Travelogue: Halifax – Fin

We were out on the sidewalk talking about serious things. I made a few dear and unforgettable friends on this trip. I looked each one of them in the eye and offered my friendship to each one of them. I don’t want Nick, Sarah, or Amanda to fade into people I had a moment with that time I was in Halifax. These are amazing, beautiful, and precious people to me. Sunday Soul: Halifax had gone well. It was fun and got silly. I rarely have guests in my most intimate musical expression. I almost never play anything approaching Drum and Bass. James and I found the queen in me and I broke out a little extra set of late 80s commercial house and we vogued and laughed. The night had gone beautifully. But there I was on the sidewalk and I noticed the sky had shifted from it’s india ink and starless blackness to something pure and blue. One moment there was no sky, and the next it was shocked with a streak of pink, and blue lit up above us.

“Fuck.” I said. We got up and booked into the house. “I’m going to miss my flight.” Inside I didn’t mind. I didn’t want to leave anyway. I wasn’t looking forward to the three stop flight home, so it didn’t feel like a crisis to me. I called the airline and they advised me that there were a lot of flights out today, each with many open seats, and for $50 my flight could be changed without hassle. The hassle was that I needed to actually go to the airport to change it for that price. If I wanted to do it over the phone I needed to pay the fare difference.

So I went upstairs and asked permission to use the car, gave Sarah a warm and sweaty hug, and Amanda and I drove to the Halifax airport where a nice man (whom I thought was Australian, but Amanda thought was Irish) kindly changed my tickets to non-stops through Toronto and he gave me exit row seats at the window. Pleased we dragged ourselves back to the car and drove into town. We stopped at Tim Horton’s for disgusting breakfast sandwiches, ate, and crashed.

I sat on the couch in the living room listening to Nick play music on the turntables. What world is this where good people own homes, celebrate life, dance, and live with a kind of ease and joy which I don’t see or hear about in my day to day life in San Francisco? Is this why I have felt the urge to leave here all my life? Am I home? what is this?

I woke up several hours later to much louder music. Rain was pounding against the windows, drops of water were falling from the ceiling. Commotion was all around me, buckets, pots and pans were being placed to collect the water, towels were being used to wipe the floor. I stood up and stepped away from the activity. It was really raining hard.

I sat back down on the couch and rubbed my neck. Ouch. then I woke up again and the sun was blazing in through the windows. Was it a dream? No. The pots and pans were still placed around the room. It was time to go.

We went to a restaurant and ate breakfast and then drove to the airport. I hugged Ryan, Nick, Amanda, Mark and Sarah good bye. I hated to see the tears in Sarah’s eyes. I didn’t want to go either. But I assured her I would see her in ten minutes on facebook so it was going to be just fine. I swept through security, boarded the plane, and fell asleep before it took off.

In Toronto I went back out to the curb and smoked. I sipped an espresso and felt the breeze against my face again and had a really good cry. I have a lot on my mind right now, but I’ll spare you. My body was so sore from dancing, good use, sleeping half propped up on a little Nova Scotian couch, and in those dreary Air Canada low backed seats. It felt good. I stood up and loaded up my carry on bags and went into Customs. You clear US Customs in Canada before you leave. the arrangement is odd. In theory once you enter the cordoned off area you are no longer in Canada, legally you are on US ground. The line was long, the processing went slowly. I turned around and looked at the long line of people behind me as I got to the front. A middle eastern man with a black frock and a bright silver cross dangling at his waist, a pear shaped woman eating a snack, a man in what looked like a purple hockey jersey was biting his nails… I looked at the curling grey hairs sprouting out of his collar and smiled… these are my people, my country, and each and every one of them is unique and beautiful, bizarre in her own way. The young man in the Robber Barron’s military t-shirt snapped his epaulette back into place and looked me up and down. I smiled, and he raised his chin to me. I grinned and he looked away.

Customs itself was uneventful. Stamp, stamp and I was back in the US version of the terminal. I boarded the plane and read my book feverishly until we landed on the ground at ten pm pacific time. Home. Home, safe and sound.