Posts
after a few days of recovery, i can share with you that Christmas at the Airport is officially the most fun thing i've ever done. who knew spending 32 hours waiting for a flight that never departed would be such a blast?
getting home saturday afternoon, i was surprised by how closely the physical and psychological experience mirrored an actual trip. i had picked the 30-ish hours timeline in part because that's the longest i've been in transit on a trip - when i went to egypt last year. Christmas at the Airport was preceded by the same nervous excitement of leaving your comfort zone and heading into unknown adventure, and the effects of arriving at the airport with my bags packed and spending the next day and a half eating airport food, drinking airport coffee, blinking under airport lights and sitting in an airport chair convinced my body that some journey was under way.
i was really happy with the final story, too, which i posted on my website. i'm still learning how to write short stories, and enjoyed this fact-fiction blend. spending 32 hours with dave in the airport, i got to know him quite well, although most of that didn't make it to the story. i felt the anonymous setting of the airport would be strengthened by leaving dave a little more unknown.
the final result is just what i was aiming for - a spiritual snapshot of the halifax airport over a 32-hour period, a sense of what was going on behind all of those stressed faces passing through security or waiting for flights to take off and arrive.
the reception was great, too - people passing by were excited about the project and tickled by the idea.
waking up sunday to see myself on the front page of the herald was exhilarating; let's just say i'm in the market for plaster to fix my ceiling after waking up to find myself on the cover of the globe and mail today. you can read my first-person wrap up for metro here, or check out the cp take on it here.
as a journalist, i am familiar with the green-ink letter to the editor: the unhinged reactions of deranged people with access to a pen. one of my favs was when daily news columnist steve bornais took an irate call from somebody threatening to 'cancel his prescription' over some story steve had written.
anywho, the herald comments section is lively today, with someone called george disapproving of my little project, and others weighing in on the various merits. my fav is this one:
Annoyed1 wrote:
Mr. Tattrie, to write a good book all you have to do is hang around the Chronicle Herald Site online and read all the comments posted by people. Happy people, nutty people, angry people, people that really seem to have come from other planet ...etc, etc .... It will bring laughter to your day .... Happy Holidays Nova Scotia ..
maybe that'll be my project for next christmas...
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Saturday, December 19, 2009
-30-
as somebody once said, it is finished! 32 hours, 5,600 words, 10 traveller's tales, and one drained writer.
i settled on the 30-ish hours because that's the longest i've been in transit on a trip - both going to and coming from egypt last year took 30 hours. so, instead of travelling wide, this time i went deep - deep into one place, one moment, one man.
i've never spent so much intense time with a character. when writing black snow, i spent months with tommy but it was always a part of my life - not the whole thing. dave and i have been joined at the hip for 32 hours, and i've got to know him quite well.
bad planning on my part means i'm wearing the same clothes now that i started out in yesterday morning. my teeth are gritty. my hair is greasy. the whole experience feels strangely like an actual trip - packing my bags, heading to the airport, sitting in a seat for hours and hours, not sleeping properly, not eating right - let's face it, i look and feel like hell. and probably smell like hell. but i feel like i got somewhere, too.
the airport staff were fantastically helpful in putting this whole project together and seeing that it went off without a hitch. tim hortons kindly kept me coffeed up, hms host fed me and the quality inn gave me a bed for the night - thanks!
now: they're calling dave's flight on the PA - let me go down the hall and see what he's up to:
Dave’s flight was called. Please proceed to gate seven.
Dave froze. He stared at the blank page on his notebook. The white paper was as brightly blank as the young heart of a star. His heart shook.
He pulled in a lungful of air, let it out through his mouth. If you want to be reborn in a new life, your old life must die.
Dave stood.
His legs trembled. He clutched the notebook like it was his oxygen supply. Sunlight streamed in.
Final call for flight.
Dave set his teeth, turned left, walked toward the check-in. Stomach wrenched, stopping him.
