I continue to walk to work almost every day, but my walk has changed with the season. As the snow started to fall, I would sink in up to my knees on the trails and I thought that I would have to switch to walking on sidewalks.
Not a chance! The sidewalks soon disappeared, not only because of the falling snow but because of the snow that was plowed off the roads, creating wedged hills sloping up from the sides of every street. Impossible to walk.
I continued on my paths, then: around the baseball field, by the park, behind the school. All of them have their challenges, but none are as frightening as walking down the street, looking over your shoulder for the slipping, sliding, unsteady cars driven by the blind.
As the snow built up over days and weeks, I fell into a pattern. The tunnels got higher, and the paths changed with the snowfall, growing longer and hillier and presenting new challenges with each storm. My most arduous path connects a park to the university; you must trudge up and over a hill of ice that loses its footholds with every snowfall. The school itself has taken to piling snow right against another path that takes me to my building, resulting in a three-foot drop that is impervious to my attempts to create steps.
There are several of us who take these paths. We see each other, sometimes. Mostly, we know that the others are there because of their footprints. I even know several others' names.
Yesterday, while walking through the park with Marvin, I saw a huge brown creature out of the corner of my eye. Turning, there was a moose not 15 feet away. I walked quickly to Marvin, who hadn't yet noticed the moose (because I think he's nearsighted), and put him on the leash. Then we stood on a bridge and watched the moose cross a creek, then amble awkwardly up a hill toward the school. Many reports bounced around the emails that day about the moose, but I felt that Marvin and I had a special bond with him.
Now, the tunnels have started to recede. The paths are growing flatter and the houses are reappearing. You can see around corners while driving, and people seem to be awakening from their deep winter sleeps and sometimes even stopping at the crosswalks for beleaguered pedestrians. Snow and ice are falling from roofs in great whoomps, breaking windows and smashing fences.
It is hard to believe that the paths will soon just be regular paths, walkable like anything, without rolling, shifting forms. Drip drip drip...
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
The blessings of scarcity
The shelves in the grocery stores around town are suspiciously low on things like food. Oh sure, you can still get a bazillion variants of the potato chip, including the Canadian-specific Roast Chicken and All Dressed types, but at last check, there was no spinach, no lettuce, and only the saddest, floppiest species of broccoli.
Like many things about isolated places, this scarcity can be a blessing. In Korea, the quest for cheese took me to small back roads of Pusan and Seoul, paying mint for a block of non-processed cheddar. These adventures loom large in my imagination, informing my view of the hermit kingdom.
Corner Brook is another hermit kingdom. In this corner of the corner of Canada, the narrowing of options makes decisions simple. The single movie theater shows only two films at a time, one invariably a rom com starring Hugh Grant. Without the benefit of choice, evenings of board games have taken over my social schedule.
Speaking of changing options, I have begun my hockey era. On Friday night, I headed to the small hockey rink that resembled the indoor soccer fields of my Corvallis days. I followed my colleague Mario down the little hallway, carrying giant, distended shopping bags full of assorted padding. He headed into a small dressing room full of men, and I hung back until he popped his head back out and said "you're in here too." I headed in, greeting players that I recognized. People were lacing and taping and adjusting their assorted pads; there was one other woman, Crystal, a librarian that I've played lots of boardgames with. One other woman eventually showed up, the Vice President of Grenfell.
The assorted professors and staff walked onto the ice. Some were clearly great hockey players and they warmed up confidently, sprinting across the ice and stopping with a flourish of shaved ice crystals. I walked like a stiff-limbed marionette, until Marc, a friendly English professor, told me that hockey players skate with their legs bent. I hunched over and bent my legs and skated like he told me, my legs shooting to the sides. Then I tried stopping - and just spun in circles, my arms flailing around. This will be a challenge.
In the actual game, I did alright. I'm fast when I get going, but stopping or turning suddenly or using the stick in a more purposeful manner will require some practice. My stick was useful for holding me up as I skated fast, my back bent over, but it was less useful for hitting the puck.
