Memory – Page 6 – Rant and Roll

Nothing to fear, but fear itself. (But also dying. That too.)

Want to know a secret?

This past week I ran away.

Well, not really.

On Tuesday night, I left behind the rainy streets of Vancouver, in exchange for the rainy shores of British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast.

(That’s a paradox, no? A rainy Sunshine Coast?)

For the next two and a bit days, I camped out in front of a fire and wrote, ran, read (and Netflixed) my little heart out.

It was the VWOZNOW solo retreat extravaganza of 2014!

You see, at my job, (which I love), I accrue quite a bit of overtime, and I am lucky enough that I am able to bank these hours and take them as time in lieu.

Which means that before the bell strikes twelve on December 31^st, I am required to use up all of this vacation, lest it all be for not.

So being that time was a-ticking, and knowing how much I love the wild woods of our province’s eerily beautiful (and desperately sodden) temperate rain forest, Marc suggested that I take a bit of this time and have an adventure or two on my own.

Sad of course that he couldn’t join me, I did quite like the idea. I mean, how often is it that you are gifted with extra days off, combined with the chance to do all of the things you love so dearly?

So, after work on Tuesday, I jumped in our little car and drove to Horseshoe Bay to catch the 5:20pm ferry.

I arrived a little early, so I bought a chai latte and walked around the village, marvelling at the strings of Christmas lights, twinkling along the darkening waterfront.

Clutching my umbrella and trying my best to dodge the many puddles freckling the almost-empty streets, I wished that I had brought a pair of gloves and that I had thought to wear better shoes.

Once back in the safety and warmth of my car, I engaged in some Twitter tomfoolery with the CBC’s As It Happens, and was for a brief moment, a social media superstar.

When I arrived at the Langdale terminal an hour or so later, I hit the road in earnest. I swore it could have been two o’clock in the morning, what with how dark the evening had fallen. It was also raining like a raining thing, which forced me to be extra careful as I drove.

I stopped briefly in Sechelt to purchase some stuff for dinner and breakfast, as well as a bottle of wine and a bag of G.H. Cretors Chicago Mix popcorn, because, alas, I am addicted to this crack-cocaine (disguised as popcorn) life-ruining snack.

ADDICTED.

Anywho, I was soon back in the driver’s seat and on my way to the cabin. I had made three mixed CDs for the trip, and in between my loud singing jags, I listened to a number of interviews on the on-going botch-up of Veteran’s Affairs here in the Great White North.

(Hence the need for the loud singing jags.)

Eventually I made it to my home-away-from-home around seven o’clock, and I set about to settling in.

Unfortunately I was met with two, how shall I say, uncomfortable and unforeseen circumstances that needed immediate attending.

The first was that both of the cabin’s fire alarms were out of batteries and they were going off at different intervals.

Now, anyone who has ever before heard a fire alarm knows that their sounds are incredibly jarring and weirdly disturbing. Plus, one of them had a voice that kept announcing the same phrases over and over again: “LOW BATTERY – DISABLE” or “CARBON MONOXIDE – MONOXIDE DE CARBON” or “FIRE – FEU”.

(You’ve got to love living in a bilingual country as it affords you the curtesy of having the crap scared out of you in both of our official languages! I look forward to thanking my parents for all of those years in French immersion come the day when I burn to death in a very unfortunate Dark Souls-related candle accident.)

Anyways, the other unfortunate factor was that when I entered the kitchen – after putting my bags into the bedroom – I noticed that the second door (the one that opens into the kitchen) was about five to six inches ajar.

Meaning, open.

To the night air.

YIKES.

I stood there, frozen, feeling my blood run cold.

“SERIAL” and “KILLER” I think were the first two words that popped into my head.

Let me tell you, the fact every thirty seconds two separate fire alarms kept going off, announcing my impending and immediate doom, was one thing I really could have dealt without (especially at what seemed like a very critical juncture of my life.)

Grabbing my phone, I texted Marc.

He didn’t understand what I was talking about, so I phoned him and explained the situation as succinctly and as quickly as I could.

As he voiced his concern, I tried to find a sharp, easily wieldable knife.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

“I am going to go room by room with you on the phone. With this paring knife,” I explained.

I looked down at the small blade in my hand.

“Good luck,” I told myself.

In hindsight, really, not that brilliant of a scheme.

As the hilarious Jackie over at Ambling and Rambling put it when I afterwards told her of my cunning plan:

Oh, so, [Marc] could hear you being murdered by the man who disarmed you?

To which I replied:

EXACTLY.

Anyways, I managed to swallow all of my thoughts of Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees, and searched the entire place.

Once convinced that I was, indeed, alone, I set about to finally quieting the damned fire alarms.

An electrician, folks, I am not.

However, I did eventually manage to silence my bilingual nemesis. I then made a giant fire and turned on the first Neil Diamond record I could find.

