Venus, Violet & the Edible Vocabulary of Leefy Greans

Visiting other towns can sometimes be like inter-dimensional travel. From province to province and in the space between time zones, custom and tradition can shift so dramatically that an other-world experience is the only terminology that makes any sense to those who have never been before. It is from these places, in a village or county neither here nor there, that stories of passing through a wormhole in time or living though an unusually realistic dream come. It is not imagination; it is not magical or metaphysical or mystic; it is odd, and may have been Odd, but more likely another such town by a different name.

The Venus family was one of the road-tripping kinds. They had been across the continent more times than the average person had occasion to spell the word tzatziki, and every venture they made was kicked off by the purchase of a brand new, up-to-the-date-they-left-accurate, accordion style roadmap. All three of them participated in the purchasing of their traditional navigational tool. Piling out of their station wagon and into the little general store at the corner, they walked up to the counter and smiled in unison. “Good morning, Mauve,” they chimed together. Her reply was well practiced, but it was delivered with so much merriment and warmth that it could have been the first expression of the sentiment. “Oh and a great, grand rainbow of a morning to all of you! Are you here for… your map?” And with a flourish familiar to the nimble wrists of illusionists and puppeteers she produced the glossy paper guide and grinned. “I saw the circled square on your calendar last time I came for tea and made a mental note. This one is hot off the presses in Caledonia. They sent it over by courier this morning!” She sat back on her stool and basked in their awe. “Mauve!” they bubbled, “you’re amazing!”

A tall man with a curling moustache joined the girl behind the counter and took up the second stool. “Mr. Venus, Mrs. Venus, glad to see you’re up with the sun. Violet, I must say that is quite the prettiest little smile I’ve seen all morning! With one exception, of course.” He gave his daughter a kiss on the cheek and winked across to the other girl. “I’d have to say it’s a draw.”

“Your Mauve was just showing us our new map, Mr. Mercury. It does look like a fine piece of print if I do say so... but let’s open it up and see if we can’t find our own little acreage this time. We’ve never made it to the national atlas before, but who knows? Maybe this year will be different!”

The map took up the whole counter space with corners tumbling over the spill edge as though someone had tossed a blanket over the great falls of Niagara and then pinned it down with giant elbows. They looked on with wonder at the daunting tangle of roads and highways, train tracks, perforated border marks and pepper-like scattering of picnic symbols and gas station alerts. They all poked their fingers down at a point of personal recognition and traced to where their little hiccup of land ought lie… but found only blank space for one more year. Even Rosseau was on the map. Aylmer, Powassan and Wanapitei all made the cut, but their population of one-hundred-eleven persons was off the grid again. A communal sigh followed the realization and the group repositioned their postures perpendicularly. “Ahh well,” concluded Mr. Mercury with a shrug, “by your next trip they should see us. Peach and Persimmon are due in the spring, and that will balloon our numbers one, maybe two more, assuming they stick around. Next year, friends, next year.”

Each Venus chose out one bag of sweets and lay down the crisp and colourful bill they entered with. Just before Violet tugged the door closed behind her, Mauve caught her arm. “If something cool happens,” she whispered, “I expect a good story. And maybe a souvenir.” The friends shared a hug, and with much dramatic waving and open-windowed shouts of thanks, they were off to adventure again.

“Well,” said Mr. Venus as soon as they crossed from dirt onto gravel and finally the smooth pavement of highways and cities, “what should our rule be this time?” It was an annual discussion, and each had been giving it much thought. In past travels that had decided that they would only ever make left handed turns, which had once landed them surprisingly close to the Mexican border on the way to Rhode Island. Another year they vowed to cross every bridge they could see, drive down every Main Street in three states, follow orange cars for no less than twenty minutes and so on. This year they would vote on another rule to follow, and they would hold to it religiously.

Her father continued when his women said nothing. “I was thinking it might be fun to ferry as frequently as we can… but it wouldn’t promise much when we hit the desert.” Her mother spoke second and tossed in her copper. “We could flick paint at the map and connect all the dots? It would certainly send us to places we haven’t seen – but I don’t know if it’s much of a rule, per se.” They both angled their mirrors, rear view and passenger visor, so they could better see their daughter. “Vi, honey? What do you think?” Violet pressed her thumb up against the sharp point of one of her teeth and thought. She had three ideas and was struggling to prioritize. After a moment of consideration she tipped her head to one shoulder and the other, and drew out every word for flair. “I was thinking, we should spend the nights off the map.”

The eyebrows of both her parents dipped down into an uncomprehending furrow, but only for a flash. “You mean, find other towns like us,” her mother reasoned out. “Other people off the grid.” All six of their eyes twinkled with anticipation and the mischief of innocent play. “Yes,” affirmed her dad with a laugh. “We’ll do it, and it’ll be grand.”

Their first day of driving is always rather a lazy one. Everything looks novel simply because the sensation of passing it causes a particular sort of frame to wrap every scene in a special way. They spent most of their time lost to each other and staring in wonder out of different windows. Occasionally her mother, Viridian, would lean her chair back to share the view for a while, and then she would sit back up and fix her gaze out of the passenger side once more. The stopped for dinner at a little diner with a patio and ate breakfast around eight o’clock, just as the sun was setting. They asked their waiter where the closest speck of a town was, and had to whittle him down from “an hour to the Sheraton,” to “ten kilometers and you’ll find the Days Inn,” until he finally called his sister and asked if there was a room in her B&B for the night. He wrote directions on the back of their bill. “I’d tell you what roads to take,” he smiled, “but they stop naming them after a while. I’m afraid your map won’t help you much if you get lost.” Violet responded in sum. “Perfect.”

The highway splintered off a number of times as they drove west, chasing the fiery horizon. Asphalt crumbled into dirt roads that sprouted grass in the middle parts and when they reached the tiny, lamp-lit hamlet it seemed more like a ghost town than home to the living and breathing sort. They clambered up to the front porch of the first and largest building they could see and rang the hand-held school bell that hung on a fine white cord. A faded sandwich board told a brief history of the spot and displayed a sort of menu. Violet cocked her brow at the first item on the list: One mug of warm-all-the-way-down-to-the-pit-of-your-stomach-and-back-up-around-your-brain-like-a-hug, three melt-in-your-mouth-with-that-ohh-yeah-kind-of-smile-sparker, and optional crunchy-but-soft-and-fills-me-up-just-right. Served with fresh squirt-in-my-mouth-and-tickle-my-tongue-like-childhood. Four dollars. Before she could read any further the screen door swung open and a young woman ushered them in with the enthusiasm of a mother hen. “Hello! Hello, come on in! Right on over here, can I help you take – okay, that’s right – just, yes! Great to see you!” Her words danced around the room, keeping step with her spinning, welcoming form. It felt like the sun had set outside just in time to rise again inside of this girl. She beamed like the rose-buttercup light of an early morning. “I am just so pleased to have guests around this place again. Please, come in and make yourselves at home! I’m just going to run and grab keys for you. Wow, it’s just – right? This is great!” She slipped away and left the Venus family to breathe and take in their surroundings. A steep staircase climbed up to the right, and other rooms on its far side opened to the back of the old farmhouse. It smelled of wood and the smoke of a fireplace. The kitchen stood to the left and a dining room with several lustrous place settings that seemed out of balance with the apparent emptiness of the bed and breakfast. Facing them across the front hall was a large mirror, and above it hung an asparagus coloured wooden sign with two simple routed words: Leefy Greans. The Venuses were still staring at the sign when their hostess rejoined them.

“It isn’t an error. Well, it is in a way, but intentionally so. I’ve put the kettle on for some sip-you-to-sleep, if you’ll join me in the parlor as soon as you’re settled upstairs?” She handed Mr. Venus a large brass key, and gave Violet her own, just as shiny but much more delicate. “Stories are always better with something hot in hand.”

Viridian smiled up at her husband, took his free hand in hers and picked up their suitcase. He followed her up the stairs with another bag slung over his shoulder. Violet dawdled her way up the stairs, taking time to look at each picture in the path of her ascent. She paused between the fifth and sixth step, held in place by the very old photo of a young boy. “Excuse me,” she called down to the woman who was sweeping a straw broom across the floor. “Who is this?” Leaning the broom against the wall she joined the girl on the stairs. “He’s my grandfather,” she said. “James Ian Dash was his name. My brother looked a lot like him as a kid. He lives in a city now, but this was taken just outside of this house. He grew up here.”  “It’s an unusual name,” said Violet. “What colour is James like?”

Confusion fogged the air between them. “James isn’t a colour,” came the reply. She waved her hand in front of her face as though trying to physically clear up the muddle. “It’s just a name. It means something, I think, but it isn’t a pigment like yours.” Violet shook her head. “Everyone’s name is a colour somewhere on the spectrum – Jade, Emerald, Sage, Umber – that’s just how it is. You must have a colour name. What is it?” “I’m Kathleen,” said Kathleen. Violet didn’t know what to say. “Is… is that like… orange?”

