I don't want to go
Trip Start
Jun 06, 2004
1
27
Trip End
Jun 30, 2004
Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, Canada
Thursday, July 1, 2004
I grab a coffee on the way to check-in. There is a big line at Tim Horton's, and nobody at all at the (probably superior) alternate coffee stand. But I figure I must endure the Tim Horton's as a fitting end to my Maritime experience. Check-in is very fast, but there is a huge bottleneck at security. This seems completely ridiculous for a domestic flight. I suddenly realize that I have my nail-clippers in my carry-on. Anxiety strikes in a surge of sweat. Should I surreptitiously transfer them to a garbage can? Won't that seem more suspicious? I am an oldest child; I HAVE to follow the rules. Yet the security staff ignore them lying in plain view. The sign actually specifies no scissors. Perhaps they figure that even the most ardent terrorist can't clip anyone to death.
In the waiting area, I suddenly realize that my ticket specifies a different seat than 12A, which I had chosen by computer when buying my ticket. The staff assure me that 17E is also a window seat, so I decide not to bother having it changed. But once aboard, I discover that 17E is one of a 3-seat section, and both the other seats are occupied. 12 A & B are both empty. I point this out to the flight attendent, proud of myself for being assertive. She asks me to wait until just before take-off before moving to make sure 12A isn't occupied. I agree, but seeing several other vacant seats I boldly make the move a couple of minutes later and am able to cry in luxury. Wrung out, I subside into contentment. I have a bagel, buns and herbed cheese, V-8 Splash juice, nuts, fruit leather, and chocolate-covered nuts and raisins. I've never eaten this well on a plane before! There is hardly any cloud, and all of Newfoundland spreads below me. I wonder where Henry is in all that vastness.
Despite our late start from Newfoundland, there is plenty of time between my flights in Toronto. I have a long walk and a capuccino, then try to get my next incorrect seat changed. But the only ones free are middle seats, so I keep my window one with an empty seat between me and the very large guy on the aisle. I try to figure out where we are as we go, with little success. Turbulence over the Prairies and cloud over the Rockies yield to a fabulous view of the Coastal Range before a soft landing. As I wait for my luggage, a voice hails me. It is a high-school classmate heading to Victoria to see her parents. We make our muddled way together through the bus system to Tsawassen, where I am shocked to see how little money I have left. $60 appears to be missing, which could only have been taken by the big guy on the plane, when I accidently left my wallet in my bag when I went to the bathroom. But I am now so tired I barely care. I am fading fast as we get the 4 pm ferry to Swartz Bay, where I have to wait 90 minutes in the bleak waiting room for the 7 pm to Salt Spring. I phone our nearby summer home, but none of my family are there. I phone home and catch one son, only to be told that the son with the driver's licence is working until 9. I groggily phone work, where a co-worker immediately offers to come and get me at 7:30. Rescue! I have barely enough cash left to get a burger and fries. I have finished my last book, and use my credit card to buy "Oryx and Crake", but for once I am too tired to read. The ferry conducts a man-overboard drill, but it only delays us 5 minutes, which doesn't seem much out of my 20-hour trip home.
Everything is becoming surreal. The ambulance is returning to Salt Spring after delivering a patient, so I am able to snuggle inside it and attempt to summarize the past month for my eager paramedic friends. I stumble up the ferry ramp and am whisked home by my kind co-worker, where one child is miraculously home to give me a hug. He is puzzled by my desire to go to bed right away. How can I possibly convey the wonder of the journey out, which filled my soul and stretched my personality, and the wizening effect of the
prosaic, drawn-out return? It will have to wait til morning. In fact, as it happens it will have to wait for more than a year until time and thought have poured out in this journal.
Post-script: After only 10 days Henry returned to me, having averaged 1000 km a day through Canada and the States. He stopped enroute to impress his motorcycle comrades at the yearly meet near Vernon, finally able to claim the "longest ride to get here" award.
He drove up my steep driveway without any waitress aboard. Shortly after, he visited his mother in Victoria and gave her a bar of soap made from iceberg water. She was holding it in her hand when she died a week later, having waited for her son to come safely home.
