The Black Ghost

I had a dream last night that I saw a black ghost from the road. Though the friends I was traveling with told me the ghost was frequently seen, ghosts have never appeared to me and I never thought they would. I saw it clearly and that was shocking to say the least. It caused me to falter in my step, to stand agog in wonder and fear, it caused me to hallucinate. It caused my heart to race and my shoulders to tense.

It’s my theory that dreams replicate the dominant emotion one is feeling in everyday life, but attach that feeling to an abstract conception. The ghost in my dream is the embodiment of my current fears, and I reacted to it as I react every day to the stresses in my life. The difficulty breathing; the avoidance of truth; the shock.

The thoughts that dominate my life revolve around moving back to Toronto, paying for school, my new apartment, new roommates, new atmosphere, new classes and starting a new life, once again. About what to do after this year, when I’ve graduated. The future is a huge unknown and - like the ghost - it excites me to no end and frightens me to death at the same time.

The black ghost represents the many things I feel that I am facing I didn’t expect to be there but deep down knew would appear. Like love, and falling into it. More than anything else, for me the ghost is love. Like the ghost, love appears unexpectedly. It’s something I’ve never quite believed in, though part of me always thought it would be true. It’s something I don’t want to deal with. It’s something I want to avoid. But I can’t ignore it, and its presence is haunting me. I’m also afraid that it is just as much of a phantom in its nature as the ghost – unreliable, appearing and disappearing in front of my eyes, completely beyond my control. I am afraid of the ghost, and I am equally afraid of love. They both entice me but also seem to prophecy my doom.

I am afraid of the black ghost of my dreams and its image is haunting me.

Cinque Terre, outside Riomaggiore

The harbour at Riomaggiore

Backpacking Europe - second post

The stone pathway is big enough for two vehicles to squeeze carefully by one another, but very few care to do so. It is mainly for pedestrians, and snakes its way up from the harbour that has been scratched into the rocky cliffs, then up through the town, until finally leaving for the green hills and well-tended gardens of the mountainside. Old, tanned Italian women with leathery skin and sun-squinted eyes cross this street to greet one another, and burly shopowners lift out boxes of impossibly bright fruit onto it - cherries, lemons (grown in the garden up the street), and shiny tomatoes still on their vines. An oil painting waiting to be captured on canvas.

The street is flanked on either side by brightly coloured buildings that blend so well with the sea and hills and sky that they might have grown there naturally, or else their builders had the Medittaranean so deep in their souls that when they went to build, it came out in the form of these beautiful, smooth, colourful buildings. Here there is no rush or feeling of desire for industrialness or production. Mary smiles peacefully over the town from many mini monuments on the walls of the houses, and her soft eyes and hands held palm-upward seem to encourage the inhabitants to take life slowly. Not that they need any more encouragement to do so, as the blanketing warmth of the sun and the wind, heavily scented with sea and flowers, make it the idea of rushing an alien notion.

The church sits on the hillside among the greenery, backed by a lush mountain and perfect blue sky as if to say "I'm here when you need me, but take your time." Its bells chime on the hour. Here in the sleepy village of Riomaggiore, on the Medittaranean Coast in Italy, people know how to live. They have it all right, I think. Good food, warm sun, family, and simple, unpretentious faith. A beautiful setting. What else do you need?

Backpacking Europe - first post

June 1, 2006

Stephanie and I are just now on a train going from La Spezia to Parma. We will then go from Parma to Bologna, and Bologna to Venice. We got up this morning at 7 in order to catch the bus from the camp we are staying at - high in the cliffs overlooking the Meditteranean - into Riomaggiore. Riomaggiore is a tiny Italian town: one of five fishing villages which cling to the cliffs along the south-east coast. They cater a good deal today to the hordes of tourists - many young backpackers like ourselves - who flock to the cliffs every summer for the chance to hike in one of the most beautiful regions of the world. But they still have a strong local small-town feel. Among the backpacks and cameras are men lifiting cement blocks onto trucks, old ladies picking dead buds off their impressive flowers and gardeners tending to trees drooping from the weight of their bright yellow lemons. Italian words fly around with the emphatic lyricism typical to the speakers of that language.

