The Sounds That Are Missing
Our apartment is near a road that used to be busier.
These days, because of construction for the train nearby, the area has become quieter. My wife had a harder time adjusting to the sound of cars in the morning, especially since she often sleeps late after work.
For me, car engines do not bother me much.
Horns do not wake me up.
I grew up with noise.
Not just noise, actually.
Life.
There is a difference.
Back home, even in the city, the day had a soundtrack. Someone selling taho. Someone calling out suman latik. The ice cream cart passing by. A rooster acting like he owns the neighborhood. Dogs barking because a delivery driver dared to exist.
Then there was music.
Always music somewhere.
Someone playing a speaker too loudly. Someone singing karaoke with full emotional commitment and questionable pitch. Someone playing budots like the whole barangay agreed to participate.
Near our former home, we could hear the sound of the Tridentine Mass from the SSPX church beside us. Even when I was not paying attention, it was there. A voice. A rhythm. A reminder that someone nearby was praying in a way older than all of us.
Here, the quiet can feel clean.
That is the first thing.
It feels clean.
Like the air has more space.
Like nobody is fighting with the morning.
At first, I appreciated it.
I still do.
Silence can be peaceful, especially when your mind has been loud for many years.
But silence can also make absence easier to hear.
No taho.
No roosters.
No tricycles.
No neighbor’s karaoke.
No random street vendor whose voice you knew before you knew his name.
The quiet here does not always make me lonely.
Sometimes it gives me peace.
Sometimes I sit with it and think, yes, this is nice.
Then some nights, I realize the quiet is also the sound of everyone I left living their ordinary lives without me.
That sounds dramatic.
But I do not mean it that way.
It is just the truth of distance.
People keep buying breakfast.
People keep going to work.
People keep complaining about heat, traffic, politicians, slow internet, and the price of rice.
You leave.
Life continues.
That is fair.
That is also hard.
Maybe this is why mundane things hurt more than big things sometimes.
The big things announce themselves.
The small things sneak in.
You do not always miss home when you see a flag or hear a national anthem.
Sometimes you miss home because no one is selling ice cream outside.
Winter Did Something Weird to Me
I used to dream of snow.
Of course I did.
I grew up in the Philippines.
Snow was something from movies, Christmas cards, anime episodes, and other people’s lives. It looked soft. It looked magical. It looked like proof that the world had other versions.
Then I moved to Canada and met actual winter.
Actual winter is less magical when you have to walk through it.
The first thing I noticed was not even the cold on my skin.
It was my nose.
The air pricked when I inhaled.
That surprised me.
I always joke that the lowest setting on air-conditioning units in the Philippines is around 16 or 18 degrees Celsius, and I already shivered in that. I thought I had a reference point.
I did not.
Canadian cold does not behave like air-conditioning.
Air-conditioning stays in the room.
Winter follows you outside and waits for your confidence to crack.
Still, I liked it.
That is the confusing part.
I really did.
I liked seeing snow. I liked looking outside and realizing the world had changed overnight. I liked the way it made ordinary streets feel unfamiliar. I liked the quiet it brought, even if the quiet sometimes became too quiet.
Then winter started doing something to my mood.
I had heard people talk about Vitamin D and short days, but hearing about something is different from feeling it in your own body.
Some days, I was just down.
Not in a poetic way.
Just down.
The day felt too short. The light felt too weak. My body felt like it was waiting for something it could not name. I understood, in a more personal way, why people here talk about the sun like it is a relative who has not visited in months.
Then January came, and the snow suddenly stopped.
And I became sad.
Which was unfair.
I had just been complaining internally about winter, then the moment it eased up, I missed it.
I wanted more snow.
I wanted to experience more of the thing that was making me tired.
I do not know what that says about me.
Probably nothing flattering.
Maybe I wanted winter to finish its lesson properly.
Maybe I wanted to feel that I had survived a real one.
Maybe I was still treating Canada like a checklist.
Snow? Check.
Cold nose? Check.
Existential crisis because the sun disappears too early? Check.
Eventually, of course, I started wishing for more sun.
I am still Filipino.
There is only so much darkness my body can romanticize.
Now I look forward to spring and summer with a different kind of hunger.
Not the summer from back home.
Summer here will be hotter, yes, but it will never be like the Philippines. It will not smell the same. It will not carry the same heat from the pavement. It will not have the same sweaty, irritated, sunburned familiarity.
But I want it.
I want to walk around the city again.
I miss walking.
If not for snow and ice and the constant fear of falling like a cartoon character with immigration paperwork, I would have continued my walking streak from back home.
I want to see the sun again.
That sounds so simple.
