where are we going

I am just now flying from Berlin to Newcastle. The past two days have been interesting to say the least. January 30 I said goodbye to my mum and sister at the airport. Saying goodbye to my sister was unexpectedly difficult. For me it meant letting go once again of the one person who, despite radically different personalities, completely understands me. Unfortunately her detailed map of Inner Robin includes my many faults - many more than I would like to admit, and many more that are both undeniably and infallibly part of me, even in face of my most ardent denials and vicious mental scrubbing. I hate that she sees those in me and yet, crying into her long brown hair at the end of the nylon gate which would soon seperate us, I know that when she is gone I will miss her as I would miss myself, if that makes any sense. She is my sister and she is my world.

Having sent my mum and sister on their way I leave in search of the Underground - the infamous "tube". The day before the flight, midway toward London, we had discovered that Mum had forgotten the Very Important Piece of Paper. On this I had written my flight confirmation number to Berlin, the flight number and the number of my friend whom I was supposed to meet in London today. Luckily there are Internet terminals that mercilessly overcharge you in the airport, where I had been able to recapture this vital information. I had also learned that I was to take the Piccadilly Circus line to Baron's Court stop in London, where my friend Christine - whom I met when working at Ontario Place two summers ago - and her sister Jocelyn would meet me.

Christine and I have shared some interesting experiences together. Along with Erin and Laurie, the othe two "OP girls", I have been introduced to Bob the Builder and Barney (there are only 7 people in the world who can act as Barney, and I have met two of them - both leud individuals, with the kind of sick sense of humour specific to child entertainers). The summer we met - my first in Toronto - I started the chain reaction of breaking off long-term relationships, ending my four year relationship with Joey which Christine echoed half a year later by breaking off with her 3 year boyfriend, with Erin following suit another half year later by ending her own 3 year relationship. We have all pranced around and kissed babies dressed as oversized monkeys, dinosaurs, octopi and bears. And we were all, save for Laurie, thrown into the lake without a lifejacket when we were suddenly recruited to Day Camp staff with no training, trying to control 9 unruly six year old boys in an amusement park (as impossible a task as it sounds). We also partied many nights away together downtown Toronto, the most memorable for me being the End of the Year OP Boat Cruise, where I had one of the most romantic nights of my life in the arms of a certain James who worked at the Cinesphere. Me leaning on the railing of the boat in my little black dress. He putting his arms around me from behind and commenting absentmindedly on the beauty of the huge orange moon hanging low over the Toronto skyline. The waves. The fireworks.

These are the memories I turn over in my head while riding the oddly circular tube to my next destination. Here, as always when travelling, I try to use my acting skills to emote the presence of a seasoned traveller to those around me. A "seasoned traveller" is one of those fantastical personas I have always admired and wished to become. I've gone through many of these - a graceful, proper dancer; an expressive, working actress (one of the kind who are somehow completely confident in their role as an actor, even against seemingly insurmoutnable odds and a much more lucrative parallel career as a waiter), a competent and organized secretary with an enviously tidy desk and endless array of post-it pads, paper clips, pens and papers organized into meticulously labelled folders; a gracious waitress possessed of an endlessly brilliant smile, flawless dexterity and a mind that processes and acts upon a million thoughts at once, without ever leaving a customer unattended. Also a trapeze artist, air hostess and a mother as utterly perfect as my own. Like most of these personas, however, the well-seasoned traveller always eludes me. Maybe the only role I will ever truthfully play will be that of an actor.

Take, for instance, the fact that my most recent boyfriend, upon breaking up with me, stated as main reason for doing so that he felt I was a "compulsive liar", a term he would later turn into the slightly more insulting "lying bitch". I couldn't help but worry that the former claim was true (I am the sort that can never dispense of the few assaults on my personality I have recieved but instead go back to them again and again as one would to a sore tooth, poking and prodding to make sure it still hurts). Was I a compulsive liar? Or was he somehow tapping into my role-playing? Perhaps I think too much about who I am or the person I think I might like to be, and try to slip into that role, rather than be the person I really am. Instead of acting on my own honest and immediate impulses and desires, I distance myself and create a persona for whom, like a noveslist's character, I can determine the "right" way to act, the "proper" thing to say; the course of action which will bring the plot to an undoubtedly happy and sensible ending. I think that is the romantic in me. Maybe it was this self-deception that Ryan was sensing. One thing I really loved about him was that he was resolutely and unapologetically himself, an attribute I am constantly attracted to most likely because it is one that I doubt I will ever find in myself. Maybe he sensed this lack in me and misplaced his dislike of by creating the illusion of me lying to him. I don't know. Either way, it makes me wonder how convincing my personas truly are, and how dangerous.

We are coming down to land in Newcastle. I love watching the cities approach from above. The way our cities glow golden from the air, how can life in them be anything but perfect?