I talk to the trees...

 

As we slip past Thanksgiving into the weeks preceding Hallowe'en, it becomes darker in the morning.  The sun is still hiding behind the horizon, as I set out in the half-light, and I'm a little startled to spot my shadow -- until I realize that the streetlights are still on.

The side street where I make my first turn has become a dim tunnel formed by the arches of the ancient shade trees standing sentinel on either side; they whisper silkily, as the hummingbirds click far above my head.  These will be the last trees to change colour, usually in early to mid-November.

Our native trees, the arbutus and Garry Oak, have been suffering for a while, but this past summer, the longer than usual drought and the truly alarming heat dome that struck us in mid-June, have taken their toll on all our shade-givers, particularly the older ones -- and we have lots of really old trees in our neighbourhood.

Experts say that the Pacific gales, which should be starting up soon, will cause extra damage this year to the weakened evergreens, oak, maple, and chestnuts.

"Are you okay?" I murmur to one enormous twisted trunk as I pass.

No reply.  Just the hiss of the morning wind in the leaves.

Daze of morning

I have dealt with floods in my time, mostly connected with washing machines.

In our old house in Collinson Street, our machine was in the kitchen, one step down from the living room. The hose had to be settled and anchored into the kitchen sink, and on more than one occasion, one of us, in muddy-brained early-parental sleep deprivation, would forget and it took a matter of seconds for the east end of the kitchen to be awash.

I don't think it happened that frequently, but often enough for us to resignedly strip off socks and shoes, roll up our trouser-legs and wade in to begin damage control.

One of my favourite memories is of elder daughter, then about two or three, appearing on the living room step, barefooted and trousers rolled, declaring, "I weddy!"

There's no washing machine in our current apartment - which can't be helped - and no plug in our kitchen sink - which can. I took pictures, and procured a replacement from the hardware store.

Maybe this was a bad idea.

I was in bed just after dawn, keeping out of the way of my husband's Virgoan rituals of washing and dressing and preparing to go to work.

I may have been dozing when I heard a high pitched moan from beyond the bedroom door.

"Oh no! Oh, noooooooooooooo...."

No response to my inquiries, so I peered out into the hall and took in the slightly-less-than-alluring sight of the Resident Fan Boy in his half-pulled-on underwear. He continued his strange morning wail, gazing into the kitchen. I stepped up and peered over his shoulder.

There was about a quarter inch of water covering the floor and soaking into both ends of the wall-to-wall carpet, courtesy of the overflowing kitchen sink.

"Perhaps you could turn off the tap," I suggested. Years of teaching, hospice volunteering, home support work, and parenthood have taught me that panic only feeds panic.

He hesitated momentarily, no doubt loathe to soak his socks, and waded in.

He had decided to fill the sink, then absent-mindedly gone to get dressed, only realizing his predicament when he heard the water. He figured it had been running for about ten minutes.

"What do you want me to do? How can I help?" he pleaded.

"Just get dressed and go to work," I replied grimly, setting to mopping up with every towel in the house. The water had gotten into pretty well every drawer and lower cupboard on the east side of the kitchen, and had trickled into the stove. I tossed saturated towels into the now empty sink, and turned out the drawers, reasoning that it was a great opportunity to clean.

In between deposits and wringings, I slowly got dressed, in case someone came banging at the door.

Instead the phone rang, about an hour or so into my labours. It was the fellow filling in for the building manager, courteously inquiring if there had been a plumbing problem.

The dining room in the apartment downstairs had flooded.

The RFB, being a lawyer, checked our insurance, but nothing has been said, aside from arrangements to clean the wet parts of the carpets upstairs and downstairs.

I suspect our damage deposit has been washed away.

Close calls and the Clash

People have asked me about my summer holiday. I don't think of steeple chases as being holidays. This year's Victoria visit ended in the same tempo as the previous five weeks, that is, manufactured calm stretched over panic.

Having packed on the afternoon of the day before my departure, I noticed an email alert from Air Canada, warning of severe thunderstorms forecast for Toronto and Hades -- my exact route home.  Sitting in Demeter's dining room, I was hit by an avalanche of flashbacks from August 2003.

