Seoul

I love airports. Sometimes I think I travel just to see airports. I have spent hours scheming a way to get sponsored to fly around the world on every airline possible with a stop at every airport on the planet. Maybe I can try for a world record. If I can pull together enough money I hope to make this my first documentary project. By my estimation, airports are true monuments to mankind's greatest achievement - flight. They are the true United Nations.

Airplanes, on the other hand, I'm not so keen on. The flying is fine, in fact I love flying, it's the whole pajama party in the sky scenario that underwhelms me. Particularly because, at this sleepover, you don't get to chose who you unroll your sleeping bag next to and I inevitably end up next to the bed wetters. "I wish," I said to my mother before leaving, "instead of giving you the option to choose a window or aisle seat they ought to offer a choice between nursery or handsome bachelor."

I did actually get my handsome bachelor on the overseas leg of the flight. Unfortunately he was accompanied by his mother and two decades younger than me or I'd have snapped him up. Not only did he fix my in flight entertainment center but he folded his hands prayerfully and bowed his head almost reverentially after doing it to. I was agog and had to remind myself that all too soon puberty would transform him into a great big jerk and I felt sorry for the girl who's heart he was going to break.

I fell asleep for a few hours in Seoul airport while waiting for dawn, but I managed to make it into the city by mid morning. Thanks to Joseph at Somewhere in Dhamma I knew exactly where to go and make the most of my few hours there.

The first recognizable landmark for me was the I Want apartments which I recalled from one of Joseph's posts and made me grin despite my jet lag. The first stop though was the palace which I loved for the lily pond, but was, quite frankly, terrified of thanks to incessant buzzing and whirring. Welcome to Seoul, City of Screaming trees.

Whatever was shrieking in the foliage was either averse to asphalt or drowned out by the traffic because it couldn't be heard on the city streets. I went in search of the temple lost in a lunchtime crowd of investment bankers and real estate lawyers, hundreds of them dressed in uniform black and white and gray. I felt awkward and conspicuous. I began to second guess everything, from my choice of lunch (yogurt and a banana-maybe I should have tried harder to find some local cuisine?) to my life (Am I completely mad to leave everything I know behind and dive into the unknown as though it was all a big lark?) I was on the verge of panicked exhausted tears when I stumbled on the very same, in every detail, Buddha statue from my birthday dream.

After a half hour of respite in the temple I took a far too quick tour through part of Insadong. It was here I discovered, aside from the most amazing collection of antique books, teapots and toys, that it's not only Indian men who want to have their pictures taken with random white girls. I wonder what stories trhey make up when they show them to their friends?

By two o'clock I was back on the bus to the airport catch my flight to Singapore where a Ms. Heni was waiting to pick me up.

Last Picture Show

When I'm stuck in a city and feeling stressed, the movie theater is my escape. The refuge of a chilly theater with sticky floors from the assault of the melting asphalt heat of the concrete zoo on a hot summer day is instant relief for whatever weariness may have gotten hold of either my body or soul.

One of my favourite memories of India was momentary sanctuary from the heat, but also the crushing crowds and noise, in a darkened theater with my self appointed guardian Bablu and a Japanese girl traveling the world on a gap year. Bablu was the only one of us who understood the dialogue but the plot was formulaic enough it didn't really matter. Indian audiences are expressive in the way of Rocky Horror Picture Show fans. They don't wear costumes but they boo the villain and throw popcorn at the screen during scenes they don't like. If this is their second or third time seeing the movie they'll sing along to the musical numbers and they applaud wildly at the end if they liked the show. To be in the midst of this, I assure you, is worth the price of admission.

Temperatures on Wednesday reached 37 with the humidity and I stopped by the Green Tree Cafe to take a break from running errands.

"Can I help you?" asked the petite middle aged lady behind the counter.
"Do you serve milkshakes?" I asked her hopefully.
She shook her head, "No."
My face fell and I made a quarter turn to go.
"Well, wait now," and, opening her freezer, she asked, "what kind would you like? I have vanilla ice cream and frozen strawberries, raspberries or blueberries."

In five minutes I was sitting on a bench outside slurping on a homemade raspberry shake ($2.25 and it was the perfect size so I was able to finish it all) and eyeing the posters on the wall of the cinema next door. This is the same cinema where I saw my first movie, "The Lone Ranger" with my brother and Uncle G. when I was barely six. With a twinge of nostalgia I tried to remember the last time I'd seen a movie in a genuine theater, not a Cineplex and I realized it was "Rainman", in that same theater, over half my lifetime ago.