Then yesterday, I went snowshoeing at the ski hill and then ate soup at the Tim Horton's in the little gas station at the bottom of the hill.
Turning shades of Canadian.
Like many things about isolated places, this scarcity can be a blessing. In Korea, the quest for cheese took me to small back roads of Pusan and Seoul, paying mint for a block of non-processed cheddar. These adventures loom large in my imagination, informing my view of the hermit kingdom.
Corner Brook is another hermit kingdom. In this corner of the corner of Canada, the narrowing of options makes decisions simple. The single movie theater shows only two films at a time, one invariably a rom com starring Hugh Grant. Without the benefit of choice, evenings of board games have taken over my social schedule.
Speaking of changing options, I have begun my hockey era. On Friday night, I headed to the small hockey rink that resembled the indoor soccer fields of my Corvallis days. I followed my colleague Mario down the little hallway, carrying giant, distended shopping bags full of assorted padding. He headed into a small dressing room full of men, and I hung back until he popped his head back out and said "you're in here too." I headed in, greeting players that I recognized. People were lacing and taping and adjusting their assorted pads; there was one other woman, Crystal, a librarian that I've played lots of boardgames with. One other woman eventually showed up, the Vice President of Grenfell.
The assorted professors and staff walked onto the ice. Some were clearly great hockey players and they warmed up confidently, sprinting across the ice and stopping with a flourish of shaved ice crystals. I walked like a stiff-limbed marionette, until Marc, a friendly English professor, told me that hockey players skate with their legs bent. I hunched over and bent my legs and skated like he told me, my legs shooting to the sides. Then I tried stopping - and just spun in circles, my arms flailing around. This will be a challenge.
In the actual game, I did alright. I'm fast when I get going, but stopping or turning suddenly or using the stick in a more purposeful manner will require some practice. My stick was useful for holding me up as I skated fast, my back bent over, but it was less useful for hitting the puck.
Then yesterday, I went snowshoeing at the ski hill and then ate soup at the Tim Horton's in the little gas station at the bottom of the hill.
Turning shades of Canadian.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Finding Oregon
The Holiday break is over, and I find myself back in Newfoundland.
Oregon had not changed. Portland was full of hipsters, young (18) and old (45), in eyeliner and tight jeans, smoking cigarettes and working in the service industry. My friend Lisa lived next to Pier Park in St. John's, and we walked amidst the tall trees, down the streets of St. John's. We ate Thai food until we almost burst, and had a few overpriced drinks from surly waiters.
Corvallis was time spent with friends from graduate school, and time spent walking with Em in Willamette Park; watching Pride and Prejudice (BBC version, obvs) with Jess and squealing over Mr. Darcy; playing Settlers; visiting thrift stores and wandering the aisles in search of bright colors and obnoxious prints; eating competitively against Thiel at the China Buffet; and generally marveling at the saturated green-ness and the air that smelled of life.
I drove toward home in a roundabout way, through Vancouver, in order to see my friend. Vancouver is the poorly planned, sprawling, strip mall-congested step-child of beautiful, hip Portland. I had lunch with Ry and oohed over her expanding belly. She told me she's having the baby at home, and we discussed the possibility that birth is not a medical problem over good salsa and cheesy enchiladas.
Driving down the gorge, the fog clung to the basalt and waterfalls were frozen mid-fall along the cliffs. I stopped in Cascade Locks to... um... cut my locks [ugh], and walked into a salon with a chirpy Vietnamese woman who cut my hair while telling me all about her time in the U.S. She gilded no lilies, this one, and told me straight about the difficulties of moving to a country she barely knew, to marry a man she did not know. But she was a wonderful hairdresser and an animated speaker, though her quick words flowed without hard consonants, so that I had to ask her to repeat herself a lot. My hair looked amazing.