That was the year the Resident Fan Boy returned to Hades before us, because we'd begun the trip visiting the RFB's cousins in Alberta.  So, on that fateful August morning,  I arrived at Victoria International airport, marshalling eleven-year-old elder daughter and seven-year-old younger daughter, and thinking for three.  The check-in agent offered to switch our tickets from a route through Toronto to a transfer at Vancouver to a direct flight to Ottawa, which would land us in Hades a full hour earlier.  I considered my Virgo husband, all set to meet us at the airport, and refused.

After the long flight to Toronto, I comforted myself and younger daughter with the prospect of seeing the RFB in an hour or so.  Our flight to Hades was scheduled to leave at 4:10 pm, and we boarded at 3:50 pm, so we didn't see the lights go out.

The first indication that we had a problem was when the pilot told us we were unable to disconnect from the boarding tunnel.  The next was when the flight attendants started handing out ice cream bars.  A lady with a cell phone across the aisle informed us that it was the whole American north-east, plus Ontario.  After over an hour, we were told to get out, reclaim our luggage, and re-book.  We descended the escalator into hell.  (My grandmother always said that hell would be like an airport.)

Crowds of flustered people pressed up against dimly-lit luggage carousels.  Backed-up toilets (electronic flushers).  Rows of locked luggage trolleys (electronic release mechanisms).  Piles of pet-carriers containing yelping and dehydrated animals.  Huge line-ups to pay phones, because in 2003, not that many people had cell phones.

I didn't know where to go first.  Where would I take the girls for the night?  How could I explain this to younger daughter, who was begging to be taken "home to Ottawa, to see Daddy"?

It became increasingly clear that our luggage was not going to appear, especially when the generator for the carousel broke down after a couple of hours.  A young man showed me how to use my credit card in the pay phone, and a lady, noticing younger daughter's distress, let me in the line ahead of her.  I called the RFB, but he was waiting for us at the airport in Ottawa, and our answering machine, being electric, didn't work.

Fortunately, I had my address book with me and desperately put a call through to friends in Etobicoke.  Unfortunately, their elder daughter was home.  A nice girl, but not that swift on the uptake:
"Oh hi!  We're having a black-out!"
"Yes, I know.  We're at the airport..."
"Yeah?  Where ya going?"
My heart sank.
"Nowhere.  The planes are grounded."
"Man!  I hadn't thought of that!"
I'll bet, I thought, glancing at the long line-up behind me.  I could hear her father asking who it was.  He was there in twenty minutes, even with no working traffic lights, by which time an announcement informed us that ticketed luggage would be forwarded to the appropriate airport.  This left us in the clothes in which we were standing, but with the books, tapes and toys in our carry-on luggage.  In those days before liquid restrictions, I also had cosmetics and saline solution for my contact lenses.

Younger daughter was beside herself. She clutched my hand from the rear seat of the van, nearly twisting my arm out of its socket.  However, as we entered the dimly-lit hall of our friends' condo building, she turned and asked:  "Are we into Toronto?"  (We had stayed here for a visit during March Break the year before.)  One bowl of melted strawberry short-cake ice cream, and she was much better!

Later, as my exhausted daughters slept, I opened the blinds, got back into bed, and gazed out at a pitch-black city, listening to CBC radio on the headphones of my Walkman, trying not to fret about how I would get the girls home.  The voices on the radio were describing how clear the stars were, but all I could see were clouds of mosquitoes just beyond the screens.

The next morning, I tried to reach the bus depot, and the phone was answered by an agent in Alberta. I tried to reach my travel agent and Air Canada -- nothing but voice mail and busy signals.  I finally phoned Via Rail, let it ring more than two minutes, then got through to book train tickets.  I learned the Resident Fan Boy had managed to book plane tickets.  I thought of the hell we'd left the night before - nothing in the news reports indicated that anything had changed - and decided to chance the train.

