This is piece was again written as part of the Stories North foray into the world of Creative Non-Fiction (CNF), a literary expedition led by the amazing Corinna Cook.
The first anecdote is the result of an in-class "Kitchen Table" exercise, where we were prompted to interrogate a memory we have about a kitchen table.
Next came the hard bit - choosing some portion, some kernel of truth, to relate to our experiences in the Yukon so far. Here, I have questioned my ability to make connections with my surroundings. Where do I fit into what's around me?
This is my attempt to blend experience, research, and reflection.
Picture this.
I’m sitting in my living room, staring into the dining room through the overly large doorway. I’m fidgeting around my seat as I try to squirm out of my boredom.
The air is sharp with the acidic stench of fresh paint. I watch as my dad puts the final touches of bright orange on our dining room table. It’s really ugly.
The table used to be blue. An ugly shade of blue. For years, it stood in the middle of our dimly-lit living room, a repugnant focal point to our house’s outdated style.
Now, we’ve got a baby-food orange colour to look at. My dad has whipped out a hair comb. He strokes it through the paint, muttering something about “going with the grain.” This gives the paint a garbled look. It’s artistic, I guess.
My mother stands in the doorway, smiling. Finally, there’s something fresh in this old house. By Perth standards, that’s exciting.
Personally, I don’t really care. It’s just a table. It’s a place to rest my Kraft Dinner, my milk, and my Calvin & Hobbes comics.
We get rid of that table eight years later, trading it in for a beautiful round, dark-wood table. It makes the blue-than-orange thing look like a piece of crap.
This new table’s strong. But it’s not orange. It wasn’t brushed with a comb. It missed my KD, milk, and Calvin & Hobbes days. It’s not ugly as sin.
For that, I resent it.
I have a terrible inability to let anything sink in. I experience things in a bubble, suspended in space.
Today, I looked at mountains: tall, powerful, looming in their presence. I looked at creeks: gurgling, cold, hurried in their passing. I looked at trees: stretching, reaching, proud in their height. They were magnificent, but they just were. Much in the same way I was.
I’m a perpetual passenger on a train. Taking in scenery behind soundproof glass, observing passively.
I don’t know why I don’t have immediate connection with my surroundings. Do they need to be earned through time and effort, like a nickel at a lemonade stand? Or should they just suddenly fall into your lap, like ripe crab-apples?
It hasn’t come to me yet. The curiosity of unattainable kindness of strangers up here. The somewhat religious euphoria of striking landscapes. The deep, careful self-examination of realizing self-capability and worth. The dawning of my place in this mess.
I can picture when it will come to me.
I’ll be on the cramped plane, landing in Ottawa. We’ll have passed the Yukon mountain ranges. Left behind the ice-cold glacier waters. Said our farewells to the faces that make up the Northern collage of stories. I’ll be sitting there, headphones in my ears, looking out the window, distant and confused in my thoughts as usual.
Then it will start. The aching in my gut that pulls at my eyes. The feeling of something missing. The longing to go back to where I started, if only to be a passive observer again.
I’ll look out at the flat, stuffy land of the city that is my home. Where my family is. Where my life is.
I’ll resent it.
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