I arrived in Hood River, where I played Settlers with my family, ate too much, and woke up every morning very early to go for a run with my dad. "We'll start out slow" he said at the start of every run. He has started every run with those words as long as I can remember. We shuffle off, discussing the various important topics of the day, including but not limited to: geography, history, religion, politics, TV shows, gossip, and scatological humor. I went shopping during the days, sometimes just walking among the shops and other times buying Christmas presents. I found a shirt I liked in a little shop: $200. For a shirt. I didn't buy it. My brother arrived home and we watched the new zombie TV show and all of us ran around the house, getting in each others' ways.
I headed toward the coast, first stopping at my advisor's house for dinner with his family and our small circle of radical devotees. We discussed things related to the College of Forestry, but mostly things unrelated to the College of Forestry, and ate lasagna made with homemade noodles.
NYE was spent with a group of about 17 people at some run-down, quirky little cabins along the coast, and I coined my new phrase: "happy nye!" which received mostly quizzically-raised eyebrows. We discussed meeting up at the beach house in the case of zombie attack, and that zombies in Oregon would be the most sustainable and ethical, keeping humans in free-range pens.
The next morning, I awoke with a mysterious headache and a 4.5 hour drive to The Dalles, where my dad's retirement party was held. I drove there frantically, stopping to shower and arrived at the venue, called Riverenza. I ran up to the door, not noticing that there were no cars. All was locked. Dear gods! No phone, no computer, and everyone expecting to see me! I drove to the nearest pay phone, which was oddly stranded in the middle of a parking lot, and deposited quarters. It didn't work. No dial tone, and the quarters just sat there, out of reach but not dropping. I drove to Safeway and used the phone, leaving messages on my mom's, then my dad's, then my brother's phones. Each one, um, hey guys, uh, I'm not sure I know where the party is, so I guess I'll try calling again. Yeah. Okay.
I realized, however, that there were only a few venues that could host such an event in town. I drove to the Civic Center, and upon seeing my father's car, practically wept with joy. On arriving, I saw an old boss from my cherry orchard days, and acted as though it was perfectly natural I should be flushed and flummoxed upon entering the party. The party was wonderful, full of Kellys and Taylors and friends of my parents.
After the party, some of my family went to a fancy hotel surrounded by magical fairy lights, where we ordered drinks and food. I sat between my dad and my uncle Terry, who reminded me why I have a tendency toward dark humor as they took turns stabbing me in the leg or side with their forks.
Ah, the holidays.
Oregon had not changed. Portland was full of hipsters, young (18) and old (45), in eyeliner and tight jeans, smoking cigarettes and working in the service industry. My friend Lisa lived next to Pier Park in St. John's, and we walked amidst the tall trees, down the streets of St. John's. We ate Thai food until we almost burst, and had a few overpriced drinks from surly waiters.
Corvallis was time spent with friends from graduate school, and time spent walking with Em in Willamette Park; watching Pride and Prejudice (BBC version, obvs) with Jess and squealing over Mr. Darcy; playing Settlers; visiting thrift stores and wandering the aisles in search of bright colors and obnoxious prints; eating competitively against Thiel at the China Buffet; and generally marveling at the saturated green-ness and the air that smelled of life.
I drove toward home in a roundabout way, through Vancouver, in order to see my friend. Vancouver is the poorly planned, sprawling, strip mall-congested step-child of beautiful, hip Portland. I had lunch with Ry and oohed over her expanding belly. She told me she's having the baby at home, and we discussed the possibility that birth is not a medical problem over good salsa and cheesy enchiladas.
Driving down the gorge, the fog clung to the basalt and waterfalls were frozen mid-fall along the cliffs. I stopped in Cascade Locks to... um... cut my locks [ugh], and walked into a salon with a chirpy Vietnamese woman who cut my hair while telling me all about her time in the U.S. She gilded no lilies, this one, and told me straight about the difficulties of moving to a country she barely knew, to marry a man she did not know. But she was a wonderful hairdresser and an animated speaker, though her quick words flowed without hard consonants, so that I had to ask her to repeat herself a lot. My hair looked amazing.
