My lover left me standing eastbound on Highway 169, the victim of a bad cliché.
Seriously, this summer was amazing. Treeplanting really changed me, made me see beauty amid burning, bug-bitten, swollen, raw misery. Something about survival. Money evaporating into meaningless digits. I couldn't plant trees for the money but I could do it for a cigarette, or a joint, or a shot of whiskey, or a piece of candy. Treeplanting also gave me carpal tunnel syndrome, so it's stupid for me to go back next year, but I want to.. I need to. It's soul cleansing. I'm sounding awfully idealistic here. Obviously it's some of the worst hell you can imagine, but there's something about extremes that really makes you appreciate life fully. Creature comforts: warmth, dryness, food, water, sleep. It forces you to passion. People start singing at the top of their lungs, touching each other, letting themselves go and really coming close like you can't in glass walled cities. I don't want to lose this feeling. I still sing here, when I'm biking or walking. But people look at you funny, or glare. I just want to grab them by the shoulders and scream "Open yourself!!" and have them cry and tell me how they've plastered their faces with annoyance and uninterested disapproval because that's how everyone else looks in the city. I smile all the time, now.
My final goodbye to Guillaume: Yes, he left me on the side of the highway, Highway 169 in Northern Quebec, Eastbound, with only my backpack and my fiddle. He kissed me over and over and told me to be careful and that he wished I was going treeplanting with him and that he'd miss me. Then he put on his aviator sunglasses and pulled down his cowboy hat and rode off into the sun. West. East. We always pulled in opposite directions, and finally we tore apart.
I hitched down to Quebec city, wandered around for a few days, then caught a bus down to Halifax and up to Cape Breton. I went to the Gaelic college and convinced them to enroll me, late, into the session. So I took fiddle, step dancing, and piano accompaniment. I met Olivier, an awesome musician who was in all my classes. We ended up travelling around Cape Breton together, going to kitchen parties, sessions, square dances (!), and even to Natalie and Buddy MacMaster's CD Release party. After the parties we'd drive to the nearest beach and set up a tent in the starlight.. We'd wake up with the sun and spend the days playing in the ocean waves.. I came back to Ottawa as late as possible: the very day that classes started.
And here I am. Sick, for the first time since the last time I was in Ottawa- this place is cursed, dull and unprofitable. Everyone works for the government and hates life. I'm escaping to Montreal tomorrow to see Olivier and some friends..
Oh, how stubbornly does love- or even that cunning semblance of love which flourishes in the imagination, but strikes no depth of root into the heart- how stubbornly does it hold its faith, until the moment come, when it is doomed to vanish into thin mist!
-Nathaniel Hawthorne
My final goodbye to Guillaume: Yes, he left me on the side of the highway, Highway 169 in Northern Quebec, Eastbound, with only my backpack and my fiddle. He kissed me over and over and told me to be careful and that he wished I was going treeplanting with him and that he'd miss me. Then he put on his aviator sunglasses and pulled down his cowboy hat and rode off into the sun. West. East. We always pulled in opposite directions, and finally we tore apart.
I hitched down to Quebec city, wandered around for a few days, then caught a bus down to Halifax and up to Cape Breton. I went to the Gaelic college and convinced them to enroll me, late, into the session. So I took fiddle, step dancing, and piano accompaniment. I met Olivier, an awesome musician who was in all my classes. We ended up travelling around Cape Breton together, going to kitchen parties, sessions, square dances (!), and even to Natalie and Buddy MacMaster's CD Release party. After the parties we'd drive to the nearest beach and set up a tent in the starlight.. We'd wake up with the sun and spend the days playing in the ocean waves.. I came back to Ottawa as late as possible: the very day that classes started.
And here I am. Sick, for the first time since the last time I was in Ottawa- this place is cursed, dull and unprofitable. Everyone works for the government and hates life. I'm escaping to Montreal tomorrow to see Olivier and some friends..
Oh, how stubbornly does love- or even that cunning semblance of love which flourishes in the imagination, but strikes no depth of root into the heart- how stubbornly does it hold its faith, until the moment come, when it is doomed to vanish into thin mist!
-Nathaniel Hawthorne