Take the Train May 27, 2011

This summer, I rode the train from Montreal to Vancouver, a trek of 92 hours that took me from the rolling hills of Quebec, past the Great Lakes in Ontario, through the golden sea of wheat in the prairies, and into my familiar mountainous west coast. During the trip, we would take hour-long stops to fuel up. We pulled to a halt in Toronto, in a Manitoban town that boasted the world’s largest coke can, and in Hornepayne, a rural town of 1000 people and one general store. I began to realize the diversity of my country and grasp at the some different ways that Canadians outside Greater Vancouver live. The experience convinced me of the value of road trips and how much there is to learn from the places in between destination cities. So, I wrote this poem to explain my thoughts.

.

Take the Train

A general store in Hornepayne, Ontario

Nowadays, journeys have disappeared

in favour of destinations.

It’s only being somewhere.

The countryside is disregarded

like a preschool craft

we tack to the wall as scenery,

crayon rectangles

that disappear

beneath the clouds

during take-off.

Besides, there’s no room

to pick up baggage along the way,

It’s one suitcase, 50 pounds

per passenger.

.

Who wants to shove apart

space for stories?

They’re never quite the right shape

to fit between your shirts and ties

and you’ll find the wrinkles

when you lay out

your clothes for tomorrow.

So you’ll stay up late ironing

because flat is best.

.

Melville, Saskatchewan

You are about sandy beaches and dark tans,

collections of hotel soaps and knick-knacks

that arrange in postcard-perfect lines

except you couldn’t fill in the back

because they didn’t sell letters

along with the pictures.

You think it’s a janitor job

to sweep words from

the dust of unexplored corners.

.

You stack your fruit-of-the-loom t-shirts

from souvenir shops

in neat piles in the extra drawer

in your dresser

and they never get too small

because they’re one-size-fits all.

You’re good at making sure

everything remains the same.

That’s why you land

in the pastel-coloured rooms

of five-star hotels

where generic is always on time.

.

World's largest coke can in Portage La Prairie, Manitoba

Take the train, I tell you.

Watch the progression

of the weather

and the weathered people

who live between

Los Angeles and Las Vegas,

Montreal and Vancouver.

Find the somewheres

in all the nowheres

you overlooked.

.

And replace that black zip-up suitcase

you got for your sixteenth birthday.

Shove it in your attic between

the tricycle and the size five roller skates

because you’ll need

something bigger,

something with personality,

to fit all the new experiences

you’ll collect along the way.

Cookie-Baking May 15, 2011

I believe in baking cookies.

My mother attempts every Christmas to bake an assorted plate of cookies for visitors. Yet, with three teenage daughters, stomachs empty faster than her baking trays. In a phone conversation with my aunt Sara last December, my mother mentioned her exasperation with the ever-depleted supply of sweets.

“I feel like the Sisyphus of the cookie-baking world,” she sighed.

Two days later, when my grandparents emerged through the swinging gate of the airport arrivals section, my grandmother carried a huge tin box under her arm. Inside, nestled between pages of carefully cut parchment paper, appeared layers of gingerbread and shortbread cookies. Sara had stayed up all night baking.

Struggling to cover the costs of Sara’s chemotherapy, my aunt and uncle had been unable to send Christmas gifts. That didn’t matter. With every cookie I ate (and, believe me, I probably gained five pounds), I thought of how my aunt, exhausted from a day at hospital, had come home and made my mother enough assorted cookies to last the holiday season. With each crumble that dissolved in my mouth, I could taste the love Sara had rolled into her cookie dough and into our lives.

Three months later, Sara died of bone cancer. When I folded myself out of my plane seat, I made sure to remember the tin of chocolate chip cookies I’d stowed in my overhead compartment. I knew that my cousins and uncle didn’t need the cookies – they had plates of them collecting on counters and spilling from jars. But they did need to know that my family and I cared about them. My cousins and uncle had counted on my aunt to love them unconditionally. Now, with her gone, they required us to love them all the more.

Sitting around their kitchen table, I ate cookies and laughed with my younger cousins. I braided their hair and wiped the crumbs off their faces and made sure they knew that, even if my voice would be a long-distance phone call away, my heart stayed right beside them.

When I returned home, I sat down to a cookie and a glass of milk. I thought of the year after my father dropped dead of a heart attack, when my house had also been filled with gingersnaps, Oreos, and chocolate chip cookies. Just like my cousins, I needed the cookies then, to know that the world had not given up on me.  And I still need them now. I need to know that I am not alone, that people care for me and will look after me whether I’m sitting on the counter or burning in the oven. Just like my mother with Sara’s surprise holiday cookies, I need those reminders that every day I am loved.

So, I bake cookies. I bake cookies for my school receptionists, my teachers, and my friend’s grandmother. I bake cookies so that other people know I care.