By this point I was pretty hungry, but between my shattered nerves and ringing ear drums, every single notion I had about cooking a meal had flown right out the window.

So I just opened the bag of popcorn and poured myself a giant glass of wine.

Which, all in all, was not a bad way to kick off a relaxation retreat.

(Oh, and the popcorn and wine helped too.)

Such precious cargo

Waiting in the departure lounge, I shift my weight from my right foot to my left.

My duffle bag is looped loosely over my shoulder.

I glance up from my book.

Everyone else sits.

Everyone else stares.

Outside, the sky is seaweed green, like the sunset is stuck, struggling at the bottom of an empty wine bottle.

Like we are viewing it from the bottom of the ocean.

I look back down to my page number.

“Remember 78,” I tell myself, and close the book.

I don’t like to dog-ear pages. But sometimes I forget.

I notice a few older men eye me wearily.

Perhaps they are sizing me up as an over-zealous pre-boarder.

Perhaps they are excited by the length of my dress.

By the height of my socks.

A part of me feels like I want to stake a claim on one of the few remaining seats, but overwhelmingly I want to remain standing.

I want to stay upright forever.

I have already been travelling for five hours, and another five and a half hours await.

Once I get on to a plane, I devolve into a tangled mess of too-long legs, poor posture, and deep sleep.

Resting on planes has never been a problem for me.

I do it quickly, and with ease.

It’s just my mouth.

It hangs wide open, and I am always afraid that someone might drop things there.

Like pennies.

Or cherry pits.

“You should eat a sandwich,” I tell myself. “And fill up your water bottle.”

Instead I look at magazines and daydream about making out with Ewen McGregor.

Instead I take a photo of myself pretending to dance with a giant, fake stuffed bear.

I think about opening up a chain of airport gyms.

I think about how showers would be integral to the success of this business venture.

And then I walk the length of the terminal.

Twice.

Departure levels are such strange beasts.

So many people in transit, lives in flux. No one speaking, everyone just focused.

On making it to their destination.

On just making it.

I think about the people who work at the restaurants and cafes; the gift shops, the newsagents and the duty frees. Dealing with thousands of bleary-eyed, bumbling travellers, acting as gatekeepers of People magazine and double mint gum, suppliers of double doubles, and venti extra hots, always ready to ask “like another?” or “fries or salad?” and dreading the possibility of “I think you’ve had enough?”

I always want to talk.

Talk to everyone I see.

Find out their stories.

Ask them.

From where are they coming.

Where are they going.

Who do they love. Who do they loathe.

Who do they want.

What do they want.

What do they want so much more than just to make it.

But instead I just open my book to page 76, and re-read those last two pages.

And shift my feet.

Take my hand. Let’s walk together.

Tonight Marc and I watched two episodes of the British television series Happy Valley.

Let me tell you, that is one grossly misleading title.

The show is excellent, but grim as shite (in the parlance of all the characters.)

I wanted to watch a third episode, but Marc told me he couldn’t handle any more for the night, and opted instead to play some Dark Souls.

(This should deftly illustrate just how brutal and bleak the series can be, in so far as he would nominate this maddeningly difficult video game to be an appropriate palette cleanser. Good grief.)

Meanwhile, I am laughing because he keeps inadvertently poisoning his allies with a pair of enchanted, and very deadly pantaloons.

I feel like we’re all bonkers around these here parts.

The weather here in Vancouver has been so starkly beautiful of late.

My favourites are the afternoons when everything seems to be aglow in a soft, rose gold. As the sun hangs heavy in the blush toned sky, you could swear that you can feel your blood run a little warmer, even as your shadow grows a little longer.

I could easily hack a winter made purely of this magic.

Five years ago we were living in Birmingham England.

Our days were a brilliant pick-and-mix of graduate courses, teaching at a community school, running around the Edgbaston Reservoir, exploring the city, and heading out on cross-country adventures.

One of my most vivid memories of this time, is the amount of time we spent walking in the cold autumn air – both together and apart.

We didn’t have a car while we were there, for many reasons of course, but funds and fear of driving on the opposite side of the road were the two that topped the list.

(I cannot tell you the number of times I was almost smoked by a vehicle because I looked the wrong way before stepping into the street, nor the number of times I could have been destroyed in a round-a-bout whilst riding my bicycle. A quick study on the English rules of the road, I was not.)

However, being without a ride (my garbage ten pound bike notwithstanding) was never an issue.

We loved careening about the city – both on foot and riding public transit.

The first time we were waiting at the bus stop, we didn’t know that you needed to actually flag down the bus (you stick your arm out as it approaches to indicate that you want it to pull over), so each one just kept driving on by.

“Why won’t they pull over!?” I exclaimed as I watched the fifth red double decker zoom on past.

