FanPost

Untitled Winter Blues Notes




You can call Jiffy cabs any time of day and hear the same thing. There is one operator and I am certain he has never taken a break in his life. Not during my lifetime at least. Jiffy Cabs he will say. You will tell him that you need a cab to wherever you happen to be and his response will invariably be on da way. He is never going to switch it up. He will never so much as change his tone of voice. It is a fear of mine that I will go home and call a cab and he will not answer. Someone will say something like Thank you for calling Jiffy Cabs, how may I direct your call in a cheery voice and I will collapse from shock.

If the cab driver is the jovial sort he will talk to you the whole way. Last time I was home I caught a cab from a friend's house and the driver told me about his lasagna recipe. And his old lady. And his kids. I never caught his name but I tipped him a ten dollar bill and went to bed feeling revived.

If he is the quiet type you will talk to him. He will be polite and cordial but you will get the hint and stop talking by the time you are halfway through Waterford River Valley area. This is good because it will give you a chance to see the hundred year old homes beset by brand new constructions. If you are fortunate enough to be riding with a pal he will surely tell you who lives in that house or who sold this house. It will almost always be untrue and it does not matter.

Depending on what kind of night this is you will ask the cab driver to drop you off on Duckworth or Water Street. On Duckworth you might go to Fred's which is the record shop. You might have grabbed a coffee at Fixed before tax problems forced them to shut down. You might get sushi. You might just hang around the memorial park where I once saw a couple of teenagers drinking whiskey from a bottle and nervously holding hands. Maybe you'll go to the hipster bakery and get something that has entirely too many flax seeds.

On Water Street you might dodge around and run into some friendly faces. You might duck into a restaurant and argue over the menu before ordering what you always order. If it's summertime you might sit outside and enjoy a beer. You might climb the parking structure and get a few pictures of the sun setting behind the Narrows. You might wait a while. You might make your way to George Street where you can pick from the most densely packed selection of drinking establishments in North America.

You might have a to catch a flight back in the morning. Asking yourself if you are indeed living the life you chose.

There is nothing but tension and snow up here. This place has no essential character and I am beginning to understand the appeal of living in a city. My city had faces and people and places and strong drink. This place has a loose collection of union workers and Government dependents. Strange fucking ideas about what the rest of the world is like. They call St. John's, a city of barely more than one hundred thousand people, The Big City.

The mountain ranges and lakes and dense forests are just beyond the city limits. This place is an old Air Force town that now has just a handful of servicemen posted in it. They live on the base and they do not come into town. Now anyone who lives here works on one of the mining and energy projects nearby. They are paid brain surgeon bucks to do it and that has resulted not in a city flush with cash but instead higher rental prices and more expensive groceries and pick up trucks by the hundred. I paid nine dollars for a box of pasta the other day. This is not normal.

I need to get to the mountains. What good is living in the wilder parts of the world if all you do is open investment accounts and pay too much for spaghetti?

This place and this job and this community has made me into a different person. A colder and harder person that is nothing like the kid who was studying McCarthy and trying to be a writer. Nothing like the bank teller who was constantly put upon but at least wore a smile every day. Made people feel at ease, made them feel welcome. I made a young woman cry the other day and I'm not even sure how. Something in my voice I'm sure.

Even that has changed. The dry air has put some gravel in it and if I talk for longer than a few minutes, which is what I do for a living, it turns from a gently accented baritone to a labouring growl. I've become something else. I'm not sure what that is. Maybe I'm just getting older. Maybe I'm just tired.

I keep thinking that if I could just start over again I could be okay. Give me a few week's head start and I can outrun them. The blues can follow you but can they catch you? Here they can. There's nowhere to run. Burry your head in the snow and try to remind yourself how good you have it. Alternate between self loathing and self pity. Maybe read a book. You read books, didn't you? Who were you before all this?

Tell yourself how beautiful it is up North. How fun it is to see squirrels in the back yard. How delighted you are with the space your dogs have. Don't think about anything else. Keep your hands busy. Keep your feet busy. Keep moving. It'll drop it's guard eventually and then you can go on the offensive. Until then you're playing defense. Until then you have to tread water. Don't drown.

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