And Brian claims she is the devil.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Can it really be this easy?
Where's the catch?
I got up early this morning and went down to breakfast to find one other B&B guest there. Brian and Sid's dog, Chelsea, had stolen a table napkin and was running up and down the hall with it in her mouth, and the other guest was too polite, I guess, to say anything.
After he had made our breakfasts, Brian sat at the table with us and asked me what I was up to in Ottawa. - Going to the Russian Consulate, I told him, to get a visa.
-Oh, he says, looking pleased. That's just down the street. And he tells me to walk up to Laurier Avenue, about two blocks from the B&B, turn right, and walk another few blocks until I come to Range Road, then turn right there. And here I had been expecting another $30 taxi ride.
It's cold in Ottawa today, but I set out, following Brian's instuctions. The consulate opens its doors at 9:30, and I'm standing outside at 9:10. No chance, of course, of an early opening, so I wander down to the edge of the Ottawa River and am surprised to find a rich population of Mallards, gulls, and even a couple of cormorants sunning themselves, facing east, sitting on rocks in the middle of the river's flow. I hear the unmistakable sound of red-winged blackbirds, and one of them lands on the walkway next to me, looks up at me, and mouths some incomprehensible message, it's beak opening and closing, opening and closing, before it flies off again into the river grass.
There seem to be a few extra cars in the parking lot across from the consulate, so I go back to stand outside the door at 9:20. At exactly 9:30, the door is opened electronically from within, and the five of us enter the building together. First thing I see is a row of Babushkas, bright blue, standing on a ledge. The receptionist points me to the "teller" behind a smouldering grey window, and I tell him I'm applying for a visa, and ask him what he wants first. - Passport, visa application, invitation, photograph, photocopy of passport information page...and $210 for 24 hour processing. I sign something, get a little blue card from the guy behind the glass, and am told to come back tomorrow.
It's 9:35, and I walk back up Somerset Street to Sweetland and am back in my room by 9:45.
So I have the rest of the day to work, catch up on my sleep, and then figure out where I am in relation to the rest of the city, the one that I used to know.
Tomorrow, it's pick up the visa and then work, visit a museum, relax...
I got up early this morning and went down to breakfast to find one other B&B guest there. Brian and Sid's dog, Chelsea, had stolen a table napkin and was running up and down the hall with it in her mouth, and the other guest was too polite, I guess, to say anything.
After he had made our breakfasts, Brian sat at the table with us and asked me what I was up to in Ottawa. - Going to the Russian Consulate, I told him, to get a visa.
-Oh, he says, looking pleased. That's just down the street. And he tells me to walk up to Laurier Avenue, about two blocks from the B&B, turn right, and walk another few blocks until I come to Range Road, then turn right there. And here I had been expecting another $30 taxi ride.
It's cold in Ottawa today, but I set out, following Brian's instuctions. The consulate opens its doors at 9:30, and I'm standing outside at 9:10. No chance, of course, of an early opening, so I wander down to the edge of the Ottawa River and am surprised to find a rich population of Mallards, gulls, and even a couple of cormorants sunning themselves, facing east, sitting on rocks in the middle of the river's flow. I hear the unmistakable sound of red-winged blackbirds, and one of them lands on the walkway next to me, looks up at me, and mouths some incomprehensible message, it's beak opening and closing, opening and closing, before it flies off again into the river grass.
There seem to be a few extra cars in the parking lot across from the consulate, so I go back to stand outside the door at 9:20. At exactly 9:30, the door is opened electronically from within, and the five of us enter the building together. First thing I see is a row of Babushkas, bright blue, standing on a ledge. The receptionist points me to the "teller" behind a smouldering grey window, and I tell him I'm applying for a visa, and ask him what he wants first. - Passport, visa application, invitation, photograph, photocopy of passport information page...and $210 for 24 hour processing. I sign something, get a little blue card from the guy behind the glass, and am told to come back tomorrow.
It's 9:35, and I walk back up Somerset Street to Sweetland and am back in my room by 9:45.
So I have the rest of the day to work, catch up on my sleep, and then figure out where I am in relation to the rest of the city, the one that I used to know.
Tomorrow, it's pick up the visa and then work, visit a museum, relax...
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Arriving in Ottawa
It wasn't until I stood in the Ottawa airport watching some guy take all the red suitcases off the carousel, and then replace them when he realized they weren't his, that I was hit by the realization that I have started my journey. Even the 3 hour stopover in Calgary hadn't really sunk in, probably because I was moping over my aching gums.