He forced himself to open his notebook. Wrote it down.
Another step.
Another note.
Another step.
Check-in.
“And where are you heading today, sir?”
“Home.”
-30-
i settled on the 30-ish hours because that's the longest i've been in transit on a trip - both going to and coming from egypt last year took 30 hours. so, instead of travelling wide, this time i went deep - deep into one place, one moment, one man.
i've never spent so much intense time with a character. when writing black snow, i spent months with tommy but it was always a part of my life - not the whole thing. dave and i have been joined at the hip for 32 hours, and i've got to know him quite well.
bad planning on my part means i'm wearing the same clothes now that i started out in yesterday morning. my teeth are gritty. my hair is greasy. the whole experience feels strangely like an actual trip - packing my bags, heading to the airport, sitting in a seat for hours and hours, not sleeping properly, not eating right - let's face it, i look and feel like hell. and probably smell like hell. but i feel like i got somewhere, too.
the airport staff were fantastically helpful in putting this whole project together and seeing that it went off without a hitch. tim hortons kindly kept me coffeed up, hms host fed me and the quality inn gave me a bed for the night - thanks!
now: they're calling dave's flight on the PA - let me go down the hall and see what he's up to:
Dave’s flight was called. Please proceed to gate seven.
Dave froze. He stared at the blank page on his notebook. The white paper was as brightly blank as the young heart of a star. His heart shook.
He pulled in a lungful of air, let it out through his mouth. If you want to be reborn in a new life, your old life must die.
Dave stood.
His legs trembled. He clutched the notebook like it was his oxygen supply. Sunlight streamed in.
Final call for flight.
Dave set his teeth, turned left, walked toward the check-in. Stomach wrenched, stopping him.
He forced himself to open his notebook. Wrote it down.
Another step.
Another note.
Another step.
Check-in.
“And where are you heading today, sir?”
“Home.”
-30-
the birth of canadian airport security
i'm getting near the end of Christmas at the Airport - 90 minutes to go! why not end with a bang? i just met a guy who was on the only airplane hijacking in canada. even walter cronkite covered the story.
dave gets the scoop below:
--
Dave passed the noon hour eavesdropping to a steady stream of bellyaching about the boggling security measures in airports.
“It doesn’t bother me a bit,” said a man next to him.
“How come?”
Sean told him when he was four, he and his family boarded a flight in Wabush, Labrador, to spend Christmas with family in Ontario. So did another man.
That man was holding a shotgun.
“I don’t know where he’s going to put that,” Sean’s mother wondered. “That’s just going to be in somebody’s way.”
It was 1972. People carried shotguns onto airplanes in 1972. Shortly before they were to take off, the man stuck his rifle under the chin of a flight attendant.
“Close the doors and take off!” he shouted.
They closed the doors and the plane took off – with 56 passengers.
The plane flew to Montreal. The crew convinced the hijacker to let the passengers off. The first person had to walk past the pile of coats at the front of the plane, grab one, and walk all the way off the tarmac before the next person was freed.
Sean didn’t hear the rest of the story for more than 30 years. Searching online, he found the flight attendant who had had the rifle pointed in her chin. She’d since moved to Houston and now worked in PR – at an airport.
She filled Sean in. After the passengers were freed, the plane took off. The crew convinced the hijacker they needed to refuel. When they landed, the RCMP were waiting – along with the man’s father and a priest. They talked him off the airplane and he handed in his weapon.
He got more than two decades in prison for 56 counts of aggravated assault, as there weren’t specific laws against hijacking.
Back in 1972, Sean and his family got on with celebrating Christmas. They’d lost all of their presents in the kerfuffle and so everybody got new ones. Sean’s brother got a plastic rifle.
He wasn’t allowed to take it on the plane home.
“Now, I just sit in the aisle and I don’t care what they do for security,” he laughed.
“So I guess that’s the very moment airport security was born in Canada,” Dave suggested.
Sean nodded.