I arrived in Hood River, where I played Settlers with my family, ate too much, and woke up every morning very early to go for a run with my dad. "We'll start out slow" he said at the start of every run. He has started every run with those words as long as I can remember. We shuffle off, discussing the various important topics of the day, including but not limited to: geography, history, religion, politics, TV shows, gossip, and scatological humor. I went shopping during the days, sometimes just walking among the shops and other times buying Christmas presents. I found a shirt I liked in a little shop: $200. For a shirt. I didn't buy it. My brother arrived home and we watched the new zombie TV show and all of us ran around the house, getting in each others' ways.
I headed toward the coast, first stopping at my advisor's house for dinner with his family and our small circle of radical devotees. We discussed things related to the College of Forestry, but mostly things unrelated to the College of Forestry, and ate lasagna made with homemade noodles.
NYE was spent with a group of about 17 people at some run-down, quirky little cabins along the coast, and I coined my new phrase: "happy nye!" which received mostly quizzically-raised eyebrows. We discussed meeting up at the beach house in the case of zombie attack, and that zombies in Oregon would be the most sustainable and ethical, keeping humans in free-range pens.
The next morning, I awoke with a mysterious headache and a 4.5 hour drive to The Dalles, where my dad's retirement party was held. I drove there frantically, stopping to shower and arrived at the venue, called Riverenza. I ran up to the door, not noticing that there were no cars. All was locked. Dear gods! No phone, no computer, and everyone expecting to see me! I drove to the nearest pay phone, which was oddly stranded in the middle of a parking lot, and deposited quarters. It didn't work. No dial tone, and the quarters just sat there, out of reach but not dropping. I drove to Safeway and used the phone, leaving messages on my mom's, then my dad's, then my brother's phones. Each one, um, hey guys, uh, I'm not sure I know where the party is, so I guess I'll try calling again. Yeah. Okay.
I realized, however, that there were only a few venues that could host such an event in town. I drove to the Civic Center, and upon seeing my father's car, practically wept with joy. On arriving, I saw an old boss from my cherry orchard days, and acted as though it was perfectly natural I should be flushed and flummoxed upon entering the party. The party was wonderful, full of Kellys and Taylors and friends of my parents.
After the party, some of my family went to a fancy hotel surrounded by magical fairy lights, where we ordered drinks and food. I sat between my dad and my uncle Terry, who reminded me why I have a tendency toward dark humor as they took turns stabbing me in the leg or side with their forks.
Ah, the holidays.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
My house is a very very very fine house fine house
I have taken photos of my house in Corner Brook.
The weather isn't bad here; I wear dresses still, but sometimes with long underwear. I wear a hat and mittens and usually a pair of boots. But the snow has melted, and the sun is sometimes out, and my walk to and from work is actually lovely.
HELLO!
Mom, I made my bed:
My boy, hanging in the kitchen:
My room:
The weather isn't bad here; I wear dresses still, but sometimes with long underwear. I wear a hat and mittens and usually a pair of boots. But the snow has melted, and the sun is sometimes out, and my walk to and from work is actually lovely.
HELLO!
Mom, I made my bed:
My boy, hanging in the kitchen:
My room:
Mysteries of the North
I went to Halifax. It's a city. I was mostly there to visit my friends, Lance and Jen, and their children: Alexander (almost 3) and Clara (6 months). One memory: as we drove from Halifax to Jen's parents' house, there were 5 of us in the car. Jen, her sister, her sister's baby (3 months), Clara, and moi. It started to snow. The wind blew, and we were in a little clunker of a car. Clara was crying, crying, crying. Angry loud crying. I sat next to Jen's sister, who was driving. She said "oh, poor, Clara. Doesn't that just break your heart?" And I thought No, it does not. This is not a mother's instinct. I think mothers are supposed to comfort the young. Meanwhile, I was cultivating a zen state. I ignored the crying, and I kept trying to talk to Jen's sister about various things (politics, travel, whatever) while she fretted over the baby in the back seat.
