Crossing Borders

Bif, like a champion, ran the Vancouver Half Marathon this weekend, a mere 5 months after having a baby extraction performed. This is Vancouver, Canada and not Vancouver, Washington. This is a distinction that many folks up here feel needs to be made. Though it seems to me like living in Dallas and telling someone you're kind of excited as your vacation to Paris is coming up in a couple of days and they ask, "Paris, Texas?"

So no, Vancouver, Washington was not hosting a marathon this weekend. Vancouver, Washington in fact touts it's city's contributions by explaining what is 30 minutes to 2 hours away from it. So yes, I crossed an international border this weekend.

It had been a number of years since I had been to Canada and over a dozen of them since I had crossed the border in a car. I don't remember the border and customs officials being so dour and all questioning like. I mean frankly, it was none of Ms. Officer McInterrogation's business why my wife was not in the car with me. But as I don't like to be facing down the barrels of multiple firearms - the last time was no frigging picnic - I answered her unsmiling questions with my own short, unsmiling answers.

I like Canada. It seems very nice, pastoral, and clean. It reminds me of being smack dab in the middle of a Sunday afternoon PBS special; not something I'd want to do all the time necessarily, but good times occasionally. I didn't really get a chance to check out Vancouver in a vacation like aspect, I was only in the country for about 19 hours, but I would certainly like to go back and spend some quality time there. The 10 block square of downtown that I got to know pretty well seemed nice. I was reminded of San Francisco quite a bit, particularly in driving through Stanley Park and onto the Lion's Gate Bridge and into North Vancouver. It felt remarkably similar to cruising through Golden Gate Park on the way to the Golden Gate Bridge and into Marin.

So a little tired (read actually A LOT tired), but in a calm and PBS kinda place, I wished my parents-in-law farewell, kissed my wife and son goodbye, and headed back across the border solo. As I sat waiting on a light in the part of town I had now driven through for the eighth time, I looked over at one of the stone buildings that sit in that city so comfortably among the tall towers that seem to have been transplanted from some European city somehow, and I saw a young man that looked like Damon at 19. He must have sensed my staring at him, because he looked over and we locked eyes for a moment.

I thought how strange it would be to run into him again here, so many years later and in another country. I wanted to know how his demons were faring. I wanted to know if he had ever found someone to love, if he had any kids, and what a strange twisting feeling in my gut that was caused by my imagining him my own age and with children. I wanted to know if he ever got into Radiohead, what he'd thought about Lost Highway and if he'd ever lifted his self imposed embargo against black and white films. I wondered if he liked Thai food, if he'd ever gotten to Germany, I wondered if he would have enjoyed Vancouver. Vancouver seemed like the sort of city that would have fit him well if he were to be in a city.

The remainder of the trip was a pulsing miasma of border crossing frustration, yawns, and that sort of bordering on hysterical laughter that seems to only be birthed with near exhaustion and hours in a car alone. But there was also a small amount of disappointment that I did not actually find Damon ambling down a Vancouver sidewalk.


Song Stuck In My Head Right Now: "Idylls Of The King" by The Mountain Goats.