--
dave gets the scoop below:
--
Dave passed the noon hour eavesdropping to a steady stream of bellyaching about the boggling security measures in airports.
“It doesn’t bother me a bit,” said a man next to him.
“How come?”
Sean told him when he was four, he and his family boarded a flight in Wabush, Labrador, to spend Christmas with family in Ontario. So did another man.
That man was holding a shotgun.
“I don’t know where he’s going to put that,” Sean’s mother wondered. “That’s just going to be in somebody’s way.”
It was 1972. People carried shotguns onto airplanes in 1972. Shortly before they were to take off, the man stuck his rifle under the chin of a flight attendant.
“Close the doors and take off!” he shouted.
They closed the doors and the plane took off – with 56 passengers.
The plane flew to Montreal. The crew convinced the hijacker to let the passengers off. The first person had to walk past the pile of coats at the front of the plane, grab one, and walk all the way off the tarmac before the next person was freed.
Sean didn’t hear the rest of the story for more than 30 years. Searching online, he found the flight attendant who had had the rifle pointed in her chin. She’d since moved to Houston and now worked in PR – at an airport.
She filled Sean in. After the passengers were freed, the plane took off. The crew convinced the hijacker they needed to refuel. When they landed, the RCMP were waiting – along with the man’s father and a priest. They talked him off the airplane and he handed in his weapon.
He got more than two decades in prison for 56 counts of aggravated assault, as there weren’t specific laws against hijacking.
Back in 1972, Sean and his family got on with celebrating Christmas. They’d lost all of their presents in the kerfuffle and so everybody got new ones. Sean’s brother got a plastic rifle.
He wasn’t allowed to take it on the plane home.
“Now, I just sit in the aisle and I don’t care what they do for security,” he laughed.
“So I guess that’s the very moment airport security was born in Canada,” Dave suggested.
Sean nodded.
--
jewish prostitutes
Dave took a seat in the aisle by the check-in gates, watching the mid-morning rush pick up. There wasn’t much of a crowd – winter was slowing travel across the country.
An Egyptian man in his 50s walked past, turned, walked back and sat down.
“You’re a writer?” he said.
Dave set down his pen and nodded.
“So am I,” the man said. “Malak.”
They shook hands.
Sat silently as four flight attendants walked abreast pushing four empty wheelchairs.
“Where are you off to?” Dave asked.
A daytrip to Mississauga. Five years ago, Malak had put a down payment on a house on Mississauga, expecting to move their from Newfoundland with his two teenagers.
The world didn’t function properly for him and it took five years to get the place built. In the meantime, he moved his family to Halifax so his children could attend the universities when they graduated. His daughter graduated and caught a plane to the UK to study medicine. His son was in Grade 11 and heading in the same direction.
“If he decides to go to the UK as well, then I would have nothing to do here, so I can go anywhere.”
Then he got a call: the house is ready! Living in Mississauga no longer seemed necessary, but he was flying out to have a look at it and see how it felt.
“I don’t need the house anymore,” he mused. “That’s a difficult decision.”
Malak’s life had been a series of positionings, trying to get the best angle on the world. He was born in Egypt, but life as a minority Christian was not pleasant. He figured his kids would leave eventually, so he pre-empted an empty nest by moving the family nest to Canada.
Now that that was happening anyway, he found himself unconnected to any land. If he was able to live anywhere in the world, why not Mississauga?
In the meantime, he was writing short stories about a Jewish prostitute. Everyone knew her, and knew how she made her living, and so when a reputed holy man stopped by, her neighbours made sure she was well hidden.
The local religious leader had doubts about the alleged holy man and planned to meet him to settle the question of his sanctity. But the prostitute had heard about the visit, and knew about the man – rumour was, he’d saved a friend of hers when a mob attacked her.
She wanted to thank him. So, as the local leader probed the visiting allegedly holy man, she burst in, ran to him and fell at his feet crying. She had planned to speak, but emotions got the better of her.
