2002-12-21 - 11:51 p.m.

Dear Diary,

Wow. Just wow. It was the trip from heaven and hell all rolled into one, and now I'm just overwhelmed with relief and excitement from being home.

I think I could easily write for an hour straight and capture only half of the things I thought of during the trip that I want to remember. It's times like this that I wish I could keep all the things that are floating around in my head and pack them carefully in a steam trunk of memories to be unwrapped and lovingly examined 20 years from now. When they invent a thought recorder that plugs into your brain and records a day's worth of memories on a little permanent chip then I'll be happy I guess.

One of the strangest things about coming home is seeing how my mom handles the kids. I was a bit shocked when my younger brother wouldn't obey and she grabbed him by the arms to "talk sense" to him. It reminded me so much of the dream I had where I was in a car with 3 kids and one of them wasn't listening to me so I manhandled him, gently mind, but still using my size and strength as a tool in exacting the desired behaviour out of another individual. I remember how sickened I was at myself when I remembered my behaviour in this dream the next morning.

On a completely different note, I'm extremely glad to see my dad again and realize just how much I'm like him and how much I'm glad I had him to shape me as a person. It's something that I've struggled with for a long time now and it's nice to be starting to get some resolution to this long-standing source of inner conflict.

My sister has grown up so much. It was a shock to see how her features have changed and how her personality has come along. I can't wait to get a handle on what sort of person she's going to be and watch her become that person. That's the part of Kris' life that I feel like I'll be missing out on the most. Who knows, though? I might just get a chance to be a part of that after all. "not likely". I hope not.

So.. now that I've recorded the important thoughts of the last few hours, time to tackle the previous 40. And this time I'll go in chronological order instead of backward.

Oh god.. I just remembered how much of my trip happened even before I got into the car to come down. I guess I want to just ramble about it. Possibly it's all I'm capable of at this time.

Packing for the trip was stressful to say the least. I was simmering at a constant near-panic-attack level for a few days leading up to actually driving down here. The impossibility of doing everything that needed doing and actually getting myself down here loomed large every time I walked into the crowded living room piled with boxes and junk.

Wow.. I just remembered lugging all those boxes into the garbage shed. Everything is such a blur.

First I sorted things and made a few piles of obvious classes of stuff in the living room. I packed a few boxes that started the ball rolling and got those mailed off about a week before I left. The rest of the work was kind of delayed by my antipathy towards any kind of labour while I was on vacation. I did sort through all my things and lay everything out a day ahead of time which really helped. Aside from that I spent a lot of time and energy planning things in my head before I actually did them which counts as work.

The last day before I left I finished separating all my things into bring, mail and discard. The discard pile was quite large and included a lot of things I didn't want to part with. My strategy for approaching these hurdles was to leave the items I didn't want to throw out till later on in the process, knowing that as crunch time approached the stress of needing to get the job done would outweigh the inhibition of losing a part of my life. I left a lot behind.

Mailing stuff was a whole other ordeal. Every trip to the post office was punctuated by a lengthy wait in line as Christmas approached. A cool thing about mailing parcels was that every time I went, the cost of shipping came to almost exactly $50. The grand total was about $180, counting $30 for a mail redirection service.

I'm just flitting around from memory to memory recording little bits, knowing that my half-memories will be sewn back together by this thread when I reread this much later.

On Thursday, I completely packed my car with Stuart's help and finished sorting and packing up the rest of the things I wanted to keep and threw away the stuff I couldn't bring by myself. I was in a huge rush near the end of the day because I had some boxes that needed to be taped up and addressed before being mailed and the post office closed at 9 pm. At 8:45 I suddenly realised I was down to the wire and taped, addressed and loaded the boxes into my already overpacked car in record time. I drove to the post office holding the gear shift in drive because one of the boxes was pushing it up into neutral and got the post office just in time to talk to the last employee before he left. He kindly informed me that the post office opened an hour later than the rest of the store the next morning.

