Journey

I am home again, clean again and will sleep on stable ground again. I'd almost trade it all in for more train time.

I left Winnipeg on my seven month-aversary of being with Stephen. I'm pretty sure I've gone through all the dwarf characters--maybe a few stellar Snow White moments--in that time. Sleepy? Yup. Dopey? For sure. Grumpy? Yeah...Happy? Definitely.

I didn't catch it until just before I left the house, but Stephen sent me a sweet text message that morning to wish me a good trip, tell me he would miss me, and acknowledge our special day. My heart fluttered. It still does that whenever he sends some random "I am thinking of you" message. It's not quite so romantic to press your Blackberry to your heart and sigh as it was in the past when you'd press a hand-written love note sent by homing pigeons, but the effect is the same, I am sure.

I planned to send Stephen some kind of happy hello when I got off the plane. But when I pulled my phone out the little battery icon was glowing orange which means CAUTION! YOU HAVE ABOUT 20 KEYSTROKES OF POWER LEFT ON THIS THING SO USE CAREFULLY! I had three missions upon de-planing

1. Find the Toronto Pearson Airport Good Life gym and check it out
2. Charge phone so I can tell everyone that I have landed and am ready to start my adventure
3. Find some WiFi so I could send my press release to people in Winnipeg for distribution

I didn't find the gym. I found all kinds of signage once outside of the arrival terminal telling me it was back in there and that they even rent shoes and work out gear. Why would you put the signs on the outside and not inside the terminal, with great big arrows to say RUN HERE? Dumb. That's what I say.

I walked in circles to find a place to plug in my phone and had to give up. I got into a taxi and headed for the train station where I also wandered around but this time found an outlet. I parked myself on a bench that had a lovely view of a bank of payphones and the men's washrooms. When I had enough battery power again I thought about sending a message to Stephen. I wanted to say something grand and heart-melting but couldn't come up with anything. Then I reminded myself that the message doesn't matter so much as the simple reminder that someone is thinking of you and missing you. So I went with that theory and hit the send button.

Once my phone was almost full again I ventured down Front Street toward the restaurant where I was to meet my travel mates, Hailey and Helene. I still had an hour to kill before dinner. I stepped into Starbucks ordered a grande cup of Passion tea and made a home at one of the tables by the window. 

Although the Internet access at Starbucks is free, the signal is quite clogged up with people watching and doing all sorts of pipe clogging activities. I couldn't get logged onto my work files so I couldn't send my press release. Grr. I gave up, wrapped my hands around my paper cup of sweet and spicy tea and watched the world go by for an hour. It was dark and boring.

I met Hailey and Helene at seven o'clock for dinner at Jack Astor's. I'd been there before with Vince and Chris and remember loving their nachos. This was probably five years ago. I didn't think cheese and corn chips had changed much in that time, but at Jack's they did and now they were not so delicious. But that was an insignificant detail of the evening where I met two awesome girls who would make this trip fun like summer camp.

"Are you married, seeing someone, not currently with anyone?" Helene got down to the important details immediately.

"Actually, I am seeing someone and today is our seven month-aversary. It's the first time we haven't been able to celebrate it together," I said. Helene responded with a heart-felt "Aww" and demanded more information about how we met and such. Later in the evening she noticed I'd used the crayons on the table to draw a heart on the brown paper table cloth and that I'd written a note for Jillian and Stephen in it.

"Let's take a picture!" Helene picked up a crayon and wrote "Stephen" on a napkin. Then she put it over her face and came over to sit beside me, ready for Hailey to snap a picture. We'd known each other for 30 minutes and already she had lent me her compassion. That's Helene.

Helene tries to stand in for Stephen but doesn't
quite have the arms for it.

I sent the picture to Stephen right away with this note.

Having fun with the girls in T.O. Before we get on the train. I celebrated us with a steak and glass of red. The steak was lame-o but the wine is doing me wonders. Ooh and they are playing a song from the cutting edge. I will try to email again from the train tonight or tomorrow.

Love,
Jillian

I had managed to get enough of a corner of the Internet to get my press release out. We left Jack's for the train. I was feeling excited.

On the train it didn't take long before cell service was lost and I was officially off the grid. This became my biggest source of stress for the rest of the trip.



There are people who love taking the train. It costs more than flying and takes longer to get you there so how this can be true was a bit of a mystery to both Hailey and me. The idea got more confounding when we checked out our sleeper car "room".

There were bunks on one side, a sink on the other and a toilet in a closet.