Looking out the window now I am taken aback by how striking the scenery is. I can't believe people are lucky enough to live in this paradise. Huge cliffs, bright blue Medittaranean Sea and massive mountains, covered in deep green forests, fading into the background. All of this against the bluest of blue skies. It seems like the sun is always shining here. The clouds are low and impossibly white and fluffy, and everywhere are wildflowers - purple, yellow. Delicate red poppies sprout up between the railway tracks and at the side of the road. They face the sun and, like everything else here, reflect the essence of beauty and vitality. Even the buildings contribute with smooth colourful walls and flowers that protrude from every corner. Palm trees, cacti...it is all so overwhelming. The landscape is alien, and brings to it a whole new level of impressiveness. During my travels I always think back to home and think that it is still the most beautiful place on earth. But here in Cinque Terre, and South of France, la vie est belle: life is beautiful!

The best part, though, is being here with my sister. She is sitting across from me looking the same as she has since we were 5 and 7 - pencil resting gently against her lips, her brow slightly furrowed, staring intently at the puzzle book in her lap. I don't think Steph could live without a pencil and erasure.

Back to the trip. Paris was grand, although it was possibly the quickest tour of the famous city in world history. Eiffel Tower - check. Arc de Triomphe - check. Champs d'Elysees - check. Esplanade des Invalides - check. The Sacre Coeur was just behind our hostel, and we had a great view of it from our window. One evening we bought a baguette and some brie, and cherries and avocado, and had a snack on the green grass of the hill in front of the Sacre Coeur, with a view of all of Paris! Seeing the sites in Paris was great - it's a very exciting city. We were able to converse easily with the locals, since we both speak French. But it was also the most familiar-feeling city I've been to in Europe, and was very crowded with tourists.

Cannes was beachy and had palm trees. We got there the day after the film festival ended, which was good because it felt somewhat calm and relaxed, and wasn't too crazytouristy. We took a boat to the island and were completely alone for most of the time, exploring the shoreline, looking at the hills and white sailboats and generally soaking up the warm sun and relaxation of a truly summery day.

All this travelling is tiring, but we've seen some amazing places in a short time. Backpacking France and Italy with my sister - fantastique!

Saying goodbye...soon...

Time is running out in Scotland. I have two twenty page papers and one presentation due by next Tuesday. The infamous May Ball is next week, run by the Kate Kennedy club which is peopled by the finest of the fine St. Andrews aristocratic young gentlemen. The May Dip is this Sunday, which will see loads of scantily clad St. Andrews students run into the freezing North Sea at dawn - myself included. I've been working at Rufflets Country House like a madwoman. Well I can't really waitress like a madwoman, so that statement is made only in reference to the astounding amount of shifts I've been working. However, that does mean that I've decided to travel France, Italy, Greece and Turkey for the entire month of June as opposed to just a few weeks, since I've been making more money than I thought I would. I'll leave after my last exam - the 20th - and meet my beautiful Sister in France, and she'll travel with me to Italy, then I'll hopefully meet up with my friend Marnie for Greece and Turkey.

So what all this really means is that my time in Scotland, and at St. Andrews, is coming to an end. I'm not quite sure how I feel about this. I still waver between loving and hating this place on a daily basis. It's beauty is unarguable. Many of my recent shifts at the restaurant have been breakfast shifts, meaning I wake up at 6 and walk out of St. Andrews, where the footpath runs out and the farmland begins. Anyone who knows me would likely agree that I am not a morning person. But I look forward to these mornings. They alone have allowed for my most personal relationship with Scotland. Hardly anyone is about at that time of the day. It's just me walking along the road. The birds have started their first songs of the day. I often see a pheasant darting across the field and his brassy feathers shine in the slanted morning sun. The lighting in Scotland is nothing if not dramatic. I'm not sure why, but the lighting here is so often so glorious. It will shine through the clouds, or come in low over the fields, or hit the earth in bright rays that illuminate a tiny part of ocean or hill which all of a sudden becomes exceptionally beautiful. I don't know why the light is like this here, but it constantly and literally takes my breath away.

This is especially true on these early mornings, when Scotland opens its beauty before my eyes and I fall in love with it. The field just outside town is very intriguing to me. Initially I loved it for its dark, moist soil that the tractor had turned up, filling the air with the organic, alluring smell only freshly turned soil can evoke. It reminds me of the garden in our farm in Iron Bridge. Even though I was very young when I left that house I remember loving the dirt, and that specific smell of soil. It makes me want to grab a handful and crumble it in my hand because I know exactly what it will feel and smell like. Like something that makes things grow.
The blackbirds - the ones from the nursery rhymes who always end up in pies or poking peoples' eyes out - wander around the field, picking out worms or bugs here and there.

One day I walked by and the entire field was blanketed with the greenest stems of new grass. The field was transformed into a photograph, or painting. Each blade of grass was only about an inch tall, and insignificant on its own, but when viewed in the context of the whole field it positively glowed with a strong pallet of Spring Green. And the morning sun - dramatic as all Scottish light is - illuminated its perfect rows, which were parallel to one another and raced up to meet the sky at the horizon.

