This first -person column is Venkat Ravulaparthi’s experience, who lives in Edmonton, and is Part of a series of days of Canada Exploring what Canada means for people throughout this country. For more information about first person stories, See frequent questions.
It was the first dawn whisper, crispy as the breath of a pine glacier.
My friends and I stopped at a small rock point on Lake Peyto de Alberta just when the sun began to spill on the crest behind us. The trees were flooded with the golden yellow of autumn, the rocky slopes rose on them and the lake itself was still sky blue.
We had been driving from 4 in the morning to catch this moment, and while looking, it contained my breath when a stillness settled inside me.
Standing there, I knew. This is what I love. No matter how much I agree or I do not agree with other Canadians around me, we always have this: a land of incredible beauty where I feel at home.
I grew up living in four countries and seven cities before the age of 15 and I always struggled to discover where the home was. My father is a specialized project engineer in the design of a mass infrastructure, such as trains and roads lines. When we moved from city to city and project to project, I left a life halfway, the friends arrested, the undone routines, the accents adopted and then forgotten.
I became the child who was good to adapt, who would begin a conversation with a stranger on a walk, a plane, literally anywhere and would keep in touch. But I never got to the point of feeling that I belonged.
We moved to Canada twice: first in 2009, when my father became one of the designers of the exchange of Road Plain Anthony Henday-Stony Plain of Edmonton and then in 2015, when my father got a job in Toronto.
At this time, I was in high school. To fit, I pressed to be more social, more talkative, more outgoing. I began to be a volunteer for school events and establish tables with a cultural group in southern India. Later, at university, I postultered for the student council, I handled communications for the local student political association and had long conversations with friends of all origins.
That helped. I began to feel more entrenched in Canada, not because I had all the answers, but because I finally had a participation in the conversation.
I also started finding my moments of tranquility, joining a lens to my old iPhone to discover beauty through photography. I found stillness in unexpected places: the patterns in buildings, the colors of the sky, the expressions in the faces of the strangers. That helped me connect to this place.
Then, my family moved again, this time to Calgary, when my father was signed as one of the executives in the Green Line project. I joined them driving throughout the country.
I had just graduated from my degree, so I continued, and this time, I put everything in the use of politics as my way of connecting. I followed a local Alberta NDP local candidate on Twitter and then began to be a volunteer in his nomination campaign calling the doors and delivering flyers. When he lost his nomination, several others encouraged me to run in a driving that was still open.
My first instinct was to say no, since I was 20 years old and was new in the city. But I longed to understand Canada, not only as a place, but as a community that could help shape.
During that choice, I called about 20,000 doors in three months in the driving of Calgary-Loucheed. I talked to everyone who could: newcomers, residents of a lifetime, students, parents. I heard their stories and frustrations. For some, that included a growing frustration with Alberta’s place in this country and its treatment by Ottawa. Others saw the problem differently: problems in medical care and education. Anyway, they shared a desire for a better future and a commitment to this community. I listened to everyone and wanted to be part of the construction of something better.
Then I lost the elections and it hurt. I felt the help I offered and the hope I saw was rejected.
The next morning, I sat on my computer, looking at an email that offers acceptance of the Law Faculty of the University of Melbourne. Part of me wanted to leave Canada, but something else withdrew me. I was connected to my team, volunteers and the community now; I couldn’t run away.
Instead, I continued my legal education in Edmonton, where I also learned about the way in which the natives feel their connection with this place through a general exercise with the local Nation of Enoch believes.
As a non -indigenous person, standing there, who moves physically through the room while the blankets that represented the earth were gradually carried, I felt that the story inside me for the first time.
And then I took that walk.
He arrived at a time when my family was in motion again, this time leaving me behind with my doubts.
Standing on that rock, looking on Lake Peyto while the sun came out and the cold air filled my lungs, I saw the person I want to convert. Someone who continues to appear, even when the road is not clear. The sting of that electoral loss, my family moved away and the death of two people who were close to me left me shocked.
In that stillness, I understood: belonging is not about winning or being chosen. It’s about choosing staying. Worry. Keep trying.
That is what Canada is for me. It is not perfect, but mine. A place where I laughed, lost, learned and started again. A beautiful place and speaks to my heart, and a country I want to serve, understand and help grow. It doesn’t matter where you do or whatever, I will always call Canada his home.
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