And I Drew a Map of Canada

The Victoria Bridge in Saskatoon, the day overcast and winter snow moving thick in the air like fog.  In the caf converted from the train station — I saw myself stretch out from my family, the world beckoning me toward it like the colour orange; Buddhist monks chanting inside saffron standing on the rice paddies, green in the hills, of Asia.  The dark wooden bridge groaning beneath the weight of the rental car and the coming of winter, my writing resting against the seat like sunset, beating orange against black vinyl.

In the Victoria station in London Katy reminded me of when we were in Alexandropolis, the small fishing village in the north of Greece, the golden sunrise of beer on the table between us, foam against my teeth and the ocean pounding against the shore.  As the sun fell past the horizon, a golden orb against, all that, cerulean, cobalt, teal — blue, I told her how I navigate my way through the world.  I told her I believe the holiest of footsteps are those on land I have not seen; colours I have only imagined, the thickness of the blues of Greece coating my tongue like marmalade, acrid, sticky, stringy, and then the last breath — sweet.

When she and I left London for Amsterdam in the stiff, striped orange bus seats with no leg-room, I carried with us three apples, one satsuma and a mango in my green canvas bag.  Chris sat across from us, just released from 18 months in prison in India for possession of marijuana.  He became a strange guide through Amsterdam.  The morning sun barely rising as we left the station, the Netherlands orange flag waving in the cold wind, Chris guiding us through the canals to the pensione where they served breakfast until 9:00.  The blankets rough wool against my skin and I dreamt of the small bakery in Fernwood with the sugar cookies cut-out in stars and sprinkled with orange.  Woke in Amsterdam, smoke stacks billowing out the window through the winter air, Katy still sleeping against the afternoon and I felt myself falling toward the world, Atlas holding both the globe and I in his hands and I felt his thumb against my hip, his breath against my ear.

Over the Atlantic Ocean I drew a map of Canada and peeled Christmas oranges, which dripped against the ink and ran Canada blue.  Katy slept as we passed over Greenland, the arctic, stretch of snow, ice and water.  I drove east from Vancouver over the Coquihalla past the spring blossoms blooming yellow in the Nicola Valley, and found him in the city, where two rivers meet, on the corner of Victoria and Third Avenue.  I pressed my hands against his face and whispered, I missed you.  When he left me in the autumn for the Saint Lawrence River, the flat-spin of shopping malls, the industrial cities of eastern Canada I swore I wouldnt think of him again, but he comes at me, and his emails and packages burn against me, the orange glow, the sun on the horizon; my hands gripping the steering wheel; my heart when it is drained of everything. 

© Heather Simeney MacLeod