“You don’t have your hand out,” remarked a kindly older woman who happened to be walking by. “You have to put your hand out, love. Or else they won’t know that you want to board.”

I thanked her (and felt my heart grow three sizes – an event that I would come to expect every time someone addressed me as “love” during my time in Brum.)

Strangely, I think some of my most cherished memories of our time spent in the city, are the mornings in which Marc and I would commute together to our teaching jobs.

Classes began at eight thirty in the morning and it was about a forty-five minute commute from our flat in Edgbaston to the school in Alum Rock.

We would wake up around seven, and together we would greet the day.

Never saying much whilst we got ready, we were like two silent dancers, each lost in our own little routine, before locking up and walking to the bus stop.

The mornings were always so cold, and I relished the chance to walk arm in arm together, as well as bundle myself up in Marc’s embrace as we waited at the stop.

Sometimes we would read the free magazines that were handed out at the Broad Street interchange, but mostly we would talk quietly about our lesson plans or make each other laugh with stories from the previous day’s classes.

For breakfast I could buy a three pack of egg tarts from Greggs. For one pound you couldn’t get anything more delicious (and most likely, anything as remarkably unhealthy.)

From the stop in Alum Rock we would walk up to the road to the school, betting on which of our students would be waiting at the main entrance for us to arrive and unlock the doors.

Once inside, they would make tea and try convince us to let them play one game of billiards before settling down to their first lesson.

Our decision normally rested on how much sugar had been put in our tea.

In the afternoons, I would bus to the university for either my classes, or to do research for my thesis, while Marc worked on overhauling the school’s curriculum and marking systems.

In the evening, we would meet back at the flat and then go for a walk.

Marvelling at the multi-coloured trees rapidly losing their leaves, we’d spy each spindly bare branch waving self-consciously in the wind.

Whether to Bearwood, or to the city center, or to the Garden House (our neighbourhood pub) – we’d stride along together.

Our blood a little warmer.

Shadows a little longer.

A certain place and time

It’s so crazy to sit down and think about all of the “I was there when…” moments of your life.

In the twenty-nine years that I’ve inhabited this planet, I’ve lived through a couple of these.

For instance, I (obviously) will never forget where I was on 9/11. I woke up to my regular morning DJs talking about the fact that a “small, commuter jet” had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers.

I had just entered the kitchen when the second plane hit the second building.

I won’t ever forget the morning of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 2011, the Thai tsunami of 2004, or the Boston bombing attacks of 2013.

I remember Donovan Bailey winning the 100 meter track finals of 1996 like it was yesterday.

I can close my eyes and re-live the relief, shock, and unbearable happiness that surged throughout my tension-wracked body when Sidney Crosby scored the Olympic game-winning goal in 2010.

I (oh so strangely) remember when Kim Campbell beat Jean Charest for the Progressive Conservative Leadership in 1993. I was eight years old, and had stayed up the entire night watching the conclusion of the convention (because obviously I didn’t have parents and Canadian CSPAN was the next best thing.)

I will always recall the intense flood of incredulity and glee when I found out I had been accepted into the UBC creative writing program, or when I was shortlisted for a Rhodes scholarship.

I treasure the heart-bursting joy from every job proposition I’ve ever accepted over the phone.

I remember my first kisses like they were yesterday.

For some very strange reason I remember exactly where I was when I found out that Heath Ledger had passed away. I was in the basement of the UBC student union building, checking my email on one of their truly awful PCs.

These contraptions were held together by nothing more than food crumbs, pizza grease, coffee stains, and sheer will power.

I was using a Yahoo email address back then, and when I signed out I was re-directed back to the site’s landing page. There was his face, a snap of his pre-Batman life, framed by the years of his birth and death.

I recall feeling awkward by just how saddened I was to read this news.

I vividly remember the morning that the United States invaded Iraq. It was the spring of grade twelve and I struggled to make sense of the massive print, splayed across the cover of the Globe and Mail. I can recall thinking to myself that this decision seemed so completely arbitrary and out of the blue. Where in the heck had Iraq – IRAQ? – come from? Weren’t we just talking about Afghanistan?

There are of course moments I wish I didn’t remember: emails sent; words said; secrets betrayed.

These are few, but they cut. Sometimes I’ll be out for a run, and the memory of these moments will hit with such strength that I feel as though all of the breath has been knocked from my body.

Oddly enough, one of my most vivid “world changing” moments is the night that Princess Diana died.

The detail in which I remember this evening is staggering.

August 31. 1997. Sunday night.

Patricia Beckerman was sleeping over. Jessi’s friend Emily was also staying the night.

We’d spent the entire afternoon swimming in our neighbour’s pool. Lois didn’t ever use her backyard, so she loved having us and our friends over for the day. My hands felt like two giant prunes, and I couldn’t stop brushing my fingers tips across my cheeks and nose.

