Zippy

I picked up my truck from my uncle's house. With farewells given to my aunt, who held back her two gigantic scary dogs while we scribbled on bills of sale, I hopped into my brand new 1994 Ford Ranger, turned the key, listened to the awkward rumble of the little engine, forced the reluctant standard transmission into gear, and stalled out the truck 40 feet from where it'd been parked for the last month.
But inside my fat-clogged north American heart, only one thought raced through my mind. It wasn't "I can't afford insurance," or "I have no money to register this truck" or even "I can't drive this truck at all." It was "freedom." Not "Freedom!" as in, "freedom isn't free," but rather "freeeeeeeeedom," like "I'm bored. I'm going to drive across the country," or "I don't want to stay in the house. I'm going to drive! somewhere." Or, most importantly, "It's -90 degrees outside. I'm going to fuck up the environment a couple more degrees by driving three blocks to the grocery store so that my broccoli doesn't freeze on the way home."
So, on three bald tires, and one mysteriously new and healthy-looking tire, I'm going to drive across the country, one province at a time, until I'm tired and sore and lost and content and all explored out. Then I'm going to take a summer off, go fishing, and put shit in the back of the truck and bring it to wherever I want it to go. Oh, and I might see about starting a painting company. I figure, a truck, plus paint, plus someone who knows how to paint, is a pretty good recipe for a pretty laid back summer. Or I might start a fishing company, "Bankruptcy Bros. Fisheries," that I'll run out of the back of the truck. Our business plan: stay out of the house all summer. Our motto: ... well, it'll probably be a quote from some Journey song.

What could keep me here?

I grew up in Edmonton. And for the first time in almost five years, I'm here with no definite plans. I know at some point, I'll have to return to my home, to Halifax, at very least to clean my room out.
But I went for a walk this evening. Edmonton is a big, busy, ugly city during the day. But, if you follow the right path, up the right street, it's hard to imagine the city as anything but beautiful. Walking across the Dawson Bridge, built (like everything else in Edmonton) by developers in the 1920s who wanted to convert cheap farmland to expensive home lots, the silence of the river valley washed over me. The streetlights dimmed, and I looked out over the river, still covered with ice, and breathed in. I couldn't smell the refineries. I couldn't see the condo developments. I couldn't hear any traffic. It was calm, and quiet. It was the lazy city I remembered as a kid.
Walking up the hill into the Forest Heights area, the familiarity of everything was relaxing, and endearing. A few people sat lazily inside the incredibly dated Hilltop Pub, which I'd never been to, but always wondered about. And further down, the little grocery store, where I used to deliver icecream, and watch the icecream truck driver argue with the East Indian store owners, sat quietly, waiting for the next friendly sucker to pend $3.00 for a bag of Doritos. Still further, on the street where one of my best friends used to live, his mother's old house sat empty, long since sold and exchanged for a condo.
And on the walk went. The bridge over what was once the Capilano Freeway still called for me to throw snow and gravel down onto the passing cars, and on the other side, our aptly named Suicide Hill cried out for the old red aluminum toboggan that once aided our attempts at self-destruction far too well (though it was never me who ended up in a cast).
And so on. Hardisty Swimming Pool. Hardisty High School. Mean-Kids Junior High, which was just down the block from St. Kevin's Junior High, which was also my elementary school between kindergarten and grade 2.
Now, Halifax has a lot of good memories for me, too, but not these types of memories. The memories that flooded back to me on this walk were much deeper, much more involuntary. Each step brought back different images, different snippets of my own personal history that invariably made me who I am today, whoever that is. Little fragments of myself, scattered around these southeastern suburbs, crying out to be remembered, and perhaps, at some point, through someone else, much younger, much less tainted, relived.
Could I live for good in Edmonton? Even after that walk, I'm not sure I could. It is a bigger city. And it's a much uglier city than I remember. But if these little fragments of memory remain, and if they're any incentive to stay in a family-filled, prosperous city, maybe I could stay a while longer. Maybe getting reattached to the city that made me much of what I am would do me a world of good.

Where I Started

So, I'm sitting at the surplus computer desk my dad brought home from work almost 20 years ago, typing in the spot where a steady chain of computers, each progressively more powerful, has sat. The old orange monochrome monitor is long gone, and so is the old 7Mhz 8086 computer. But somehow, the 25-year-old metal power bar is still the primary supplier of surge-protection.
The clutter of 24 years of home ownership surrounds me here in my parents' basement; as my sisters and I move from place to place, our lives' shrapnel collects here against the south wall. In spots, the cardboard boxes are stacked taller than I am. Somewhere in there, my kindergarten papers are moldering. Higher up, my comic books are crying, unread. Right behind the bound editions from my years of student newspapering, in a big, long box, sits my telescope.
The telescope seems like a weird thing to be writing about. My first girlfriend bought it for me in 2002 or 2003 as an early birthday present, telling me that she knew I'd never have bought it on my own if she hadn't. She was probably right. Self-denial of extravagances (in this category, everything but food lives) is an ongoing problem/necessity for me. But she bought it, and I used it, and in 2003, Jupiter was at its closest it would ever be for the next 10,000 years. With little help, and with fantastic excitement, I saw for the first time a quartet of Roman namesakes that revolve around the ruler of the gods: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. There were two on each side, and in the middle, almost big enough to discern stripes, was the mighty gas giant.
I'd never seen anything like this in the real world before. I'd seen it on TV, and I'd seen it at what was then the Edmonton Space Sciences Centre. But the reality of seeing it for real (lame) struck me.
I guess now you think I'll try to tie having a telescope to wanting to see THE WORLD for myself rather than on TV.
And maybe that's what's justifying this cross-country trip.
Or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll think about this more and get back to you. Oh, and for context, read this.