An expat from Saguenay

"I travel a lot
I see a lot of things
very different from what we are used to see here
of course
when we travel we see different things
that's quite sure
but I have the feeling to tell it to repeat it
why
I don't really know
maybe saying it I just want to make a contact
to keep in touch as we say"

Larry Tremblay, The Dragonfly of Chicoutimi

I quoted it before, but I do feel like the way Gaston Talbot describe himself in the beginning of the play (we learn later that it is a fabrication, but it fits me anyway). And today is my last day home, in Saguenay, in Chicoutimi where the water is deep.I always have this strange feeling when I come back home. I am a guy from Saguenay, a Blueberry as we say, through and through: I sitll have the accent, I relate to all these little cultural references. I also have the local temperament, or some of it: the pride, the tendency to fabulation, the way of always looking at things in dramatic, larger than life fashion. The Saguenay is often called the Kingdom of Saguenay (I kid you not), even though there is no king in it. But there is no need of a king: the place has enough majesty in itself. It might sound stupid, but I relate to this.

I have been an expat for a long time, maybe since I first left to study in Montreal when I was 19. I wondered before if being an expat did not mean becoming a foreigner. I am foreign wherever I go: in other countries of course, but even in Montreal which I consider home, because of my accent. Yet when I come back here, it is always after a long while: I didn't see the city changing, or the way I changed myself. In a way, I feel that I am from Saguenay when I am in another place.