MEGA
Seattle and The Happy Trees
Natalie wanted a handbag that was cheaper in Seattle than it was in Vancouver and I agreed forcefully.
‘An excuse to get out of Vancouver.’ I thought.
Any excuse to get out of Vancouver would have done for me.
_
I felt like I had abruptly stopped a terrible medication. A drug that had been keeping me in a foggy trance.
My eyes were clear. The world had colour.
The escapist escapes.
As the bus drove over the border and into Washington State I turned to Natalie, “Even the trees look happier here.”
Natalie wasn’t as disillusioned with Vancouver as I was. It was becoming trying for her to keep hearing the ANTI-VAN rants every day, but entering the land of the free, home of the brave, sanctuary of happy trees, I couldn’t resist.
We got off the bus and walked around the downtown area. We were definitely in America. There was a very distinct difference between being in Canada and being in America.
I could feel my body getting more energy, my mind was out of the dark rain clouds and into the clear blue.
You never know what a place will be like until you’re there. Places have generally accepted descriptions put on them and feelings assigned to them but a lot of the time these simplifications are far off.
The massive city I was expecting wasn’t there, neither were the people. Seattle had a small town vibe to it, the skyscrapers were impressive but empty, the streets were as wide as any other great American city but had very little foot traffic in any direction. Seattle reminded me of Chicago on a diet. I liked it.
As Vancouver was disappointing me, Seattle went in the opposite direction.
_
Natalie only wanted to buy a bag, eat some seafood and check out the first Starbucks.
She was the food guide wherever we went.
My job was activities.
The trip was arranged quickly. There was no time for a rush over to Mount Rainier or anything too adventurous but there was The Museum of Flight that stuck out among the tourist sights.
I would put The Museum of Flight up there with the War Memorial of Korea as one of the most interesting museums I’ve ever visited.
I was a smiling seven year old the whole time.
The Taiwanese flag flying proudly among other nations was a nice touch too.
_
“You look like you should be in the movies.” he said, eyes full of drugs.
We were on our way to return the expensive grubby looking bag Natalie had just bought when a happy homeless guy approached me looking for a light, usually a quick and easy social interaction that.
This wobbling friendly hobo hadn’t rolled his cigarette yet and was taking a long time to accomplish the simple task.
“Youuu, youuu are beautiful too.” he said to Natalie, who was now hiding herself behind me and anxiously trying to get me to leave the situation.
I could sense her anger and annoyance as heat radiating up my back.
I could tell what she was thinking, ‘Gun! Crazy person! Weirdo! Janada!’ but mostly, ‘Hurry up, I need to change this disgusting expensive bag for a clean expensive bag.’
It’s always the same thing in America, so many strangers wanting to be your best friend. It’s an extrovert of a country.
There are a lot of people in this America place though, I don’t have time to befriend them all. It’s never hard to feel like I have every time I leave it again though.
Canada and actually most countries offer up something similar to Britain’s closed psyche.
In America it’s mass-extroversion.
_
The bus arrived at the border, we went through immigration and were now again people in Canada.
I stared at the American flag on the other side daydreaming about jumping back over.
The only thing I was excited about was the half bottle of Dr Pepper waiting for me at home.
As the bus drove over the border and back into Canada I turned to Natalie.
“See, look,” I pointed, “the trees look depressed.”
I spent the rest of the ride playing games on my phone, occasionally looking out the window and scoffing at Canada.
We got off the bus and made our way back home to Burnaby.
There was one thing I had grown to love in my current surroundings.
A little blue bus named C7.
Shivering at the stop outside Metrotown Station, a group would always be lined up waiting for her to turn the corner at the end of the street.
The cold was always there, even in the summer heat, a ball of frozen air would hit you out of nowhere ° HEY! Don’t get too used to this!
Standing in one spot waiting for a train or a bus was always a depressing stretch of time.
But standing there, knowing C7 would soon turn the corner and drag it’s tired wheels to me, like an old dog, waking up and wearily limping over to greet its owner. That spot wasn’t the worst place. It was still a cold and fucking horrid ten minutes of walking in circles, of jumping and thrashing to keep the body warm but hey, not too bad.
It’s funny the things you fall in love with.
Looking back there were a lot of things about this part of the world I could have loved then. Many of them I now do. But for me, at that time, it was that cute little blue bus, more often than not the start and end of an exciting day.
C7 poked its nose around the corner and rolled towards us, she came to a stop and her doors burst open.
“Hiii Brad!”
“Hey C7.”
“Where you been? Haven’t seensya in a few days.”
“Me and Natalie went to Seattle.”
“Ah Natalie, hiiii Natalie, how’s you doin?”
“I’m good.”
“How’s the route been? Any action?”
“Nahhhh. Same old shit yaknow.”
“Alright then, let’s get home.”
“Course. Jump on!”
I relaxed into the seat. C7 whisked us home. I finished off the bottle of Dr. Pepper. Opened my laptop and started writing.
I wrote the first 21 pages of The Little Blue Bus, a novel about a magical community bus that finds itself at the center of a revolution.
The Little Blue Bus.
I never wrote any more of it. Maybe I’ll write it all again here…
… or maybe one day, somewhere.
