Making It Up As I Go Along #251

MONDAY...
— Fly day... but we’re late leaving St. John’s and I miss the Toronto connection. I have to rush to another gate just in time to make the plane an hour after my original flight to Ottawa... I’m tired of Air Canada.
— Saw Brad Gushue (The NF curler who won the Olympic gold). He flew on the plane to Toronto with me and sat just two seats away... he came off as down to earth.
— Supper with Melissa and Ginette (after finally reaching Ottawa minus my baggage).
— Ears are dead... my throat and nose may have improved by sinus trouble must have lasted cause the flight to Toronto killed my ears.

TUESDAY...
— Take the day off work. I don’t feel great after traveling yesterday. My cold wasn’t all gone and my sinuses hit me with the take offs and landings of yesterday.
— Luggage arrives at 11:00. Air Canada... always a day or two behind.
— Laundry, groceries and cleaning up dominate the day along with an Office Marathon on DVD. Good ol’ British version of the Office... eases the pain.

WEDNESDAY...
— Back to work. It’s alright although there are still tensions and annoyances that I would have rathered seen go away. I’m just tired of concerning myself with ignoring.

THURSDAY...
— Alright day at work. Fairly quiet really.
— Watch Stand By Me on DVD tonight... good movie.

FRIDAY...
— Leave work early to watch the gold medal hockey game with a bunch of people. Good to see Canada win.
— Evening at home is quiet.

SATURDAY...
— Do a lasagna with Melissa today. First time either of us have made one and it actually works out. We plan to watch The Life of Brian on DVD while we ate but I forgot that I loaned it to Shannon... so it’s A Christmas Story on the last day of Christmas instead. I guess another lasagna will be needed for the Life of Brian to be done.


Christmas 2006
Christmas. When asked how it went by co-workers, I find myself struggling to answer. I’ve always hated the “Oh fine” or “It was good” responses when that’s not fully the case. Too many people hide behind such facades.

Prior to leaving for holidays, my energy and sense of inner peace were both at fairly low points. Conflicts with co-workers and a friend had beaten me down and, more than any other, this Christmas’s trip home sat there as a beacon of therapy.

The flight home on the 22nd is horrible. I miss getting on a flight out of Ottawa, that left an hour earlier than my scheduled one, by one standby passenger. With freezing rain drifting over Ottawa and heading to Montreal, that hour would be key.

Still, my flight leaves Ottawa. But it would be better had it not. A flight to Montreal usually takes about 45 minutes gate to gate. This one took more than four hours with much of the time spent sitting on the runways, awaiting our planes turn to depart Ottawa... or role up to the gate in Montreal.

My original flight out of Montreal leaves late... but it leaves. Unfortunately for me, I am sitting on another plane, only a few hundred yards away from that flight.

By the time we get off our plane, all other flights are cancelled. It’s a Montreal hotel for me and I’m too worn down to be angry about it.

A call to Air Canada informs me that the next flight I can get out on is 48 hours later... Sunday night. In this day and age, when communication happens around the world in an instant and one can fly half way around the world in under twelve hours, the idea that I’m stranded a two hour drive from my current home and a two and a half hour flight from my original one... and I won’t be able to get anywhere for another 48 hours... seems ridiculous.

But with the month of emotional beating I’ve taken, I don’t care. I extend my hotel stay to include the next day and prepare to hide away in a little room... alone. It’s a form of therapy I don’t plan on taking but it is therapy non-the-less.

Uncomplicated alone time where nothing is asked of me other than to sit and wait is a welcome thing. Perhaps it leaves me with too much time to think of the issues of the last month but I’ve always been one to think and analyze anyway, so this would likely happen whether I am alone in Montreal or with family in St. John’s. So I now get two days to try to get it out of my system.

On Christmas Eve, I check out of the hotel at lunch time. Before heading to the airport I decide to have lunch at the hotel restaurant. Other than me, the only patrons of the establishment are Orthodox Jews... a group of six of them. I guess anyone who holds Christmas dear is already in the places they’ll be. I think about how those who don’t hold the Christian holidays in high regard must have restaurants and hotels all to themselves at this time of year.

I make it to the airport seven hours before my flight is due to leave. And it’s suggested by the girl at the counter that I don’t check my bag yet... that such a long time in the baggage area will greatly increase my chances of never seeing the bag again. At least she’s honest.

She’s also nice. I walk by twenty minutes later, as I explore Montreal airport, and she comes up to me and suggests a check area where I can store my big bag. When I ask if there’s a place I can just go and sit, she guides me in the right direction. The bags act as pillows and I lay down for several hours of reading.

After four hours, a family of Muslims invade my privacy. They pull a group of benches together and, within five feet of me, the group of twelve people sit and loudly talk in a language I do not know. I don’t mind them staking out their space... but I would have preferred them giving me more of a buffer. I pack up my stuff and go to check my bag. If it gets lost three hours before my flight, all hope in world travel is lost.

I get the same girl at the baggage check. She looks at me and laughs, taking my bag and sending me on my way cheerily and in record time. She is my favorite memory of Montreal.

A ten dollar pint of beer is sipped as I watch flights come in to Montreal through a clear and purple sky. It’s that half hour before darkness closes in... when distant lights flicker in the clear air and stars begin to appear. This is my second best memory of Montreal.

I arrive home thirty minutes into Christmas. My parents allow themselves to breath once we greet each other... Christmas can officially begin for the three of us.

The next few days have me seeing plenty of family and being offered plenty of food. And I also get sick. Fever, a sore throat and exhaustion keep me close to home and lazy... whether I want it or not.

By Friday I start to improve and on Sunday, New Year’s Eve, I’m at my most energetic. I’m not perfect but I feel able to go to Cape Spear. It’s my first time there at all since the previous Christmas... and my first time there alone in several years.

I walk in over the snow covered coastal trail and allow the sea, the air, the rocks, and the silence to rejuvenate my soul. There’s been too much time, over the past month, where petty and silly garbage have grabbed my life and pulled me down. A place as simple as this is needed.

I sit on glacially placed rocks and stare at the sea as it meets the rugged coast below. I watch as patches of the sky become hazy with distant snow. Sometimes the snow obscures the hills and cliffs a few miles away... and other times it covers a patch of sea, giving an isolated oceanic storm that I can watch from a distance.

Other patches of sea sit in brightness, where clouds have parted and allowed the sun to glisten on the water. And with all this going on, I’m nothing but an observer on my ancient rock.

I decide to leave when it appears that the snow is coming towards me. The cliffs of Cape Spear is nowhere you want to be when the weather is bad. I walk back over crunchy ground, looking up towards the historical lighthouse. I imagine that as my destination. As my refuge from winter’s cold and the drama of others. I imagine walking in the door to a crackling fire and a pot of soup, ready to warm me.

By the time I reach the lighthouse, I see the parking lot below and rejoin civilization as I slip into the car. The troubles of Ottawa haven’t disappeared... but they seem much less important to me after this. It’s a perfect way to spend my last day of 2006.