This Blog Is Going Smash

The Great Road Trip of 2011 began how most road trips begin: early.

At 5 am on December 28, me, my husband, and his father piled into a silver Caravan, left the sleepy suburb of Langley, BC, and started out towards Toronto.  We had over 4,300 km to cover in just 3 1/2 days.

To reach our target destinations each day, we had very little time to stop. We ate fast food, slept whenever possible (which wasn’t often), and spent a lot of time gazing out the window.

You might think that after many hours on the road the drive would become monotonous, but the trip was not even slightly boring.

We drove through 8 states on the way to Toronto (Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan), half of which I had never visited. Here are a few of my favourite scenes:

> The windmills of Washington: I don’t know what it is about windmills, exactly — they’ve just got a kind of mechanical elegance that I love.

> Montana, generally: We entered the state via the snowy Rockies, which gradually levelled out into grassy foothills, mesas, and mounds. No two hills are the same. Every bump has its own themes and variations: size, plants, colours, contours.

> The frozen emptiness that is North Dakota: Desolation has never looked so lovely.

> Listening to Sufjan Stevens’ “Chicago” while driving through Chicago: It was glorious.

-Kristin

On Monday I moved to Burns Lake. It’s cold and snowy and just a little more remote than Vancouver. It’s also a lot smaller than Vancouver, with a whole new small town culture. When I was struggling to push my loaded cart of groceries over the bumpy, icy parking lot the other day, a random stranger stepped in to help me. On my first day of work at the local college, I didn’t just get introduced to the people in my department, but had a tour of the whole building and was introduced to every colleague along the way. And at the college staff party last night, I played my first game of curling at the local rink. If these experiences are any indication, I think I’m really going to love my new town.

- Linette

Norwich Cathedral

So, I’m at Starbucks right now. The internet is down at my flat and won’t be back up until tomorrow afternoon and Starbucks in the best option in Norwich as far as free internet goes. (Of course this would happen today, my first day of blogging for This Great Society…)

Going to Starbucks in the UK is like … comfort food — or, I guess, more accurately, comfort drink. Thanks to stringent corporate standards, a Starbucks in Norwich is just like a Starbucks in Vancouver — the decor, the music, and, most importantly, the drinks are basically identical. It’s like a little piece of home — a shot of the familiar among the foreign. (And it’s the only place I can get an egg nog latte, which is a Very Big Deal for me. Yum!)

I moved from Vancouver to Norwich, England, just over a year ago to study philosophy and literature at the University of East Anglia. After fourteen months of living here, Norwich feels very homey. I have learned to navigate the labyrinthine downtown core, settled on my favourite pubs and shops, and picked up various bits of British slang. It’s homey, but not quite home.

Most of time, I don’t feel like a foreigner — the last time I was in London, several people asked me for directions — but my accent gives me away every time. Whenever someone asks me, “Where are you from?” I am reminded that I am not from here.

I am displaced, in both physical space and time. I know it’s kind of cliché to say this, but I just can’t get over how old everything is here. I recently went to the Norwich Cathedral with some friends who were visiting from Canada. Construction on the Cathedral began in 1096, meaning that the church is over 900 years old. It’s hard for me to even comprehend that kind of time. The Cathedral’s timeline is full and fascinating. Walking down the aisle, I found myself wondering what it would have been like to live in Norwich during the peasant’s revolt, the protestant reformation, the German air raids during the second world war.

After fourteen months, Norwich is both foreign and familiar. And while Vancouver may always be home, Norwich is a great place to live.

- Kristin

The passing away of Steve Jobs this week has had me thinking about how Apple has affected my life. And truly, it has. I’m sitting here typing on my MacBook with my iPhone next to me, iTunes playing in the background. My life wouldn’t be quite the same without the ingenuity of Mr. Jobs and his team.

My Apple journey started during my first year of university. A true keener, I joined the team at my university’s newspaper Mars’ Hill as a copy editor, eager to get involved in as many extracurricular activities as possible. Our newspaper office was equipped with four Macs, and I quickly received my first tutorial in navigating the new-to-me format. Unlike many of the activities I first signed up for, the newspaper gig actually stuck, and I found myself spending countless hours in that office over my four years at TWU. Over that time, the ease of using a Mac simply won out over my clunky PC, so when it finally died, I saved up all my pennies and bought myself a MacBook.

I could tell numerous iPod stories. Like the one where I left my first 2 GB silver Nano in the seat pocket on the plane on my way home for Christmas and how my parents are so great that they gifted me a new one. Or the time I gave my friend a used one because I no longer needed it and then she lost it a few months later and was ashamed to tell me, but then she found it again tucked into her car seat months after that.

My relationship with the iPhone began last summer on the shores of Italy. (Seriously, I’m not making this up.) My friend and I were spending the summer backpacking Europe and we’d just met some new friends in Cinque Terre. (If you ever get a chance to hike between the villages there, DO IT.) As we sat on the rocks, dangling our feet over the waves, eating our legit Italian pizza and drinking our 1-euro wine, we got into a discussion about iPhones and how they were revolutionizing Matt and Jaclyn’s travel experience, with their handy travel apps and ability to connect to wi-fi. I immediately became envious. The more we talked about them, the more sure I was that I had to have an iPhone. The day after I got home from Europe, I signed my 3-year contract.