Mr. and Mrs. Venus returned from dropping off their bags and soon all four of them were sitting around a small table with full teacups. “Kathleen,” said Vermillion, leaning forward just a little to focus his question, “what’s the story about that sign in the entryway?” She smiled and sipped at her cup. “Our little town – and I do mean little in a literal sense, I think there might be thirty of us living here permanently, and you’ll meet most of them in the morning – well, we used to be called Leafy Greens.” She walked to the refrigerator and took the pen and note pad to spell it out for them. “Some of the best provincial farming land is around these parts, or used to be. A couple of major highway companies bought up most of the land lot by lot before locals caught onto their project, and when we realized what they were trying to do the papers were already signed. They plowed up the farms and paved their paths, and five years later rerouted traffic and skipped our town all together. Most of the folks had to leave, to start up again somewhere else. Those who’ve stayed have done what we can to keep each other floating along and have worked out a kind of subsistence recycling of goods and labour. We don’t even really need tourists anymore, not that that we don’t love company,” she smiled. “All the kids get picked up from my place in the morning and go to school about a half hour away. A few years back there was a kid from the high school who missed the bus and decided he would walk. Foolish, maybe, but I think he made it by the last bell. Anyway, when he hit the town limits and passed the sign, he stopped for a rest and saw that one of the letters had come loose from the board. Long story short, he switched the letters as a practical joke. Nobody in town noticed for months, but one day a stack of letters came by a blustery mail courier. The post officer told us that about thirty letters had come in with the misspelled name, and therefore hadn’t been delivered properly. It was mostly fliers and trash, but someone had apparently driven by the sign, informed someone in a government office somewhere and all the records had been officially changed. If we wanted to continue life in Leafy Greens there would be a lot of paperwork in our future, and a misdemeanor fine to pay. We held a town meeting at what used to be our library and voted to keep the bumbled version to save the kid his summer money. We spent a few hours walking the streets, now mostly abandoned, drawing arrows where the letters ought to be switched. It’s all just a joke now, just a story to tell. I had that sign made up one Christmas. Other than the one on your way into town, I imagine it’s the only one you’ll find with that spelling and not just the arrows.”

Kathleen held the mug up to her nose and breathed in the warm spell. The Venus family, reflective and growing drowsy, absently mimicked her movements. “Ahhhh,” sighed Viridian, “That hits the spot.” Kathleen held up her hand in correction. “That’s hits-the-spot,” she said. Mrs. Venus looked a bit puzzled but she smiled, nodded and yawned. Bidding their hostess a good night and cheerful dreams, each Venus climbed up the stairs and snuggled into their beds, thick with comfort and down.

Morning came swiftly, and waking abrupt.

“Aaye, lass! It’s rrroll call! Seven thirrrty-thrrree and not a moment to lose!” There was a Scottish man pounding at Violet’s door. She assumed herself still swallowed in sleep until the bright twittering of a bird caught her attention outside and she remembered her setting. “I’ll give yerrr bonny face to the count of fourrr, lass, and mind you be quick to drrress!” Violet leaped out of bed and drove her hands into her tightly packed suitcase, resurfacing with a navy tee and light jeans. The whole process of un-and-re-clothing her body took less than ninety seconds. She opened the door to the sight of a rough looking man knocking sharply at the wall of her parents’ room. “Venus, Virrridian! Venus, Verrrmillion! Venus, Violet!” He read loudly from a list in his hand, with a curious sort of barking tone. “Yerrr expected to find a seat at table in a flash! The lady of this fine home has been labourrring all morrrning overrr the stove! If yerrr not quick, the I-can’t-believe-how-fantastic-this-hot-oozing-mess-feels-in-my-jaw will get cold!” And he vanished down a thin flight of stairs at the end of the hall. A moment later she could hear his holler again, slightly muffled by the floorboards between them. “Jones, Cha! Jones, Po! Yerrr expected at table!”

Mr. and Mrs. Venus stumbled out of their room with sleepiness clinging around them, rubbing their fingers against their face in the hope of massaging their eyes alert. “Did he say something about food?” Viridian asked in mid stretch. Her arms pulled taught and she made tiny, involuntary squeaking sounds and she attempted to suppress a yawn. “I didn’t quite understand, actually,” said Violet’s father. “But I know we’re intended to go down. Shall we?”

A rumbling noise grew in volume and power as they neared the dining area. Last night it had felt so quiet and empty, but upon turning the corner at the bottom of the stairs, all such adjectives fled the mind. It was like a radio playing ten stations at once – a cacophony of conversation from a room full of vastly varying characters. “Oh, my,” said Violet. Nothing more need be said for the moment; the thing to do was look on. All along the twenty-two foot table sat the strangest collection of people they had ever seen. Some were colourfully clad, but the garb of others was muted and gray. Some hair stood tall in bouffant or curl, and some lay flat and pin-straight or wrapped back in a bun, or combed over or gone altogether, skin shined. Several gentlemen wore felt hats, and around the shoulders of a particularly tall woman was a feathered boa. Correction… the draping tail feathers of a quetzal bird that hopped from behind her head to perch atop it. There was a gentleman in the formal tuxedo of another era and a set of three children sat in highchairs. But even stranger than the look of the lot was the language that flowed from their lips.

“Dear, mind your elbows; you’re about to knock over the slides-down-your-throat-and-gives-every-nerve-a-caress-as-you-swallow! Spill that and you’ll spoil something else.”

“Marta, kindly pass over the you-know-what-that’s-just-the-kick-in-the-taste-buds-I-needed? No, sorry, I meant the fizzles-at-the-top-of-your-mouth-and-ohh-it-reminds-me-of-the-east-coast-sprays. That’s it. Yes, thank you.”

“Here sweetheart, this is maybe-not-the-best-of-the-bushel-but-sweeter-than-you-might-think-for-how-healthy-it-is. Open up like a good little man.”

“Mom! Is this holy-scrape-that-out-of-my-mouth-galhhhgreeeahh again? I’m begging you: please don’t make me eat!”

Kathleen danced over and sat them down at the table. It was… well, a little anticlimactic. Each place was set with a cereal bowl, a plate with three pancakes, a small pile of orange slices and easily within reach of each seat was a toast tray and several open jars of jam. Here they were expecting some kind of strange feast, made up of absolutely inexpressible varieties of food… but it was simple. It was breakfast for breakfast and little more.

“Thank you, Kathleen,” said Mr. Venus on behalf of his family. “It looks lovely. Does your town come over for pancakes every morning?”

“I’m sorry, sir?”

“Pancakes. Every morning?”

“I’m afraid that I really don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

He picked up a pancake between his fingers and pointed at it. “Pancake.” She picked up a menu from the counter behind her and pointed at it. “Melt-in-your-mouth-with-that-ohh-yeah-kind-of-smile-sparker. You get three.” His mouth fell open, flabbergasted. She continued. “Your term might be shorter, but it says nothing of essence. I’ve heard the word before, once in the city – maybe my brother mentioned it at the diner – but please understand, there is so much more that you can learn about a food than what it is. Pancake: a cake made in a pan… you know what it is, but what is it? Our word tells you that.”

He sat back and chewed the thought over with the rest of his fluffy mouthful. It was a kind of right-brained logic so unfamiliar to the rest of the world. But it made him smile, and he tried it out. “Darling,” he said lifting his shoulders in measure with the edges of a growing grin, “Will you pass me down that… quench-my-thirst-and…. some-other-delicious-adverb?” She laughed and poured him a glass of orange juice.

The meal was indeed a daily affair. Twice daily, actually: a breakfast and a “lupper” that was hosted around 4:30pm. As a community they had realized that a mass grocery bill for thirty would be much less expensive than fifteen or twenty people cooking for one or two mouths. The farmer contributed a portion of his crop for free and therefore did not contribute financially, and Kathleen as the hostess, lead organizational hand and primary chef was also exempt. Everyone else pitched in on a budget and they feasted together, most every phrase an affirmation of appreciation and delight. Between meals there was much to be done; the theatre in town opened for a matinee, the grocer set up a snack stand for those who missed a meal or decided on a treat; hair salons and liquor saloons opened up for a few hours, the doctor walked around and visited everyone and their pets, and the children, when not in school, set up forts and played in the square. Leefy Greans was a beautiful little spot, for all of its quirks and strange names. In many ways it was akin to the small town they had driven away from, but somehow extraordinarily different.

Their second night was just as pleasant as their first, but this time when Kathleen invited them for a soothing-crack-your-neck-kind-of-tension-release and one or two ohh-so-good-chocolatey-fresh-out-of-the-oven-hunk-a-hunk-of-almost-burn-your-mouth-love, they knew what she meant.

They drove away the next morning after a very complicated set of breakfast foods that boiled down to eggs, hashbrowns, bacon and a couple of beverages, both hot and cold. “If you ever find yourself around these parts again,” smiled Kathleen as she helped carry a box of lupper out to their car, “there will be a couple of brass keys waiting and a mug of… is it tea?” The Venus family smiled. “Something sweet and hot to sip, call it what you will,” said Viridian.