I was supposed to wash the walls and clean the tub and finish up a few loose ends that night but instead I just threw out all the garbage and got the living room 95% empty then ran an errand to visit Sue. I got back from my errand around 12:30 which is of course only slightly insane considering the amount of work I had left to do and the time I was supposed to get up the next day. As things turned out, I couldn't sleep until 4am. My guitar helped a lot though this difficult time :o)

Oh! I had forgotten.. Mark called me at 6:45 am the "next" morning making my max sleep time around 2 hours and 36 minutes if I fell asleep right after the time I looked over at the clock and saw 4:09. I never did answer although I did wake up which kind of surprised me. The alarm ringing at 7:00 was about as painful as jabbing rusty tacks into my eyeballs. The only thing that kept me up and got my mind awake was playing the "morning song" that I had created the night before with my guitar. I figured I would look forward to playing it when I woke up and that I did; reaching blindly for my accoustic and dragging it up onto the bed with me, I stumbled around on the fretboard until I found the magic combination that I had accidentally discovered the night before. I strummed the morning song notes over and over and got over the first hurdle of my trip: staying awake first thing in the morning.

Ok, now it's getting late and I've been writing this for a long time already so I'm switching to point form mode.

-scrubbed tub right after shower at 7:30

-washed walls immediately after.. whole apt till 8:30. Was amazed that the crayon and pen that had been on the wall for over a year just came off with a little effort. A lot easier than the tub, anyway.

-vacuumed the apt, brought last garbage out, put last items in storage.

-packed bedding into last stray boxes as I realised it just wouldn't fit in car.

-was in fastest rush mode throughout all this.

-drove to mail at crack of 9am with as many parcels as would fit in passenger space, mailed said parcels then went back home for last parcels and to finish up last things at apt.

-left a bunch of things undone in apt but oh well, the time had come.

-realized I locked myself out of the car with it running

-finally broke in to car using coat hanger after 8th try

-packed myself and last parcels into car, boxes pressing me on one side, electric guitar squeezed between me and door.. trundled to post office

-mailed off last boxes and went to pick up Sue

-trip absolutely flew from Th. Bay to Rossport, Sue was fantastic trip pal

-had lunch at Dip in Rossport, then ran last errands at Sue's

-had wonderful Trip along north shore, saw many beautiful things, sang the line "going on a road trip..." many times.. thanks Sue, you made my trip :o)

-was way more sad than I expected as I drove away from the land I've lived in for the last 10 years

-didn't cry as I passed through Terrace Bay

-passed a smoking wreck a little past Terrace Bay. This sets the tone for the next third of the trip

-almost at Wawa. The time? 5:50. The light level? Night. The snow level? High.

-Snow, intermittent white-outs, slush, rain and sleet till Sault-St. Marie. Lovely. I really wanted to be driving 50km/h on this trip

-called Sarah from the Sault and let her know I'd be late. Didn't bother buying gas cause I had only gone 350 km on that tank and figured I'd gas up in Blind River.

-beautiful drive out of the Sault.. moonlit road was almost bright as day... "going on a road trip..."

-Blind River? Snow, ice, all gas stations closed

-gas station after gas station closed. Running out of gas. Begin calculating how many kms I could get out of the jerry can of gas in the trunk and if I could make it to Sudbury

-reached Espanola to find 1 good and 1 bad: 24 hr Esso! :o) Road ahead is closed :o(

-called Sarah to let her know I wouldn't make it. Slept in car. Went to bed at 1:00am, 3 hours and 300kms behind schedule.

-slept fitfully throughout the night but woke surprisingly refreshed at 8:00am

-nice drive to Sudbury, again beautifuly scenery

-snowstorm again

-hail. At this point it occurs that I've driven through every possible type of precipitation in the same trip. Rain, fog, sleet, snow and hail. Am I missing any?

-got to Parry Sound and called ahead to Niki's letting her know I was actually on time, this is at 11:30.

-out of Parry Sound.. snow. big storm. following plow at a snail's pace

-finally get out of snow and into civilization around the same time, a few hours north of Toronto.

This is where the trip turned around again as I hit 110km/h with cruise control almost the whole rest of the trip. No more snow or road hazards. Got into Windsor early.. just after 5pm. Found Niki's straight away and had a nice visit. Went for delicious pizza. Easy drive rest of way home. The rest is history.

Now I'm frickin tired. Time to pass out AND HOW!

love, Carl

ps. I wish I had done a time-lapse animation of me packing on the last day I was at the apartment. I fully intend to do some projects with the kids that involve time lapse. Want to do a plant growing. Good night

pps. Just realized I didn't write an entry yesterday the 20th. I may have written something in my day planner... no, I don't remember doing that. I worked on apt first things after waking and didn't stop till I left, even then leaving a bunch of stuff undone. Oh well, my first day missed and at least I had reason.

previous - next