I’m not about to guess where Apple is going to go next or how it is going to continue to infiltrate my life, but I look forward to finding out.

- Linette

Ps. In the spirit of Technology, we’re still looking for submissions for our next issue. Contact us with your technological pitch.

poetry selection from “back at the vines” by linnea mcnally

slick beneath the lisping breath of an oxon morn,
poppy petals, unfurling up against peeled fences
behind a misses and mister’s back lawn; yellow faces
so grateful for God’s great grace to offer yet another day.

i’m here, alone, letting myself into memories of waking
upon this new life, entering into this dampened field
where dust is not bone of yesterday, but
materials for tomorrow, rocks
frayed clay for my hands to feel.

…

lilacs laughing. pages turning. i wrote it all down inside
my heart.

and here they are, this morning, still rolling their shoulders,
berries rubbing out bruises we’d gifted,
that day we left our heavy body
printed against their palms.

they held us as we saw heaven spelled out
in mulch,
in mud,
in all that joined us there,
alive and breathing
on our behalf.

i will say a thank you to them,
for they were good to us,
to you and to me.

This past week, I’ve been roadtripping with my fiancé around the Golden State. Though I’ve lived in the Northwest for years now, I grew up in Sacramento, and love California dearly. We made a point to travel up the 101 to Salinas, the hometown of John Steinbeck and more importantly, the National Steinbeck Center.

I was at the Center two years ago with a certain copy editor friend of mine, but being poor college students, we forfeited the $8 admission fee and just walked around the gift shop. This trip (despite a $3 hike in the price) I was determined to take the tour.

Like every teenage girl, I fell in love with John Steinbeck in 11th grade English class. Our last book of the year was The Grapes of Wrath – one read and I was hooked.

Since Grapes of Wrath, I have been slowly working my way through the Steinbeck canon. I love his stories that connect people to the land and humanize the downtrodden. They play into my fascination with my Okie grandmother and affinity for California agriculture.

The museum left me loving Steinbeck – and California – even more. They had Doc’s jarred sea creatures from Cannery Row and the real, live Rocinante, in which Steinbeck traveled across America with his poodle Charley.

One thing that has always drawn me to a novel was an understanding of the place. If a book is set in an area I know already, it’s just that much more likely that I’ll fall in love with it. The Grapes of Wrath (and many other Steinbeck tales) takes place all over California. An understanding of a place feels like I better understand myself. It just felt right to make a visit to Steinbeck a part of my visit to home.

Next on the roadtrip reading list: Pastures of Heaven, a story collection set in the Salinas valley.

What authors connect you to places you love?

- Lauren

I dream of the coast.

I am constantly tracing longitudes. The weekly ritual of north/south journeys.
I am drawn to the pull of the ocean. Finding peace in the dividing line between sea and sky.

- Joel

Ferry. Comox farmers market. Venison jerky. Searing sun. Miracle Beach. Picnic extraordinaire. Coombs. Goats on roof. Little Qualicum curd. Morningstar Farm. Jersey calves and four day old lambs. Ice Fog. Trout. Steak. Pinot Noir. Do-or-die Monopoly. Inevitable bankruptcy. Laser cats and leaky blow-up mattress. Sesame Street waffles. Globe and Mail Style section. Boardwalk. Maple walnut cones. Blackberry picking. Painting lesson. Morels and Sauv Blanc. Ferry.

- Laura

Ramadan has come upon us – that holy month in the Muslim calendar when one must fast during the day and feast during the night. In my neighbourhood, many of the people around me have chosen to fast. Some of the local restaurants have closed, the old men don’t drink tea like they normally do, and people seem to live at a slightly slower pace.

However, when the sun begins to dip in the sky, my neighbourhood comes to life. My first clue that things are about to change is the line of men wrapping around the corner at the the local bread shop, trying to purchase their sesame-sprinkled flat breads before the loaf cools or the sun drops. The restaurants begin setting out dish after dish of their iftar meals and the family who runs the sweet shop sells the last of the baklava while watching the countdown on the evening television.

And then, the call to prayer overwhelms the cooled evening air. All goes silent for a moment. I no longer hear the boys kicking the soccer ball underneath my window or the old men rolling the dice for the backgammon board – only tinkling melody of knife against a plate, a spoon against a bowl.

My husband and I have discussed what these evenings might be like – especially the iftar meal. I love the imagined collision of family and food – one that always produces unknown results. Will your senile grandmother clap yet again at the sight of dates on the table? Will your husband be home in time with the bread? It’s a brimming mystery that is especially sharpened when you are going sixteen hours without food.

The festivities seem to reach deep into the evening. And then, at 3am, the streets thunder with drummers awakening everyone to the morning meal. I have found myself standing at my living room window looking out on the other women looking out on the street. Never have I had such company in the middle of the night.

Jill