So I returned in the evening to see "Inception". The lobby had been renovated since my last visit but the theater itself still had the red velvet curtains and the front fifteen rows still had the small, hard backed seats with worn and faded red upholstery. The last fifteen rows, however, were armchair style leather seats. I got an aisle seat, my favourite, in the last row before the old seats began. I had enough room to put my messenger bag beside me and curl up with my feet on the seat with plenty of room left over for my popcorn. All of this for the price of $6 admission and $5 for a popcorn and drink.

Small town living is where it's at.Unless you have to live there.

("Inception", by the way, is brilliant. If you liked "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" or "Memento" I'd recommend you see it. A few times.)

Falls

It was hard leaving my woodland life behind but berry season is over, the wildflowers are no longer blooming and autumn is imminent.

On Friday I set out on a quest for Silver Falls which had been touted as a "must see" attraction. "The water is perfectly clear there, you can see right to the bottom" I was told. I consulted my maps. I consulted our landlord who pointed out their coordinates on the map and then suggested I visit Drewry Falls instead. "They're closer." 

But I am not about "closer". I am about adventure and the promise of a tropical paradise only a short paddle away. Because, despite all geographical evidence to the contrary, tropical is how my imagination envisioned it. It was going to be a large, cascading waterfall with brightly coloured fish for me to chase while swimming in the crystal clear pools below. It would be just like the one I once hiked to in Costa Rica.

So I set out with one bottle of water, one piece of farmer sausage, ten cherries and a basically empty Blistex container. I paddled the shoreline of the lake for hours searching for the Grassy Narrows that would lead to the connecting lake but every excursion into every bay turned up nothing. "It must be just around the next corner," I would tell myself with every disappointment, then paddle confidently around to the other side of the trees only to discover another bay with more trees. I had been told the trip should take about two hours but three hours later I still had nothing to show for my efforts.  

I ate my lunch. With the sun beating directly down on me I realized I only had a quarter of my water left. I had no more blistex. Refueled and reinvigorated I forged on convinced at every turn that it would be just around the next bend, and then the next until, finally, off on the horizon at last I saw reeds. That must be it. I paddled for twenty minutes towards the reeds, ignoring two more bays along the way. Five minutes before I reached the grassy shore I passed a cottage with a family leaving their dock in canoes and kayaks.

I searched the shoreline for an opening but couldn't find one. I was about to give up when I spotted the family from the cottage paddling and disappearing into the reeds on the far side of the marsh so I followed them in. Paddling down the beautiful creek I felt happily content and when the falls came into view after turning round the final bend, I was relieved to have finally found them.

They weren't exactly how I'd envisioned them, more like rapids than actual waterfalls, and I most definitely couldn't get out and swim, but still they were pretty and definitely worth the paddle. My spirits buoyed I thought I might check out these Drewry Falls on my way back. I pulled out my map. I checked it three times certain I must be reading it wrong. But no, it turns out I had been reading it wrong all morning and I was already at Drewry Falls. I was still miles away from Silver Falls.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Saturday I found myself on a practically deserted beach with my ma, a couple from Fort Frances and a pair of families of four on the opposite side. The couple is touring Ontario while he recovers from heart surgery. "I'm worried," he says, " I might scare people with my scar." She loves to swim but only in the clearest water because she can't stand leeches and needs to be able to see everything in the water. After explaining this she runs into the surf and dives in exuberantly. As though watching his twenty year old bride he says "She loves the water. She's amazing." Then, pulled back to the current decade he adds, less whimsically but with more admiration "Her whole family is. Her Uncle just swam the English channel. This takes some determination as it's so polluted, you know, you have to vaseline your body to keep it from sticking. Her mother's in her nineties and could swim half this lake without a problem." Before we learned all of this, before we'd even exchanged a sentence, he had stopped to ask if we needed anything from the store. "I'm going to town to get her a snack. Do you ladies want anything?" Just the offer makes me happy and I am reminded that there's no such thing as a stranger.

But not even an hour later, watching one of the fathers from the other side of the beach playing with the four children, the happiness is eclipsed by jealousy. He is teaching them how to swim under the dock and find the air pockets. "Just remember," he says, "if anything happens when you're under there, and you get stuck, don't panic, go down to find the sand then straight up." I am suddenly twelve years old again and crippled with envy of friends whose fathers read to them or tell them stories before bed. Fathers who show them how to swim or fix their bikes. This father takes the kids rock climbing on our side of the beach and as they walk by us he is saying, "Maybe we should bring something to fight the sharks."
"Sharks?" the oldest girl says doubtfully.
"Oh, absolutely, you don't know what's going to be there. It's unexplored territory after all."

Sigh. Imaginative too. Why couldn't I have had a Dad like that? Instead my father can be socially awkward, withdrawn and indifferent and because of our different religious beliefs and values, our relationship has be difficult.