Their trip lasted five weeks and one day. When they returned, Mauve ran over and knocked at the door. “She’s upstairs,” called Violet’s father, but the girl was half way up the flight before he even noticed her entrance. “So?” sang Mauve with a prying inflection of her voice. “Tell me a story!” Vi swung her legs over to the other side of her bed and pulled a laminated sheet out of her backpack. “I don’t know if you’ll believe me, but I remembered your souvenir.” She handed her friend a table menu. Mauve cocked an eyebrow at the first item on the list. Violet smiled and pulled the backpack off of the floor, spilling its contents across the bed and revealing a jar of sand, tiny keychain animals, a wooden ruler, some kind of handmade taffy and a dozen other trinkets and bobbles. “Make yourself comfortable, Miss Mercury. You can’t imagine how crazy this world is.”

Toes

One shoe was tipped over on its side, halfway down the dock. The other shoe dropped, standing up on its heel for a moment before it wobbled down beside its match. It was a pretty good throw, especially without looking, but the girl's attention was out, across the lake, and she didn't even notice.

An early summer heat wave had driven her to the water's edge that afternoon. Twenty-seven degrees with no mention of humidity, and the temperature was supposed to keep climbing. She stripped off her socks, one at a time, letting them drop without much thought. One rolled right to the edge, stopped only by a large metal ring that would soon be used to tie an assortment of watercraft to the little port's only floating dock. The other tumbled over the side and was caught by a wave. The sound it made was so soft that, had it been heard at all it would have caused no alarm. But the girl didn't hear it fall. Her mind was occupied elsewhere. Out... across the lake.

The wood of the dock had worn smooth from years of running children and their pacing, nervous parents. She walked out to the ladder that hung into the lake. It was an old aluminum frame, the kind with tall handles that arc from the dock to the water, the kind that made backwards somersaults so easy. The girl balanced herself against the rusting metal bars, memories pulsing through her with every heartbeat. The ladder was strangely cool to the touch, just like it always was, just like it had been. She ran her fingers over the freckles of erosion, the red-orange spots that betrayed the age of this much-loved place. She sat down. With her legs swinging gently below her, her spreading toes almost grazing the surface of the lake, the girl drew in a deep, slow breath and closed her eyes.

It had been three years.

The water lapped against the dock and rippled back again. She couldn't see this with her eyes closed, but she could feel the air changing direction if she focused intently on the pads of her feet. It was extraordinarily light, the wind, like the breeze of a fan from another room that you only perceive because the wisps of hair that frame your face are moving gently, as if by a will of their own. Very slowly the girl pointed one foot, extending it according to the muscular instruction she had received in her one-and-only dance class. She lowered her toes towards the water until they hovered, motionless, barely an eighth of an inch from the surface.

Two summers past, she and a friend had borrowed a paddle-boat from the little marina, if you could, in good conscious, call it one. Three canoes, one flat-bottomed rower, and the vessel they had set out on were the sum of their options -- unless you counted a stack of Styrofoam flutter-boards propping up one of the shack's side windows, which they did not. The girls dabbled out on the water for hours that day, talking about everything and nothing all in a moment. They took turns dozing off in the sunshine, rocked gently by the undulating rhythm of another's wake. Once they both woke up only to find that they were drifting not ten feet from a fisherman, quietly casting his line almost right over them. They tumbled into laughter as they pedaled as fast as they could back to the paradoxical safety of open water.

The same water had been the cleansing agent of a messy heart the summer just past, when she and her depression took a literal dive. She floated in the lake for hours until her anxious feelings seemed to seep out of her, down into the dark sediment, down to the deep. It took her days to unwrinkle from the water's raisining effects, but by the time her skin smoothed again emotions had followed and the rest of August passed by without another tailspin.

She was dragged back to the present moment by the flickering dance of a dragonfly, flying back and forth from knee to knee, never allowing itself settle more than a second before flitting off again. There was a canoe of people over by the cliff, a few half way up the rocky path, and one at the top fighting the battle between fear and thrill, deciding whether or not he should leap into the water. Even standing so high was a brave thing. As she listened, she could hear his friends taunting and encouraging him to jump. The climbers had reached him now and seemed to be threatening to toss him, if he wouldn't step out on his own. He was signaling boldly and with the determined stiffness of anger just before the boil. He harnessed it, and jumped. They cheered.

So much of this place felt the same: the wood as smooth, the air as hot, the flecks of rust as red. But something had settled into its essence that was unfamiliar to her now, and it seemed to wash her reveries with a pastel of commonplace. The lake had memories of its own; hers were significant only because they were hers... but that knowledge didn't dull the memory nor undermine it's importance, especially not today.

Three years had past since she had sat in this space and watched him run off the dock, sprinting and leaping like some wild deer, then diving underwater with the grace of a loon. Three years since they had spent the afternoon hauling a sunken fishing boat out of one of the little bays. With the help of some friends they had hoisted it into a tree in the little public park downtown. Their prank had made the front page of the little daily newspaper twice -- once upon the discovery of the boat (and one strategically placed home-made mannequin), and again when the police uncovered a stash of fifty dollar bills sealed in Ziplock-safely in one of the tackle-boxes tied under the front bench. The second article announced that the reward proposed for those individuals who had found the money would exactly balance the threatened fines for the crew responsible for the prank. The reporter called it a clever truce; the giggling teenagers who met up at Pizza Pizza to watch the show called it forgiveness, and were never turned in by the all-knowing store manager for their shenanigans.

That spring and summer had been a beautiful gift for the pair and they had become a couple by the time the first leaf had fallen. But her blue sunshine skies thundered into rain the day he didn't knock on her window. He had knocked every morning from May through September - he would wake her up, and together they would walk down to the shore - but the morning he didn't, another knock roused her from dream. It was heavy, determined to be heard throughout their small country home, and loud enough to wake everyone. The Sheriff, and yes, some small towns still have one, was talking to her mother in low whispers at the front door. The sky and her emotions crashed simultaneously with the weight that comes from shock and grief. She ran through the deluge to the dock and fought against the urge to let the water swallow her whole, resisted the clawing desire to find a place as dark and cold as she felt. She screamed out her pain at the roaring waters. She stayed at the ladder all night, slowly calming as the clouds exhausted their store. The gales hushed, the thunder rolled on and the dock rose and fell steadily, setting pace with her own breath, coaching her soul with what was left over of the wind-piled waves.

Three years ago she had taken her place between their families, standing beside his sister at the far east end of the little graveyard that overlooked the lake. She could see the spot from her perch; it was a fitting space for his body, she thought, but his spirit spent much more of its time haunting her here, at the dock. Either he was in heaven, as he had believed, or he was with her, as her heart was inclined to hold true.

She had only returned to this place on a handful of occasions in the collapse of time between past and present. On each visit the lake had reflected her state: tempestuous, numb and lifeless, foggy, grey, covered in ice... and this time was no different. As she sat by the water in the early summer heat wave, barefoot with toes hovering just over its surface, the lake reflected something new. She had found peace. She was content.

She was not overwhelmed by the welling of tears today. One shaky breath in, one out, repeat. Despite the temperature she shivered slightly. The tremor was the only thing that betrayed any hesitation or residual fear. Her heart was healing; she was finding peace.

She opened her eyes to the sun and smiled, out, across the lake.

Heart on Hand

Wendy, Moira, Angela Darling.

In a few paragraphs, my introduction will come into its context - but we must grow to the conclusion, so if you have a few minutes of freedom, come with me to the roots.

I went home this weekend, out of the city and back into my native northern land. We spent Friday night and most of Saturday in a trip down memory lane that felt like someone had injected us with a concentrated shot of summer right through the heart. I saw faces I hadn't in months, reconnected with friends I hadn't had any time to talk with and collected hugs from all the right people. It reminded me of every wonderful thing about my May-through-September life, and I have to tell you, I felt my fingers trying to close. (This will also make sense in a little more time.) I sang again, I praised my God, I danced a little dance and I walked around my Muskokan sanctuary, and when the weekend came to a close on the long drive back to Hamilton on Sunday, God had finally shaken the last of my resistant fingers free.

About a month ago, the MoveIn team was challenged to consider a new idea: long term change is often partnered with a long term commitment. That night I wrote out a long response, so far unshared. A segment of that letter to myself now follows.

"...If I am going to MoveIn right, I can't treat it like an idling zone until Camp begins again. I've been living in transition for the past four years - I never intended to stay in North Bay, so I didn't root myself there, didn't invest my being. But here... Why did I move here motivated by the same year-to-year mentality? Why did I come here expecting, waiting, to leave again? If I am going to move in right, get involved with a school program or community shelter, or with families at the YMCA or with ministry at church... if I am going to really do this, then I can't plan to pick-up and ditch-out come May. I need to be willing to stay.

Several weeks ago I had a meeting about summer with my bosses. During the meeting (both planning and review), John Friesen said something that changed my life. It was simple, and probably something that he's said to fifty other people as they learn to grow up in their faith: he said I needed to learn to live with an open hand to God. I'm going to tell you something that I've only shared with a few up to this point. While John was explaining what he meant, the LORD was doing the same. I don't know how to put it otherwise... this was the closest thing to a vision I have ever experienced.

I saw myself, vividly, in a worship concert, surrounded by people on all sides, each with somber faces and eyes closed. As quickly as it came, my awareness of the crowd fell away and I was standing, one-on-one with God. My hands were lifted up above my head and I was holding out my heart - my physical heart - like a six year old holds up a new drawing to their parent, seeking approval in a smile. Look, Daddy, look what I've made. "Look what I'm doing with the heart you have given me, with my skills, my mind, my time, my passion, my effort, my friendships, my study, my art... Look, Father, aren't you proud?"