The local leader was scandalized and ordered her ejected. The visitor embraced the woman and defended her.
They both got rejected and ejected, the prostitute and the allegedly holy man bundled out the door together.
The visitor: Jesus Christ.
It’s an old biblical story, but Malak changed the camera’s point of view so that we see the story from the woman’s eyes.
“I like it,” he told Dave. “I usually like to see it from another point of view. From the prostitute’s point of view. How did she feel after that? What changed in her life after that?”
Maybe she gave up her life and got herself to a nunnery. Maybe she went back to work.
Malak wanted to find out.
An Egyptian man in his 50s walked past, turned, walked back and sat down.
“You’re a writer?” he said.
Dave set down his pen and nodded.
“So am I,” the man said. “Malak.”
They shook hands.
Sat silently as four flight attendants walked abreast pushing four empty wheelchairs.
“Where are you off to?” Dave asked.
A daytrip to Mississauga. Five years ago, Malak had put a down payment on a house on Mississauga, expecting to move their from Newfoundland with his two teenagers.
The world didn’t function properly for him and it took five years to get the place built. In the meantime, he moved his family to Halifax so his children could attend the universities when they graduated. His daughter graduated and caught a plane to the UK to study medicine. His son was in Grade 11 and heading in the same direction.
“If he decides to go to the UK as well, then I would have nothing to do here, so I can go anywhere.”
Then he got a call: the house is ready! Living in Mississauga no longer seemed necessary, but he was flying out to have a look at it and see how it felt.
“I don’t need the house anymore,” he mused. “That’s a difficult decision.”
Malak’s life had been a series of positionings, trying to get the best angle on the world. He was born in Egypt, but life as a minority Christian was not pleasant. He figured his kids would leave eventually, so he pre-empted an empty nest by moving the family nest to Canada.
Now that that was happening anyway, he found himself unconnected to any land. If he was able to live anywhere in the world, why not Mississauga?
In the meantime, he was writing short stories about a Jewish prostitute. Everyone knew her, and knew how she made her living, and so when a reputed holy man stopped by, her neighbours made sure she was well hidden.
The local religious leader had doubts about the alleged holy man and planned to meet him to settle the question of his sanctity. But the prostitute had heard about the visit, and knew about the man – rumour was, he’d saved a friend of hers when a mob attacked her.
She wanted to thank him. So, as the local leader probed the visiting allegedly holy man, she burst in, ran to him and fell at his feet crying. She had planned to speak, but emotions got the better of her.
The local leader was scandalized and ordered her ejected. The visitor embraced the woman and defended her.
They both got rejected and ejected, the prostitute and the allegedly holy man bundled out the door together.
The visitor: Jesus Christ.
It’s an old biblical story, but Malak changed the camera’s point of view so that we see the story from the woman’s eyes.
“I like it,” he told Dave. “I usually like to see it from another point of view. From the prostitute’s point of view. How did she feel after that? What changed in her life after that?”
Maybe she gave up her life and got herself to a nunnery. Maybe she went back to work.
Malak wanted to find out.
a special way of being afraid
the airport is wide awake and hard at work chucking people around the world. quality inn kindly gave me a bed last night and i expected to be asleep in minutes, but was up later than jimmy kimmel.
dave had a worse night. i poked him awake when i got here and he stepped into his last day.
---
Dave rolled over, throwing his arm over his eyes to block out the ever-daylight brightness. It had been a rough night. Once the last flights had landed and departed, he had the airport mostly to himself. The bench facing the tarmac windows was long enough to curl up on, but sleep didn’t come. Airports, like hospitals, are always awake.
Drifting past 4am, his thoughts drifted back to Will, and his mid-night brewery epiphany. A line from a Philip Larkin poem about the ‘soundless dark’ of 4am echoed through his head: ‘This is a special way of being afraid/no tricks dispel.’
Dave was relieved when the first suitcase wheels hit the ground. Families arrived to meet flights, flights took off, and the perpetual motion machine swung back into action.