"Dad," the youngest boy says.
"Yeh?" 
"Your eyes are really red."
"Yeah, well, I was up really late last night."

Okay so he's a pothead. Still, it takes me ten minutes to convince myself that I have not been cheated by the fates. That, in fact, I didn't need a Dad to teach me to stay calm or read to me because I've been able to figure these things out for myself. Even after I do finally quell this irrational dissatisfaction with reason and a reality check I still find myself dwelling in all the imperfect moments of my life as a daughter rather than my father's sense of humour, and gentle and generous nature.

Today, while cooking dinner Ma called for my father and I to come and see the double rainbow. I grabbed my camera and was taking pictures when my father said, "What about at the dock? Could you get better shots from there?" And then, suddenly excited by the prospect, he ran towards the house calling, "Where are the car keys?" Within seconds we're in the car, gravel spinning and spitting beneath the tires and driving down to the water. The rainbow is already fading when we get there but I get a few good shots including a couple with my notoriously camera shy father.

Today I went rainbow chasing with my father. Take that Mr. Pothead dad.

Instructions for Disposing of Your Past: Part II

On the last night of the full moon burn the last of your papers. Burn the box that you stored them in too. When the final coals have been reduced to ash say goodnight to the fireflies and sleep a dreamless sleep.

In the morning a cold but gentle rain will fall as you paddle to a part of the lake you often pass but never cross as there are no creeks or rivers or islands there. In your pocket is the inescapable ring.

Last summer, when your father lost his glasses in the lake, you had hoped it was lost for good. When the twin band had slipped off and settled on the mucky bottom you resurfaced and, slipping the remaining one off your finger had slapped it, angrily, on the dock. "Can you please look after this for me? I've already lost one," you say thinly veiling your anger in martyrdom, before diving back into the murky and, that year, frigid water.

Later that evening, glasses recovered and a sort of peace restored you laugh when your parents both admit that neither took the ring and it's been left on the dock.

"Don't worry, it's impossible to lose these rings. I wouldn't be surprised if the one in the lake found it's way back to me too." And, as predicted, while the one in the lake remained lost to the leaches, the one forgotten on the dock, the one in your pocket now, was still there in the morning.

Both were silver bands the Ex bought from a street vendor at a theater festival. You always wore them on your left hand though, after the divorce, when you lost all that weight, you had to wear them on your middle finger. You have never owned expensive jewelery because you are uncannily adept at losing or breaking it, yet, despite your best efforts, these rings have continued to find their way back to you. Over the years they've been lost for days, weeks, sometimes months at a time only to be discovered in a lint trap, under the claw foot bath tub, in the pocket of your grandfather's favourite blue cardigan. Once, after the spring melt, they reappeared in your back alley after having spent the entire winter under a blanket of snow.

Until last summer, your fingers and those rings remained, unlike you and your ex, inseparable. But the lake has proven greedy for treasure, and has never coughed up the first band so you will trust it with this one as well. Pressing the ring between your palms in a prayerful namaste you close your eyes and wish the Ex well before flinging it blindly into the water. Do not open your eyes until you hear the splash and are certain it has sunk without a trace.

Paddle to your island. Dive in to the water. Let the waves wash away the smokey scent of last night's fire; the proof that you are cured.

Weekend Round Up

We had visitors this weekend, what a fantastic treat! My Cuz regaled me with travel tales and the Aunt regaled us with tales of her own. We took a road trip to Shoal Lake, a swim at the local beach and a tour of the local haunted tea house during the torrential downpour in the afternoon. It was musty and leaky and filled with paraphenelia referential of our previous excursions throughout the summer like the cemetery tour and the Lake of the Woods Museum. Oh and I finally got to experience clotted cream, which I have wondered about ever since I first read Anne of Green Gables.




Plautdietsch phrase of the Day: Shlop jesund = sleep well [literally sleep healthily]

Heaven

A few weeks ago the Diva and I were discussing a book/movie "The Five People You Meet in Heaven". It's an interesting story (I've only seen the movie) by the same author of "Tuesdays With Morrie". The basic concept of Five People is that we, in the course of living our lives, effect people around us often without even knowing who they are or how our actions or choices have affected them.

Yesterday my mother returned to my hometown to attend the funeral of the man who built the Cabana where I have spent much of my last five summers and all of this one. He died suddenly and relatively young and, while he and I have never met, this bit of shelter that he built with his own two hands in the midst of the boreal forest has impacted my life in ways he most certainly could never and will never know.

This place allowed me to reconnect with my love of nature, brought me closer to my own center, and inspires me while at the same time protecting me from a life lacking in, well, a true understanding of the cycle of life. For these and other impacts I might never even truly comprehend. I owe this man I've never met, and never will, a debt of gratitude and thanks beyond words.