I did feel God smile, but it was with a sigh and a slight, slow shaking of His head. "Child," He said to me, "I don't want you to show me your heart. I want you to give me your heart."

Anxiety flooded my body as I saw myself standing there, arms up, staring at the pump-pumping life in my hands. I knew instantly, instinctively, that it represented some very particular element of my life that I was holding on to. I realized that I had given up control in almost everything - in career, in geography, in love - but not in Camp. I had a tight grip on Camp, and I wanted to show off, not let go. I said this. "But look at what I have done with everything you have given me! I haven't buried my talents, they have multiplied! Aren't I doing a good job? Aren't you pleased with me?"

The Great He smiled again, with gentle redirection. "It is the offering that gives me pleasure. It is your vulnerability that delights me."

For the first time in my life I understood the implications of "living sacrifice" in my own realm. Trusting God meant lifting my hands in worship, but it also meant holding my heart out to Him with an open hand - heart on hand, not heart in hand - so that He can do what He likes with it, even if all He wants to do it watch me hold it out to Him.

I believe this means that I have to leave Camp behind me. I feel like Wendy Darling, looking at Peter in the moment that she understands that he won't be coming with her - that to grow up, she must leave him behind. Muskoka Bible Centre has been my beautiful Neverland. I have learned so much, I have been so supported, so trusted, so safe. I have come into myself on its grounds... but like Wendy, I believe I need to let it go to grow more. I need to be brave, heart on hand, and grow up."

I am confident that Miss Darling, though her story is not formally secured for us by her author, grew into a magnificent storyteller with a vast repertoire of tales reaching far beyond the borders of the Neverlands. She saw things that the boys who stayed lost never would... and I believe that Wendy grew into womanhood wiser and stronger and more imaginative for the time she spent in the company of Peter Pan.

It will be a struggle, for a while, not to worry about the mermaid and pirates and young people of MBC, and it will be a heart wrenching, tearful farewell when the metaphorical golden ship finally sails out of sight... but it is time for a new kind of adventure, new bravery, new challenges and renewed, reservationless commitment to my Author.

Heart on hand.

Wallflower

Sit in one place long enough and the world stops passing you by. Oh, it does pass, don't get me wrong - but it passes slowly, pausing before you, awaiting your observation, occasionally bowing majestically to your senses and giving you a knowing wink before strolling along once again, merrily on its way.

When you stop to simply witness the world's movements, when you sit back on the banks of life with open eyes and baited pen, the fish will come. Tall, business oriented fish with wide-brimmed European wedding hats and large clutch purses en route to an afternoon rendezvous organized in whispers an hour before; balding, bustling fish with a phone to his ear and a fire in his eyes that betrays the passion that lies latent in his lawyerly labours; a school of toddling fish following after their mommas in a grocery-store-shopping line of almost-trouble; a couple of exotic, brightly coloured teenaged fish engaged in some kind of mating ritual that, however fascinating to the lookers on, should have remained secreted away in the deepest parts of the sea.

It's a veritable reef of witnessed moments and tested poses, here in the flurry of stillness. Every trivial moment is an exposé, every distant action a silent film with subtitles so vividly implied; it's a beautiful world, from the wallflower's post. Would you join me?

Eleven Hours in Transit

I’m not a huge fan of Jones Soda, but something about their berry-lemonade blend appeals to every tongue bud I have. This is not the most important of personal revelations in my life, or even in my week, and while such a fact is unlikely to spark much conversation or inspire a comment, I feel compelled to share. I have also never before sat for so long against and escalator, but this particular perch might make it to my favourite list of places. There is something reassuring about an unchanging rhythm of movement to your back and strong dark tile under your butt. Curiosity satisfied.

I’m waiting for a Northland Bus to take me home for the night. It’s a tricky thing, traveling North in this province – to catch a train, you have to make it to Union by eight of the clock – to jump on a bus, you have to wait around for one of two (maybe three) trips up. My options today were four hours or ten hours from my arrival time. Oh Huntsville, both beautiful and vexing.

So, what miracle has freed me from the Library’s deceptively passive-looking security guards, the fever-inducing anxiety of employment’s cold shoulder, and the shackling commitment to clicking “Refresh” on job site after job site, again and again and again? An offer, that’s what! Thank you the pray-ers (and success-wishers, and thinking-of-you-ers, although I believe your efforts significantly less helpful, however well-meaning). I am now the proud (and surprisingly pumped) new employee of a marketing firm based out of the Hamilton City Centre (aka Jackson Square). Details will follow as I learn more about what I will be involved with, but I was greatly encouraged by the friendly, small staff, and the charities that they support and promote. The three partner charities (Special Olympics, Maple Leaf Camps, and Help a Child Smile) really strike a cord with me, and I am excited to get behind what I believe to be truly important programs. If I’m going to be telemarketing in any degree, much better a life-experience for a worthy kid than fancy soaps or some rip-off insurance… or vacuums (right, Care?). Job starts on Tuesday, so I have one more weekend of freedom, and I am seizing that opportunity to move.

As of next week, Loreen and I will become official Hamiltonians (which will be easier on the vocabulary than “Burlingtonians” which just sounds plain silly). We have our keys, we’ve moved the fridge, we’re dreaming curtains and mason-jars and wall decorations and Bible studies and having people over for dinner and baking and Internet access (which we have learned to appreciate as a precious luxury), and in sum it’s been a very exciting few days with the promise of many more to follow. I have several cardboard boxes waiting for my careful Tetris-refined packing skills tonight, and tomorrow I will see everything I own (or most of it) piled into the back of my Dad’s red truck for the sixth time this year. It’s more moving than I had planned… but it finally feels like forward motion, and I have found both hope and peace in that.

Keep a weather-eye to the digital horizon; more stories to come.

Isaac ~ Between the Stops

She had imagined this conversation somewhat differently; his look should have been more disarming, perhaps – or her words more full of life, or more charming, or cleverer. It wasn’t an unpleasant dialogue, but the magnetic attraction she had prepared her heart to resist was not there. He was simply a friend, and it seemed barely that.

What had she expected, then?

…Static. The kind that prickles down your spine, that you can feel in your knees, that sparks an involuntary smile and a slight tremor in the heart. Instead she had experience the sort of static that comes with a radio station just off frequency, the distracting grey blur of bad wiring in a television set, and the immobile static of a long, uninterrupted, uninteresting wait.

And then silence had fallen upon them like the layer of gelatin glaze on a cake or flan; everything that was to be said had been. It was nice, and now it was concluded. Topped off. Only the consumption of the cake could change it now… or the dropping of it.

She averted her gaze. She had been staring at him as she thought these things, and he looked back at her with a passive curiosity, without saying a word. Wordlessness was a bad sign.

The bus lurched forward and she let her bag down to the floor. She picked it back up. A bag on the floor implied something – a desire to stay still, an exhaustion of strength, apathy, a defeat of some miniscule measure. Slung over one shoulder, the bag returned to its accustomed home. He looked on. No words.

The silence echoed itself and seemed to stretch their shared five minutes into unbearable epochs of time. He shifted from one foot to the other and casually said nothing. All of her thoughts, carefully edited and processed, sounded flat and mechanical to the audience of her mind, and so remained unspoken. The bus stopped again and the people crowded on, pressing them a little closer to each other.

She had been waiting for this moment for nearly four years – to talk with him alone, to have his full attention – but all this time she had thought him so different: chatty, inquisitive, energetic, funny… she thought he would be everything she remembered about him from classes and group gatherings. She thought . . . she had hoped . . . but maybe not.

The bus made three more stops before Riah climbed aboard. She waved enthusiastically from the front, paid her fare and danced her way through the people to meet them. She brought with her an incredible flurry of conversation.

“Ah! Girl, I was hoping to meet you today! Did you get my text yesterday? My phone has been acting up like the three-year-old it is and I can’t believe how many messages it has decided not to send, just to spite me, I swear. I hope yours works better than mine! Wow is the bus ever stuffy today, and not just with people, I mean this air is so… I mean, thick, you know? Like a musty old sauna but without all the cute swimsuits, unfortunately. Seriously, someone ought to crack open a window in here! Oh, that reminds me! Guess what I found stuck under one of my windshield wipers this morning? A parking ticket! The city booted my car! Outside my own building! That’s why I’m on the bus, you see – set off the City Hall. But… sorry, am I interrupting something?” She took a breath, barely pausing long enough to flick her eyes in the general direction of the boy standing near by. She continued with a shrug.

“Well anyway, I paid for that spot right before I went in, just to shower you see, and then I came right back out! Must have caught me just a minute after it expired, but then those parking signs can be so confusing to read, never you mind how long I’ve lived there. I think the traffic people will see it my way. I have a knack for persuasion, you know. Mother always thought I’d make a great actress, but I told her, ‘the Law is for me!’ Pretty similar in the long run, I suppose. Just a different sort of stage,” she winked. “By the way, have you seen the advertisements for the new Shakespeare flick? You really must go with me – I can’t think of a single other person who would care for the right reasons. Say you’ll come?”

