Hummingbird up the nose

I had a dream about a hummingbird. We were talking, our faces really close. And the hummingbird flew up between and hovered close to my lips. I held my breath so as not to disturb its flight and could almost feel its wings flutter against my chin. Were we still looking at each other? I can’t remember. The bird was too close and at an odd angle for me to view it. It was suspended on the words I had just said, the ones that didn’t reach you before this little beast interrupted them. What had I said?

And then the damn thing flew up my nose. This was my dream. A hummingbird up the nose. I tried to pull it out and plucked off its wings by accident. A hummingbird in the nose is no small accident to deal with, I tell you.

Perhaps I’ll get out a book on dream mythology today and check out hummingbirds and olfactory phenomenon. After all, I need a book. I left two books back in Sault Ste Marie. I left a journal at Mitzi’s Sister on Tuesday. I seem to be traveling Ontario, singing songs and shedding words left and right. Fortunately, I only travel in circles and have arranged to collect all the words and books on my way home.

Last night was Mitzi’s Sister. Felt right at home when I saw Sean behind the bar wearing a shirt saying “Headstrong Saskatchewan.” Ah ha, AA Sound System was here.

Minutes before hitting the stage Don Kerr and Doug Friesen sauntered in carrying instruments and looking ready to play. We had just enough time to figure out a set and grab a beer. Dave Celia, who also played on my album, showed up just in time to negotiate with the guitar player from Whoa Nellie. He offered up his gear for the set and we had a guitar player. I can’t describe how good it felt to play with these guys again, jamming and feeling our way through the songs. Midway through the first song Michael Holt, who arranged strings on my album this summer, stepped up to the piano and we had a five piece. It felt amazing.

Day two: Thunder Bay baby!

A brilliant beginning to the day—I get to have breakfast at a historic Winnipeg site with Keri, Devin, and their new baby Hazel. It’s toast, eggs and coffee at Salisbury’s, a franchised greasy-spoon diner of great renown in Winnipeg and owned in part by Burton Cummings no less (or so I’m told).

The drive begins beautifully. The snow is crisp and the sun is shining as I enter a rockier terrain with trees that break up the monotony of the landscape. It’s simply beautiful. Amid the preparations to leave and the hectic schedule at home, it’s blissful to just be in this space, appreciating one’s surroundings and witnessing an unfamiliar nature. The stillness and serenity is magnificent. It makes me wonder, can one really commune with nature while busting through it on a single-laned highway at 140km/hr? Why not?

It turns out that the CD skipping of yesterday was not an isolated incident. I’m relying mostly on the stereo—new CDs, books on tape, etc—to make the drive from Saskatoon to Quebec tolerable, interesting, possible! With about 10,000 more km to log on this journey, it’s more than a little disturbing to hear the stereo crapping out. . . at day TWO. The skipping becomes more frequent. Then the CD simply pauses, breaking up the narrative flow of the current book, Disobedience by Jane Hamilton. The story resumes, skips, pauses.

I tolerate this for awhile, engrossed in the story and desperate for distraction. But when the voices actually begin distorting, obscured by a strange static, I give up and turn off the stereo altogether. The timing is perfect.

The sun just inhaled her last ray and ducked beyond the horizon. The sky is clear and dark, and the moon is brilliant, making the snow in the ditches glow. I needed silence to appreciate this moment: the quiet, the dark, the moon, the sky, the night. I slip in behind a semi and let him watch for deer and moose as I relax into a steady, unhurried pace. Looking in my rearview mirror, I see nothing but blackness and the faint glow of my own tail lights.

I used to be scared of the dark. When I was really little, I had an ice-cream cone shaped night light that plugged into the wall, and I would stare at it as I drifted off to sleep. Why was I scared of the dark? What are children really scared of when they say they’re scared of the dark? I remember waking up in the middle of the night once, and the power was out. Without my ice cream cone beacon ensuring my safety, I panicked. I clearly remember crying out, standing on my bed, pressing my face to the window and looking into the streets, gasping for light as if drowning in dark.

A cigarette butt flies out the window of the semi in front of me, sending a spray of bright red sparks up from the pavement. No need to gasp for light here.

I arrive in Thunder Bay and make my way to Willa and Lloyd’s hostel, nestled in the tree-lined Lakeshore Drive just outside of town. The house is a bizarre bungalow, with living rooms, bedrooms, and bathrooms that seem to grow in and out of each other, spreading out along a long horizontal, unpredictable path. As Willa ushers me through the hostel, the nostalgia is overwhelming—each room reminds me of the home my Ukrainian grandparents lived in when I was just a kid. Same laundry basket. Same thin wood door with pegs on the back where my grandma hung a huge assortment of beads. To a young girl, these beads were nothing short of magical in their brilliance and quantity and I loved the way they would clang against the door when it was moved. As Willa and I weave through the hostel, I tell myself to call my grandparents later but notice that it’s too late.

Instead I call my lover, check on things back in Saskatoon, listen to the voices I need to hear before drifting off to sleep tonight.

Day one of the tour: Winnipeg!

I look at the amount of gear I’m taking on the road and am appalled. True enough, I’ll be on the road for a month, but do I really need all this stuff? Two guitars, amp, sound system, mics, stands, cables, clothes, merch, etc. Four trips to the car.

As a child, I would listen to the teasing my mother endured for the amount of luggage she took on trips—suitcases awkwardly large and impossibly heavy. When I started traveling, my notions of independence and mobility demanded a different approach: pack light and nothing more than you can carry. So I’m a little disappointed at the sheer volume of gear that will go into this tour. Alas, it’s all for the sake of the show. I find spaces and spots for everything and organize the car so it’s my perfect, personal little niche for the month. Groovy. Time for a road trip.

I’ve got three days of driving out east before my shows begin and have brought along the perfect antidote for fatigue: books on tape. Just outside of Regina, I begin my first book the Rules of Engagement. The CD is a CBC production, so I’m hopeful about the story and performance. The story unfolds, successfully keeping me enthralled, until I begin to get a bit groggy. Just when my mind is beginning to wander, the CD player reveals an unfortunate tendency to skip, and I am jolted to my senses by the freaky repetition of one word: “die, die, die, die, die…”

The story continues. Fortunately, I’m not superstitious. Actually, that’s not true. I am superstitious. It’s just that I’m selectively superstitious and usually just pay attention to coincidences that predict my good fortune. The rest of it—well, I just don’t have time for.

By the end of the day, I am nearing Winnipeg and entering winter, which is at first unsettling and then oddly reassuring. The landscape is all covered in snow. I love winter at sunset, when the white covered world is subdued into blue shadows. I’m listening to the stereo, the whirring of traffic, the sound of wind rushing over my car. But already I can hear the sound of winter—the silence and stillness that you only get from a city muted and muffled by snow.

Finally, I’m entering Winnipeg. I’m trailing a pickup truck with a bumper sticker revealing vital statistics about the city’s population. Did you know that Manitoba is the slurpee drinking capital of the world? Yes, the WORLD! Slurp-toba, suggests the sticker.