Flying back to T.O. today after there was 40 cm dumped on St. John's which cancelled my flight yesterday. Apparently it was a record for the month of Decbember. Sarcastic "yay".

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Sunday Morning, originally uploaded by rowdyman.

Looks like I'll be spending a little more time in Newfoundland than planned. The snow looks gentle and pretty and, I don't know, "rural". Unfortunately that's only the start to a storm that might bring as much as 20cm to St. John's, not to mention 10cm in Halifax. My flight is delayed and I wouldn't be too surprised if it gets cancelled. Fun times.

I've Got That East Coast Uneasy Feeling

Gathered around the laptop for an old fashioned video chat.

I woke this morning to a pretty dusting of snow which quickly turned to cold, cold rain. Despite a lot of groaning from the male side of the table, Mom wanted the Christmas lights up. Her reasoning was sound – the weather isn't going to get any warmer.

Welcome to December on the Rock. Visiting St. John's for Dad's birthday has reminded me why I don't travel in December. In the Northern hemisphere it is simply unlikely to have clear weather to fly on any chosen day. Thus planning a trip is pointless. In fact, I don't understand why anyone flies to Eastern Canada between December and March. Shut it down. Make a call instead. Or better yet a video chat. I set one up on the night of Dad's birthday supper to talk to Mike who was about 700 KM away. Like being there except… well, you can't stop some participants from just mugging for the camera. In fact, I'm pretty sure Sarah and Mitchel didn't even notice Mike on the other side for all the posing they were doing.

Still I'm glad Mike got to see everyone enjoying Dad's birthday and I'm glad I got a picture of it.

Eventually, after searching high and low for extension cords and a police visit after tripping of the house alarm, we did get the lights up, and tonight I finished my Christmas shopping the virtual way. So you'd think I'd be all over the Christmas spirit. Not so much. While Amazon reminded me that there are definitely some virtual things that beat the real ones you do lose something. Kind of like the video chat, it doesn't quite add up to the real thing. Though on the other hand, I can shop with a glass of Scotch in my hand which is something you can't do at the Eaton Centre.

NOTE: Did I mention Sunday's forecast? 15-20cm of snow, just when I'm supposed to be flying out. Keep the Scotch close by.

Tonight I had a headache so I took a couple of Advil and lay down with a warm wet cloth over my face. When I woke up, the room was completely dark and this seemed to dislodge an old memory like a loose tooth. I have this memory from when I was 4 or 5 that may or may not be entirely imagined. It hardly matters if it is real or not. The emotional memory of it is as real as anything I've ever felt.

It's a summer day and my brothers have decided to go swimming that afternoon in the pond behind our house. I'm told I can tag along. When I dig out my swimsuit I discover a tear and ask my mother to mend it. As soon as it is fixed I try them on. They're fine and like anyone else who was four or five, I spend the rest of the day running around in my swim trunks pretending to be Tarzan. Jumping from sofa to arm chair and back again is tiring business and I soon fall asleep on the chesterfield wrapped in my towel/cape.

When I awake the house is dark, lit only by the dusklight. I wander the house and no one is home. No one. Convinced that they've all gone swimming without me, I pull on my Road Runner sneakers (slip-on, loafer style Keds) and run through the field down to the pond. Now, I'm not exactly supposed to go to the pond alone but I figured everyone was looking for me so I'd better show up. The only trouble is I get to the pond and no one is there. No one. Maybe I had the wrong spot? I run along the shore thinking they can't be far but I'm wrong. There's no one. No one. By this time it's getting dark so I walk quickly in a panic home through the waist high grass. As I approach the house I see lights on in the kitchen. I'm sure I'm going to be in trouble for either missing the swim or not being home but when I walk into the kitchen no one even notices me. My parents had just come from a church meeting and were still gossiping about how two women from the Church gossip and my brothers (at least two of them) were arguing about a game of softball they had just come from playing in a nearby field (or maybe they were at the Stanley's? Of course, calling their loosely formed games a "game" was always a stretch. Someone threw a ball, someone hit a ball. Someone tried to catch a ball while someone else tried to find bases hidden in the grass.) when I ask my brother if they went swimming he just looks at me and says, "No, we were playing ball" and walks away. Then I ask my mother, "Did you go swimming?" and she says, "You can't go swimming now silly, it's dark out."