Riah’s hand darted into her pocket and pulled out her phone. She read something quickly and began to type a reply. Her lips moved along with her mind as she wrote; it would take a few seconds for her to reorient herself.

“Riah, this is Isaac,” she interjected as soon as the phone snapped shut. “He’s a friend I met at school; Isaac, Riah. I can’t remember just how I met her, but she’s a doll. Not a bad cook either, but if she ever offers you a cookie, pass.” She winked at her friend who threw her hand to her forehead in a playfully dramatic pose.

“Alas,” Riah proclaimed, “My one major flaw and you just won’t let that story die! One time, and it wasn’t even that much garlic. I didn’t realize it was flavoured margarine, you see.” He laughed freely, and the two girls joined in: a moment of pure relief.

Her friendship with Riah worked well; Riah was a wild gypsy of a girl, if gypsies would ever be caught in stiletto heels. She wore feathers in her hair, bright makeup and dark lips; she gave you three doses of caffeine just by proximity; she was a prattling fool, an exotic beauty and an adventurous, head-spinning mystery; she took life in both hands like a microphone and rocked-out. She was awesome.

Isaac seemed simultaneously mesmerized and overwhelmed by the creature that had burst into their quiet encounter. He also seemed to be weighing his options of whether to interact or simply observe their conversation. Riah decided for him. “So, tell me a story, Isaac. What brings you to the bus today? I’ve got to get off in a few minutes though, so you’ll have to keep it brief.” He looked up and to the right for a quick recall. “I’m on my way to meet up with a couple guys from class. Were working on a project all day.” She tipped her head to one side, just a little. “What are you working on?”

It was the same polite blueprint that had begun their conversation ten minutes ago. She was feeding him questions, leading the dance, modeling each step with the graceful nod of her head. He followed each move perfectly: a good dance partner, except that he was on the back-step.

How many nights had she mooned over Isaac Lamb? How many hours tracing his name like a child, day dreaming of a few minutes company? In her secrets she imagined his confession that he too had been watching, that a secret somewhere in his heart there was a place reserved for her. What a fantasy. What a nonsense it all seemed now.

Riah was tugging at her sleeve and saying her goodbyes. “Nice meeting you, Isaac. Good luck with your group thing. And – hey, space cadet – yes, hi. Text me back some time, okay? Talk soon?” And she was off.

“Your friend is …well, kind of intense, isn’t she?” he smiled at her. She searched his face for any sign of a hidden subtext in the words but found none. No codes in his eyes today.

“Yes,” she replied with a wave out to her friend. “She’s a bit of a crazy, but in a good way. I met her at a protest of all places. She was protesting, I was trying to get to work. I don’t know how it happened exactly, but I ended up holding a picket sign for nearly three hours. Ended up being pretty late for work, too. We hit it off so quickly that we’re nearly convinced we must have met before, so it’s a bit of a joke between us that I don’t remember. Truth is, of course, she’d be a difficult person to forget.”

“I believe you,” he said. “She definitely leaves an impression.”

Stop, stop. A woman pushing a stroller squeezed past them and Isaac helped her lift it off like a gentleman. The mall was coming up soon and they would both be getting off. She looked at him and smiled. He smiled back. No words.

She wanted to tell him everything. She wanted to confess the past four years of wishing he would strike up a conversation, that he would send her a letter, walk her somewhere, sing her a song on the guitar she knew he could play. She wanted to tell him about the talks she had had with her sisters and friends in which he so often took feature. She wanted to tell him she liked him, but instead she just smiled. “See you later,” he said, pleasantly. “See you,” she said.

Off the bus and walking away, their whole lives seemed to be going in different directions. But …maybe there would be another day for words. 

Libraries and Sometimes Books

This is my first favourite spot in Hamilton. I anticipate a long list of such places, each with a unique perspective for observing this ever-changing reality we call our home. My current perch, though flooded with more light than I usually select for a place to think and write, is a splendidly active corner of the Hamilton Public Library. It's on the first floor, in a corner where all the walls are made of glass. I'm overlooking the indoor farmer's market and have the pleasure of seeing into the picnic-like selection of baked good, fresh produce, friendly laughing conversations as the customers pick through the leeks and apples, the pottery merchants, the ambitious florists, the wanderers, the samplers, the penny-counters, the wrist-watch-watching-foot-tappers, the cheese... It's a perfect beginning for a million stories, all in the pantomime of distance and thick glass. From this place, too near the children's centre for hard-thinking and much grown-up work, I can hear the chanting songs of a sing-along Dora the Explorer video (with many four-year-old sing-along-ers). "Do you need to go potty? Did you finish your apple juice?" There are two or three tales to tell from that phrase alone. Just to my right there is a bank of individual desks. Right now, each is filled up with a sprawl of somebody's life: coffee, muffin, laptop, notebook or perhaps a day timer, backpack, cell phone, person. He's a young guy with a go-tee and a cool hat. Who is he, though? What is he reading, thinking, planning, hoping, forgetting? These are the sparks of truth that my imagination is so excited to fan, to encourage, until a story catches fire. This... this is a good spot.

Rachel ~ Between the Stops

The little girl looked up at her father with a smile in her eyes.

“Rapunzel had pets, you know.”

They were on their way home after going to town for cereal. It was Mom’s birthday tomorrow and both of them were determined for everything to be perfect from the moment she woke up. The day had been completely planned out; breakfast in bed, a morning of board-games and old movies, and in the afternoon they were off to Grandma’s and Grandpa’s for dinner and tea. In the business of getting the day all set up and trying to make sure that Mom didn’t make any conflicting birthday plans of her own, Dad had forgotten to pick up the most important part of their special day breakfast routine: Cap’n Crunch. It was the little girl who had noticed the problem, and so, right after Dad got home they made a special father-daughter trip into town.

“What kind of pets does she have?” her father asked, returning her smile.

“A rabbit and a dragon!”

“Oh, wow! I wish I could have a dragon! Then I could ride on his back instead of taking the bus home.”

The little girl gasped aloud and her eyes opened widely. “Daddy! Dragons have fire!”

“I’m not afraid, sweetie. I could bring lots of water with me. And I think we might get home a lot faster if we had a dragon to ride.”

The little girl seemed to ponder this for a moment and in the space before she wrinkled her nose and shook her head slowly, time seemed to lean back, as it sometimes does, and he marvelled at his daughter. Her long lashes seemed to batt open and closed in slow motion, concealing and revealing again the deep, bright blue of her mother's eyes. It was like staring into a whirlpool of thought, those eyes. He swallowed a sudden urge to well up and dropped his gaze to her pink-velcro sneakers. He smiled. When it came to footwear, there weren't two tastes more opposed. Her mother would never have been caught in stockings and shoes in this weather. He shook himself back to reality in time for the inevitable nose wrinkling.

“No," she resolved, "you can't come. It’s a purple dragon.”

Her father laughed. “Well, that’s okay,” without missing a beat, “I’ll just spray-paint him black.”

“Black! Oh, no Daddy, not black!”

“Not black, eh?” He chucked gently at his daughter’s horror. “Well, what about... what if we colour him like the rainbow?”

Suddenly all of the concern in the little girl’s face melted away, revealing the wonderful smile of childhood’s simple joy and a laugh that danced through the air between them.

“Yes! That is a good idea! That would make the dragon very happy!”

The little girl’s laugh was contagious. A couple across the aisle from them couldn’t help the smiles spreading across their faces as they glanced over at the child, not-so-secretly eaves-dropping on their conversation. The creativity of such an innocent heart is hard to ignore.

“Well, I don’t know about happy, but he sure would be multicoloured.”

The girl’s gaze dropped from her father’s and down at the large, colourful cereal box tucked between them on the seat. Then she took a moment to smile at the bus-driver who smiled back with a grandfatherly grin.

“Could we colour the dragon Daddy? Could we draw pictures on it and colour it however we want?”

“Of course we can, darling.”

“And it will have pink!”

“And blue?”

“For Mommy’s birthday!”

They were talking about Rachel, of course. She had jumped into the role of both wife and mother only two years ago - a leap of faith, both feet and full heart. His baby girl didn't know anything different, as far as mothers go, but hearing the title come from his little one with such love still caught him. Her mother had died when she was only eighteen months old. She had barely learned to use the word, but his precious first wife had heard it a few times, tumbling out of their toddler's mouth with the stumbling, crinkled concentration of a first year Latin student. Oh, the blissful laughter of those first few weeks in the world of words. And then she had gone. The doctors told him that she had been carrying the aneurysm in a dormant state all of her life, unaware. They said it had been a "merciful death," quick and without suffering; but his grief and shock did not heal quickly and he suffered for years, alone and lonely... except for his little girl. She kept him going. She gave him hope in his despair and strength in defeat. She revived in him the will to love.

