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Andrew PearsonAndrew Pearson
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Living in: Toronto, Canada Read more Toronto, Canada
  • TravelerHome bound
    Day 9

    August 23rd

    August 23, 2017 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    This morning Jessica showed me pictures of Ollie when he was one year old. I've always found looking back at photos to be a bitter sweet experience. It's painful to be confronted by the passage of time captured in a photograph. Those one year old cheeks flushed with a peculiar kind of earnest exuberance. His deep set eyes pleading with the world to take notice but then receding behind thick eye lashes as soon as anyone does. He's an illusive creature like a heron turning its back to the open water and flying into the reeds. Looking at photos on Jessica's phone, I need to choke down an irrational sadness as if that little boy in the pictures is gone forever and not in the bedroom down the hallway about to wake up and come running into our room.

    When I see myself in a photo I remember being there in a particular setting. I remember what we were doing. I'm reminded of what I looked like but I'm never who I expected. The image of this strange person, my past self, is like a wavering shadow of who I thought I was floating somewhere (I can't pin down) between the past and the present.

    In the photo there is no substance of the moment I'm looking back upon. The substance has vanished and in it's place is merely a sign, an appearance of a body but the picture rarely portrays what I was feeling, who I thought I was beyond and behind the physical environment.

    So there is always a divide when we look at a photo. It's even there when we look in the mirror, although when we're young we usually blink or glance sideways before becoming conscious of it. It's the division of time, the quotient of which is longing and wonder about who we are and what we'll become during this grand finitude we call existence.

    At six years old Oliver's blue-gray eyes are still a mixture of curiosity and apprehension betraying his disbelief in how big the world is. I only wonder why more people do not look upon our world like Ollie does. He leaps across the playground as easily and as gracefully as he does through imaginary worlds, often the two settings colliding in the midst of some ninja or pirate conspiracy. Something about him makes me think he is acutely aware of being alone in the universe and this sensitivity extends to empathy towards others and animals.

    A piece of iron feel on my ankle in our garage. I winced in pain and when Ollie found out what happened he reassured me by saying, "I banged my ankle too dad. Ankles really hurt. Are you ok?"

    He is still learning to take risks. He's reticent in the face of new challenges. Classrooms, water, dreams all cause him to pause and take stock of who he is before jumping in. He will benefit from teachers who don't shame him for making mistakes but still encourage him to test his limits.

    He feels his own powerlessness, how small he is in such a vast universe. This can be a powerful quality but it also makes him vulnerable to being drawn away from himself by others. I'm grateful to his mom for teaching him to recognize his feelings and to trust in us, his family, for unconditional love and support.

    Oliver is so much more than I conceived. And so is his little brother already insisting on making his own peanut butter sandwiches.    Read more

  • TravelerHome bound
    Day 7

    Solar Eclipse Dufferin Grove Writing

    August 21, 2017 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

    After a couple of days back I'm still looking for the next adventure. Driving home from camping I was all fired up with prospects for nurturing our freed spirits. The following day we went to a garden party in celebration of the eclipse. A lot of my colleagues were there at similar stages of life to us. Everyone was enjoying the summer off with their kids. It was familiar and comfortable.

    Later we went to Dufferin Grove Park and let the boys play in the adventure sand pit.

    The next day Jessica took Oliver to an indoor play place and gave me a day to write. It took awhile to find that cauldron where fiction churns. Transporting yourself to Imaginary worlds is even more of an irrational activity than camping or journaling. I worked on chapter 5 for quite a long time before finally deciding to start over again. Once I told myself to get to the point as quickly and as clearly as possible words started flowing. I kept freezing up when I realized how monumental a task writing Betwixtia is, how difficult it is to learn something as complex as writing while trying to balance a family, and how badly I need to finish this to prove to myself that I can do it.    Read more

  • TravelerOpeongo
    Day 3

    The Campsite

    August 19, 2017 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

    Our campsite was nestled in a grove of Eastern Hemlock. We were well protected from sun and rain by thick trunks rising up to crowns of lacy green foliage. We could stand by the fire in a drizzle and not get uncomfortably wet. When the sun turned the full force of its heat upon us, we stayed cool in the shade.

    The ground was spongy close to the water and carpeted with needles all the way back up the slope to where the forest floor was choked with the enormous three-pointed leaves of striped maple trees. Scattered about the site there were rocks and rotten logs covered with emerald green moss.

