her brother’s shoulder and smiling. He was tipping back his hat and grinning, too, his blond hair hidden. Mort kept that photo in her bathroom, where she would see it many times a day.
I remembered visiting the farm in Arcola on that journey west when I was fourteen, drinking fresh lemonade in the big open kitchen with all my cousins. Dad and his brother had spent a month every summer on that farm, doing chores and other farm work, and he loved it there. He wanted us to have a sense of that place, too.
Yeats and I had another truncated stop, this time in Jasper. Coming into town, our train had had to wait in a siding for over an hour; but it was far from boring. A black bear had come along and foraged for grain on the tracks directly behind the train. We were in the last car, and the porter removed the window from the rear door so we’d have a clear view of the bear. Every so often it would raise its head and sniff in our direction, but then it would go back to its task. It was exciting, but sad, too. We learned that bears often came to scrounge for wheat and other grain that fell through the cracks of freight cars; many of them were killed by trains that didn’t see them until it was too late.
As we pulled into Jasper station, we saw a double rainbow out the back of the train and decided we’d been blessed. Because of all the delays, we’d be travelling through the Rockies at night, but this meant our next sunrise would be in the Thompson River Valley.
As we rode through the valley the next morning, Yeats said, “I didn’t know we had a desert in Canada.” The landscape was beautiful and sparse: orange-brown dunes rising from sage-dotted riverbanks, pine trees scanty on the hillsides. Yeats was right: it looked desert-dry. I wanted the train to stop so we could feel and smell the air there.
Our porter said to Yeats, “You are one lucky fifteen-year-old. Just wait till you tell your friends you took the train all the way from Toronto to Vancouver with your mother. They are going to be so envious!”
We stopped next in Kamloops, then had a slow ride into downtown Vancouver. For a while, the train stood unmoving on the south side of the Fraser River, among freight trains and loading zones. It was a clear day and we could see the North Shore mountains in the distance, with their dusting of snow on top. My heart constricted at this view: it was a reminder of the city I loved so much, and I was happy to be able to share it with my son, if not with my husband.
WE SPENT A COUPLE of days in Vancouver and then took the ferry from Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo. Yeats and I stood out on deck and I took a photo of him with Mount Baker faintly visible in the background. It was a glorious day but windy and I decided to sit inside.
Yeats came with me so he’d know where I was sitting, and then he went back out on deck. He stood at the front of the ferry, by himself in the wind and sun, and danced. He wasn’t shaking and twisting, but he was definitely dancing to a tune in his head. All of us seated in the big passenger area could see this lone boy, a tall fifteen-year-old with long, blond hair. He was bopping away, looking out to sea. His hair was flying, his hands were playing drums on the railing in front of him, and we were all watching.
I was feeling a bit shy for him. Well, I was shy but he wasn’t, so what I was feeling was complicated. I didn’t want him to stop dancing, but I wondered if he was distracting people from their view. Probably his happiness was contagious rather than irritating.
There is a point in that ferry ride when you can look back at the Coast Mountain range north of Vancouver and that’s the point, every time, when I have my little breakdown. My throat tightens, my eyes tear up, and I swear to myself that one day, some day, I’ll move back to the West Coast.
My family lived in Vancouver for two years starting when I was six and then again for one year when I was fourteen. At twenty-one, after
I remembered visiting the farm in Arcola on that journey west when I was fourteen, drinking fresh lemonade in the big open kitchen with all my cousins. Dad and his brother had spent a month every summer on that farm, doing chores and other farm work, and he loved it there. He wanted us to have a sense of that place, too.
Yeats and I had another truncated stop, this time in Jasper. Coming into town, our train had had to wait in a siding for over an hour; but it was far from boring. A black bear had come along and foraged for grain on the tracks directly behind the train. We were in the last car, and the porter removed the window from the rear door so we’d have a clear view of the bear. Every so often it would raise its head and sniff in our direction, but then it would go back to its task. It was exciting, but sad, too. We learned that bears often came to scrounge for wheat and other grain that fell through the cracks of freight cars; many of them were killed by trains that didn’t see them until it was too late.
As we pulled into Jasper station, we saw a double rainbow out the back of the train and decided we’d been blessed. Because of all the delays, we’d be travelling through the Rockies at night, but this meant our next sunrise would be in the Thompson River Valley.
As we rode through the valley the next morning, Yeats said, “I didn’t know we had a desert in Canada.” The landscape was beautiful and sparse: orange-brown dunes rising from sage-dotted riverbanks, pine trees scanty on the hillsides. Yeats was right: it looked desert-dry. I wanted the train to stop so we could feel and smell the air there.
Our porter said to Yeats, “You are one lucky fifteen-year-old. Just wait till you tell your friends you took the train all the way from Toronto to Vancouver with your mother. They are going to be so envious!”
We stopped next in Kamloops, then had a slow ride into downtown Vancouver. For a while, the train stood unmoving on the south side of the Fraser River, among freight trains and loading zones. It was a clear day and we could see the North Shore mountains in the distance, with their dusting of snow on top. My heart constricted at this view: it was a reminder of the city I loved so much, and I was happy to be able to share it with my son, if not with my husband.
WE SPENT A COUPLE of days in Vancouver and then took the ferry from Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo. Yeats and I stood out on deck and I took a photo of him with Mount Baker faintly visible in the background. It was a glorious day but windy and I decided to sit inside.
Yeats came with me so he’d know where I was sitting, and then he went back out on deck. He stood at the front of the ferry, by himself in the wind and sun, and danced. He wasn’t shaking and twisting, but he was definitely dancing to a tune in his head. All of us seated in the big passenger area could see this lone boy, a tall fifteen-year-old with long, blond hair. He was bopping away, looking out to sea. His hair was flying, his hands were playing drums on the railing in front of him, and we were all watching.
I was feeling a bit shy for him. Well, I was shy but he wasn’t, so what I was feeling was complicated. I didn’t want him to stop dancing, but I wondered if he was distracting people from their view. Probably his happiness was contagious rather than irritating.
There is a point in that ferry ride when you can look back at the Coast Mountain range north of Vancouver and that’s the point, every time, when I have my little breakdown. My throat tightens, my eyes tear up, and I swear to myself that one day, some day, I’ll move back to the West Coast.
My family lived in Vancouver for two years starting when I was six and then again for one year when I was fourteen. At twenty-one, after
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