He was hours away from his own flight. Going home – though that seemed a funny thing to call a place after so long away. He had aging parents, a remote brother and a few long-expired friendships from university. He had joined Facebook to snoop around on his home town and discovered his university girlfriend. Her profile was locked down, but she was alone in her picture. Dave knew it didn’t mean she was single – or even that those ashes could spark again – but it seemed like something.
He hauled himself off his makeshift bed and crawled to the coffee shop for his morning drink.
dave had a worse night. i poked him awake when i got here and he stepped into his last day.
---
Dave rolled over, throwing his arm over his eyes to block out the ever-daylight brightness. It had been a rough night. Once the last flights had landed and departed, he had the airport mostly to himself. The bench facing the tarmac windows was long enough to curl up on, but sleep didn’t come. Airports, like hospitals, are always awake.
Drifting past 4am, his thoughts drifted back to Will, and his mid-night brewery epiphany. A line from a Philip Larkin poem about the ‘soundless dark’ of 4am echoed through his head: ‘This is a special way of being afraid/no tricks dispel.’
Dave was relieved when the first suitcase wheels hit the ground. Families arrived to meet flights, flights took off, and the perpetual motion machine swung back into action.
He was hours away from his own flight. Going home – though that seemed a funny thing to call a place after so long away. He had aging parents, a remote brother and a few long-expired friendships from university. He had joined Facebook to snoop around on his home town and discovered his university girlfriend. Her profile was locked down, but she was alone in her picture. Dave knew it didn’t mean she was single – or even that those ashes could spark again – but it seemed like something.
He hauled himself off his makeshift bed and crawled to the coffee shop for his morning drink.
Friday, December 18, 2009
the Big Rip
last post of the night. 16 hours and 4,000 words in, and my hands are cramping, my wrists are sore and my ankles ache. dave's curled up by the big cold windows, watching planes take off and land until sleep comes. i'll wake him up in the morning.
---
Peter is probably the only chaplain who funds his ministry by selling knives. Lighters and scissors, too. Ipods and digital cameras also bring in some cash.
Dave discovered this as Peter pushed a cart of cardboard boxes past him. Dave was fading, spiraling downward on a coffee crash, but the sight of the knife-selling chaplain perked him up.
Peter explained no one paid for a chapel and chaplain at the airport, so he had to fundraise for the position. The airport donated all of the unclaimed confiscated items, plus the lost and found, to the chapel. The annual Christmas auction was just wrapping up – hence the boxes.
“It really brings people together,” Peter smiled, “and we generate income for the chapel.”
He was dressed casually – jeans and a button-up shirt. No dog collar for him.
Dave had seen him before, during his previous nine Christmases at the Airport, but hadn’t spoken to him. That was odd, as Peter was a sort of spiritual Batman, responding to emergencies when the authorities called, and Dave was in a perpetual state of emergency.
“It’s walking the walk with people – hearing their stories and being part of their life. Just listening,” Peter said of his work. “It’s a really interesting place. You’re immersed in it.”
Dave was considering a career change, until Peter spoke over his shoulder as he continued on his way: “It’s always good when you’re not needed.”
Dave’s smile died. His intestines wrenched. He put down his pen.
…
It was late. Most of the shops were shuttered up. The birds had stopped chirping. A half a dozen people lounged in the lobby, waiting on a few late-night flights from the west.
Dave was not doing well. The old fear was coming back. He’d long known about the Big Bang – the universe being created in a monstrous explosion from a minuscule singularity – but his recent discovery of the Big Rip had unnerved him.
The problem was that the universe was too light. If it were heavier, the Bang would eventually run out of steam and gravity would win the day, pulling the cosmos back in on itself. Time would run backwards, so that everybody would relive every moment of their lives, in reverse. Ditto for the dinosaurs and whatever came before them.
That pleased Dave – it suggested life meant something. Why else do it twice?