He met Rachel a few days before his daughter turned three. Tipping and toddling no more, his little girl deserved to graduate from his often lopsided attempts at birthday cake to something that more physically reflected the celebration at hand. He flipped through the yellow pages, checked on Google, scanned the paper and eventually determined to wander the shops downtown until inspiration found him. And she did. Rachel was a veritable muse in her apron. With dark hair, dark eyes and dark skin, "muse" might be a misleading title -- until you saw her art. It framed her as you entered into the little patisserie; towering cakes and sugar flowers so life-like you can almost smell them, marzipan models and modelling chocolate figurines, cupcakes with whole paragraphs of script in the icing, and a hundred other delights vocabulary can't capture. And she stood, smiling at him as his eyes took in the room. She welcomed him to the counter with the same familiar airs of a hostess, ushering personal guests into her living rom and telling them to make themselves at home, and would anyone like a lemonade? She was warm and friendly, and she had honest eyes.

Ordering the cake took about four minutes, but he hovered there at the cash in happy, easy conversation until the bell over the door chimed and another customer came in with three children underfoot. When he stepped back onto the street an hour had passed and the rest of his errand-running was a scramble. Forgetting the Cap'n Crunch during a pre-birthday shop seemed to be as much a tradition as eating it for breakfast on the morning a year is gained in the life of this growing family.

The last-minute make-up trip to town that followed in the morning proved to be as much of a distraction, taking another hour longer than he had planned; thirty minutes were spent pacing in circles around the corner from the cake shop, deciding whether or not it was silly to check on the progress of an order that she promised would take her two days. He decided it was silly, and the next ten minutes were spent walking laps from the corner to his car, changing his mind back and forth. Eventually he had gone in, with almost no reason and with little to contribute but a blushed nodding in the presence of the beautiful woman behind the counter who was pointing at sketches for his daughter's cake, and prattling on about one or another new recipes she was going to try.

When it came time for the little party he had arranged -- mostly friends from work, their wives and kids if they had any -- the bakery masterpiece was shimmering with sugar dusts and looked like an elaborately embossed Christmas card. "Are you able to come and pick it up? Or, if you'd like, I could come and drop it off for you? I've got some extra time on my hands today, and I really wouldn't mind." So she came, and stayed; she played with the kids, made friends with the women, made fun at his expense, just a little. He liked her.

And so did his daughter. This now five-and-three-quarter-year-old lass by his side had taken her time to adjust to a "Mommy" in the home, and even after they were married it wasn't a generously used name. This little exchange on the bus wasn't the first time he'd heard the title used with so much love, but each instance was still so special to him. Little girls have a way of melting even the most grown-up of hearts.

Her father reached high up above the little girl’s head and tugged at the yellow cord.

“What do you say about making Mommy a card when we get home? A birthday card, out of really big white paper and I’ll draw a great big dragon on the inside? Then we can colour him like the rainbow with pictures of whatever we like for Mom’s birthday, and no black anywhere.”

The little girl laughed a wonderful, happy laugh that seemed to light up the whole bus. At the next stop, the little girl’s father stood up tall, took their box of Cap’n Crunch under one arm and offered his other hand to his daughter.

Hand in hand father and daughter marched up the aisle and thanked the bus-driver for their ride. Then, with a quick smile to each other that glowed of great friendship and mutual adoration, they hopped off the bus and onto the sidewalk, both dreaming of Mom’s special surprises and the stories they would be able to tell in the morning.

Heart Attacked

I fear my heart,

It's restless beat-beating that never tires or rests or slows,

not even in sleep.

I fear my heart and its wandering desires 

that tip back and forth like a balancing bird,

not yet convinced it should fly,

fervently unwilling to remain still. 

I fear my heart. 

I cannot trust it. 

It's like trying to control a helium balloon

tied to a pebble by a child,

let loose in the gale of a hurricane.

I fear my heart, wild and slipping, 

madly, desperately trying to stabilize 

independently. On its own.

It clings to everything, to others, snatching as they press past

as though it knows it needs them to help, but it won't allow itself to ask.

I am failing, alone. I feel it failing, too.

I fear my heart.

I fear its weakness. I fear its needs.

I fear the power it wields over my mind and strength.

It asserts its authority; it overwhelms its own sweetness with the bitterness of anger.

I fear its division; the civil war of it all, the wreckage it promises.

It shouldn't be like this. I shouldn't fear the overflow.

But there is a poison of malice that has been seeping out, slowly; 

a black tar of thoughts and words from a sick, dark heart.

I need a cure. I need a doctor.

You say you heal the brokenhearted.

This fracture has become infected. I now need more than a re-setting.

Restore, LORD. Revive this heart of fear. 

Jakob ~ Between the Stops

She had found his photograph in an old book, at the Library.

The book had been in the selling room, a space set aside for the frayed of binding or loose of page, or the subjectively deemed "dull of content." This little annex of the old brick building was the last hope for the worn-out printed works, stamped "discard" with a heavy black ink. If they remained too long here, they would be recycled... not on to another bookshelf for a new pupil to absorb its wisdom, but to the blue bin, the mass grave of all abandoned codex. Most of the books in the room did not appeal to her; many were the encyclopedic chronicles of sports history, or dime novels stuffed with sensation and not much else, or plotless textbooks now long out of date. Most of them were old-ish, which in the world of books was akin to a hot-ish plate of pasta, or a funny-ish comedian at a club. It was the really old ones that caught her attention, with a simple cloth cover and the irresistible smell of aged paper. It is a treasure most uncommon in such places, but when you know what you're looking for, a keen eye can sometimes find a hidden or neglected two or three.

The spine of the book with the photograph was a dead give away: the cloth cover had let loose at one end and beneath the fading burgundy material, the telltale font of newsprint was revealed. She lifted the volume delicately, as a mother lifts a sleeping child, fearful of waking the infant and yet entirely unable to resist the pleasure of holding a baby at such peace. The book was extremely old, and not in English. Opening to the frontispiece, she scanned for a date. 1828, Berlin.

The German language is something few in her city were likely able to pick up and read, but it was the style of the printing and the formatting of each page that gave her the clues she needed to puzzle out the mystery. She was holding a Bible. She purchased the book before she asked her questions.

"It is most certainly a religious work of some antiquity!" quipped the woman standing behind the desk, turning the pages with reverence. "Although, I don't believe you have a full Genesis-to-Revelation account here. More likely it is a very old commentary, on "Lucas" and "Johannes," or Luke and John. To confirm, I suggest that you refer to a computer, and one of our language translation software programs. You can find them over there, in the "D" section." She thanked the librarian and returned home without the recommended double-check. It took her a few hours of uncomprehending meandering through the pages to find the photograph, but when she did it was like the whole world fell spellbound into the gaze of the young soldier staring out from the frame.

He was dressed in the Canadian uniform common to paratroopers in the Second World War. His whole form looked strong and quite handsome; he was a man of perhaps thirty years, his face full of bravery and fire and the lacing softness of human compassion. She was struck by how much his expression conveyed. He looked resolved, apprehensive, hopeful, cautious, full of a welling love, and something else that her young heart couldn't label at the time, but would later call wisdom.

The black and white picture featured a house and a garden in the background behind the man. There was a mailbox among other things, flag up, with numbers on the side that couldn't be read because of the angle of the camera. Was this his home?

She picked up the photograph and turned it over in her hands. On the back, in a simple scrawl, was the phrase, "Gott ist souverän," and lower on the Polaroid, "Meine Liebe, Jakob. Juni 23, 1940." She flipped it back over and took a closer look at the man's face, re-examining the details of his setting. There was a suitcase in the frame, leaning against the mailbox post. It was a hard-covered brown leather piece with a key and snapping front clasps. Centered near the handle was the word, the name, "TAPFER," printed in block letters. 

Jakob Tapfer. And that was enough.

It was enough to drive her back to the Library, to the microfiche and the war archives. It was enough to find him on the memorial that had been set up in town to honour the men who died serving overseas. She learned that he had been in several small attacks before he died in an invasion known as "Operation Market Garden," in the Netherlands. Almost a month passed before she thought to look in a phonebook. Something about the picture compelled her to return it. However it came to be at the Library, and then into her care, she somehow knew that it was not hers to keep.

There were three Tapfers on her list. The first was a young woman who had recently moved up from Toronto, and had no connection to the family from the local papers of years gone by. The second number forwarded to an automatic voice message about vehicle rental rates and insurance. A man named Jakob picked up on her third try.

She stumbled through a clumsy explanation about finding an old book in the Library, and the photograph that led her to calling, and did he know of anyone by his name that served in World War II? The silence that followed felt chocked with emotion. Slowly the voice returned. "You... found one of her books?"

She listened quietly as Jakob Junior, the son of the man whose photograph she held, told her the history that newspapers ignored. "My mother was pregnant with me when he left. She used to say that he was a true Tapfer man, very brave. She said you could see it in his eyes. She loved him so much." He recounted, in brief, the history of his father that he had memorized from the cradle, the story that his mother had told him all of his life. "He was part of the Canadian Forces, enlisted early on to fight with the British Allies because he was already parachute trained. It had been a thrill in his youth, and he had learned the skill at home, only thirty minutes from Arnheim, the place he died. Both of my parents grew up in Kranenburg, you see. They moved to Canada in 1923 and became full Canadian citizens in 1934 and 1935, mother and father respectively. Neither entertained dreams of seeing their home again, but when my father left for War, he wrote that he thought God was going to take him home. And He did, twice; once to the airs of Arnheim, and then quickly to his heavenly place."