    Extending out over the water two white pines swooped up into the sky with feathery boughs growing back towards shore in frozen relief. The needles were bundles of brilliant green that hid our dome tents from anyone on the water until they were directly in front of our campsite. The giants with their delicate crowns grew out of the rocky lakeshore next to a smaller cedar which had adopted the same bow in it's trunk. These three sisters had escaped any competition for sunlight from the droopy summited hemlocks behind them by stretching over the water.

     Ollie put a life jacket on and climbed the stringy bark cedar up to just below its summit. He could perch up there high above the lake and find a few moments of solitude. He came to see himself as a chipmunk and spent a lot of his time scampering around on all fours and climbing trees.    Read more

  • TravelerOpeongo
    Day 1

    Getting there

    August 17, 2017 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 17 °C

    I woke up at 7:00 before anyone else had stirred. I drank a coffee on the couch and mentally sorted through the list of things that needed to happen before we left.

    We drove the truck, windows down, radio loud, up the 400 past the green, golden fields of late summer corn. With the sun rising like a yellow balloon the day was full of promise. As we neared Barrie, the sprawling and abundant farms gave way to a brief interlude of marsh and mixed forest before a swath of industrial and retail parks dominated the landscape.

    Keith and Kieran were waiting for us at the Barrie On Route where I had bacon and eggs and Ollie had pancakes from Arby's. We checked the weather to discover thunderstorms were expected later in the evening so we didn't waste any time getting back on the road.

    Soon the 400 became 11 threading through Muskoka and the craggy walls of pre Cambrian rock. The forest steadily grew taller and the individual trees closer together. We turned on 60 with a brief pitstop at Wendy's and the grocery store to pick up supplies.

    As we drove down 60 the wind was picking up and the condensation was gathering in the sky to form billowing mountains of clouds above the trees. We passed into Algonquin park and hit construction all the way through the West corridor. Finally after 4 1/2 hours we reached the docks at the Opeongo access point. Securing our permits, canoes and firewood in haste we took to the water with winds at our backs and set off to find a campsite before the weather found us.

    Our plan was to canoe past Blueberry Island where we stayed last year and look for a site, still in the South arm, but a little further up the West shore. Kevin and Audrey were going to meet us later so we needed to give them some idea of where to meet us. Without cell service they would need to check all the campsites until they found us.

    We told Kevin we wouldn't go past Bates Island but before we knew it, we had blown past the island into Squaw Bay. The skies were impenetrably gray and deepening with every passing minute. They threatened to swallow the tops of the hills and the water got choppier, aggravated by the invading skies. We paddled back upwind pressing against time, knowing that pitching tents in a storm would make for a difficult beginning to our journey. Relief washed over us when Keith rounded the point of an unnamed bay, calling back to us that he'd found a campsite unoccupied. It was around 4:00 in the afternoon. We had arrived.    Read more

  • TravelerHome bound
    Day 2

    Preparing for Algonquin

    August 16, 2017 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    Ollie and I are having a challenge transitioning between time changes. We were up until after two last night. My brain has kind of shut down with fatigue so I took a short nap before lunch.

    This morning I was reading an article on the information integration theory of consciousness in a philosophy magazine when Ollie crawled into bed and asked me to read it out loud. The theory affixes a quantifiable value, called phi, to the level of consciousness experienced by a system. A brain has a lot of phi and a blanket had considerably less, if any at all. The theory fits nicely into the panpsychic school of consciousness research which I've always been fond of although lately I'm more inclined to explore the middle ground between panpsychism and physicalism.

    Ollie had lots of questions and made the connection between consciousness and previous discussions we've had about soul. I was impressed he lasted as long as he did as I read paragraph after paragraph of text steeped in jargon but I got the feeling he likes the rhythm of language and there is an appealing science fictional element to meta physics that kids can relate to.

    Anyways, fatigue definitely lowers my phi and it wasn't until I made a turkey sandwich and ate some leftover Nana chili that I felt myself again. Ollie and I went to the beer store and Bulk Barn for camping supplies. We decided to stop at Value Village to look for board games in case it rains on our trip. I detoured into the book section looking for Madam Bovary and ended up with 5 other books.

