Oh my.

Rowing has taken over my life.

Practices at 6 in the morning six days a week leave little time for procrastinating. I try to get homework done in the mornings after practice as much as possible over my second breakfast of the day, and then by the time I get home from school in the late afternoon and wind down, it’s almost bedtime.

I learned a few months ago that rowing is all about bruises and open wounds. Aches and pains would be on the list too, but there’s a lot of satisfaction that comes from it. Today on the water, despite the dull pain in my hand as another blister formed and the exhaustion that began to set in somewhere around the eighth kilometre, I began to appreciate the boat gliding over the water. Then I remembered that I was supposed to be stroking and got my ass back in gear, but you get the point. Those occasional strokes where we get it together enough that all the oars clunk together, splash in unison as they drop into the water, and then glide silently over the water, are magic.

Life outside of that goes on. People to see, things to do. Every once in a while I touch a text file with a name reminding me of something to write about here, but rarely get around to actually writing anything in it. Whether I will even remember what those sometimes cryptic filenames mean when I try to write is a complete mystery. Something about existentialism perhaps?

Still, tomorrow brings my first real regatta. A race of several kilometres known for the spectacular crashes novice boats make in its narrow passageways and sharp turns. Should be fun. If I’m still in one piece when I get back there might be another post out of it, but no guarantees.

You gotta love the respect Montreal drivers have for the rules of the road, like obeying these no-parking signs outside my apartment building.

They were standing up in a row at one point, defending some territory for the city workers due to fix some water pipes and put in a new sidewalk the next morning. So much for that. Apparently there are more important things.

Five years and one month ago, a good friend of mine gave me a small lucky charm to keep in my wallet during an upcomming trip. She said she knew going away gifts were always hard to deal with, but this was small and would hopefully help me along my way. Its style reminded me of her and her family, and by association it reminded me of home, so I was more than happy to keep it tucked away on my person.

It’s been in my wallet everyday for over five years. Over the years there had been a few times when I felt like I really was lucky, narrowly avoiding a clash with authority or pulling off a difficult challenge, and on each of these occasions the next time I opened my wallet the little charm fell out. Squirrelled away in a zippered pocket I never open, it was not in the habbit of doing this. Probably only four or five times this happened in as many years, and each time after some trying time in my life. It must, I thought, just need a break for a minute.

Last night I finished a week of tryouts to get on my university’s rowing crew. A series of challenges to test my endurance and general fitness. This morning I found out that I made the team. Now of course I know that making the cut had more to do with my own determination and force (and that there were almost as many spots available as people trying out) than any lucky charm, but at about 7:00 when the team list was posted, as I was getting ready to step out the door to go check it, I opened my wallet to check for my student ID and with a quiet tinkling, the charm fell to the floor. Ready for another break.

Unfortunately this time the charm seems to really have outdone itself and has fallen apart into two pieces. The four leaf clover has fallen off its stem, and the horseshoe stands alone. Two lucky charms for the price of one, perhaps? Or has five years been enough for it? Has the lucky run out? I’m going to keep it in my wallet nonetheless, just in case.

So I walked past 3525 rue Aylmer today…

When you’re hungry as can be
Or when you’re starved for company
It’s nice to visit friends and see lights are on inside
If you’re sick or if you’re well
Or bursting with some news to tell
All you have to do is yell, the door is open wide

You know you are welcome in our home
I, you, we are sharing and not alone

When you’re tired of where you’re at
Or you’d love to have a chat
It’s nice to know the welcome mat will never be worn through
Sharing’s dandy and it’s grand
Besides it sure can come in handy
When you know that understanding’s waiting there for you

You know you are welcome in our home
I, you, we are sharing and not alone
You know you are welcome in our home
I, you, we are sharing and not alone

– from Fraggle Rock

True story. I used to have that here, but with most everybody off to other things there’s not really anybody I can visit just when I’m tired of where I’m at or would love to have a chat. Miss you guys.

I don’t know how I did it, and anybody who knows me isn’t likely to believe it, but I’ve turned my sleep schedule on its head. Up at 5:00 or 5:30 in the morning the last few days and to sleep by about 21:00. Class doesn’t even start for another 45 minutes and already I feel like I’ve had a very productive day.

Yesterday I went exploring. Jumped on the first metro of the morning eastward bound and went to the Olympic Basin on Île Notre Dame. I was still underground when the sun rose, but it was a nice view nonetheless.

There were exactly three rowers on the water, arriving just at the same time I did. I sat in the stands and watched them go past until they were out of sight at the other end of this overblown swimming pool.

It somehow seemed much smaller than the course in Coal Harbour that I’m used to. Free of other traffic and turns and scenery and anything interesting whatsoever. Chances were, by the time you hit the 500m mark at the Vancouver Rowing Club, you had navigated past a yatch or two and avoided getting yourself run over by the Huckleberry Finn style paddlewheeler. At the Olympic Basin, when you hit 500m all that that’s happened is that you’ve rowed 500m. I suppose it has its advantages.

This morning at 5:30 I was out the door running up Mont Royal. Or at least I tried. I had big ambitions of running about 10km, my course all laid out, but it turns out running uphill is hard. Big surprise. But run I did, as far as the lookout at the Chalet, where I saw the sun break over the distant hills. Montreal has a much bigger sky than Vancouver. There was no camera on hand this time to catch the sight, though. Maybe tomorrow morning.

It had all the elements of that quintessential bad flight—crying baby across the aisle to my left, woman with tiny bladder getting up every twenty minutes on the right, and crazy man behind me kicking my seat and deciding my armrest was actually his footrest—but it went surprisingly well. In fact the only thing that really annoyed me is that I still didn’t get to see the end of my second movie. If only I hadn’t watched that episode of Corner Gas I had already seen at the beginning of the flight… oh, the ups and downs of the personal entertainment unit.

Waking up in Montreal today I felt a bit like a mother coming home from just dropping off her youngest at the university dorm. In many ways this is an empty city for me now, all my best friends having flown off to something new. Even my apartment feels distant, full of someone else’s stuff from the summer. The soulful flugelhorn singing across the road in the music building isn’t particularly uplifting in this train of thought.

Despite the great times I had in Vancouver—I have, for example, a small teddy bear from our first place finish at the regatta in June sitting on my television set, and a t-shirt in my closet that makes me smile every time I think of it and the memories it represents—by the time I was on the plane it already felt like it never happened. The same way, I guess, that Nagasaki faded away when I landed in North America four years ago, or the way Montreal didn’t exist while I was in Vancouver.

Yet somehow, though these places ceast to exist when I leave, home is always where I’m not. When I’m in New Brunswick for Christmas, when I say “home” I mean Montreal. When in Vancouver, home was New Brunswick. And now, for a while at least, home means Vancouver.

I went for a walk today and the streets of Montreal felt nothing but grey and urban. Not my best colours, but ones I must live with for another eight months. I can deal with that. Just a blip in time until the next plane, until I’m off to whatever city accepts me, and Montreal might be called home again.