Vacation!

Heading off on vacation for my first ever trip into the Canadian west. How excited am I? See you in a week! xo

30 August 2003, 08:08

So now I know

Well, then. No worries about me doing that again for a long time. Certainly not what I was expecting.

25 August 2003, 23:08

Crossing the desert

I know what I have said before: that reading my poetry aloud to an audience does not seem right somehow, that the words are meant to be absorbed through the eyes and not the ears. However, after re-reading comments and engaging in internal debate, I have decided to break my silence. Tonight, I am going to deliver my words out loud to an audience. And this time it's not a funeral or a wedding. Tonight I am going to read at an honest-to-goodness journal launch and poetry reading. Tonight I am breaking a dry and dusty silence in a place called the Oasis.

24 August 2003, 11:08

Into the fire

Sometimes I wonder if the entire province of British Columbia is burning. Every day there are news reports about burning towns and cities, blazing forests, smoke-filled air, and threatened wildlife. It is the dryest summer on record; in some areas, there has been no rain for 60 days. Every dropped cigarette or lightning strike is a potential wildfire in waiting.

A week from today we are going to go to Canmore, Alberta (near Banff and the Rocky Mountains bordering British Columbia), a small mountain town bookended by areas also affected by forest fires. I can't say that I am not concerned about venturing into the smoky air, or stepping foot into areas crackling with the potential of bursting into flames. However, with family in Canmore and Kelowna, it means more to be there, with them and closer to them, as they weather a dry and dangerous season.

23 August 2003, 14:08

Dark dome

Every night the SkyDome glows with coloured light. When it's green, it resembles a huge luminescent watermelon. Other times of the year it becomes a giant pink egg or a radiant red football. My favourite is the indigo light that transforms the convex monstrosity into a huge TV screen, purple light burning into the night sky.

But every night since the blackout, the Dome has sat in darkness, quiet and colourless. And I've grown to like the lightlessness best.

18 August 2003, 23:08

A wedding

I was more nervous and excited than I had expected; small tremors flickered across my stomach. My mom sat beside me, hands twitching and heart racing. More than once I wondered if I could stop the shaking if I just could just hold her hand.

She went up, lit the candle, and returned. I went up, read my piece, and returned. Others came and went. Words were read from antiquated text. And suddenly, he was standing before us:

Married. My little brother.

So much emotion: tremendous happiness for him and his wonderful wife; excitement about the party ahead and the celebrations and libations with my cousins; and, yet, a great swell of sadness for the absence of someone so obviously missing.

But my dad was there when the power came back on at my brother's place a few hours before the rehearsal party. He was there in the morning's thunderstorm before a perfect sunny afternoon. He was there in the pews beside us during the service: proud, happy, and, quite possibly trembling a little bit himself.

18 August 2003, 19:08

Heart of darkness

As twilight succumbed to night, our window became our TV screen. With no streetlights, car headlights sliced through the darkness, illuminating people walking on the sidewalk below, feet occasionally spotlighted by flashlight circles. Below us, people congregated around candlelit tables at the restaurant in the courtyard, enjoying the last of the cold beer.

And the city to the north was dark. Skyscrapers and office towers, usually serving as bright nightlights in the city skyline, only glimmered with various floors of generated light. The Skydome, usually closed at night and illuminated with purple or green lights, was stuck open, waiting for a football game, its weak white generator light leaking into the humid air.

In efforts to find some fresh air, we decided to take a walk along the lake across the street from our apartment. We walked along unlit sidewalks and through darkened parks, often nearly running into other darkness-seekers just as out our paths were about to collide. Choruses of crickets crackled through the thick air. The grass smelled of warmth and summer. When we sat on the pier, ducks and geese swam by in the still water, oblivious to the boaters above them, sipping drinks by candlelight or generator-light on the decks of their boats.

But the sky was the most spectacular vision of all. Thousands of stars were sprinkled across a clear August night. Stars, something we rarely get to see, dotting the sky behind the CN Tower and spreading across the entire sky. Gorgeous stars, unveiled from light pollution. Pinpricks of light through a velvet canvas: a blacked out downtown sky in the largest city of Canada.

And then, on the way home from our travels, we noticed a small, red star to the southeast, and realized that it was Mars. How beautiful.

