Roadtrip Wednesdays: A Series
[A cartoon image of Jodi peering through very tall grass - taller than she is.]
So I mentioned that I went to the Maritime Provinces in Canada in June.
I have grown up going to Canada at various times in my life. The first time I remember going, I was 9, though I may have gone before when I was about 4 years old. I remember being on a boat with my great-grandmother, who fed me oatmeal with raisins. I’d never had that before and it stuck in my memory.
At 9 years old, my dad and step-mom took me to Canada again, to meet that same great-grandmother and also her husband (her third husband). They were watching a cat and a dog for a week and I got to play with them.
Everywhere I looked, there were rainbow windsocks. I love rainbows, and to me, it was another way to display rainbows. I thought they were so beautiful. Thankfully, my parents bought me one and I had that hanging in my room for years and years.
I also remember getting ice cream with my great-grandparents. We went to a “100 flavors of ice cream!” Place near Vancouver, British Columbia. I got maple, because, come on, it’s Canada. My dad got bubblegum flavor because he had never had it before. My step-mom got chocolate cherry, I think, and my great-grandparents got vanilla. It struck my dad so odd that with 100 flavors to choose from, they would get vanilla.
When I was about 15 years old, my orchestra went to Toronto, Ontario, to compete in a competition with other orchestras. (We got first place, by the way.) I remember walking around the Toronto Mall, and some other times hanging out in the hotel with my orchestra friends.
When I was about 16 years old, I think, my mum came back in my life for a little bit. She called my dad’s parents (in Maryland) and said she was coming to Virginia and wanted to see me. I got to see her for Christmas that year. And then, the following summer, I spent some time with her in Barrhead, Alberta (sort of near Edmonton). Somewhere in there, I also got to see Calgary, Alberta “The Calgary Stampede!” And my mum and I went white-water rafting in Jasper, Alberta. Jasper, incidentally, was one of my favorite memories and places - I got to be with my mum doing something I absolutely love - being in a boat on water. I used to be super adventurous, too, when I was a teen. And white-water rafting was one of those things I absolutely loved. It terrified my mum, sadly. She kept saying, “Jesus, get us out of this alive! I swear I will be good forever after this, just get us out of here alive!” Needless to say, I am sure her memory of being in Jasper is decidedly different from mine.
Spoiler alert: we made it out alive. And then we went to Jasper Park Lodge. Jasper Park Lodge is a fancy restaurant that once turned Marilyn Monroe away for wearing pants instead of a dress! (My mum and I both had lightweight pants and summer tops on when we went there.) I got to drink a Bellini - I think that’s what it’s called - orange juice mixed with champagne. I felt fancy and grown up.
When I was 24 or so, I went to Vancouver area, again, to visit my mum and at that point in time, she had her grandmother / my great-grandmother living with her. We had some good laughs.
I went again when I was 29, and visited my mum. We had fantastic sushi in White Rock, B.C. And another time, I went when I was a mum - my own mum was getting married and I got to go to the wedding! I think that was in 2011 or 2012. (This is the last time I have ever seen her.)
And then, in 2023, I drove up to Vancouver and had a nice visit with some friends. And then this year, I drove up again, to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia to just see what was there, since my whole maternal family comes from there. It was a way to connect with the family I have never known.
Every single time I have been to Canada, I held it on a pedestal. “It’s so beautiful!” “Maple everything!” “The trees!” “The kind people!” “Poutine!” “Sushi, lobster & seafood! All the seafood!” Bonus - seeing my mum!
This last time I went to Canada was to the Maritime Provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island), and also Quebec and Ontario.
This was the first time I spent more than 2 weeks anywhere in Canada.
I got to see the beautiful mask slip off Canada on this trip. I wasn’t a tourist on a cruise ship, I wasn’t visiting family. I was just someone who was either camping or staying in a hotel wherever I landed, exploring things that had meaning to my family heritage - churches, a river, a home, places, cemeteries, another home, a town.
While I was staying in Sydney, Nova Scotia, I saw some stuff that was incredibly beautiful - flowers, local folks in costumes giving tours, outstanding musicians playing old Scottish songs on fiddle, and ice cream on the board walk, beautiful shops selling beautiful things (a lot were handmade), and of course restaurants and their good food.
[A vivid light blue and yellow sunset is the backdrop of a photo of Jodi holding an ice cream cone and standing on the boardwalk next to water, in Sydney, Nova Scotia. She has a 2-part yellow leash attached to her dogs. One dog is a small red-colored Spaniel, the other is a medium, black-colored cocker spaniel.]
And then, one day, the cruise ship wasn’t there. That day, I saw a completely different side of the city - I saw litter and dirt and construction and my dogs found some dirty underwear in some exceedingly tall grass - I mean, this grass had to be at least 3 feet high. No one mows it? Seriously? I saw a union protest blocking traffic and heard all the horns and honking and other things that go along with a small protest at a city building.
And I also received a message from someone I had reached out to, that cut me to the core. I was devastated. I feel emotions strongly - all the good, all the bad, all the excitement, all the sadness, all the anger. I feel all of my emotions strongly, and this message cut me deeply.
I called my partner, who was back in Kansas, and talked it over with them. And then they said something that will forever stick with me -
They said, “I guess when you go to a place, at first it’s beautiful and shiny and new and wonderful. If you stay there long enough, you see the bad stuff too. And stay even longer, and you realize: it’s just another place.”
This last visit to Canada - the magic fell off. My rose-colored glasses fell off. I used to want to move there. I have dreamed of moving there for decades and decades.
My rose colored glasses have fallen off - and I have realized now - “it’s just another place.”