So, yes, 25,000 miles, and in all of my life I’ve never lived more than ten miles away from where I was born in Dudley, I thought to myself, stepping off the bus at Metro Parc, on the blue line. Walking a few steps to the Metro entrance, and then pushing the door open and feeling the rush of air pass by me, coming up from the tunnels below. All that time, on the bus and then riding on the metro, while I felt estranged from everyone, as it passed through Acadie, Outremont, Édouard Montpetit, etc until Snowden, I thought about that fact.  

My parents would travel across the sea from Jamaica to find each other at the end of their travels in England. One by boat, the other by plane. A few years later, in the maternity unit of Guest Hospital in Dudley, Amy, on the day of my birth on April 10th, Amy, the best mom in the world, would hold me in her arms. Taking me back home to New Road in Netherton, Dudley, a few days later, six point one miles away from Fearon Place, where I now live in Smethwick.

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