    More than anything books give me a sense of identity. More than clothing or a haircut. More than a car or a house. More than my garage. The books I surround myself with mirror who I am or more precisely, who I aspire to be. Jessica saw the books and moaned. She thinks I should get rid of some books as I collect new ones but we look at it differently. I think of books as monuments or landmarks, inukshuks signaling the direction I am traveling in my life. I follow one book that leads me to another on a kind of trail, not a linear one, towards some unknown destination. When I'm lost or need a clue I can revisit the records of like minded but far more accomplished travelers. And like a blind cartographer mapping the mountains and valleys of an invisible landscape I rely on the descriptions of others for a way forward. How could I not pass these treasure maps on to my two pirates in the event that they too one day would journey to unseen kingdoms within?

    All packed up! Got warm clothes, a cooler of beer (I did the food last year), ukelele, a great American songbook, wooden bowls, metal plates and plastic cups. It's going to be a fine trip.    Read more

  • TravelerHome bound
    Day 1

    The Garage

    August 15, 2017 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    Our garage is detached from the house. It is a humble, squat structure, wide enough for a single car and perfectly square. It has an A frame roof, reshingled a few years ago, with black eaves running around it.

    When we came back from our roadtrip, the garage smelled a little stale. We had left some food waste in the green bin so when I opened up the lid, an army of fruit flies exploded from the darkness in a cloud of rotten food. Typically the garage smells of fertilizer and gasoline. It smells of cut grass and spilled engine oil. It smells of wood drying in the rafters and old newspaper. In the summer I'll stand on a step ladder to grab a length of copper pipe or an old pressure treated piece of lumber from up high and my face will heat up with the stuffy air trapped under the roof between the old doors that will never get used and scrap wood lying crookedly on top of each other. The previous owners had fastened nails, screws and hooks into every piece of trim you can find. Hanging on the walls are backpacks, sports equipment, a kite, and gardening tools. You find all the typical things you'd expect in our garage. There are golf clubs, strollers, a compressor, a shelf lined with spray bottles and aerosol cans. Bags of salt, firewood, brooms, jars of screws and nails, tarps, tubing and bins overflowing with plastic toys. I have a giant blue gym mat that we pull out for the kids to jump on.

    At the back of the garage is an old section of counter top complete with two drawers under the laminate surface. Two cupboards open up beneath the drawers and that's where I keep all my power tools in a big pile. I drilled an 8' long solid wood cabinet that weighs as much as a small car to the back wall above the countertop and removed the cupboard doors to make for more storage. The whole makeshift set up works as a sturdy and functional alternative to a tool bench. On one side of the counter I keep a spare set of tires and the snow blower. On the other side is a chest high cardboard box stuffed with the trunk and limbs of an artificial Christmas tree given to us by Joan and Murray.

    It's the kind of garage kids like to root through in search of artifacts to prop up their imagination but the parents have to keep warning them to stay away from anything that might hurt them. It's really a big toy box in and of itself. A man sized jumble of stuff and junk. A repository for things waiting patiently for us to play with them. It is my refuge for all the belongings that don't have a place in the house. The things that are too dirty, noisy, unwieldy, outdoorsy things.

    If you pick your way past the bikes, table saws, lawn mower and garbage bins you'll find the camping gear stacked against one of the walls.

    I pulled out all the gear to do an inventory and start packing in preparation for our canoe trip in a couple of days.

    Later that night:

    When Toby woke up after a couple of hours being asleep he asked me to rub his back and sing songs. After a few minutes of humming You are my Sunshine, Kumbaya and other songs I don't know all the words to I made a motion to leave.

    "Daddy, pet me," Toby said. "One more song."    Read more

  • TravelerHome bound

    First night back

    August 14, 2017 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 21 °C

    Our gardens are in full midsummer bloom. The zucchini is trailing along the back bench. The tomatoes are bushy and heavy with green bulbs of fruit. The hot peppers are the tallest our neighbour, Cara, has ever seen and word on the street is they are good and spicy as well. We have two large bunches of one eyed Susan's, blooming hastas, ferns that look tropical. The Boston ivy is reaching around the sides of our neighbors garage so one of the first things I did when we got back was to cut it back. The grape vines are presiding over the rest of the gardens and providing privacy to our back porch.