Our hosts, who had given up their bed to us, tried to convince us to stay, but I had the overwhelming feeling that I had to get younger daughter home somehow.  They relented and packed an enormous care package of cookies, fruit, peanut butter sandwiches, several cartons of apple juice, and bottles of water.  I wondered how on earth I'd manage to cart this along with our carry-on luggage.

At 11 am, Union Station in downtown Toronto was steamy and crowded.  The line-up at our gate turned out to be for the 9:30 am train.  They told me to expect the 12:35 train at 1:45.  Then 2 pm.  Then 2:30.  Elder daughter had assumed the task of checking the notice board, walking the length of the station and reporting back.

I rationed out food to the girls with each delay, buying myself time and giving silent and fervent thanks for the heavy bag of goodies as it became lighter and lighter. I used my new credit card skill to phone the RFB every couple of hours, as my hopes dwindled.  With each passing hour, I wondered desperately if I should find a bus to the airport.  Which would get us home quicker?  Staying here as the trains were steadily delayed, or setting up camp at the airport where, the radio told me, the computers had completely broken down?

"I have a Clash song playing in my head," I told a fellow mum, who was attempting to shepherd half a dozen teenagers back to Windsor. She grinned broadly and began to growl:  "Da-duh-duh, duh-duh, duh-duh DA!  Should I stay or should I go?"
"If I go, it could be trouble!"  I sang back.
"If I stay, it could be double!" We were both dancing now.  I think we embarrassed the teenagers.


At 3:30, they told us our train was cancelled, and that we would be hooked up with the next train to Ottawa. That's the closest I came to breaking down completely.

At 5 pm, I stumbled up the steps to the train platform and a guard said that this coach was for First Class. Maybe it was the sight of two bedraggled little girls that convinced him to allow us into the railcar -- air-conditioned, comfortable and spacious with, glory be, a food cart with reasonably fresh food.

The train took two hours to reach the Toronto city limits, ordinarily a twenty-minute trip, but rail switches had to be done by hand. Out the window, we saw Lake Ontario and lush fields with butterflies and dragonflies having no trouble keeping pace with the train.

During the seven-hour train ride (usually four hours), we did puzzles, listened to story tapes and the CBC, read books, ate, drank, and chatted with our neighbouring passengers, all from Toronto: an elderly lady determined to attend a wedding, and a mum and her two daughters who had decided to sweat the wait for a family visit to Carp -- I thought they were all very nice, but nuts, but didn't say so, of course!

Younger daughter dozed off, there was a blood-red moon on the horizon, and we stopped off-line to let a luxury American passenger train pass. We could see the fancy lamps in the sleeper cars.

The Resident Fan Boy was waiting for us at the station when we arrived after midnight, some forty hours after getting up to go to the Victoria airport. People jumped the tracks to head for the parking lot; the VIA employees wisely decided to overlook this. Younger daughter wrapped herself firmly around her dad, and we returned by taxi to our stuffy house. The power was back, but air-conditioning was forbidden.  The following day, Resident Fan Boy found our suitcases amongst the hundreds at the airport, because I'd tied gaily-coloured ribbons to the handles.  No one asked him for ID.

All this flashed through my skull in August 2016, prodding me to re-book my flight -- to a 6 am departure the next morning.  I said my goodbyes to Demeter before going to bed, rose at 2:45 am to finish last-minute packing and call a cab at 3:30 am to ensure arrival at Victoria airport at 4:30 am.  My cabbie grew up in Belleville, one of the towns we passed through on that slow train ride thirteen years ago.  He loves Victoria, has no desire to return to Ontario.

Sadly, neither did I.

Pat Bay Highway was like a country road at that hour and I arrived early.  The plane had been described as going to Ottawa, but had a stop in Toronto, descending through thunderheads.  I had to leave the plane, wait in the lobby and then queue with my ID and boarding pass to get back on.

The threatened thunderstorms never materialized.

Blinded by the wait (write of passage number forty)

I have found out the hard way that expressing fear, frustration, or anger to younger daughter is not helpful. Such feelings ricochet off her autism and create more damage, so, if I can, I sit on my emotions until she's not here.

And she wasn't here.

That's why I was crying uncontrollably.

