for Catherine and Jack
In my last hours ashore, before returning to sea, a fug of ashen gloom envelopes me and every action is invested with unnecessary import simply because the adjective ‘last’ can be attached to it. There is my last walk downtown, last skateboard, last pad Thai, last chat with a pal, last beer, last sleep in my bed.
It is not that I dislike my ship or that I am terrified of it, though there have been times in my life, and ships I’ve worked on, where this has been the case. It is, I suppose, because I am absent from the earth in any meaningful sense for 40 plus days, that I run the risk of missing out on something significant, and perhaps that I mourn the possibilities of what could be were I present. Silly really, considering I seldom accomplish even a third of what I intend, when returning to the city.
There is a freedom in going to sea but there’s a feeling of helplessness as one is often unable to attend social events or shows and of course it is impossible to drop everything and run to the aid of a friend or family member should that be required. The sense of impending doom has faded over the years (now I just tend to grow distant and ill-tempered) but I have seen the blood drain from the faces of friends who have received the call to return to a ship they don’t like and there were times when I would so fear receiving the summons myself that it took over my every waking hour and inculcated my sleeping ones with nightmares, effectively ruining my last week home.
On Queen Street I go and buy some new shoes which I don’t really need and after today I will not have opportunity to wear for 40 days, but I do so nonetheless because for the next month and a bit I won’t be able to go to Queen Street and buy new shoes.
I sit on a bench to briefly rest my throbbing big right toe which I broke spectacularly last week in a mis-judged, highspeed tousle on my skateboard with the streetcar tracks at Wilcox and Spadina. Traffic is returning to normal in this Covid era, and sci-fi throngs of masked people hustle by. An abnormally handsome pigeon, with a puffed out white chest and an elegant fan of tail feathers is busy me-too-ing the fuck out of a prospective paramour at my feet. It has been my experience that the avian species are not versed in the subtleties of courtship, though given my lack of female companionship it would seem that, for different reasons, I am not either. After the shoes, there’s the pharmacy to stock up on the necessary toiletries I’ll need and then I’ll walk through China Town to take in the chaos and smells of exotic fruits and spices one last time before returning home to Kensington Market and its own unique bustle and bouquet.
In the time of the pandemic when many find themselves short of company, when the outpost of friendship has been pushed back and even abandoned for and by some, I have been lucky to have the neighbours I do and I have spent many hours in the past weeks sat in the kitchen of their 150 year old downtown house. Outside the tall windows a garden grows; tomatoes blush on the vine, artichoke flowers begin to blossom, berries proliferate in bushes and tall trees, linden and elm, wave in the breeze and at a certain hour, cast comforting shadows on the interior walls. Like all the best rooms their kitchen is slightly cluttered, full of books and interesting artifacts. There are paintings on the walls and there is often lively conversation around a large wood island, and best of all animals walk in and out freely. Among them is a collie of the most amiable disposition, an old shaggy black cat who wafts from room to room and sporadically demands affection, sometimes there’s a mastiff who traipses about and who will occasionally raise his enormous head and emit a melancholic ‘woof’ from his slathering jowls. There’s even an orphaned racoon which came to them barely a few weeks old and now gets into everything. She dutifully washes whatever she eats in any liquid handy be it a water bowl or your glass of beer. Around are all the tools of one who knows food and their way around a kitchen. Heavy, cast iron pans sit on the stove and often something delicious is cooking in them. Various waifs and strays have found their way to this hearth and I am so glad to be among their ranks and I’m humbled by the great generosity shown us there.
In my final hours of freedom I leave that warm hub and walk the short distance home. The sky is darkening, and the tall trees that line this city street commune with each other and gently gesticulate before the freshening breeze, their leaves riffling make a sound not unlike rain. I’m a little buzzed from beer and wine and a tasty glass of Pimms, but I do not regret this as tomorrow I’ll be boarding a 20 000 ton wagon. The temperature has dropped for the first time in days. Perhaps there is rain on the way, maybe worse.
I will my miss my friends and their animals. My books. Beer. My skateboard (despite our recent falling out).
In my bed I make the motions of sleep but unsurprisingly it eludes, and instead terrible scenarios play through my head of which I’m often a star player. I can’t tell if the minutes speed by or crawl, but as one condemned, I simply have to lie there and wait for the moment the days first light will creep into my dim room and listen for soft footsteps down the hall and the inevitable dread-jangle of the warden’s keys.
