And I’m not talking about a mild discomfort.  I’m talking about that knotted feeling in your chest - the kind that makes you want to double over in pain.

I miss Canada.

It hit me out of the blue this afternoon.  I was browsing some web pages about the Appalachian Trail, and happened to glance up at a little certificate hanging on my wall.  It’s a single “share” I bought to support the Trans Canada Trail back in 2002; one metre of the trail funded by yours truly.

Rather ironically, I chose to have my name inscribed on the pavilion in Sudbury, Ontario.  I have never lived in Sudbury, nor do I have any relationship with anyone living there - past or present.  But, it’s been a favorite town of mine for many years, and I decided in a whim to immortalize myself there.  (Exercising what many may call better judgment, I had my name inscribed on the pavilion in my hometown of Uxbridge, Ontario for the next metre of trail I bought a few years later.)

And this got me thinking - a dangerous thing.

I went over to the Trans Canada Trail website and started poking around.  And it got me thinking about how many parts of Canada I’ve been lucky enough to see, and how many others I’m still aching to explore.

It also reminded me of an old dream of mine - to paddle a canoe across the Trent Severn Waterway.

Now that my mind was elsewhere, I let it go back in time even further.

I went back to hanging out with friends in cottage country near Bala, Ontario - learning to water ski and barbecuing hamburgers on the back patio.

I remembered moving into my dorm at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, and walking the city from one end to the other with wide-eyed amazement.  Peterborough was the first city I learned on my own, and it will always have a place in my heart because it witnessed some fundamental shifts in my evolution as a person.

I remembered moving to Calgary, Alberta and sipping champaigne with my best friend in Confederation Park to celebrate my arrival.

I remembered climbing on my old Honda motorcycle and riding out to Petroglyph Provincial Park in the summer of 1992 - the result of which forever shifted my academic focus from math and engineering to the humanities.

I remembered furiously pedaling my bicycle around our Scarborough, Ontario suburb as a pre-teen and wanting so badly to be like the BMX stunt riders in magazines like “BMX Plus!”.

But most of all, I remember the sigh of relief I feel everytime I drive home and see the Toronto skyline over Lake Ontario for the first time.