I am in midair somewhere between Saskatchewan and Manitoba and putting quite a bit of effort into getting my breathing back to normal. The boys and I boarded a flight to London and further on to Budapest. Exciting, yes, but the rattling of the plane claws at my enjoyment like a crazed cat. Up down then shake. Repeat until most passengers are white faced and wide eyes. The plane and my food tray are dancing. Nope, not good. Seat belt sign on. Seat belt sign off. The ding that announces the on/off sign switch almost makes a tune. I have a hard time appreciating any music right now as I am busy holding on to two food trays, mine and Sasha’s, and trying to think hard if I have any unfinished business. Grossly unfinished that is. Drama queen I am not, but the rattling of a plane does that to the sanest mind. I am reduced to a human-size lava lamp only with food in it instead of sparkles. Less glamorous by all means. Tony questions me with a look that is both scared and annoyed. “Can’t eat anything if we do this.” Well, we are not really eating right now. We’re as helpless as the grains of rice spilled on his t-shirt like little bunnies scattered all over a field. Rice listens to no one when high in the air, and my stomach subscribes to the same unruliness.
Author: Daniela Ginta Page 89 of 99
My path is a winding one. I write, I raise my sons, I love and I live.
Waking up to a new adventure every day. I have all that I need at every moment.
This would not my first choice location-wise, if I were to choose. The grass is mowed to perfection, the playground equipment is too complicated for its own good and there is an army of picnic tables looking like square monochromatic grazing cows minus the horns. Truth is, I find man-made open spaces like this intimidating and that’s a sin in itself as it limits my enjoyment. But I have at least half an hour to kill with the boys so there. I have a good book with me, so I eagerly drop myself in it and start walking down rows of words like they are trees in a forest I get to see for the first time. In the meantime the boys decide to visit the playground but it doesn’t spark their interest much so they move on to greener pasture, no pun intended but it fits.
“The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination.”
Don Williams, Jr. (American Novelist and Poet, b.1968)
There is no stranger smelling air than the pool air. Panels of humid chlorine you bump into every step of the way, some whiff of soap and shampoo drifting from the showers, shards of mixed voices hitting the water surface like skipping rocks and exploding in wet syllables only to smoke towards the ceiling incessantly, it’s a funny mix, I’m telling you. Every day now I am taking the boys to swimming classes so I gladly subject myself to pool air immersion because equipping my boys with life skills such as this is the noblest of purposes.
I am lying on my back in the tall grass by the stream. I cannot see the boys, they are far away and way past the tall reeds but I can hear their voices clinking every now and then. I close my eyes. I hear birds, I hear the grass swooshing in the breeze and the water rolling in liquid tumbles all the way to where there boys are then further down into the ocean. This is a place very few people know about. My happy place.
We walked through bushes and down steep hill sides to get here and we jumped over fallen logs that give us some benign scratches every time. Paying the toll, I’d say, it’s fair. The horsetail on each side of the path that cuts through the thick rainforest is as tall as me and the path is narrow and a bit muddy. The air is damp and green, and the leaves sieve the sunlight as if it were liquid.
“Here, hold the gate so the mama won’t get out.” Netty throws the words behind and I pick them up as I go, holding onto the metal gate that keeps the goats and the sheep inside their yard. If I didn’t know any better I’d say we’ve done this before the two of us, feeding the animals and chatting about life.
I just met Netty, she’s one of the interpreters here at Fort Langley and a happy person by all counts. The boys and I bumped into her in the big house where she showed us around and told us about the proclamation of the Crown colony of British Columbia in 1858, by James Douglas, the first governor. Talk about tingly, when you stand on the very spot where the province you live in was born. The boys are speechless and I can’t claim to be any different. i ask for her name. Netty, she says. And yours? Netty asks us if we like animals and invites us to follow her outside to the farm. We already went there, I told her, but will gladly revisit. She gives us a quick overview of the animals there and then starts feeding them. The two of us chat about farms and real life and I told her about my dream of living in a place where roosters can wake you up in the morning, tomatoes are not just grown for the fun of it and birthday cakes don’t have blue in them. She points her finger at me nodding a big yes, and then heads over to the chickens coop to let them out. In the meantime the boys take my camera and engage in a friendly chase and pixel immortalizing of the hens and their mighty rooster. Netty and I chat a few minutes and then she excuses herself for a bit. a couple of minutes later she makes her way back holding two fresh eggs. “These are for you, I just washed them. I hope your dream will come true. You should head out to the Kootenays, you’d love it there.” The eggs become the focal point of Sasha’s attention. He checks on them every five minutes, taking breaks only to run over to the sheep and goats. Definition of simple joy.
It’s after dinner. Tony rides his bike and Sasha his scooter. We venture down the hill chatting and Sasha rattling as he rolls over bumps on the sidewalk. Most times both boys talk at once and they are so excited I don’t have the heart to stop either of them so I do my best to sharpen my journalistic ear and pay equal attention to both. Sasha has recently started to throw a few decibels more into the conversations since he figured out that the competition is strong. Take that into account of course.
The sky is spitting tiny rain drops on us as we parade the street towards the field where the baseball closing day ceremonies will take place shortly. A kid is screaming, he hates rain. Others jump in puddles as they walk by and the bystanders cheer as the little kiddies make their way to the field. Rain subsides by the time we’re singing “Take me out to the ball game” for the last time this season. Afterwards we walk to the small diamond off the playground for the last game of blastball. What’s blastball you ask? A very early version of baseball where kids age three to five wearing oversized shirts looking awfully cute line up and step up to bat one after another and then they run to a jump on a soft base that goes “squeak”. Two teams faces each other but no one wins. No, seriously. Batting, go in the field and try to catch the ball, repeat two more times and then you’re done.
One of the kids in the other team tries to hit the ball and it doesn’t work as planned. He tries again. Nope, it ain’t working. So the kid takes the matter into his own little hands, literally, and hits the ground with the bat. One, two, three times, harder each time, and the fourth brings the result he’s hoping for. The bat, made of plastic wrapped in some soft material – breaks. The kid looks satisfied, and then yells towards his mother who was chatting with other adults oblivious to what happened a couple of steps from them “it was an accident!”. The coach realizes the enormity, walks over and shrugs his shoulders as he assesses the bat. It’s done for. The mom walks over too, talks to the kid and a few seconds later she turns to the other parents and laughs “it was an accident!”… A new bat is brought in and the game resumes with parents laughing as the sorry looking bat was removed from sight. So much for assuming responsibilities for one’s actions. An unfortunate accident? Hardly. I can’t help but think of the recent events that blackened the eye of our city. Rioters expressing their anger following a lost game and cup or maybe just seizing the opportunity to have some violent fun. That’s no accident, but a scary combo that doesn’t end well. Especially when you put the bat away like it never existed…