Jul 6, 2009

manitoulin, day 3



Sunday, July 5, 2009

Here we are now, sitting in the chilled trailer ground before 7. The father, daughter and son are all in their beds, grouped on the one side of this mobile contraption, myself in front of the angular heater that is humming modestly. I find that whenever I do any sort of camping, I feel very damp come time to sleep. I have not wet myself, there’s just something about the combination of thick, plaid pajama pants, several thin blankets and the cold, blunt air. I go to sleep damp and wake up damp. I wake up damp at 5:30, and then again an hour later to write. I contemplate being the first guest up and active again, so I can hush this pit in my stomach, this thing titled hunger. I’d also make a tea with that nice loon mug I met. Maybe I will bring my own tea in, discretely, because theirs isn’t that delightful. Maybe. Yes, I feel obligated, and it feels necessary to be indoors on a frosted Sunday morning as such. Perhaps I’ll transport.


The clocks are still taking turn in their clicking, and this tea is still new to me. It’s still a little before 8 and I don’t feel as bad keying my laptop because the sleeping astronaut has already showered and shut the hydraulic front door by letting it free as opposed to ensuring it made no sound by closing it closely, at miniature speeds. This is what I do until someone else does it first. I’d feel like I had too much control and indifference to other people’s resting. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not calling the astronaut cocky, I would just feel like an extremely pompous guest had I had been the one to loosely release this hydraulic door first. I even felt bad when the timed coffee maker turned on at 7:22 again, because the astronaut was sleeping, again, in the living room on the pullout. I think he thought it was me who did this and woke him up. He pours himself a glass of Brita’d water, shuts the fridge, sips, breaths, sips, sets the cup down, and turns on the television after struggling to find the remote control, so he lets Ben in, and himself out. I feel a little like a bystander, a wallflower, watching him fold blankets and tame the dog like this. Ever since yesterday afternoon, I could tell that he’d make an amazing father, one like he currently has. Maybe he will change his name too, or maybe he already has. Look at him sweeping and shooing the puppy dog and folding in the couch. Very reliable, this astronaut. Very responsible.


The daughter enters and questions the broom and dustbin, asks if the son would like to finish sweeping, and he apologizes that it was in her way. She goes to the ladies room. The father enters. In under ten minutes, this area has updated from motionless to active, very. Ben wiggles and stomps and walks under the astronaut’s limp, hanging hand to receive a subconscious pet. A sport’s program comes on the TV, and allegedly, a man named Steve McNair has died at the age of 36, the Tennessee Titans’ quarterback, number 9. The father farts.



The daughter realizes that she’s been coming to this cottage before she had her first birthday, longer than she’s been at her own house. I sit in wonder, trying to choose a spot somewhat like hers, a spot that I've been forever going and coming to and from, a place that feels like that friend you see every year, turned every other year, but still manage to laugh your asses off with throughout the early hours, about things you laughed about when you were ten. Your humour matures, as well as your bodies, but you still insist on sleeping in the same bed, despite both your parents requests, because you may accidentally conceive a baby, right? Kids...


Bubbles.





(More) Pretty things.


I am now diagonal along one of the beds in the trailer, all alone. The lighting and overall personality of this trailer at this time is simply indescribable, so I will make and include a video of a couple passing seconds. I feel a sun burn forming on the surface, and then some of my skin. I feel chapped and cracky. There are drying t-shirts and towels and shorts and bathing suits hanging on the banister from previous mischievous adventures down by the bay where the watermelon grows. The smoke of the happy barbecue passes my view, in between the banister and the minutely unzipped window of this trailer, and it smells like Gods and Goddesses and the most perfect memory you can think of injected up my nose, passing through my canals, making my brain insane.




1 comment:

  1. I am enjoying these blogs....makes me feel like im there...

    ReplyDelete