My talented animator/husband Erik finally made his decision and in June he’ll be dragging me kicking and screaming from Austin to Vancouver. Our faithful companion Storm will be forced to come with us too. Life is tough.
You can read Erik’s version of the whole thing here. He’s going to study classical animation for a year at the VanArts school. Given how much his drawing skills improved from taking a month long class a few years back, this is a brilliant opportunity for him.
I’m excited and terrified at the prospect of moving, I think we both are. I spent a few days in Vancouver with Erik and loved it. It’s a very fit city, very dog-friendly, good arts scene and of course it’s part of a country that worships the same Queen as me. On the down side, it rains a lot, gets dark early and can be bloody cold in the winter. But then again, it also has pubs and newsagents that sell British boiled sweets.
I love the idea of taking off on another adventure together. It’s been almost 7 years to the day since we left London and we both feel like we’re in a bit of a rut. My actorly brother, Miles Gallant, was quoted during this year’s Edinburgh Festival saying: ‘We have two choices in life; to be bored or to be frightened.’ Although he lied a lot when we were kids, I think he’s right in this case. I’m most proud of myself for the times when I took a risk, when I did the old ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’ thing, even if it didn’t always work out. Actually that’s not true – I’m never proud of the times when I fail, I look upon those moments with self-loathing and contempt. Especially every Monday night after improv class.
My big concern about all this is what I will be doing in Vancouver while Erik’s being all studentish. We’ll still have some 2badmice projects and I hope to get some acting and voiceover work, although the accent won’t be such a novelty. Perhaps I should start brushing up on my Texan? (texan accent, not the dude from Bugtussle). Hilarious.
I’m sure I’ll keep doing stand-up – Vancouver has a pretty decent comedy scene, as does Canada as a whole and Seattle’s somewhere around there. I’ll also have more of an opportunity to work on sketch comedy and produce some short films. Ok, so I haven’t done that in the whole time we’ve lived in Austin, but maybe I just need a bit of rain and gloom to inspire me instead of all this damn sunshine.
I’m most worried about being lonely out there and becoming a bit of a wifely drain on Erik. I don’t claim to be especially sociable and when we moved to Austin, one of the hardest things for me was making new friends, especially since we worked from home. I took an odd assortment of classes just to be in an environment with other people. And now that I have some really close friendships, it’s hard to imagine being away from them for a year. So I’ve taken to telling people that I’m only going to Vancouver for 6 months which doesn’t seem anywhere near as bad, until I remember that means being apart from Erik for 6 months. Damn you, consequences of my choices.
I think I’ll just stick my head in the sand till January.