Riding into the sunset [Previous ¦ Next]
A trio of events capped this. My entire family acquired our second citizenships, Mum and I graduated within a year of each other, and I met my first wife-to-be. A native Calgarian, artist and horsewoman, she was soon to be blamed for my earlier decision to call Calgary home. An interesting flip happened actually: in our three year courtship her conservative parents were horrified, while mine looked on benignly (deep inside they love Calgarians, but I doubt they admitted it to themselves). When we got married her parents heaved a sigh of relief and I gained a second family, while mine panicked at the implication that I would not return to France. The wedding was all my in-laws', and it would usher a decade-long cold war with my parents that would only end with that marriage.
France has compulsory military service, the alternatives to which were civil service or conscientious objector. I got extensions while I was at university in Calgary, and before I could even consider alternatives I was told to report upon graduation or be considered a deserter. So I went back to the foreign registry, then on to the military barracks in W France, not quite sure how I'd be exempt if at all. Much to my surprise during medical examination, the doctor himself in service understood that one does not arrive from W Canada just to visit, and saw an opportunity: I had had problems with my hearing through my youth, indeed two operations to fix my drum and hearing bones; he tried to exempt me for poor hearing, as that is a critical function in military service. He thought that it being the end of the day, the chief medic might sign my papers absent-mindedly. Sure enough he did, and they regretfully signed me off with one day's wages at he army. No regrets here however, that money bought me the sweetest tasting bottle of wine celebrating my newly found freedom.
No wonder I thought I was on top of the world! I went on to grad school in Kingston, Ontario, where I discovered the second third of this vast land. I capped my love affair with horses with a decade of dressage and competition with one then two horses of our own. And I found a woman whose search matched mine: well traveled, critical of the system, steeped into folk music, health-food nut, believer in doing everything herself, and talented at everything she put her mind to. She took refuge with me in that isolation we thought was it, and we both rode off into the sunset humming our own tune.
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