    Dana came over to play with Oliver and Tobin. Corey and Karmeet also stopped by to say hi. We couldn't hang out long because we were due up at Cara and Matthew's place for a playdate at 7. It took me a little longer to get ready so Jessica told me to meet them up there. While walking up the street I was in the mood to take pictures. Cumulous clouds had gathered like a quilt had been thrown over the sky. I snapped the photo and I felt like I was still on vacation, still on an adventure, every moment potentially a story, a picture, a rhyme.

    Then it occurred to me. I'll keep writing and taking pictures at home as if I'm on a grand adventure. I'll post them on the app as a record of life, the good, the bad, the ugly...

    I walked through the driveway gate at Cara's house. A few neighbors had gathered in the backyard. I took out my phone.

    "Who wants to be in a picture?" I asked.

    "Of all strange and unaccountable things this journalizing is the strangest. It will allow nothing to be predicated of it; its good is not good, nor its bad bad. If I make a huge effort to expose my innermost and richest wares to light, my counter seems cluttered with the meanest homemade stuffs; but after months or years I may discover the wealth of India, and whatever rarity is brought overland from Cathay, in that confused heap, and what perhaps seemed a festoon of dried apple or pumpkin will prove a string of Brazilian diamonds, or pearls from Coromandel." Thoreau Jan 29 1841    Read more

  • TravelerPearson’s Take the West
    Day 23

    The Long Way Home

    August 14, 2017 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    On our final night we drove straight to Point Roberts off the ferry to meet Mike, Natalie and their three kids. We had arranged to meet at Mike's dad's place because it was so close to the ferry. Point Roberts is actually a peninsular piece of America geographically cut off from the rest of the country by Canada. We had to go through the border to get there and again on our way back to our hotel at the Fairmont Vancouver airport. We had a good old fashioned American fried chicken dinner down at the water. The kids played in the driftwood and then we went back to the house for ice cream. We finally got to our hotel around 10:00. Toby fell asleep in the car and transferred to bed for the first time in his 3 years of life.

    Despite the comfort of our room neither Jessica nor I could sleep much that night. In the morning I left with the rental car to return it on the other side of Vancouver and meet Greg with his son Jack. The plan was to drop off the car and drive back to the hotel with Greg where the kids could have a swim together and then eat lunch altogether before checking out. Our plane was leaving at 5:00 so we thought we had lots of time before we had to get moving. When I got to the busy tourist district at Canada Place I couldn't find the Enterprise parking lot so I pulled over to phone them. There was no answer the first time I called so I tried again. As I was listening for someone to answer, I heard the distinctive sickening crack of metal on metal directly behind me. I got out of the car to see what had happened. I wasn't expecting a tragedy but a tragedy was taking place.

    A man died a car length away from where I was parked after being hit by a bus while crossing the street. According to the news, he was 49 years old and on vacation. He had woken up on this archetypal summer Sunday morning, familiar to any tourist; full of awareness and prospects, on his way somewhere new. Natural emotions, hopes, dreams of things he might do and the person he might become lingered invisibly just behind his moment by moment experience. Each step forward out of the hotel was being taken under the innocent presumption of innumerable more to follow. Maybe he had just enjoyed a nice breakfast at his hotel with a coffee sipped from a non specific mug. He had been carefree, jocular while discussing plans for the day with his family or friends. And then half way across the street he was struck by a bus and pulled ineluctably under the right front wheel, tucked into the wheel well. When I rounded the front of the bus I saw his eyes open looking shocked and then his features went slack and like a raggedy doll he stared dumbly into nothingness. On his way back to his god, it's possible he had no time for petty regrets. It's possible his memories of his daughter or son or grandchildren or his wife slid away so quickly beneath him there was nothing to grasp at or maybe there was just nothing, nothing at all where he went. All the metal, rubber, concrete, flesh and bone was on our side on display.

    He went away and all went with him.

    We got home to Toronto later that night around 1:00 AM. While I read a chapter of Charlotte's Web to Ollie, he wanted to hold on to a Canada 150 wand that lights up with flashing neon lights. He got it on a school trip to Harbourfront at the end of grade 1. He said it was his favorite thing even though I know he had never slept with it before. I kissed him goodnight and before leaving his room, I tucked the wand into his arms and asked him not to turn it on until morning. He smiled with his red watery tired eyes. We were both happy to be home.    Read more

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