Week Two in Quebec July 16, 2010

My first week is over and the excitement is wearing off as I become accustomed to my new routine. Working takes up about the same hours as school (9-5 instead of 9-3) minus the homework, so instead of homework I started reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in French. Go Harry Potter! My work day begins with taking the little kids, dressed in frilly pink Dora the Explorer suits or surfer swim shorts, outside so that they can enjoy the plastic splashing tubs. On special occasions, we get out the inflatable water slide. Every time I see the slide I start salivating and have to repeatedly remind myself that I weigh quite a bit more than 100 lbs. In the afternoons, after a two hour nap, I draw colouring pages for the kids to destroy (they haven’t developed their motor control skills yet). The kids, meanwhile, provide me with entertainment. Last week they asked me if I “was able to talk like them.“ I wasn’t sure how to take that comment. The work isn’t particularly hard and the kids are nice as long as they aren’t bickering but nothing significant changes day to day. I have a hard time understanding how the monitors can do the same job for 10 years. After less than two weeks, I am already bored. My teachers, if they are reading this, can be pleased to know that I am appreciating the variety of activities school provides quite a lot more right now.

 

On Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, the YMCA organizes activities for the entire group. Yesterday, I went go-carting and last week I went to Cirque du Soleil, participated in an amazing race through Montreal, and visited Mont Tremblant, which is Quebec`s version of Whistler. Everything at Mont Tremblant was absurdly priced (it cost adults 15 dollars to go on the beach). Cirque du Soleil, on the other hand, was absolutely amazing. A woman managed to throw bowls from her feet onto her head, where she caught them, while riding a unicycle!

 

My new family is really nice but not remarkable. It is strange to go from wacko (I had to remind my mother to hide the salvaged raccoon pelt hanging in the shed before my replacement arrived) to average. I have a middle-aged mother who does pilates and works at a senior’s center. My sister is 21, in the process of moving out, and enjoys singing Celine Dion. My comfortable suburban house has no garden, no over-energetic pets, and is decorated with hotel-style artwork. The dishes and cutlery come from Ikea and the furniture and cabinets all match. Though there is nothing wrong with the house or the family, I miss the hectic character of my real home. My house is loud and a bit disorganized but so is my family and so we get along well. I feel that my new house could belong to anyone.  

 

So far, I haven’t found St. Jerome, Quebec to be all that different from Vancouver. Like I mentioned in my first blog post, the streets and houses are the same and the people, minus the racial diversity, look the same, too. However, I have noticed a sense of community here that I don’t feel back home. People feel distinctly “Quebecois“ (often at the expense of being Canadian) and that gives a communal identity to rally around. I don’t even know how I would describe somebody from British Columbia – a British Columbian? That sounds awkward. I identify myself as Canadian but, recognizing the size of our Country, it is much harder for that word to encompass one identity than it is for the word Quebecois. It would be more appropriate for me to label myself as a west coast suburban Canadian who leans more to the left than the right. The unity of spirit in Quebec is something Vancouver, and I would say the rest of Canada, lacks. I don’t think it is something we can gain, though, without being, like Quebec, a minority fighting for the survival of our culture.

 

Work starts again in fifteen minutes so goodbye for now. Until next week!

Quebec at last July 4, 2010

Bonjour tous le monde!

 

I woke up this morning at 5:00, the realization finally sunk in that I was leaving. I wandered around my unnaturally clean house (I spent all of yesterday cleaning) and tried to actually see the arrangement of statues in our living room, feel the familiar bounce of my bed, and the hold the warmth of my little bratty dog. Then, my mother came to fetch me – it was time to leave.

 

We arrived at the airport bright and early at 7:15. Each outgoing exhcange student was handed a matching t-shirt and a laniard from which dangled our names and important contact numbers. We looked like those groups of asian tourists who walk in clusters through downtown Vancouver. After the usual hassle of organization and security, we shuffled onto the largest plane I`ve ever boarded. Seven seats occupied every row, each one equiped with its own screen and set of movies, tv shows, and music. Five hours passed, during which I was able to re-watch Glee and get to know my neighbour (who spent nine months of grade eight sailing to Mexico). By the time the plane bumped onto the Montreal runway, I could feel the excitement pulsing up my legs. I was finally, after eight months of anticipation, in Quebec!

 

My small family arrived to great me after I picked up my baggage: a short smiling mother with straight brown hair, glasses, and a kind smile accompanied by a younger version of herself, her twenty-one year old daughter. I found out that in Quebec people acutally do kiss the cheeks as our greeting ended up in a rather awkward hug. While we made the short journey to their car, we got to know each other in the halting manner that accompanies a first meeting. I spent the journey peering out of the car window in an effort to absorb as much “Quebec“ a I possible could. Although store and street signs were in French (The Bay becoming La Baie) and no mountains could be seen on the horizon, Montreal resembled Vancouver much more closely than I had imagined. It had the same sprawling city-scape I`ve always identified with home. The most hilarious thing: about 10 minutes into the car ride “I Kissed a Girl“ came onto the radio.

 

My bags are now stowed in my new bedroom, dinner eaten, and I think it is time for a shower. So, until next week!