Then my question is quickly drowned out by the confusion and bustle that always seemed to rule our house in those days. I made my way down a dark stairway to our rec room and pulled out a book and sat on the floor and flipped through the pages. I don't remember the title but it was the story if a boy who overcomes his fear of the dark by catching fireflies in mason jars with his friends. I wished deeply that there would be a mason jar of fireflies for me but there never was. I fell asleep on that book and woke in my bed never knowing how I got there.

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I just happen to be in St. John's on the wettest day of the so-called summer. See illustrative photo.

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St. John's on My Mind

image via Newfoundland & Labrador Heritage Web site

Still feeling elegiac about St. John's.

Christmas Double-Oh-Seven

Is it true that you can never go home? I'm starting to believe it. For so many years the only place I could enjoy Christmas was in the house I grew up in. No matter how inviting another house was, I remained a guest in an alien place where everything seemed out of place. Now that alien place is the house where I grew up. For years I tried inventing traditions only to discover you can't. Traditions are just things that happen every year with only a minimum of effort. The more you force something, the more forced it feels. For the last seven years we've woven a Christmas that is tiring, full of eating and leftovers, new experiments and old favorites, and generally, I look forward to a few hours of bustling madness, followed by a few hours of intoxicating quiet. Best yet, our Christmas days are ones we make with very few obligations. We've been lucky. A Christmas in Toronto involves little travel, a lot of food and is pretty much done by midnight, December 25th. I had forgotten how Boxing Day can be drawing out Christmas a little too long (even if it's only 12 hours too long).

I can honestly say, that working over Christmas is actually not bad at all. Due to the absence of most everyone else, you can actually get a lot done with no interruptions, go for leisurely lunches without guilt, and get home easily because there's no traffic. Best of all, because you can't spend the day asleep with an unread book lying open on your chest, the Christmas hangover is, if not avoided, at least minimized. This year, I'll have to depend on James Bond, coffee and shoveling to stay alert while tiptoeing around the food, drink and ennui-induced Holiday Coma that results in the common amnesia that makes so many Christmases blend into one another. This year, while some will mourn the loss of Oscar Peterson, and Benazir Bhutto I'll mourn the loss of Christmas Past.

NL 2007

NL 2007

Below are some photos I've uploaded of the trip. As I upload more, this slide show should update automatically.

Goulding

Goulding

Tuesday I thought I had landed in Paradise, but instead found myself in the Goulds. I say "The Goulds" because it is nearly impossible for my brain to allow my tongue to say just "Goulds". I don't know why and for the most part have given up asking.

What, you might wonder, was so paradisiacal about my parents' garden? The weather for starters. Perhaps fine weather is so rare in these parts, that when it occurs it's as though a desiccated man lost in the desert had just been given water filtered through honey and citrus leaves. That is to say, it is exquisitely appreciated. The sky above me was strewn with streamers of cloud and blue and pink and purple. The grass, due to frequent summer rains, was thick and practically glowed it's chlorophyll green.

I had been sleeping on the patio in a homemade lounger but awoke and decided to find some chives my mother had planted. I had expected them to be difficult to spot amongst all the other greenery, but I found them easily as they were a huge spiky bush. Taking a few stems was entirely unnoticeable. Behind me were the raspberry bushes which are easily over five feet in height. A few (more than a few) jewel red clusters beckoned me. There really is no language that can describe the burst of sweetness from a fresh picked berry. It is the sensation that we use to describe other things by ("sweet as a fresh picked berry"), but there are no other things to describe it. Remembering the crush of juice and seeds on my tongue can almost make me cry. I looked at the hills beyond Fourth Pond, with my mouth full of berries, I asked myself, "Where am I? What is this place?"

Yet, there is trouble in paradise. In the week I've been home, I haven't recycled a single scrap of garbage, nor dropped even a seed in any compost, and have driven everywhere and exclusively in 4-wheel drive vehicles. It's probably the strangest thing about Newfoundland. People who live here claim it as one of the most beautiful places in the world and wouldn't dream of living anywhere else but they treat the place like a giant garbage dump. Let's not mention that Newfoundland is also Canada's second fattest province (though surprisingly, St.John's is only Canada's tenth fattest city). I'm also curious why, whenever I come home, the radio is playing exactly the same music as when I left in 1988?

All in all though, it's been a good trip and one I wish was easier to do. For now, I'll take what I can get, including the jars of pickled onion and tomatoes and bakeapple and blueberry jams.