It is simple.
That is why it matters.
Food, Shoes, and the Body Remembering Home
Our apartment often smells like a Bath & Body wallflower.
I wish I could tell you the exact scent, but I cannot.
My wife’s friend gave her some for Christmas, and we bought more after that, so now the scent is just part of the room. It is there when I wake up. It is there when I work from home. It is there when I come back from outside and open the door.
That is one thing I noticed here.
A smell becomes part of your memory before you even name it.
Someday, maybe years from now, I might smell that same scent somewhere and suddenly remember this apartment. This season. This version of us. The time when we were still trying to figure out schedules, work, exams, groceries, winter, bills, and the strange emotional math of starting again.
Food does this faster.
Especially food cooked by my wife.
I said earlier that my life here is 50 percent work, 30 percent sleep, 20 percent anime, and 100 percent enjoying the food she makes.
That is still medically inaccurate.
But emotionally correct.
Kadios, baboy, langka.
Batchoy.
Rice that makes a day feel less foreign.
The first time I tried her batchoy here, something in me relaxed. I do not want to exaggerate it. It was not a movie moment. I did not cry into the bowl like an immigrant in a commercial.
But I felt safe.
That is the word.
Safe.
Winter outside. Soup inside. My wife nearby. A taste that did not need to explain itself.
There are foods here I unexpectedly like too.
Donair, perhaps.
Poutine, maybe.
I am still deciding if I truly like them or if I just like the idea that I am becoming the kind of person who can casually eat them.
But Filipino food is different.
It does not ask to be evaluated.
It just arrives and says, you know me.
That is enough.
Sometimes I think the body remembers home before the mind does.
The tongue remembers.
The nose remembers.
The feet remember.
My Hoka shoes remember, at least in my sentimental imagination.
Most days, I do not think about this.
Most days, I just wear them because they are comfortable, and because I still do not drive, so my feet remain part of my transportation plan.
But every now and then, I look down.
Then I remember.
These shoes have been with me since the first step.
There is something funny about giving shoes that much emotional weight.
But migration does that to objects.
Shoes become witnesses.
IDs become proof.
A wallet becomes a small folder of survival.
A grocery bag becomes a sign that you are learning the map.
Even snacks become evidence.
Chippy on a shelf in T&T.
Oishi chips under Canadian lights.
A sari-sari-store feeling inside one of the largest malls in North America.
Small things keep telling me the same message.
You are not there anymore.
Then another message follows.
You are here now.
Both are true.
Neither feels complete.
The Places That Feel Like Edmonton Now
There are parts of Edmonton that already feel familiar to me.
Stony Plain Road.
Church Street in McCauley.
Not because they look like home.
They do not.
But they have started collecting my memory.
That is how a place becomes yours, I think.
Not through beauty first.
Through repetition.
You pass the same road enough times.
You wait at the same corner.
You see the same buildings in different weather.
You walk through the same ordinary stretch when you are tired, hungry, late, hopeful, irritated, or just trying to get somewhere.
Then one day, it feels familiar.
Not special.
Familiar.
That matters more.
Jasper Avenue and Rogers Place still feel a little foreign to me.
I do not know why.
Maybe they feel too polished in my head. Too downtown. Too much like the Canada people imagine before they come here. Big roads. Big buildings. Big arena. Big city energy.
But even there, I have had moments where it hit me.
I live in Canada.
Not as a dream.
Not as a plan.
Not as a “someday.”
Here.
Now.
I have felt that while looking at downtown.
I have felt that while passing places I used to only know as names on maps.
I have felt that while seeing the river valley and thinking, this is beautiful, and then immediately thinking, wait, I live near this.
That feeling is strange.
It is not always joy.
It is not always sadness.
Sometimes it is just a pause.
A small delay in the heart.
Like the body needs one extra second to accept the fact.
Many people here complain about Edmonton.
That surprised me at first.
The average person, if you ask them, may tell you what they hate about the city. The roads. The cold. The construction. The dullness. The way winter stretches too long. The way summer feels too short.
I understand them.
I also think they love it more than they admit.
Maybe that is what people do with places that hold their memories.
They complain because they belong enough to complain.
I am not there yet.
I still complain carefully.
Like a guest.
But I am learning.
Church, Quiet Belonging, and Not Dancing During Fast Songs
Sunday begins differently.
Not always easier.
Just differently.
Church here feels familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
Back home, I had been away from church for a while, so attending again in Canada felt like starting over. There were rituals I recognized. Words I understood. Songs I could follow. Prayers that did not feel completely new.
But the room was different.
The people were different.
The silence was different.