On the way to Halifax, in the airport, I noticed some rednecks of Newfoundland. The Newfnecks. It's in places like airports, all sterile and orderly, that you can really see people who are out of place. The Newfnecks waited for their family members who went through departures - there was a glass wall and I could see the family on the other side. They had come as a large group to see off a couple of men, and they waited around for a while. They wore baseball caps and camouflage, they alternated between hollowed-out thin and obese. Their clothes were layers and layers, hockey jerseys prominent. They were happy to be in the airport, at 5:30 in the morning.
Halifax itself was a city. I said to Lance, "it's kind of nice here, but what happened to all the old buildings?" and he guffawed in the way he does and said, "I mean, the city blew up in world war I." And we agreed that I was the most insensitive critic of architecture of all time.
Two ships, one with munitions, kissed each other, causing the second largest man-made explosion in the history of the world. And killed 2,000 people.
So Halifax has a lot of beautiful old cemeteries. I heard that there were gravestones from casualties of the Titanic. As my dad would say, "Poor Leo!"
I ate an entire lobster at Jen's parents' home. My cheeks got flushed and I felt like my skin was turning into lobster. I finally understood the adage that you are what you eat. No claws yet, but you never know.
On the way to Halifax, in the airport, I noticed some rednecks of Newfoundland. The Newfnecks. It's in places like airports, all sterile and orderly, that you can really see people who are out of place. The Newfnecks waited for their family members who went through departures - there was a glass wall and I could see the family on the other side. They had come as a large group to see off a couple of men, and they waited around for a while. They wore baseball caps and camouflage, they alternated between hollowed-out thin and obese. Their clothes were layers and layers, hockey jerseys prominent. They were happy to be in the airport, at 5:30 in the morning.
Halifax itself was a city. I said to Lance, "it's kind of nice here, but what happened to all the old buildings?" and he guffawed in the way he does and said, "I mean, the city blew up in world war I." And we agreed that I was the most insensitive critic of architecture of all time.
Two ships, one with munitions, kissed each other, causing the second largest man-made explosion in the history of the world. And killed 2,000 people.
So Halifax has a lot of beautiful old cemeteries. I heard that there were gravestones from casualties of the Titanic. As my dad would say, "Poor Leo!"
I ate an entire lobster at Jen's parents' home. My cheeks got flushed and I felt like my skin was turning into lobster. I finally understood the adage that you are what you eat. No claws yet, but you never know.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
The couch swimmers
I have now been on couchsurfing dot org for two weeks and I have met: a guy who cycled from BC to Northwest Territories to Newfoundland; a Quebecois who lives in the cold north of the province and works to help rural places retain French culture; five girls who bounced in and giggled a lot and had been cycling around the Maritimes; one girl who cycled here from Vancouver; and a French citizen who lives on an island called St. Pierre and Miquelon just an hour ferry ride from Newfoundland.
Newfoundland is one of the ends of Canada in a country with a lot of edges. At the edges, the roads run out and the people grow sparse and the industries that define modern third-world places assert themselves. There is an Asbestos, Quebec. Coal and diamonds and gold and tar sands mark the far north. The far east, the Maritimes and Newfoundland, rest on a diminishing marine ecosystem that is being fished out from the top down, the biggest down to the smallest. Newfoundland has anachronistic tendencies, the result of being isolated and proud. It has retained a diversity of dialects and the odd customs of a place that nurtures its past, keeping it around for consultation.
I have been very impressed, in general, with the quality of the CBC and with the pride that Canadians have toward their own music. At least in Newfoundland, radio stations play local artists and people of all ages are familiar with the same music; it is a generational uniter, rather than a divider. Weird.
I will think of things that I don't like about Newfoundland. But now I am concentrating on the things I do like. Probably the things I don't like include the weather. But I have yet to be sure about that.