She listened without interruption for nearly two hours, completely absorbed by the passion and pride with which this man told his father's story. She learned that his mother, Sonje, had gone Home too, about a year ago. When her apartment had been sorted through by Jakob and his wife, they found none of the books or letters or anything else they expected her to keep. Months later they came across receipts for the rental of a small storage unit, under her second husband's name, but when they contacted the managers they were told flatly that, "anything unpaid and unclaimed for more than six months, whatever it be, is sold as a lot at auction." All of his mother's treasures had been given away from less than a hundred dollars. "We worked hard to track down the buyer, but once the sale has been made it is a very difficult process. You are the first to ever track us down."

So she offered, as she had planned, to return the photograph and the book it came with. After all of the story telling and reliving of the past, it was this act of kindness that overwhelmed him and his voice broke down into sobs. His wife picked up the receiver and arranged the details of a visit.

All of this had led her to the bus ride she was now taking. In a city as sprawled out as North Bay, the public transportation system is an important, if sometimes tedious, vein. The route was familiar, but the stop was not -- which is why she was so intently focused on watching the road signs out the window when the turnip hit her ankle. She didn't like to swear, and she had worked hard to keep her vocabulary clean, but when something as pain-inducing and unexpected as a rolling rutabaga breaks into your reality, the subliminal cultural training we have received sometimes slips out, entirely without our permission. As she bent down to tend to her pulsing foot, she knocked into a man behind her and set him off balance. He began to topple, just as someone reached out and caught him, under arm.

"Ethan!" she said with surprise, moving to help him right the man, apologies to both tumbling out of her as she struggled to orient herself in the moment. "Oh hello there, pretty girl," he said with a grin, "and where might you be off to with such determination? I've been standing here for nearly ten minutes, feeling very much ignored." His grin had swayed into a smirk. She smiled.

"I'm going to meet a friend," she said, careful about her verbal footing, unsure of how much she wanted to share right away. He caught the reserve in her voice and pulled a face. "Is it quite serious? Your other boyfriend, right?" She rolled her eyes as the bus pulled over and a few people hopped off between them. "It's a new friend," she said, deciding not to explain the adventure just yet. "I'm returning a book."

But then she thought about Sonje and Jakob. Life, her heart reminded her, is a fragile thing. She looked up at her man, smiling down at her face. Would she, in time, press his picture between the pages of her favourite book?

The bus pulled over at her stop at just that moment. Between closed doors and open doors, her mind had changed. "You know, I could use a bit of company after all. Will you come?" She took his hand. "Sure," he said, the grin returning, "But only if I can carry your books."

Sora ~ Between the Stops

The little guy was bundled up in "Classic Pooh," a brown snowsuit checkered with green; the combination of his pulled-down toque and tightly wrapped scarf almost buried his beautiful Native face. He might have been two years old, but no more. "Paappy," he said, pointing up at an advertisement on the ceiling of the bus. It was a Near North Crime Stoppers poster; one of Lynn Johnston's contributions to justice. The dog was looking proud of himself with sunglasses and a piece of bad-guy pants between his teeth. The father smiled, more at his boy than the poster.

"That's right," he said, all smiles, "a puppy. And there's a truck."
"Twuuk?"
"Yep."
"Twuk."
"Another truck, yep."

This dad was young, maybe twenty-three or -four. He had tattoos on his neck and he was wearing a collection of rings, though nothing on his left hand.

It's an undeniable truth that the world doesn't play by the same rules that it did even one generation ago. The pleasures and privileges of marriage have moved far beyond the laws and vows of the Church. But with love and sex comes risk and responsibility -- pressures that a marriage is built to withstand while informal relationships so often are not. It is in the crisis that character is exposed. As he held his baby boy, standing beside him on the matted red fabric of the bus seats, it was obvious: this was a man.

He was born on a reserve and would have grown and died there if not for the patience of a good teacher who loved people and refused to give up on him. He had graduated from the local school and moved to the city for college, working with passion and focus. It was in this new place with nothing familiar that he found his Sora, his beautiful birdsong who could speak the language of his soul. She surrendered her body; he surrendered his heart. It was the mysterious first submission -- the first of many to come.

The night he found out, Sora was already home. She was leaning against the bathroom door, quivering and in tears, with something clutched in between her fingers.

"Niinimoshe," he said with a soft concern, "what is wrong?" She could barely respond. In broken whispers, "Nimaanendam, nimaanendam," was all she could manage. He held her as she cried. They cried together. In that moment of crisis a man was born.

He had finished the semester and quit the program, found a job and did not leave. As Sora's belly filled with their child he could hardly conceive of the dramatic changes going on in his own heart. Every physical change was matched by a growth in the spirit of this newborn family. He loved her to the point of bursting. He loved her to the point of sacrifice.

The following seven months were a shift in reality: he learned to be calm and still, learned to hold his temper, learned to sing, just a little, the way his father and grandfather used to. "Gi zag gin, gi zag gin, niabinoojivens gwiiwizens, gi zag gin, gi zag gin, gi zag gin." Every day his heart was woven closer to Sora. They were one beautiful seminole, and no cloth could be more beautiful than she.

The bus pulled over to the side of the road. Three students clambered up, teetering boxes of groceries that included two cases of Kraft Dinner, a couple frozen pizzas, potato chips, Honey Nut Cheerios and a turnip. The turnip seemed a little out of place with the other purchases he could see,  but it made him smile. The bus driver was just pulling away when suddenly a pair of flailing arms seemed to leap out of nowhere. One of the arms, attached to a frazzled looking youth, banged on the bus door and the huge vehicle slammed on the brakes. Although the bus had only started moving a moment before, the halt was jarring and the repercussions numerous: his child lost balance and fell face first into his lap, bumping his little head off the seat and bursting into tears; the turnip dislodged from it's nest of junk food, bounced down the aisle, knocked over an unfortunately placed stack of binders in the fifth row and smashed into the ankle of a girl standing by the back doors; the girl cussed instinctively and bent down to rub her ankle, misjudging the distance between her posterior and the cane of the elderly gentleman standing behind her, who was preparing to get off the at the next stop; with his support gone, the man buckled at the knees and would have fallen, had the bending girl's boyfriend not been there to catch him from the side. It was an awkward few seconds and few looked with a smile at the kid who boarded in the aftermath.

"There, there, bear," cooed his father, righting the child and holding him fast 'round the middle. "You are a strong little makwa. You'll be all right." Their jumbled bus-fellows sorted themselves out and settled down again; the class notes re-shuffled, the turnip retrieved, apologies offered and accepted all 'round. His boy-child calmed in the embrace and his cries melted into whimpers, whimpers to coos and coos to smiles again.

Calamity always stirs people up in funny ways. So often the surface of who we are, the polished mask or persona that we intentionally present to the world, is carefully covering something truer that restlessly hovers below; like a tarp covering just a little too much wood, something is always at risk of exposure should one corner be firmly tugged. Simple moments of confusion, like the unexpected application of the breaks, or the tripping over a doorframe, or the dropping of keys can shuffle the world in such a way that our perfectly tucked edges are loosed and the mess of our lives is revealed. Suddenly the world can see the precarious balancing act you had to preform to stack the wood in the first place, and you lose control of your secrets. It is for this reason that a beautiful mask should not be the hope of a life lived. It is for this reason that you must start at the bottom of the pile and build up strong, cord by cord.

As the old bus rattled off again the man smiled down at his son. The child seems bored with the little odaminowaagan he had been carrying. "Here's something new to see," he said, reaching into the backpack on the floor and coming back up with a small square box. He opened it, facing the boy, and the clean, winter sunlight caught the gem perfectly. The refractions danced around the bus, dazzling the eyes of the little child. "It's for you mother... wiidigendiwini-ditibininjiibizoring. What do you think of that?"

She already held his heart. She should hold his life as well.

The ring went into his pocket instead of back to his bag, as he stood up and signalled for the next stop. It wasn't a special day, but it was the right one. He lifted the child up to his hip and gave him a tender kiss on the cheek. They were beautiful, the two of them together, hopping off the bus and into the snow. The three were better still: a woven fabric, rich in texture and colour, and life; a true family; a promise unending.

And the old bus rattled off again.

Around and Round

That explains it. The canvas is torn.

A tiny boat, no bigger than a life raft, spun round in circles about 15 minutes from shore. She was caught in the squaring-off between wind and wave and her sail, flapping wildly, unsecured and multiplying the chaos on deck, revealed a gash in its fabric that sliced from her groaning mast to the tether-turned-whip at its furthest edge. The rudder, though intact, was a minor deterrent to the crash of water coming overboard; the ballasts on her sides did little to steady her as the hurricane tipped her precariously, her starboard side exposed, her port dipped below the surface of the raging waters.

The little vessel was suspended, immobilized, out on that lake. She could do nothing to ease the storm's anxious strains as it relentlessly pitched her from one side to the other. Wind and wave met with a violence that the boat had never before encountered. It threatened to implode her; it struggled to pull her apart.

Give in, little floater, I'll protect you beneath; 

Never again will this wind haunt your sails. 

