ride to the airport

As I burst into the lobby, delighted to see her sitting reading, rejoiced! “Have I ever got a great plan for the afternoon! It will hardly add any time to the trip to the air port – in fact it’s on the way!” It was a beautiful sunny day in February of Ontario. I think the Arts funding bodies should actually take into account that these sorts of things happen. Life can’t be all punchclock exaction. Ever since our generation of students came up through the pickerel system in the very early (barely begun) 80s, we’ve been relentless in resistable currents of The Plan, with always room for the extra beneficial idea, the open ended expression, the givem whatfor, the astounding expanse of possibility, and so this was the idea: Lunch with the feral cats of downsview, a quick tour of the region near my work, (Afghan delicacies at the Royal Kabob on Finch) and a gaze at the little known region between Downsview Station and Pearson.

Until I saw our old shared house, not the very same one, but so all most what we need: a new Ugly House like the dwelling in Windsor under the Bridge, and there it was, for sale, and looking as abandoned and haunted as this world has to offer! The two Joannes and I looked on in awe. Imagine living there, OMG and it didn’t appear to have been vandalized at all, the foliage was full, the trees looked well, no lawnmowers out this way, bush clippers, …at last! …a properly aged house! We’d be back in the early 1980s going wild, probably a big deep bath that gradually leaks, a kitchen full of living things, and perhaps, no cable! And up to this point, we were still vibing sensorily off the utterly sublime lunch, and the happy sighting of the cats. So we made optimistic mental note, vowed to return, and carried on with the search

All the wildlife, it’s glorious mentality, us and them is a kind of us.

Even then we weren’t too late. We had plenty of time. Both of my travelling companions have family trees gong back as good as forever gets in this country, why should there be any need for delay travelling in Canada? False dichotomies, inane divisions among species, and endless i.d. ordinance barbeque. The true mind is only guessing; and they who validate their pre-emptive guesses over the random life of time on the towns have proven a failure, economies wracked and nations at wars, which is all bombs and fire, worse than useless for everyone. There was still time.

The planet is a snowy straw dream.

And it is good. No Illuminati required. No PNAC, Olympic Snow Import, G7 or 8, no russian hegemony no global news or Monolith Corp, no soldiers and machine guns, no special new engines and devices, all that is lethal disaster. Ideally, intentional disasters will be viewed the same as home invasions, telepathy will link the prosaic and poetic and animal, and all will see war as the same as earthquakes; life will seem plausible to more and more! The spirit world could even come into it.

As Joanne and Joanne and I searched out the front windows for the airport, looking to the sky specially on the crestings on hills, and searching for signs (besides those advertizing the Toll Road) I dreamily troped on days in the past where ‘pertinent information’ informed much of the signage on roads, in the pre megacorporate megasaturation less mega era, even tho yes, we could have premapped a route, once upon a time as the crow flew the airport had been quite conspicuous. We searched and searched. At a gas station they said ‘yes you will see the signs’ so we continued on.  It was a safe ride. And if Joanne A had taken a cab to the airport sure, she’d have made the flight, and billed for the cab fare, so why not cover the flight change fee that was required by our lateness? …is there really a town called Tallulah?

On we searched for the airport. Chasing every downward flying plane, and falling into conversation and merriment, and then noticing odd aspects to where we suddenly were, it was like the whole northwest realm above and around Toronto were a fine fine Spider’s web system that each time one pressed into it with purpose and conviction it’d just zap this way and that and suddenly the whole landscape would re-array itself in some whole new glorious or mall-like super world, while the airport hid. We drove and drove.

Finally, with an almost cosmic thrill we found it, planes everywhere, mascots, signage galore! The tiny tiny train that went by overhead helped confirm how to find (the grimly named) Terminal 3

I wondered if that was the underground aboveground parking lot Ed and I had parked in but no way of ever knowing, level 3 or 4, lost as always, enjoying the day.

The Earth is a great planet.