Signal Strength

by Omwisseling

I have been seized of late by a painful, struggling nostalgia. Trying to shuffle my memories back to a time when my father was happy, and well. When I knew solidly and exactly what I was doing, where I was going, what I wanted. I have had to go unexpectedly far.

My father never took a sick day, and was eternally busy. I saw him mostly at the occasional supper, and he was there after most of my dancing performances. Except for summer.

Oh, summer. No matter where we were, it was always back to Canada for a few precious weeks every summer, to the cottage that they built by hand and that is unfinished to this day. The hours in the car, the long boat trip to the island (often on a moonbeam, the only ones on the water), hauling everything up from the dock to the house by wheelbarrow load while the dog waded in to his chest to drink and drink and drink.

The aurora borealis and the laughing of loons in the darkness, leopard frogs and long, lean kayaks, the rope swing and strawberry patch, treehouse and brown bats. All the cottage clichés, we had those. The parental views on technology, however, were a bit different from those of anyone else I knew. There was a washing machine and a dryer. A marine railroad for the docks, a trash compactor and beautiful, ancient General Electric stove. Two ovens, and a huge warming drawer--it hulked like a benevolent dinosaur in the kitchen. Huge fry-ups issued forth from that warming drawer. Pancakes, fried tomatoes, peameal bacon and glass dishes of scrambled eggs drifted to the table each day. Tangible evidence of my father's care that were so rarely elsewhere present.

Eventually, there was even a shower to go with the toilet. But there was no television, no modern tapedeck stereo. There was a silver and "wood"-paneled 8-track with radio. There were shelves of tapes, but I don't remember ever listening to one. The first person up in the morning would press the square button to bring the dial alive in glowing green.

The pointer would always be set to the CBC. That cycle of programs delineated my day. Peter Gzowski with This Country In The Morning (later to become Morningside), Jay Ingram on Quirks and Quarks, the Vinyl Café on lazy weekend afternoons. Every day the 13h time check by the atomic clock, prompting running feet to yell "TIME CHECK" out the door to wherever my father might have been at the time. A still morning with my father and Peter's interviews through the screen door, spitting cherry pits over the deck rail, a naughty indulgence that could last only until my mother inevitably smelt the coffee and came downstairs. To lie on the deck, listening to a new artist, autistic author, cooking suggestion while I messed about with paints or watched the hummingbirds. Trying to keep from nodding off during Ideas, to listen to what the grown ups were talking about at their party, unaware that I was nestled under the table.

Sitting at that same huge, well-loved pine table turned golden by the sun that came through those windows all day, making lists as the colours first started to change on the trees. This was, I suppose, a yearly ritual for my parents. The last Sunday of each year's stay. I sat on my knees in my father's chair at one end, my sister at the other, flipping earnestly through the Eaton's catalogue to figure out what we might need for the school year (within the budget allotted). A separate sheet, tallying the projected endless pairs of ballet slippers, rosin, leotards, costumes, Cuban-heeled character shoes and character skirts had to be done first (speed skates, catcher and goalie equipment for my sister). Somehow, we never caught on that, duh, there were no Eaton's to be had where we were going back to, and nevermind that, we wore uniforms to school. Every year it was still exciting. Something about fresh paper and a calculator, maybe? I knew what I was doing, I would be the only ballerina/pilot I knew. I would have a BSc, and work for a coroner. I would understand even the smallest bits and pieces of the constant parade of funerals that had always been part of my life. Basic Black, with Arthur Black, was always on then. Bringing my first boyfriend with us one year. He was helpful and friendly, but when my father cleaned him out one evening at euchre, I knew he did not like him. Barbara Budd on Crosscountry Checkup was in the background.

It was to that cycle of radio that I learned to wire an outlet, use the table saw, fix a dishwasher and find a plumbing leak. How to barbeque and drink beer and how to welcome friends. Somehow the orange carpet and mismatched couches, unfinished drywalling never mattered. Random piles of people, tired post-waterskiing and -swimming spread over every available surface, listening and laughing as Stuart McLean regaled us with more tales from the lives of Dave & Morley.

Those were the sounds that brought with them a man different from the harried, blue-blazered, be-briefcased man who rocketed past me in the mornings to go away, the man who could not praise me to my face but would proudly bring me to stand next to him if there were colleagues about, his precocious child, the next Prime Minister. I wish I had understood then. I wish I had known seven years ago that it would be my last chance, the last time I saw that man who came so rarely but whom I loved so fiercely. There have been no more trips to the cottage for me, since then. My own travels and explorations, his heavy political engagements have prevented it.

Seeing my father grey, without his seemingly ever-present bombast, OLD, is shattering. I knew I would lose him, have been aware since I was small. This is the penalty of having your children late. I thought I would have more time, have a chance to meet him again. To spit cherry pits, watch the birds, jump into the inky water under the stars, know who he had been before he was the VP. This is, on so many levels, stupid, as we get along so poorly that there would be little hope of this with another two centuries to spare, but no one said grief was rational, nu?

So in my carry-on luggage were stuffed Peter Gzowski's Canadian Living, and two of Stuart McLean's Vinyl Café books. I have downloaded Gzowski In Compilation, and the Vinyl Café. I have laid on the floor of my flat in the sun, tried to bring some brush with that time back. Laughing at short stories I could never have properly understood when I was that small. Shedding a few tears anew of Peter Gzowski's death. Weeping at the failure of my attempt while I wait in that anxious grey netherworld for that phone call.

The Author

Currently doing the dance of the generations less than gracefully in Amsterdam, NL.