_
Back in Burnaby the months advanced and my hate for the place advanced with them.
Oh, Metro Vancouver, why did I hate you?
My soul was a perfectionist. It could never be content.
Luckily for my soul, it wasn’t long until me and Natalie escaped again for another trip.
A Long Walk - Lake Louise and Lake Moraine
We were sitting around a picnic table and waiting for a shuttle to drive us to Moraine Lake.
We had just finished a bus ride through the night that involved fast turns over steep drops on all sides devoid of any protection.
We were exhausted and about to be met by an obstacle in our path that would take us from exhausted to barely living.
A group of us from the bus had gathered on a picnic table outside a gift shop. We were an odd looking band.
Sitting across from me and my girlfriend was a shy, timid looking guy from Nanaimo on Vancouver Island and next to him a short, terrified looking girl from Taiwan. The two started talking as I finished my oversized bag of crisps, a romance was about to begin.
We were waiting for an hour before a woman came running out of the gift shop and announced to the world that the shuttle was broken, it had been smashed up by a rock or tree.
Nanaimo and his new Taiwanese love headed off in a taxi while me and my Taiwanese girlfriend headed to our hostel.
We left our bags and decided to walk it.
“It’s a long walk but somebody should pick you up,” said the cheerful hostel worker, “you guys want a piece of cardboard to write on?”
I didn’t want cardboard, I was excited for the walk, “No I think we’ll be alright.” I said and we headed out to find the road to Lake Moraine.
We walked for an hour up steep hills before finding the turning to the lake.
The beginning of the beginning.
“Maybe we should try and get a ride.” Natalie said. She would repeat this line several times but I was too proud and getting more and more excited about the long walk ahead of us.
We were the only walkers on the long, winding road, shielded by large trees on each side, the mountain tops striking the skies above and beyond them.
I decided to try and impress Natalie with my great knowledge of bears, “You know why I’m talking this loud? Bears can tell we’re human then and won’t bother us.” I said almost joking.
“What! Will the bears get us? You’ve stopped talking, talk louder, keep talking!” she shouted nervously.
I instantly knew I made a mistake in telling her.
For the rest of the walk I would have to project my voice at least a mile into the deep forest so that the bears knew they had company and to keep her calm.
We were three quarters of the way to the lake when we came out on a mountain road with rockfall on one side and an open drop into a forest of deadly spikes on the other, in the distance frozen peaks towered into the sky.
I looked back as Natalie called out warnings to me, “Be careful, don’t go too close to the cliff!”
She looked terrified, “Rocks are falling!” she screamed, almost in tears.
I was impressed by how she had just walked three hours and wasn’t more angry with me.
‘Maybe we should hike every day!’ I thought.
The lake was as serene as expected, but after an unexpected long three hour walk up mountain roads not even heaven itself was going to be worth it.
We took our photos, had an argument (Ha!) and ate at the massive tourist complex by the lakefront. The funny thing about these…
“Natural!”
tourist places, you never see the giant commercialization just out of frame in all the promo photos.
Capitalism is always there.
Far too tired from the long walk to do anything else, we searched up and down the parking lot for some friendly looking people. I have a sixth sense about these things. We eventually spotted an elderly couple getting in their car.
“Hey, can you guys give us a ride back to town,” I said, “we walked up.” I added, trying not to sound like a serial killer in the slightest.
They were Swiss and in Canada visiting their son and had rented a car and drove it up from Vancouver. We got on well and the drive back to town felt as if we had just adopted new grandparents.
We got off in the little main square of the hamlet of Lake Louise that we had left from earlier in the day.
The hamlet – the highest settlement in all of Canada at over 5000 feet above sea level – consisted of a little main square with a dozen or so shops and restaurants around it and a scattering of lodgings throughout the area.
The hostel we were staying at was a large wooden structure that looked extremely Canadian. We took our drained bodies there and fell straight asleep.
A few hours after dark I suddenly woke up.
Natalie was still in a deep sleep.
I left the bed and put my clothes on and then snuck out front for a cigarette.
The mountains which enclosed the small settlement were now hidden by complete darkness, the presence of them, thousands of feet above, was always there.
During my many trips to Vancouver’s Colosseum sized public library I had read books on the high mountains of the world and the stories of those who climb them. It was becoming more and more of an obsession. I wanted to start but knew I needed an apprenticeship.
As the cold bit through my jacket I took a long deep puff and tossed the cigarette. I felt a sense of belonging, in the cold, the snow, the high, small mountain town.
I looked out through the trees and strained to make out the mountains but it was no use, they would be tucked in till morning.
I exhaled the excess smoke and went back inside to sleep myself.
The next day after a long sleep we walked to Lake Louise, it was a much shorter walk and turned out to be even more beautiful than Moraine. We could relax at Lake Louise and, unusual for us, didn’t find our way into an argument the entire time. We were too at peace for that.
We spent the day captured by the green, blue lake in the middle of nowhere.
If it wasn’t for the giant hotel right behind it, I would have felt like we were on a different planet.
A planet with a landscape that was just a little bit more lucid.
In a state of heightened reality.
The kind of thing you only see in some perfectly illogical dream.