Everything smelled of sunshine and sunscreen.

We’d eaten pizza for super, and my mum even allowed us to drink pop with our ice cream.

We were just about to put on a movie (Anastasia!), but we had to change the TV to channel three in order to press play.

Channel three was CBC, and the news was on.

This was strange as it was not yet ten o’clock. The woman at the news desk was looking so grim. Peter Mansbridge then entered the shot, and he looked like he’d just burst into the studio and clamoured into the nearest suit.

But really, he seemed sad more than anything else.

And then we heard the words.

“Princess Diana has died tonight in Paris.”

And for some reason this news absolutely destroyed me. I didn’t think twice about Diana prior to her passing, but holy crap did the ensuing weeks (and omnipresent media coverage – how apt!) ever throw my pre-pubescent self for a loop.

I bought every Newsweek magazine, cried fat salty tears, and stayed up the entire night through watching her funeral procession.

I was sure I would marry William and help mend his broken, broken heart (while mending mine too in the process.)

To this day it still baffles me why I had the reaction that I did.

But there are some things you just can’t explain.

There are some things you just have to say, “I was there when.”

We like to camp it up

This Friday I went and watched Marc’s last soccer game of the season (he coaches the senior boys at his school) and for an hour and half I had the chance to enjoy the late October sunshine and cheer on the team.

Standing there, basking in that golden glow, all I wanted to do was pack a bag, grab our tent, and head off into the woods somewhere for a weekend of autumnal camping.

CAMPING. My love!

But boy did I ever used to loathe this pastime.

It’s true – I was definitely a late-bloomer when it came to my love of tent life. For many moons I openly rejected the idea of sleeping in a bag, eating with sporks, and wearing long-johns as pants.

I was firmly averse to forest-bound adventures.

And now?

NOW I ROCK A LONG-JOHN LIKE NO OTHER.

Camping as a kid just always seemed to conjure up images of frigid downpours, mouldy tents, leaky tarpaulins, awful food, soggy socks, and over-cramped quarters.

It was the worst.

Factor in that I was a bit of a prima donna, and you can imagine just how awful it was to have me hanging around whatever campsite my dad and sisters happened to be visiting.

As soon as I ate what little junk food we had managed to persuade my dad to purchase for us, I would settle into a deep, dark sulk that would last right up until the moment we pulled up stakes and headed back towards civilization.

I remember one trip with my dad and my little sister. One morning we woke up and I demanded that we go to White Spot for breakfast. I was adamant in my claim that I would not eat one more dry bunch of shredded wheat (you know the ones – they look like mini bales of hay) for my morning meal.

My dad, who remains until this day a truly passionate anti-White Spot kind of guy, tried his best at negotiation, and offered up this doozy:

“How about we go to a bed and breakfast, and see if we can pay for just the breakfast?”

I sat there, mortified.

JUST THE BREAKFAST!?

What kind of person would even think of such a thing?

I told him flat out that I would in no way partake in this ridiculous scam. If he even attempted such a charade I would hide in the backseat of the car.

Of course he called me on my bluff (either that or he just didn’t have any energy to deal with my drama queen behaviour).

So there I sat, trying my hardest to remain unseen as I peeked out of the car’s back window, watching as he and my little sister (whose sweater was so dirty that she was now wearing it inside out) rang the bell of the first bed and breakfast we had come across.

Seriously, they looked like they had just jumped off of a passing train car. All they were missing was the bandana tied to the end of a broom stick.

Hey buddy – can ya spare a dime?

Needless to say, they didn’t get the breakfast.

And we ended up eating at White Spot.

VICTORY!

After that, I really didn’t camp again for a long, long time. Not until I started dating Marc and he made it very clear that he loved spending time (sleeping time especially) in the great outdoors, and he very much wished to share this love with me.

I thought it was high-time to give ye olde tent extravaganza another try (it had been a good twelve years or so since my last camping trip), and I agreed to head to Harrison Hot Springs for a weekend.

The plan was to participate in a slow-food bike tour around Agassiz that morning, and the camp that evening.

It was going to be all fires, and hot chocolate, and sleeping bag snuggles.

Instead, we bicycled through a monsoon, Marc forgot the sleeping bags, and our air mattress leaked.

We spent the entire night shivering under our car’s emergency blanket, taking turns pumping up the mattress, and listening to the thunder storm wreak havoc on our surrounding environs.

But you know the craziest thing?

I actually loved it.

And to this day, we laugh just thinking about that weekend.

Since them, we’ve camped a number of times, all around BC and Oregon, and each trip has been absolutely fabulous.

I’m also happy to say that I no longer eat at White Spot.

And I’d probably still only eat the breakfast, if prefaced by “Bed and.”

Because you know what they say – some things will never change.