I may despise the aristocracy of St. Andrews, but I love its fields. And its mountains. And its oceans. And its dramatic lighting. And its highland cattle, and sheep with their baby fleecy white lambs. And its streams, like the one that winds its way through St. Andrews which I just discovered last week. I love Scotland. I am in love with Scotland. I don't want to say goodbye. I don't want to talk about it like it was something I was a part of, and now am not. I want to always be a part of it. We have a personal relationship now, afforded by the mornings and the mountains. It may only have been a part of me for a short time, but it has entered my poetic memory, and that memory never fades.

Travelling notes

I'm not pretending that I know everything; I'm not assuming I know nothing. What travelling has taught me is once again to always question, and wonder. Assume nothing, leave yourself open to change, opportunities, chance and fate - they bring you happenings both amazing and catastrophic: neither can be foreseen.

During my recent travels across Europe (Warsaw-Krakow-Hamburg-Amsterdam-Kiel-Munich-Vienna-Budapest), I've had my wallet stolen, forgotten my passport, been piss broke and slept in a couchette with complete strangers no more than a foot away, the air stale and smelling of people - traces of smoke, lingering perfume, coffee, chips...smells of other peoples' lives intermingling with my own. Here lives do intermingle. On trains, planes, and in hostels I've learned life stories, inspirations for leaving home and launching into unknown countries, leaving comfort for questions and safety for ambiguity.

Of course there are also comforting things about travelling. Concluding that, to use a cliche, things are the same everywhere, for example. On the bus ride to Auschwitz I watched as an old Polish man shovelled snow from his driveway. For amusement's sake only, he flung the shovelfull of snow high into the air and smiled to see it fall glistening down around him. People are the same everywhere.

In Amsterdam a pregnant cat had made her nest in dark corner just outside the sliding door of our cafe. Upon passing her, visitors from every corner of the world made the same gesture -stopping, bending down, scratching her nose and making the universal "tch tch" sound of animal lovers the world over. People are the same everywhere.

Maria and I sat in an uber posh cafe overlooking a canal in Amsterdam. Reflected light danced seductively in the waves outside the window. Amsterdam's finest sipped wine around us. Despite the surreal setting and we were the same two girls that laughed over Maria's inability pronounce "deteriorating" during the hour and half long, impossibly bumpy bus ride from Blind River to Kynoch. People are the same everywhere. And so am I.

A moment:

It is our last night in Krakow and we are walking back to our hostel - past the horse drawn cart clopping over the cobblestones, past the rows of stalls selling hand-carved wooden figures and brightly painted, pear-shaped dolls-in-dolls. The air smells of freshly baked bagels. It is the time of day where the sun lies close and golden over the city, making everything that was pretty, beautiful. The air is simultaneously soft and expectant, fresh and tangy - like a new blade of grass, at once comforting and dazzlingly new. The locals mill about, chatting in the square flanked by buildings that in any other city would be striking and glorious, but here are just the way it is.

Of a sudden a note shrills from the mouth of trumpet or flugel horn and fills the square. Faces turn upward. The sound comes from the sky, or some impossibly high place - the bell tower of the chapel to the left. It is a stone building, crowned on every peak by statues kissed gently by the last rays of sun. Above their heads the sound emerges. The musician is absent within the darkness of the steeple, leaving his brassy notes to wander masterless over the listeners beneath. They listen as if it were what they had waited all day to hear. The sound falls over their faces as they lift upwards, their mouths forming the slightest of nostalgic smiles. It loosens joints and smoothing worries so deep they had nearly been forgotten.

What are they thinking of, their faces static and vulnerable to the early evening air and all things twilight? For me the brass note brings a sharp and crystalline thought: a remembrance of fresh summer nights, of frogsong and new leaves unfolding, their cousins disintegrating beneath, a season turning from one to the next, days lengthening. The same feeling of expectation and longing, of newness and birth, development, freedom. Anticipation that this year, this month, this very day will bring something vivid and good if only the repetition of all that was and all that will be - this is what the trumpeter spills out from the highest point in Krakow to the world in this moment. It falls on the ears beneath and floats around and in and out and over and across the hands and feet of listeners listening to a few notes, a few golden notes in the golden sun in the cobbled square in a city so old we can no longer relate. This message. This song. A lone trumpeter in a bell tower. I stood, face upturned. I listened.

"This is life", I thought.

"And life is beautiful."