But when I got off the plane in Ottawa and saw the bilingual signs in the airport, I started to feel the familiarity of the place which only grew as the taxi drove me down the airport connector and onto Bronson Avenue. Bronson Avenue! And there! There is Carleton University! The #1 bus, wasn't it, that went from Carleton up to Bank Street and down all the way to the Parliament buildings and then further still into Vanier? And we're turning onto...oh, it's the entrance to Colonel By Drive. And there is the canal, where I skated, and the apartment building where Flora McDonald used to live.
The memories come in unexpected fragments, and as they pop in I wonder if they are truly memories or if they are memories of dreams. Yes, that's it. I have had dreams all these years, dreams I have not remembered until now, dreams that take place in all these Ottawa locations. Because I haven't been able to keep active memories of Ottawa alive in my life. I mean, who has time to remember everything in their past, so I assume that's what my dream life is designed for: to sift through, update, review, re-file all those memories so that they remain in some form.
But to what purpose? To serve as scaffolding for the present, a kind of structure upon which to attach new memories?
I can't say that the memories are intense, or loaded with emotion, positive or negative. I have a mostly neutral reaction to seeing the places. I see a street corner and remember an orange cat I once had who was kidnapped by a man who lived alone in a second floor room in a boarding house across the alley from where I was living. The neighbourhood kids came and told me where Andy was, and then offered to steal him back for me. I agreed, and within hours Andy was sitting in my kitchen asking for more cat food.
Now I'm sitting in my B&B room, not far from the University of Ottawa. The room is small, maple floors, yellow trim on the walls, a green and yellow flower-decorated quilted bedspread on the bed, with baby blue satin pillows. There is a sink in the corner, and a television installed on a retractable arm over by the window. On the wall behind me is a framed print of a boy walking through deep snow, pulling his sled and accompanied by a tri-colour collie. Behind them are several dairy cows on the other side of a page wire fence. The snow is falling thickly.
I am grateful that I have wireless internet in this room.
But when I got off the plane in Ottawa and saw the bilingual signs in the airport, I started to feel the familiarity of the place which only grew as the taxi drove me down the airport connector and onto Bronson Avenue. Bronson Avenue! And there! There is Carleton University! The #1 bus, wasn't it, that went from Carleton up to Bank Street and down all the way to the Parliament buildings and then further still into Vanier? And we're turning onto...oh, it's the entrance to Colonel By Drive. And there is the canal, where I skated, and the apartment building where Flora McDonald used to live.
The memories come in unexpected fragments, and as they pop in I wonder if they are truly memories or if they are memories of dreams. Yes, that's it. I have had dreams all these years, dreams I have not remembered until now, dreams that take place in all these Ottawa locations. Because I haven't been able to keep active memories of Ottawa alive in my life. I mean, who has time to remember everything in their past, so I assume that's what my dream life is designed for: to sift through, update, review, re-file all those memories so that they remain in some form.
But to what purpose? To serve as scaffolding for the present, a kind of structure upon which to attach new memories?
I can't say that the memories are intense, or loaded with emotion, positive or negative. I have a mostly neutral reaction to seeing the places. I see a street corner and remember an orange cat I once had who was kidnapped by a man who lived alone in a second floor room in a boarding house across the alley from where I was living. The neighbourhood kids came and told me where Andy was, and then offered to steal him back for me. I agreed, and within hours Andy was sitting in my kitchen asking for more cat food.
Now I'm sitting in my B&B room, not far from the University of Ottawa. The room is small, maple floors, yellow trim on the walls, a green and yellow flower-decorated quilted bedspread on the bed, with baby blue satin pillows. There is a sink in the corner, and a television installed on a retractable arm over by the window. On the wall behind me is a framed print of a boy walking through deep snow, pulling his sled and accompanied by a tri-colour collie. Behind them are several dairy cows on the other side of a page wire fence. The snow is falling thickly.
I am grateful that I have wireless internet in this room.
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Leaving for Ottawa on the 5th...
Riddled with dental pain, I am also in the final throes of packing. I'm supposed to take a Norton anthology of literature with me, which is probably the heaviest and bulkiest item I'm taking. Jorie Graham wants us to bring this for the poetry workshop, because, we are told, we are going to be memorizing some poems...I hope I can choose an imagist poem, or perhaps I'll pretend to memorize one of Shakespeare's sonnets, one that I have already memorized. What I should do, though, is memorize part of Paradise Lost...something dark and dramatic about Satan.