The church we attend has a Dutch-heritage-majority background. On paper, that could sound intimidating. It could sound like a place where someone like me might stand out too much, or be welcomed politely but not warmly.
But they have been welcoming.
Quietly.
Consistently.
In ways that matter more than performance.
People talk to us. They remember us. They make space. They do not make us feel like props in their diversity story, which I appreciate more than I can say.
Still, I notice things.
Like how silent worship can be.
People do not really dance.
Even with fast songs, many do not move much. Sometimes I want to sway, or clap, or let the song live in my body a little more. Then I look around and remember where I am.
So I adjust.
Not completely.
Just enough.
That is another immigrant skill.
You learn when to keep yourself visible and when to soften your edges.
You learn which parts of you can stretch.
You learn which parts should stay.
I do not want to lose curiosity.
I do not want to lose appreciation.
Those are two things I refuse to give up.
Maybe that is why I notice so much.
The way people greet each other.
The way coffee after church can feel like a small extension of grace.
The way my wife and I wish we could linger longer, but sometimes work gets in the way.
That part hurts in a small, boring way.
And small, boring hurts are still hurts.
You want to stay.
You want to talk.
You want to be part of the slow after-service conversations where people ask about your week and you say something ordinary and somehow that ordinary thing helps you belong.
But then someone has work.
Or someone is tired.
Or groceries still need to happen.
Or the week is waiting.
So you leave.
You tell yourself, next time.
Sometimes there is a next time.
Sometimes there is not.
That is life here too.
Before Sleeping
The heaviest part of the day often comes before sleeping.
I do not know why.
Maybe because work is done.
Messages are quieter.
The room is darker.
There is less to distract me from the life I left.
That is when I think of people back home.
Friends.
Family.
Former patients.
Old routines.
The version of myself who knew where things were, who knew how systems worked, who could practice medicine, who did not need to rehearse small talk before an Uber ride.
I miss the easy understanding.
Not just language.
Context.
I miss not having to explain why a food matters.
Why a sound matters.
Why a sari-sari store is not just a store.
Why a rooster in the middle of the city can feel annoying and comforting at the same time.
I miss friends being close by.
I miss malls that feel like public living rooms.
I miss the smell of the sun when it is hot.
I miss tricycles.
I miss roosters.
I even miss inconveniences, which feels unfair because when I had them, I complained too.
Maybe distance edits memory.
Maybe it does not make things better.
It just makes them tender.
When that heaviness comes, I shut my eyes.
Then I touch my wife to make sure she is there.
That is the part I almost do not want to write because it feels too private.
But it is true.
I do not wake her.
I do not need to say anything.
I just need that small proof.
She is here.
I am here.
We are here.
For now, that is enough.
The Small Things Keep Telling Me
I thought immigrant life would announce itself through big moments.
The airport.
The first snow.
The first job.
The first time I got asked where I was from.
The first winter.
The first homesick night.
And yes, those moments matter.
But the longer I stay here, the more I realize that ordinary things tell the story better.
The alarm sound I changed from Radar to Storytime.
The Hoka shoes by the door.
The wallet and IDs in my pocket.
The large Triple Triple before work.
The Uber small talk I rehearse in my head.
The Tim Hortons workers who look like me.
The T&T aisle where Chippy and Oishi wait like tiny ambassadors from home.
The quiet apartment.
The Bath & Body wallflower scent I still cannot name.
The church where people welcome us, even if nobody dances during fast songs.
The Edmonton roads I recognize now.
The snow I complained about, then missed.
The sun I started wanting again.
The English that sounds perfect in my head, then comes out Filipino.
The Hiligaynon that lets my mouth rest.
These are not dramatic things.
They are not even special things.
That is why I trust them.
They do not try too hard to become symbols.
They just sit there.
Then one day, you realize they have been marking your life all along.
I still do not fully belong here.
I do not say that with sadness.
I just think it is true.
Belonging takes time.
It takes repetition.
It takes grocery routes, church coffee, workdays, bus rides, winter mornings, and enough ordinary conversations that a place stops feeling like a map and starts feeling like memory.
I am still from there.
I am also here now.
Some days, those two facts fight.
Some days, they sit beside each other quietly.
Maybe acceptance is not choosing one over the other.
Maybe it is learning how to live with both.
Nostalgia with belongingness.
That sounds awkward, but maybe the feeling itself is awkward.
I miss home.
I am building home.
I feel foreign.
I feel grateful.
I feel tired.
I feel stronger than I expected.
I feel softer too.
And somewhere between Tim Hortons, WEM, winter, church, Uber rides, anime, work, and my wife’s cooking, the small things keep telling me the same thing.
I live here now.