It was the middle of a nutty week. Elder daughter, after nearly two years of making it on to shortlists, had finally been offered something close to a dream job. However, that afternoon, she was flipping out over contract negotiations, over-thinking, and reappearing from around the corner with yet another worry. Younger daughter had informed me that morning that she'd be needing chocolate-chip-cookie therapy after a stressful evening trying to adjust to her new radio alarm clock - a series of unfortunate events that had spiralled into an impassioned late-night text about being sick of school. (A mixed blessing about texts -- we now have a much better idea of what younger daughter is thinking - she evidently finds them easier than struggling for words on the spot.)

Meanwhile, I was finishing my last-minute assignments for an online genealogy course while baking the aforementioned cookies.

Just before logging on to the course-end chat (7:15 pm Greenwich Mean Time; 3:15 pm Eastern Daylight Time), I texted younger daughter to inform her that elder daughter wanted to have dinner out at a local pub to celebrate the new job, knowing that younger daughter should, by that time, be on the first of the two long bus rides that bring her home from her school in Nepean.

I submitted my assigned question to the chat, and after half an hour, the topic had shifted to something of interest to only three of the participants. I made myself a quick snack, checked my phone and noticed that younger daughter had not responded - unusual for her. I texted again; by this time she should be waiting downtown to transfer.

Watching the online chat sporadically, I began to worry, but just a little. Four o'clock came and went. I phoned and the call went to voice mail. Five minutes later, I tried again and younger daughter's head teacher picked up, apologizing for answering a phone that wasn't hers. Younger daughter had left her phone at school. I thanked her, telling her that we were far happier knowing the phone was safe. I didn't tell her younger daughter was late, because she wasn't late enough.

She was late enough as the online chat wound down without me; I hastily signed off.

Younger daughter always waits for the #1 bus because it drops her off at our front door.  She didn't get off the next bus that rattled past our house.  I went outside to note the number of the bus stop, texting it to check the GPS of the next bus while elder daughter assured me that her sister often arrived at 4:30 -- not true, and when she has, it's been on days she's had a lift.

At 4:33, the next bus passed without stopping.  I checked and re-checked the GPS for arrivals at our stop.  I don't think I'll ever forget those four digits.  The next bus was due at 4:55 pm.  She's never been that late.

Up to this point, I'd been calm and prosaic.

And then I wasn't.

I was blind-sided by a storm of tears, hearing myself wailing, "Where-is-she-where-is-she-why-did-she-forget-her-phone-there's-nothing-I-can-do-why-isn't-home-she-can't-reach-us-I-want-her-to-come-home...."

Over and over.  Elder daughter put her arm around my shoulder.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" I wept heartbrokenly.  This was supposed to be a wonderful day, a time to celebrate elder daughter's emergence from months of applications, interviews and dashed hopes.

"Where is she?  Where is she?  What if she got on the 118?  She could be anywhere and I can't help her!  She can't tell us...."

Elder daughter asked for the number of OC Transpo.  I was too beside myself to help her look up the number.  Instead, I staggered to the door, thinking I could scan the street once more.  I halted.

"She's here!  She's here!"

She was wandering up our street, having evidently caught the #7.  I saw her gazing up the hill at something.

I couldn't let her see how upset I'd been; previous experiences have taught me this.  I asked elder daughter to check the damage to my make-up, knowing it would take younger daughter several minutes to retrieve her keys from her back-pack.  She doesn't like us to open the door for her.

"I'm glad to see you," I told her, my voice shaking only a little.  If she noticed, she gave no sign.  It turned out her first bus had been half an hour late.

"May I have a hug?" I asked, because she's on the spectrum and I can't just embrace her.

She let me hold her for a few seconds.

Her hair smelled of the coming spring.

Lights shining in the uncomprehending dark

The Resident Fan Boy likes to hang the outdoor lights on St Nicholas Day.  Younger daughter came down the stairs for dinner, and gasped when she caught a glimpse of the bright colours shining against the December darkness, pressing her body against the front door as she stood on tip-toe to get a good look.