But then he discovered the Big Rip.
This said that the insubstantial universe would keep exploding outwards until it spread itself so thin that the fabric of the cosmos was ripped to shreds. Frozen, lightless space would one day be all that remained of everything.
Dave felt a chill. He wandered back to the observation window and curled up on the bench. He watched the soft white snow bury everything. He counted planes until he fell asleep.
---
Peter is probably the only chaplain who funds his ministry by selling knives. Lighters and scissors, too. Ipods and digital cameras also bring in some cash.
Dave discovered this as Peter pushed a cart of cardboard boxes past him. Dave was fading, spiraling downward on a coffee crash, but the sight of the knife-selling chaplain perked him up.
Peter explained no one paid for a chapel and chaplain at the airport, so he had to fundraise for the position. The airport donated all of the unclaimed confiscated items, plus the lost and found, to the chapel. The annual Christmas auction was just wrapping up – hence the boxes.
“It really brings people together,” Peter smiled, “and we generate income for the chapel.”
He was dressed casually – jeans and a button-up shirt. No dog collar for him.
Dave had seen him before, during his previous nine Christmases at the Airport, but hadn’t spoken to him. That was odd, as Peter was a sort of spiritual Batman, responding to emergencies when the authorities called, and Dave was in a perpetual state of emergency.
“It’s walking the walk with people – hearing their stories and being part of their life. Just listening,” Peter said of his work. “It’s a really interesting place. You’re immersed in it.”
Dave was considering a career change, until Peter spoke over his shoulder as he continued on his way: “It’s always good when you’re not needed.”
Dave’s smile died. His intestines wrenched. He put down his pen.
…
It was late. Most of the shops were shuttered up. The birds had stopped chirping. A half a dozen people lounged in the lobby, waiting on a few late-night flights from the west.
Dave was not doing well. The old fear was coming back. He’d long known about the Big Bang – the universe being created in a monstrous explosion from a minuscule singularity – but his recent discovery of the Big Rip had unnerved him.
The problem was that the universe was too light. If it were heavier, the Bang would eventually run out of steam and gravity would win the day, pulling the cosmos back in on itself. Time would run backwards, so that everybody would relive every moment of their lives, in reverse. Ditto for the dinosaurs and whatever came before them.
That pleased Dave – it suggested life meant something. Why else do it twice?
But then he discovered the Big Rip.
This said that the insubstantial universe would keep exploding outwards until it spread itself so thin that the fabric of the cosmos was ripped to shreds. Frozen, lightless space would one day be all that remained of everything.
Dave felt a chill. He wandered back to the observation window and curled up on the bench. He watched the soft white snow bury everything. He counted planes until he fell asleep.
that's your problem
i swear i'm not slacking off. okay, i took a little break and had a little nap watching the planes take off and land, and my mommy and daddy stopped by to feed me, but mostly i've just been written off my feet.
after five years as a journalist and a year as an author, i can tell you: everyone likes to talk. you've just got to figure out what they want to talk about. throw out a few vague questions, listen carefully to the replies, and away you go.
Will was easy - he just walked up, read the sign that says 'tell me your stories,' and told me a cracker involving a buddhist monastery, suffering, and a mid-night epiphany. i gave the story to dave as he sat napping, watching the planes take off and land.
ps - will didn't say effing, but this is a family blog.
--
By midafternoon, the ever-bright airport was starting to wear on Dave. More coffee did not seem a good idea and his flight was still due to take off Saturday afternoon. It was still Friday.
He walked through the lobby to the ground floor of the observation deck. It looked cold outside, with a fresh coating of snow blown across the tarmac.
It was strange to think this might be the last Christmas he spent at the airport. He was feeling good. He’d done a couple of test runs at the check-in desk and felt only mild upset from his stomach.
The writing was soothing his spirit. The swirling world was settling down. The vastness of the cosmos didn’t seem such a problem from his cozy airport home on Terrarium Earth.
