Reality bites … packing my aimless travelling life away – all of the thoughts and dreams and memories and experiences and ill-advised fashion and unsuitable weatherproof gear.
Three months spent wandering around Canada; words and pictures is what remains.
As well as a gratefulness to the whole goddamn country, the second-largest in the world, for having me and for entertaining me … and for providing the beer.
My last excursion is from downtown Vancouver, taking a ride up to Stanley Park for a walk around the edge.
Looking back to the boat sheds and the cityscape.
I divert over to the Sky Chief Pole – a recognition of the art and ceremonies of the first nations people, before the onslaught of another culture arrived.
Surrounding totem poles back the Sky Chief up.
It’s a culture alive, inside of us all … even if it might be well hidden sometimes / frequently.
The monotone culture through the trees and over the water is one built on capitalism.
Folk doing shady deals in ashen skyscrapers – modern monuments which tell their own stories – draining creativity, bleaching colour from the landscape.
Further around the water, seaplanes coming and going under pregnant skies.
By 11am I’m checking out for one last time. If only I could get out of the goddamn underground parking lot.
Eventually I’m allowed out by the binmen, and take the highway to the airport, to join a long queue for rental returns.
Half an hour later, solemnly dragging my effects along the broken-down travelator and into the terminal.
It’s all I can do to take a beer at the bar … my last on Canadian soil.
The Manchester-bound plane leaves on time, and I glance out to the flat landscape and the mountains rising up beyond the city limits.
In a densely-populated city, I can lose myself, yet in a crowded plane I’m ill at ease – but then, I used to spend so much time alone.
As the plane flies over the assembled peaks down below, a messy landscape, I raise a plastic glass …
… I can still see an outside world.
An Outside World 