job, not a trip
I was there to work, at CBRE, commercial real estate. Not for some Canadian adventure to tell people about at dinner. A desk, files, morning meetings with people talking cap rates over enormous coffees. Normal life, somewhere else.
That detail matters. I was living there. Not on vacation.
Between the ocean and the mountains
Vancouver has this reputation for being a perfect city, which gets slightly annoying. Too beautiful, too clean, too expensive. All three are true. What people talk about less is how strange it is to actually live there. The city is wedged between the ocean and the mountains like someone couldn’t make up their mind. You ski in the morning, you eat decent sushi in the evening for not much money. It’s objectively absurd. After three weeks you think it’s normal.
Commercial Drive, a Sunday
A Sunday afternoon on Commercial Drive. A terrace, a flat white, a book I’d finished two hours ago that I was pretending to read. Bikes locked up anywhere, a conversation in Spanish at the next table, someone strumming a guitar not too far away. Nothing special. And yet I remember the light of that afternoon with a precision I can’t explain.
Granville Island on a Saturday morning, the market before the tourists arrive. I had my routines. A cheese vendor who recognized me. That kind of trivial thing that makes a place become a place.
Winter and the morning air
The winters are rainy, I can confirm. Weeks without seeing the sun, grey sky from morning to evening, mountains disappearing into clouds. Some people can’t take it. I found a rhythm in it. Cafes, reading, runs in the rain. It was good.
What’s hard to explain without sounding like you’re exaggerating is the air in the morning in winter. Before the rain, it smells like wet wood and cold sea at the same time. I don’t know how to describe it any other way. It’s the first thing I think of when someone mentions Vancouver.
End of 2019
I came back at the end of 2019. Timing, opportunities, circumstances. The usual mix.
There are cities you pass through. Others that keep running somewhere in the background without warning. That surface in a photo on a Tuesday evening and make you stare at the screen for a moment without really knowing why.
No SEO here. Just something personal.