A tired, unshaven, middle-age man sat beside him. Dave glanced at him – jeans, Montreal Canadiens sweatshirt, Montreal Canadiens baseball cap. He looked like he’d just got off a long flight.
“Hard trip?” Dave asked.
The Canadiens fan – Will – looked at him blankly, then set the record straight. He lived near the airport and was there to pick up his wife. She was working in Ottawa and travelling back and forth until they sold their Halifax home.
“What time’s her flight due in?”
“3 pm.”
That was hours away.
“I like to come here early,” the Habs fan explained. He enjoyed browsing the bookstore, eating a burger and watching the world swirl by.
Will suddenly launched into a story about Japan, meditations on suffering and a brewery epiphany.
Years ago, he said, he’d been working in the Japanese “water business” – those curious places where Western women make lots of money talking to Japanese men. Will played the guitar to fill in the silences.
“All they wanted to hear was John Denver, which was pretty horrifying,” he griped.
One day, the bar owner asked him if he’d done meditation. He hadn’t. He took Will to a Shinto Buddhist monastery and started him on a 15-hour meditation. Sitting in a box. Cross-legged.
“I thought, what the hell, I’ll try it,” Will told Dave. “I asked the abbot: ‘As a Westerner with no experience with meditation, is there anything I can expect to gain from this practice?’
“He said: ‘That’s your problem.’”
Undaunted, Will – not an athletic man, not even all those years ago – folded himself into a lotus position in the box.
Four minutes later, he was silently screaming in agony.
56 minutes later, the monks rang a bell, giving Will much-needed relief.
“The first two hours were pretty good. I liked this whole idea of just trying to shut down and relax, especially as I was evaluating a lot of what was going on in my life and my music career.”
He turned to face Dave.
“You don’t go to Japan because you’re doing well in the US market. You go there because you get work.”
He returned to the meditation story. It took three hours just to get into the lotus position. By hour four, he was going crazy. His legs felt like they were being pushed through a garburator.
“I ended up just sitting there meditating on, ‘Ring the bell. Ring the effing bell. I was getting so sore from being trapped in that box.”
Hours five, six, seven … ring that effing bell was his mantra. It was all he thought about. He had Zen clarity on that point.
“I couldn’t believe I made it. I was completely exhausted – it was very late at night,” he said of the bell ringing for the 15th effing time.
They had a terrible meal for the meditators, a soup that tasted like squash spiked with red radish. Will stared at it.
“Do you not like your soup?” the abbot asked him.
“No, the soup is fine. I’m just contemplating the fact that I asked you if I’d get anything out of this. I really do feel that I got something out of it,” Will said earnestly.
“That’s your problem,” the abbot replied curtly.
Will was offended, but opted for a respectful silence.
30 years later, Will was awake in the middle of the night watching TV when a ‘help this starving child’ ad came on.
Later, on his backshift at the brewery, he was overwhelmed.
“I never did well on the back shift. Around 4 in the morning, I used to get pretty emotionally weird. Not that I’m not weird on my own. It just got worse,” he explained.
A terrible sadness crushed him and the haunting eyes of the child pressed into him.
And suddenly he understood what the abbot meant:
“That’s your problem.”
“I know what it’s like to sit in that box, with your legs just screaming, just burning, and thinking: ring the effing bell, ring that effing bell, ring that effing bell.”
So Will picked up the phone and rang that effing bell to help the kid.
after five years as a journalist and a year as an author, i can tell you: everyone likes to talk. you've just got to figure out what they want to talk about. throw out a few vague questions, listen carefully to the replies, and away you go.
Will was easy - he just walked up, read the sign that says 'tell me your stories,' and told me a cracker involving a buddhist monastery, suffering, and a mid-night epiphany. i gave the story to dave as he sat napping, watching the planes take off and land.
ps - will didn't say effing, but this is a family blog.