Newfoundland is one of the ends of Canada in a country with a lot of edges. At the edges, the roads run out and the people grow sparse and the industries that define modern third-world places assert themselves. There is an Asbestos, Quebec. Coal and diamonds and gold and tar sands mark the far north. The far east, the Maritimes and Newfoundland, rest on a diminishing marine ecosystem that is being fished out from the top down, the biggest down to the smallest. Newfoundland has anachronistic tendencies, the result of being isolated and proud. It has retained a diversity of dialects and the odd customs of a place that nurtures its past, keeping it around for consultation.
I have been very impressed, in general, with the quality of the CBC and with the pride that Canadians have toward their own music. At least in Newfoundland, radio stations play local artists and people of all ages are familiar with the same music; it is a generational uniter, rather than a divider. Weird.
I will think of things that I don't like about Newfoundland. But now I am concentrating on the things I do like. Probably the things I don't like include the weather. But I have yet to be sure about that.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Flags of Newfoundland
Newfoundland has two flags, one that looks like a modified Union Jack, the other that looks like a slightly faded Irish Flag.
The first looks like this:
This is the official Newfie flag, and it was designed in 1980. It's got all the nice explanations - white is for snow and ice, blue is for the sea, red is for "human effort" and gold is "confidence." It's funny (strange) that the first two are for these very tangible things and the second two are for entirely abstract feel-goodisms. They aren't even really Newfie, in my mind. The red should be for humorous surliness and the gold for funny-talkin' hospitality.
The other, much older, flag is called the 'native flag':
This one was adopted by a bunch of Irish-Newfies in the late 1800s in St. John's. Both are flown around the island; for a long time, I thought that the native flag was an Irish flag.
I'm in St. John's at the moment, a really lovely little city situated on a bay, with an improbably hilly downtown populated by narrow, brightly-painted houses, mostly in various stages of disrepair and slantedness. It's a great walking city, with paths and hills all over, and nowhere a straight road. Everything winds around, connected by steeps stairs and alleyways. There's a big hill with a lookout, called Signal Hill because it was the location of the first transatlantic wireless signal; it looks over the bay and the narrow, hill-flanked entrance to the bay, and then out to the sea beyond. The easternmost place in North America is in view, Cape Spear. The whole city feels like it's the end of the world, even though it's got all of life's luxuries, like Indian food and libraries. The city is cold and smells of salt, and trees are uprooted here and there from the recent visit of Igor, and the houses can't keep their paint on for long. The wind blows constantly, and the light is gray; abandoned buildings downtown are boarded up and falling over, their paint coming off in huge chunks. It feels old.
I like it.
The first looks like this:
This is the official Newfie flag, and it was designed in 1980. It's got all the nice explanations - white is for snow and ice, blue is for the sea, red is for "human effort" and gold is "confidence." It's funny (strange) that the first two are for these very tangible things and the second two are for entirely abstract feel-goodisms. They aren't even really Newfie, in my mind. The red should be for humorous surliness and the gold for funny-talkin' hospitality.
The other, much older, flag is called the 'native flag':
This one was adopted by a bunch of Irish-Newfies in the late 1800s in St. John's. Both are flown around the island; for a long time, I thought that the native flag was an Irish flag.
I'm in St. John's at the moment, a really lovely little city situated on a bay, with an improbably hilly downtown populated by narrow, brightly-painted houses, mostly in various stages of disrepair and slantedness. It's a great walking city, with paths and hills all over, and nowhere a straight road. Everything winds around, connected by steeps stairs and alleyways. There's a big hill with a lookout, called Signal Hill because it was the location of the first transatlantic wireless signal; it looks over the bay and the narrow, hill-flanked entrance to the bay, and then out to the sea beyond. The easternmost place in North America is in view, Cape Spear. The whole city feels like it's the end of the world, even though it's got all of life's luxuries, like Indian food and libraries. The city is cold and smells of salt, and trees are uprooted here and there from the recent visit of Igor, and the houses can't keep their paint on for long. The wind blows constantly, and the light is gray; abandoned buildings downtown are boarded up and falling over, their paint coming off in huge chunks. It feels old.
I like it.
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