I went to a "packing" seminar at a travel store the other day, and learned what sorts of plastic containers I need to use for packing small amounts of shampoo in my carry-on. And I learned (well, had it confirmed) that I never want to go on a cruise where I'll have to wear ex-officio clothing that is so heavily treated with chemicals that I will be immune from the sun's rays and from spilled olive oil, which apparently just rolls off ex-officio clothing. And, of course, keep me away from those plastic sandals "that go with slacks or an evening dress". Nor do I want to go anywhere where I'll be lounging around in the hot sun all day and then pulling my floral wrap around my bathing suit to go to dinner.
Cool luggage, though. I wonder if I can jelly-roll the binders of writing portfolios that I have to take with me, or my laptop?
Bob T. showed me an article in the most recent issue of Geist, written by a playwright who went to SLS in St Petersburg for 8 days last year. Her article was cynical about Russia, and dismissive of the value of the seminars. Well, it didn't exactly make me feel excited about going. On the other hand, the sorts of things that bugged her about her experience are just the sorts of things that I'll probably absorb into my pores : smirking Russian women wearing knock-off Gucci sunglasses who dismiss the war-maimed with a casual wave of a hand, a race through Leningrad in a Lada, a room at the Herzen University Inn described as a "cell" - I mean, what better digs to have while in Russia, but something best described as a cell.
The highlight of her trip was the cab ride back to the airport at its conclusion, during which the cabbie talks about the death of Russia, or something like that.
But truly, I am moving into that pre-trip zone, the place that urges me to stay home, to curl up into my own bed with a book by a familiar author, the place that tells me I'm crazy, I'm not well enough prepared, I have too much to do to get ready, I will never be ready enough, I will forget crucial tools. And then that other familiar response to the pre-trip zone that says that none of the things that I think I will need for my journey will matter once I am on the journey, because it is, after all a journey. Maybe all I really need is the plane ticket and a credit card or two, maybe a change of clothes and a notebook. The rest is all trappings, designed to create the illusion of security or control. If I don't bring a Norton Anthology with me, will I not be able to find a poem to memorize? Are there no books in Russia? In St Petersburg? And why would I want to memorize a poem that's included in that anthology? If it is in that anthology, am I really interested in it? In memorizing it? I'd rather bring John Berger's And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos, and memorize some poetic prose in that. In fact, now that I've thought of it, that's what I'm going to do.
I went to a "packing" seminar at a travel store the other day, and learned what sorts of plastic containers I need to use for packing small amounts of shampoo in my carry-on. And I learned (well, had it confirmed) that I never want to go on a cruise where I'll have to wear ex-officio clothing that is so heavily treated with chemicals that I will be immune from the sun's rays and from spilled olive oil, which apparently just rolls off ex-officio clothing. And, of course, keep me away from those plastic sandals "that go with slacks or an evening dress". Nor do I want to go anywhere where I'll be lounging around in the hot sun all day and then pulling my floral wrap around my bathing suit to go to dinner.
Cool luggage, though. I wonder if I can jelly-roll the binders of writing portfolios that I have to take with me, or my laptop?
Bob T. showed me an article in the most recent issue of Geist, written by a playwright who went to SLS in St Petersburg for 8 days last year. Her article was cynical about Russia, and dismissive of the value of the seminars. Well, it didn't exactly make me feel excited about going. On the other hand, the sorts of things that bugged her about her experience are just the sorts of things that I'll probably absorb into my pores : smirking Russian women wearing knock-off Gucci sunglasses who dismiss the war-maimed with a casual wave of a hand, a race through Leningrad in a Lada, a room at the Herzen University Inn described as a "cell" - I mean, what better digs to have while in Russia, but something best described as a cell.
The highlight of her trip was the cab ride back to the airport at its conclusion, during which the cabbie talks about the death of Russia, or something like that.
But truly, I am moving into that pre-trip zone, the place that urges me to stay home, to curl up into my own bed with a book by a familiar author, the place that tells me I'm crazy, I'm not well enough prepared, I have too much to do to get ready, I will never be ready enough, I will forget crucial tools. And then that other familiar response to the pre-trip zone that says that none of the things that I think I will need for my journey will matter once I am on the journey, because it is, after all a journey. Maybe all I really need is the plane ticket and a credit card or two, maybe a change of clothes and a notebook. The rest is all trappings, designed to create the illusion of security or control. If I don't bring a Norton Anthology with me, will I not be able to find a poem to memorize? Are there no books in Russia? In St Petersburg? And why would I want to memorize a poem that's included in that anthology? If it is in that anthology, am I really interested in it? In memorizing it? I'd rather bring John Berger's And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos, and memorize some poetic prose in that. In fact, now that I've thought of it, that's what I'm going to do.
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