--
By midafternoon, the ever-bright airport was starting to wear on Dave. More coffee did not seem a good idea and his flight was still due to take off Saturday afternoon. It was still Friday.
He walked through the lobby to the ground floor of the observation deck. It looked cold outside, with a fresh coating of snow blown across the tarmac.
It was strange to think this might be the last Christmas he spent at the airport. He was feeling good. He’d done a couple of test runs at the check-in desk and felt only mild upset from his stomach.
The writing was soothing his spirit. The swirling world was settling down. The vastness of the cosmos didn’t seem such a problem from his cozy airport home on Terrarium Earth.
A tired, unshaven, middle-age man sat beside him. Dave glanced at him – jeans, Montreal Canadiens sweatshirt, Montreal Canadiens baseball cap. He looked like he’d just got off a long flight.
“Hard trip?” Dave asked.
The Canadiens fan – Will – looked at him blankly, then set the record straight. He lived near the airport and was there to pick up his wife. She was working in Ottawa and travelling back and forth until they sold their Halifax home.
“What time’s her flight due in?”
“3 pm.”
That was hours away.
“I like to come here early,” the Habs fan explained. He enjoyed browsing the bookstore, eating a burger and watching the world swirl by.
Will suddenly launched into a story about Japan, meditations on suffering and a brewery epiphany.
Years ago, he said, he’d been working in the Japanese “water business” – those curious places where Western women make lots of money talking to Japanese men. Will played the guitar to fill in the silences.
“All they wanted to hear was John Denver, which was pretty horrifying,” he griped.
One day, the bar owner asked him if he’d done meditation. He hadn’t. He took Will to a Shinto Buddhist monastery and started him on a 15-hour meditation. Sitting in a box. Cross-legged.
“I thought, what the hell, I’ll try it,” Will told Dave. “I asked the abbot: ‘As a Westerner with no experience with meditation, is there anything I can expect to gain from this practice?’
“He said: ‘That’s your problem.’”
Undaunted, Will – not an athletic man, not even all those years ago – folded himself into a lotus position in the box.
Four minutes later, he was silently screaming in agony.
56 minutes later, the monks rang a bell, giving Will much-needed relief.
“The first two hours were pretty good. I liked this whole idea of just trying to shut down and relax, especially as I was evaluating a lot of what was going on in my life and my music career.”
He turned to face Dave.
“You don’t go to Japan because you’re doing well in the US market. You go there because you get work.”
He returned to the meditation story. It took three hours just to get into the lotus position. By hour four, he was going crazy. His legs felt like they were being pushed through a garburator.
“I ended up just sitting there meditating on, ‘Ring the bell. Ring the effing bell. I was getting so sore from being trapped in that box.”
Hours five, six, seven … ring that effing bell was his mantra. It was all he thought about. He had Zen clarity on that point.
“I couldn’t believe I made it. I was completely exhausted – it was very late at night,” he said of the bell ringing for the 15th effing time.
They had a terrible meal for the meditators, a soup that tasted like squash spiked with red radish. Will stared at it.
“Do you not like your soup?” the abbot asked him.
“No, the soup is fine. I’m just contemplating the fact that I asked you if I’d get anything out of this. I really do feel that I got something out of it,” Will said earnestly.
“That’s your problem,” the abbot replied curtly.
Will was offended, but opted for a respectful silence.
30 years later, Will was awake in the middle of the night watching TV when a ‘help this starving child’ ad came on.
Later, on his backshift at the brewery, he was overwhelmed.
“I never did well on the back shift. Around 4 in the morning, I used to get pretty emotionally weird. Not that I’m not weird on my own. It just got worse,” he explained.
A terrible sadness crushed him and the haunting eyes of the child pressed into him.
And suddenly he understood what the abbot meant:
“That’s your problem.”
“I know what it’s like to sit in that box, with your legs just screaming, just burning, and thinking: ring the effing bell, ring that effing bell, ring that effing bell.”
So Will picked up the phone and rang that effing bell to help the kid.
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