chips in front of the TV in the motel at night. Start driving at 8 A.M., end at 4 P.M. and, most importantly, always find a motel with a pool. My brother and I were usually separated between the car and the van, each getting to spend time with one parent, each keeping one parent awake (this kept us from bickering with each other). My father taped all our records, and whoever was in the van got to listen to “Jelly on Your Belly” and
The Lone Ranger
over and over.
The van was expansive. My feet didn’t touch the floor. My father was omnipotent. There he was controlling this huge beast. I stuck my hand out thewindow and shot things—a tree, a bird, the landscape of cars below us. I waved my hand in the wind, an early version of breakdancing. I sang “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” because my teenage cousin had taught me it earlier that year as she strummed her guitar.
I remember the Badlands, or at least the photograph of me standing there. I can see the beige short set I was wearing, the scabs on my knees, the dust blowing. I remember the prairie dogs poking out of their holes, arms poised, begging.
The scenery changed. Things became lush (although anything is lush after the dust bowls of the Prairies). The motels were nicer, the pools clean. There was something coming, bright, just around the corner. Anticipation was thick in the air. We were approaching Canada.
We weren’t running from persecution, we weren’t leaving because we had to, we weren’t coming to Canada for good. We would return to the States, we reasoned, in a couple of years. We spoke the same language as Canadians. We had come from a democracy to a democracy. My father had a guaranteed job. He was an academic. I was blonde and blue-eyed. I’d memorized all the states and their capitals. I knew the U.S. presidents. We’d fit right in.
The ferry docked July 1, 1975. If you know Vancouver Island, you’ll know that it was probably raining. My mother had clam chowder at a local pub in Sidney while the customs officers went over our moving van. She remembers that, what she ate. I don’t know what I ate or what I felt like or what I was thinking. I was tired. Two weeks on the road, no matter how many bags of toys you get or swimming pools you dive into, or sodas to drink, potato chips to eat, takes its toll on a seven-year-old. There was a need for home, for stability, for somewhere to put down those bags of toys.
The first house we rented had a balcony attached to my second-floor room. I would stand on the balcony and look down at my brother as he and his new friends would ride in circles on their bikes, trying to make me dizzy. My father played the trumpet and the jazz sounds would echo around the walls.
The summer we arrived, my brother and I on our bikes with a gang of kids from the neighbourhood, we weren’t different. Once I got here, everything around me said that things wouldn’t be different in Canada. I had new bell-bottom jeans like the kid down the street. I had long hair I wore in pigtails just like every other girl I saw. I went from riding bikes with banana seats and streamers in Virginia to ridingbikes with banana seats and streamers in Victoria. Both places started with a V. All was the same.
Then came Mrs. Harrington’s grade two class. Oaklands Elementary School. We were a pretty bright class. At least we liked being there in grade two: no one had dropped out yet and the kids weren’t smoking behind the school during recess. (Not in grade two. Grade four, maybe.) We had a nurturing older teacher. I listened to the class sing “O Canada” and say the Lord’s Prayer every morning. I kept waiting for the national anthem. When did we “pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,” the flag I had so trickily sewn in that school play—red, white, blue? I would look around, waiting. What was going on?
And then it dawned on me about a month into school that everyone around me knew things I didn’t know. The
The Lone Ranger
over and over.
The van was expansive. My feet didn’t touch the floor. My father was omnipotent. There he was controlling this huge beast. I stuck my hand out thewindow and shot things—a tree, a bird, the landscape of cars below us. I waved my hand in the wind, an early version of breakdancing. I sang “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” because my teenage cousin had taught me it earlier that year as she strummed her guitar.
I remember the Badlands, or at least the photograph of me standing there. I can see the beige short set I was wearing, the scabs on my knees, the dust blowing. I remember the prairie dogs poking out of their holes, arms poised, begging.
The scenery changed. Things became lush (although anything is lush after the dust bowls of the Prairies). The motels were nicer, the pools clean. There was something coming, bright, just around the corner. Anticipation was thick in the air. We were approaching Canada.
We weren’t running from persecution, we weren’t leaving because we had to, we weren’t coming to Canada for good. We would return to the States, we reasoned, in a couple of years. We spoke the same language as Canadians. We had come from a democracy to a democracy. My father had a guaranteed job. He was an academic. I was blonde and blue-eyed. I’d memorized all the states and their capitals. I knew the U.S. presidents. We’d fit right in.
The ferry docked July 1, 1975. If you know Vancouver Island, you’ll know that it was probably raining. My mother had clam chowder at a local pub in Sidney while the customs officers went over our moving van. She remembers that, what she ate. I don’t know what I ate or what I felt like or what I was thinking. I was tired. Two weeks on the road, no matter how many bags of toys you get or swimming pools you dive into, or sodas to drink, potato chips to eat, takes its toll on a seven-year-old. There was a need for home, for stability, for somewhere to put down those bags of toys.
The first house we rented had a balcony attached to my second-floor room. I would stand on the balcony and look down at my brother as he and his new friends would ride in circles on their bikes, trying to make me dizzy. My father played the trumpet and the jazz sounds would echo around the walls.
The summer we arrived, my brother and I on our bikes with a gang of kids from the neighbourhood, we weren’t different. Once I got here, everything around me said that things wouldn’t be different in Canada. I had new bell-bottom jeans like the kid down the street. I had long hair I wore in pigtails just like every other girl I saw. I went from riding bikes with banana seats and streamers in Virginia to ridingbikes with banana seats and streamers in Victoria. Both places started with a V. All was the same.
Then came Mrs. Harrington’s grade two class. Oaklands Elementary School. We were a pretty bright class. At least we liked being there in grade two: no one had dropped out yet and the kids weren’t smoking behind the school during recess. (Not in grade two. Grade four, maybe.) We had a nurturing older teacher. I listened to the class sing “O Canada” and say the Lord’s Prayer every morning. I kept waiting for the national anthem. When did we “pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,” the flag I had so trickily sewn in that school play—red, white, blue? I would look around, waiting. What was going on?
And then it dawned on me about a month into school that everyone around me knew things I didn’t know. The
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