I too have come to appreciate this moment, the brightness in contrast to the uncomprehending dark.  Five years ago, I wrote about what December 6th has come to mean for Canadians, and this year is the twenty-fifth anniversary made all the more piercing by the recent revelations about a certain CBC host which has started up a very intense and often very unpleasant debate about why women don't report violence.  All that, of course, had followed closely on the heels on what happened here in Ottawa on October 22nd.

I was working at the home computer at 10 am on a rather beautiful autumn morning, when the leaves were past their peak, but there were still plenty of colours under a slight cloud cover with the sun shining through.

This being a modern tragedy, in a city where the vast majority of homes had computers when we arrived fourteen years ago, the first inkling I had that the day was not ordinary came through "breaking news" on the CBC web site and posts from Facebook.  Word came, not long after 10 am,  that one of the honorary guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in front of the National War Memorial had been shot.

I did what I usually do when a something momentous happens; I switched to the Twitter feed and checked the various new agencies.  These told me that the gunman had proceeded to the Parliament Buildings which are just around the corner.  I texted the Resident Fan Boy, whose office faces Major Hill Park with a view of the Parliament Buildings across the Rideau Canal. He had not heard anything, but soon received a worried phone call from elder daughter in Victoria who had woken up to the news.  I turned on the CBC news and listened from my computer while updating friends and relatives in British Columbia and in Britain.

The Resident Fan Boy was moved to the other side of the building with his co-workers as his building went into lockdown while the rumours flew.  There were reports of another shooter, that snipers had been stationed atop the National Gallery, that gunshots had been heard at the Chateau Laurier and the Rideau Centre.  I just wanted my husband and younger daughter home.

The star marks the location of the RFB's office building.

And they did come home -- eventually. The buses had been detoured away from the lockdown zone and were crawling in endless bumper to bumper convoys along the Transitway.

Thankfully, we were able to arrange a lift home for younger daughter via the Queensway, which bypasses the city altogether. The Resident Fan Boy remained locked down in his building on the edge of danger zone until late afternoon. As it slowly became evident that there was only one gunman and that he had been killed in the corridor leading to the Parliamentary Library that morning, the RFB signed a release form and came home at much the same time he would have on an ordinary day.

But it hadn't been an ordinary day. It turned into an extraordinary week filled with small sharp shocks: my terror at seeing police cars parked in front of my house the next morning (a cyclist had been knocked down -- he was okay); the sight of police tape ringing the war memorial and no traffic anywhere near it -- the buses continued to be detoured for one more day; the great front gates locked in front of Parliament with security guards and police posted at every entrance; the military and police escorting the body of the murdered young soldier back across the lower edge of the province of Ontario to his home in Guelph.

I took the Accent Snob for a walk by the Rideau River on the still beautiful but endless day after the safe return of my husband. I felt shaken and worn out. The neighbourhood looked the same but a bit more subdued than usual for the hour before supper.

I looked out over the river and saw the traffic on the bridge was still sluggish, a domino effect from all those closed off streets downtown.

I walked along, thinking about the woman who helped us adopt the Accent Snob exactly three years ago this evening. She was on her way to the Main Post Office that morning in October, which is a couple of minutes' walk from the War Memorial. She achieved her fifteen minutes of fame for being among a small knot of people working frantically to save the young soldier's life. Her picture appeared in papers and news sites nation-wide, and she was interviewed on the radio and television. She was hailed as a saint on social media by at least a couple of my Facebook pals and thousands of others who also don't know her, because she was quoted as telling the dying man that he was loved. The Resident Fan Boy, who knows her very well, says this wasn't the remarkable thing. The remarkable thing was that she heard the shots, knew exactly what they were (being ex-military), and her immediate instinct was to run back to the War Memorial when everyone else was setting personal bests for running in the opposite direction.

It's been six weeks and emotions are finally dying down a bit. This evening, I rode home and leaned forward eagerly to drink in the thousands of Christmas lights stretching from Confederation Park and Major Hill Park to Wellington Street, to the Rideau Centre, to Slater Street.  Right across, in fact, from the former lockdown zone.

Boy, are we ready for Christmas this year. Especially the light.