Give in, little swimmer, and I'll run you aground;

While at port you'll find rest in my gales.

Neither would settle for less than her all; neither sky nor sea could this maiden voyage please. With her control and choice wrecked she was at the mercy of the elements and though at war with each other, with her in their crossfire, both water and air thought their action was all to this little boat's best.

But there was something built into this small rocking ship that remembered a storm quite the same... A floorboard, perhaps, or an old rope on deck that had witnessed a reckless sea in ages past, a terrible tempest calmed by the gentle rebuke of a ghost.

Or they though he was a ghost, at first. He had captured all attention. The wind suddenly quiet; the waves as suddenly stilled. He was the master of them all. They obeyed his command. He saved the boat; he stopped the elemental war.

Oh, how this vessel begs of its Master another divine intervention. Bring order from chaos. Mend the sail, guide the boat, calm the wind and wave.

Back Into Boxes

I am not unfamiliar with the sentiments attached to moving. I move home every summer; crate my books, fold all my laundry, sift through which pillows are to come or stay. I also move back every autumn, for the last three years, to this apartment. This has become home to me. Small "h" home, mind you, but a home just the same. It's the place I've matured. It is in this space that I have ripened.

Perhaps this is the root of my nostalgic trance that I've been in the last few days, trying with little success to package my life for the last time in this city. It's a lonely project, but one I feel must be done in solace. Saying good-bye to a place is a different philosophical experience than bidding a person, even a friend, farewell. With people, the parting is always a mutual weight; feelings are shared between, both are impacted and when affection is mutual, so is the sadness. But saying good-bye to a place is different.

When I leave North Bay, the buses will not miss me; the instability of the transit schedule and the weary smile of each driver will not be altered by my sudden disappearance. When I leave, the Salvation Army which has so often contributed to my wardrobe (including the oh-so-infamous Christmas Socks) will continue to sell their long-ignored treasure to those who need an economical cheer-up. My leaving will not change how the sunset casts a fabulous gold-yellow light into the living room of 512 O'Brien Street, Apartment 2 at that certain time of day... not in the same way that the absence of me will change the beautiful women who will live here without me next year. The city will not miss me (but I hope that they will).

So, saying good bye to this place, because it is so strong and unmoving and so tragically emotionless, must be done alone. The boxes and packing drawers, the tape I can't find and a full season of NUMB3RS, the leftovers in the fridge and the carrot cake I'm thinking about making: we must do this, together and alone, in the strange camaraderie of inanimate acquaintanceships. Pack, into boxes.

Back into boxes.

Stephen ~ Between the Stops

Everyone could see that they were in love. It was written all over them for the world to read; written in their clasped hands, on their smiling faces, in their eyes. He loved her and she loved him and they talked pleasantly, so easily, as though they had been loving each other in this manner without trouble or hardship since they had exchanged their promises in the little country chapel, almost sixty years ago. Their relationship had not always been the blissful dream that they had imagined from their honeymoon days, but they had always leaned on each other through the turbulence. Somehow almost sixty years had flown by in a wonderful blur of fashion changes, rock music, Pampers and bunk beds, college applications and the throwing of rice, and then another more recent round of Pampers as their children's children were handed over for a few days at a time. It had been a happy, love-filled adventure together so far. What would the next sixty years bring?

The bus pulled over to the sidewalk to pick up another elderly couple who smiled and waved as soon as they boarded. The gentleman tipped his felt fedora to the bus driver - an original hat from the early thirties, the kind you had to crease yourself with regular use. The bus driver tipped his imaginary cap in return and waited patiently as they shuffled back. The first couple had moved to the back of the bus where the seating was better for four. Everyone took a few moments to catch up, the men about their women and the women of their men, and then with a knowing pause their conversation fell to Stephen.

Stephen had been a mutual friend from the days before the dinosaurs, when school was affordable and people came into fame and fortune by really accomplishing something or by the work of their hands and the sweat of their brow. The three men had been great pals from their youth. "Well, Jim was there too, but nobody sees him anymore. But he was there, old Jim."
"Right," nodded the other man, "but nobody sees him anymore."
"Right."

They let a few more stops pass in silence. A heavy beat passed before the dialogue of a father and daughter nearby drew their attention to lighter things. They all smiled.

"Do you guys remember when Stephen and Jane tried hosting a formal English tea for all the kids in the neighbourhood?"
"Oh, heavens! The Brinkman boys started a food fight with the scones!"
"Little squares of butter all over Jane's poor dog. He was never quite the same."
"I remember one year for Stephen's birthday Jesse and Hannah took all of his left shoes and re-gifted them to him one at a time, wrapped up as pretty as ever. Jane laughed for days telling us that story. Stephen pretended to be miffed at the whole affair, but I'm pretty sure he loved the attention. Wow, I miss those kids. I haven't seen them in ages."
"Well, you'll see them in a few minutes, darling. It's just a shame that it's a visit under these circumstances. Jesse's whole family will be there today. We should get together this week and make them some dinners. They'll have plenty on their minds the next little while without the added stress of cooking for all those little ones."

Three more stops passed and the bus turned a corner into a grocery store parking lot. The driver opened the doors to a young teenaged couple who took the first set of empty seats. The boy was trying to get her attention but she shook him off and stared out the window in a tight-lipped silence.

The elderly man took the hand of his still-beautiful bride. Age had not withered her mind nor faded her spirit, thank God. Time had served only to specialize his affections and deepen their love. She leaned over and kissed his cheek. She felt the same.

The tall church steeple could be seen towering over the town, reminding everyone of its importance and centrality. It would have made Stephen happy to know that his life would wrap up in the same place it had really begun. The son of the pastor who married Stephen and Jane would give the service today; quite a coincidence, but Stephen wasn't a man who believed in happenstance. Jane had taught him to trust God in even the finicky details of life and he frequently credited his Heavenly Stage Manager. It was nice of Him to write his hero such a romantic exit.

The light and abrupt "ding" of a pulled cord announced the nearing end of their journey. As the bus coasted to a stop the elderly gentlemen took the arms of their wives, not so much physical support as emotional comfort. It was always a very hard thing, growing up and growing old, but laying a friend to rest forever was a horrible twist indeed. At least for the left-behinds. Stephen had always believed all those old hymns he sang so often. If he had it right, the angels would be tending to him and his lovely Jane would be with him again...

Heaven...

As the bus doors opened he let go of his wife for a moment as she stepped down onto the curb. He was not prepared to let go of her forever. He couldn't bear the idea of letting her go and never again taking her arm or holding her hand or sharing her love. Maybe it's time to put some thought and conversation into the whole heaven thing Stephen used to go on about. Maybe it was time to take a lesson from his friend's life and death before he followed to the graveyard.

He stood staring at the open door of the church from the open door of the bus, and still holding the yellow rail. He looked down at his wife and, taking her hand again, he vowed once more to lead her, off this bus, through this world, into this church. Perhaps not for the last time.

The old man's eyes seemed to glisten with both joy and remorse that he couldn't find the balance between. A tear rolled down his cheek, over the weathered mountains and valleys of his face that had seen so much, laughed with such bravery, cried in vulnerability and now smiled once more upon the love returned in the eyes of his wife. It was a tear that she didn't understand, but would be explained before too long.

Almost sixty years with this woman.
And there was still so much to talk about.

Breaking the Silence

My fingers have been clicking away without waver for weeks on end but the quill of my heart has been stilled for so long that I have almost forgotten my love for paper and ink. This place, this literary release, this haven was left void of my thoughts for too long. As I return to it now I feel almost estranged, as though my steps forward are some kind of trespass into the world and space of another. I feel almost as though I no longer belong, and yet... yet there is something so familiar, like a soft smell that dances so close to your face that you can almost taste the gentle fragrance before it laughs along on the wind to go and ruffle someone else's senses. It is quiet here. I have missed this quiet.

My summer was filled with much and varied sound; the noise of singing children, the slap of bouncing rubber balls, the snap of dry cookies, the splash of water-filled balloons as they explode against the grass, the buzz of lights, the yawns and sighs of long, warm hours. Every day I was met by new sounds, new experiences, new textures of language and speech, new insights, new outlooks, new friends and one new and growing relationship. It was a very good four month break from the 'reality' of my September-through-May life.

And now I am back here, at Nipissing University for my fourth and final year. My days are once again filled with noise, but it is the flipping of pages, the chatter and clatter of city buses, the scratch of a pencil, the squeal of chalk against board and, of course, the clicking of keys that sets the rhythm of my life. My mind skips to a scene from Disney's Oliver and Company, when our feline protagonist first finds himself in the chaos of New York; first overwhelmed by the cacophony of auditory stimuli, then falling in sync with the driving beat of the metropolis, and falling in love with the music of life.

There's been a lot of falling in love in my life recently. In fact, the fourth finger of my left hand now proudly declares that I have been pursued and claimed by an amazing man of God who returns my love in a way I have always hoped (but never really expected) to be real. I will write out our whole story soon, but sadly I do not have the time or attention to put towards such an endeavor at present.

In the meantime, take this short, mildly melancholic and typically reflective piece as a reassurance that I am still writing outside of my class work, at least sometimes. This one's for Dad; thanks for calling me back to my blog.