Hailey is coming out of the toilet closet

Kicking back and relaxin' on the bottom bunk

We lucked out in that it was Champagne night in the lounge car. We also lucked out with having a singer/song writer/guitar player on our train all the way to Winnipeg. VIA sponsors artists to ride their trains and share their art with the other passengers.

Helene made quick work of making this guy our new friend. His name was Justin. He was from Winnipeg and yes, he took requests.

"Do you know any Journey?" I asked.

"I do, but not the song you're thinking of," he said. I'm not sure which song he was thinking I was thinking. It wasn't Don't Stop Believing, which would have been my first guess. I was actually hoping the only Journey song he knew how to play was Open Arms, because it's Stephen's song and I wanted to tape the performance and send it to him as my "Sorry I can't be with you today" gift.

Open Arms was not the song, but I liked what he threw down anyway.

It's sad
ohh, there's been mornings
Out of the world without you
Without your charms

Journey - Lights

I never got to send it to Stephen. The Internet connection left when we left the station and it was never strong enough to upload the video. My cell phone service also disappeared. The bar tender in the lounge told me it would be pretty flaky until we got to Sudbury, and then sketchy for the rest of the trip. He wasn't just whistling dixie.

The bar tender of bad news
(but otherwise nice guy)

When I woke up on Wednesday morning, cell service was still but a memory. Hailey and I went to breakfast ahead of the other two girls. On the train they don't have room for solo diners or those in pairs. You are assigned a chair to fill tables. We were seated with two young women with their own interesting histories and reasons for their journeys. One was a film maker from Vancouver who had lived all over the world. The other was on her way to The Pas, MB to move in with her girlfriend who she met on World of Warcraft. I can't make this stuff up and I'm good.

 Cell service was not coming back any time soon. This was frustrating for a girl who was hoping that her event plans were all knitting together nicely back home. I couldn't do any work because I couldn't access any files. All I could do was sit in the sky view car, watch the scenery and journal. I let go of the frustration and grabbed hold of gratitude for the time to get reacquainted with journaling. I stepped into my troubled mind, grabbed a cup of tea and got comfortable.

The disconnection did start to get to me by the afternoon though. I learned in Pensacola that I can travel solo, but I need to be able to connect with my peeps at home at the end of the day to tell them all about my day. I tried to connect when we arrived at a small town. My voicemail was full of messages. Something had gone off the rails back home and I couldn't do anything about it from where I was. All this stirred up a bout of homesickness. I sat on my bunk and looked out at the bleak, grey world passing by, not nearly fast enough for me. I missed Stephen.

I called my parents. My dad talked me off my ledge. I hung up and joined my friends in a game of Bananagrams which is kind of like Scrabble but without a board. I had some mad skills.

The afternoon passed by slowly. Around five I had cell service again. I was checking my phone constantly. Every time it blinked my heart lept. Every time it was an e-flyer from The Gap or Beyond the Rack I sunk. We had sing alongs with Justin.  There was a beautiful sunset. A radio station wanted an interview and then changed its mind.

I still missed Stephen. The simple and logical thing to do would be to grab that cell phone signal by the horns and send the guy a note, a text that said "hey, it's been a yo-yo of a day and I would love to hear from you". But I'm not so good with standing up and saying I need someone or something, so I put the phone down and sang more songs and watched out the window until it was too dark to see any more.

Around five I got cell service again. I decided I was being ridiculous. Adult relationships mean you have to be uncomfortable and vulnerable sometimes. They mean not hanging onto the things that happened in the past and using them to feed your fears in the present. I messaged him and put the phone away.

Sleep on the train was elusive to me. I drifted in and out of consciousness, weird dreams and being wide awake enough to sit up and press my nose to the cool glass of the dark window.

At midnight between Wednesday and Thursday I was awake and my phone was blinking. Service was back. I had voicemails and emails from journalists. I replied to what I could, silently apologizing to my bunkmate for the tap tap tap of my handheld QWERTY. When I saw the reply from Stephen, the butterflies found their way to my heart again.

Event day went amazingly well. I lead the girls through a whirlwind of media interviews before the publicity stunt I'd coordinated. We got good media coverage.

At the end of the day I found Stephen. I was bursting to tell him all about the trip and simultaneously held together by his strong-armed embrace.

I am a girl who gets to do some pretty awesome things in her job. This used to be everything to me. Now I am also a girl in love with a really great guy. I need him. I need his smile, hugs, jokes, loyalty, forgiveness, patience and his no-holding back style of love. When we were still getting to know each other better I came to the conclusion that either he'd never had his heart smashed into pieces and smeared on a wall or he was really, really good at forgiving and forgetting the people who had treated him so carelessly because he seemed fearless in the face of love. I could stand to learn something about that.