Despite the sweltering heat, the fear of running out of water or knocking over candles, or the fire alarm just after midnight that just wouldn't shut off, Blackout 2003 was an amazing night. And if I knew that people would be safe, and hospitals would have power, I wouldn't mind a few more power failures in the future.

15 August 2003, 11:08

Blackout

Just after 4:00 PM as I was busy trying to publish pages to the site where I work, everything stopped. Computer screens went black, the lights shut off, all buzzing and whirring just stopped. Then silence. Then a woman on the telephone yelled over to us that New York's power had also shut down. And then we heard that Chicago and Detroit were out. For a little while, everyone was silently worried about another attack of terrorism on our neighbours to the south. So we quickly packed up our things, found an emergency exit (since the elevators were stuck) and tried to find a way home in a powerless city.

I am fortunate to live just up the street from my office, so I was able to walk home within ten minutes, passing the oblivious tourists wandering the waterfront, unaware that all streetcars and subways had ceased, that the city had come to a standstill.

At home, with an old walkman plugged into a speaker, we listened to the radio to try and find out what happened. After the speculation dwindled and facts started to fill the airwaves, we learned that all of southern Ontario and the northeastern US were slowing slipping into darkness because one Manhattan power station went down and the other stations serving as backup could not deal with the demand. And then it was mentioned that it may take days to restore power to the city. In a heatwave.

So we bought batteries and candles, and started to drink lots of water, waiting for the night to fall.

15 August 2003, 11:08

Of earthly delights

It began earlier in the week with a special vegetable spicy concoction from a friend: a delicious melange of veggies and fiery peppers from her parents' garden, cooked and then gently soaked for months in olive oil. A perfect topping for pasta.

And throughout the week we have been tending Trevor's brother's garden while he is on vacation. There is something transcendent about reaching in between wet leaves until fingers find the roundness of a ripe cherry tomato or the smooth skin of a cucumber waiting to be plucked. Not being able to wait, teeth are soon crunching into green and yellow beans and snow peas in the car.

There have been tender young lettuce salads, explosive tomatoes, crunchy green peppers, and sweet cucumbers. It puts the produce department at our grocery store to shame.

Now, at night, I dream of digging in my own garden.

08 August 2003, 22:08

Bear this in mind

In a few weeks' time we will be travelling to Canmore, Alberta, to spend some time with family. As one Canadian who has had nary a glimpse of the Rocky Mountains (erm, never actually venturing west of Windsor, Ontario, actually), I am really looking forward to the trip.

Except for one little thing. Actually, one very big thing: bears. The Rockies are home to many bears, and while I think that they are remarkable and beautiful creatures with a great many lessons to impart to human kind, I quake in my hiking boots at the thoughts of encountering one whilst wandering the woods or scambling over scree.

According to the Northwest Territories Wildlife and Economic Development site, there are slightly different approaches to bear encounters. Sometimes it is imperative to play dead; in other situations, climbing a tree or fighting back is encouraged. Other sources suggest a generous misting of 'bear spray' to keep the large-clawed, swift-moving, and beautiful beasts from getting too up close and personal.

Don't get me wrong. I love animals and would be thrilled to see a bear during our trip -- just as long as it is from a safe distance from the car with me inside with the windows rolled up.

05 August 2003, 22:08

My ears need a rest

The past week has been filled with music and dance: bass-booming rhythms, thrumming percussion, swirling lights, gyrating bodies, and an abundance of skin. And no, I have not been frequenting those kinds of places.

Last weekend it began with Allokomi, a wildly energetic troupe playing traditional West African instruments, limbs rippling like water, voices harmonizing in gorgeous rhythmic melodies.

Then on Wednesday night we were immersed in retro bliss with the ever-sensual sounds of David Gahan. As always, within minutes of his emergence on stage, the shirt was off and the hips were swinging, new tatoos dancing across his arms and chest. But it was the music we came for -- and we were not disppointed: the set was nicely peppered with 80s nostalgia.

On Saturday, at Caribana (North America's largest Caribbean festival), we danced alongside the flatbed trucks pulling reverberant steel bands and Caribbean singers ordering the crowd to 'jump up in the rain' (because it was pouring down). In the evening, we swayed to a Latin-UK band called Sidestepper.

And now, at 5:00 PM on a holiday Monday, our walls are vibrating from the heart-attack tempo and ear-splitting decibelage of a Caribbean band playing on the island. Fifteen minutes away by ferry, and the sound still manages to thunder across the water.

04 August 2003, 11:08