One Down & Five Up

I stepped out into the dark cold Calgary evening, locking the door behind me. I glanced at my truck parked directly in front of the house and turned towards the idling U-Haul waiting on the opposite side of the street. The temperature hovered around -20C and the air was heavy and dense with anticipation. I was on the other side of my 50th summer. I took one last look across the street, through the thick air towards my home and climbed into the darkness of the U-Haul cab, lit only by the feint glow emanating from the dashboard. The blackness invaded my senses in the cramped cab of the U-Haul, crammed with so much of my belongings that air circulation was impaired and the windows were thick with condensation. Visibility was all but impossible save a small area on the driver's side. It would have to do. All my tomorrows seemed to be here. I was alive and unaware of time, emotional weight, cost and the teeth that gnaws at life's grinding routine. There was no amount of blackness in this overcrowded cab that could darken the light of my day. It had been a long December and it was only the second Saturday. In the last several weeks I had already seen several time zones, both sides of Greenwich Mean Time, and was physically weary. But this fatigue was buried deep behind the weight of dreams and fantasy ahead of me. I was setting out on a series of one night stands with little towns, non-descript diners, lonely bar rooms and sullen faces of strangers scarred by broken dreams. The newness of each mile ahead of me was familiar. I was alive. I had broken free and was already only a mile away from my next smile, even though there were ten thousand in front of me. The black and white edges of business and relationships were veiled by the vibrant colour of my life. In my heart I wasn't wrong. Everything was reassuringly right.

As I fled South and left the dim lights of Tim Hortons, Walmart and Canadian Tire behind I felt my awareness smouldering on the edge of town, oscillating between my comfort and the approaching unknown, warning against ignorance, my obsession with truth and the temptation to manufacture memories. This journey was not about therapy or finding myself, I had already travelled those turbulent roads, but I was definitely testing myself. I felt I was rusting, decaying or withering in Calgary. This is not Calgary's problem, as I am sure there are ample avenues to stimulate oneself if one looks hard and deep enough. The problem was with me. I needed a catalyst to re-engage the enthusiasm I usually had for life. Some people purchase these catalysts with holidays or materialistic additions to their world, my vice is that I am a chronic experience junky. Not an adrenaline junky, that is different. I need to experience, share or feed my creativity, so given I really didn't have a significant other to share my life with and I was still struggling with the Bm7 bar chord on my acoustic guitar, I had resolved it was time to step outside my comfort zone. I had been re-reading Kerouac and devouring stories like The Sheltering Sky so I was suitably intoxicated with the beckoning of the open road, not so much the proverbial freedom of the road, but the experience of tackling an undertaking that would test my mental, emotional and practical limitations. Punctuating these thoughts, I had experienced a sort of epiphany late in the autumn, which was really the proverbial icing on the cake. In the dying days of October I had descended into the depths of the Tom Baker Cancer wing at Foothills Hospital in Calgary. It was a familiar journey for me. My medical predicament paled in comparison to the souls that struggled and longed for peace in the depths of this hospital, nevertheless it was one of those experiences I am forced to endure on a somewhat frequent basis. Inside the shelter of my mind these experiences leave me deeply affected. Feelings, emotions, truth, fears and insecurities tare and strain to make sense in environments like this. We are suddenly forced to face whatever it is we are afraid to face and I tend to emerge from these all too familiar experiences vulnerable, disoriented and overly emotional.

In the depths of the Tom Baker, my life slides into manual from the automatic, cruise controlled, environmentally managed emotional security most of us operate within during our daily routines. That particular day, I had sat there staring straight ahead, thinking of Ana or Laura, while I fought the heavy thoughts and feelings that always seemed to permeate my defences in this cancer ward, when I was suddenly interrupted by what could only be described as an angel. Through the slicing sound of announcements for patients and doctors, the murmur of family members conferring and strengthening each other's resolve and the deafening sound of my thoughts, I was electrified by an undefined line of sight. Drilled into the depths of me. I looked back at a young lady much the same age as my children. Her eyes had the magnetic affect of a soft and warm Caribbean breeze in the midst of a cold and dry winter. We sat there for what felt like an eternity, basking in the moment as it thickened and widened. I felt time bend and linger. I felt nothing could ever go wrong. The nothingness was luxurious as I marvelled at how light softened and attached to the girl. Her energy flowed through me like a canyon. Her name was Annabelle. I heard her name announced and I watched her move away, still looking back at me. She was gone and I was devastated by her absence.