A letter home that I'll blog instead.
I'm on the train to Ayr right now, passing through what's known as "The Roman Frontier". It's the home of Hadrian's Wall, where the Roman emperor Hadrian built a wall running the entire breadth of the country to protect his soldiers from the Scots Reivers (of whom I and consequently our children are direct ancestors). There isn't a Scot alive that doesn't know the story of the vanished Roman Legion that disappeared completely from the Borders, only to be found 1000 years later at the bottom of a loch in Scotland.
Sleeping across from me is a sight all too common on the West Coast. A young tough with a nearly shaved head is snoring away peacefully. I say sleeping but he's passed out with a half finished tall boy of skol in front of him and the smell of beer and cologne thick and sweet. He's wearing heavy workboots that have never seen a day of work. Much like me he's wearing them for insurance against confrontation rather than compensation. I come by my paranoia honestly you know. I'm going to try to snap a pic of him.
It's amazing how quickly the train cleared of English people at Carlisle. I'm surrounded by thick glasgow accents, black hair and blue eyes right now. It's a good feeling.
Earlier I passed by a Scottish school that was just letting out. It looked identical to the one I'd attended, and it's cold and wet in Scotland today. It brought back memories, but almost no positive ones. I'm going to work on building some here this time. I owe it to my dad, my kids and myself. I just get a feeling of penultimate sadness driving past all the poor and rundown areas by the tracks. I hope I can reconcile it.
The guy across from me just woke up. He slept through his stop. When he got up we had a nearly unintelligible conversation and then he asked about the accent.
"So you from America?"
"You won't believe me if I tell you where I'm from." I said and I told him Ayr and that I'd been in Canada for 25 years. And then it was all big tough guy barroom warrior handshakes and much love and smiles. Bastards like that turn on you in a second here though so I stayed wary but warm. And that's not me being paranoid. Everyone else on the train seems nice enough however.
I have to change trains at Kilmarnock. My route through Scotland has been Carlisle, gretna green, annan, dumfries, sanquhar, kirkconnel, new cumnock and auchinleck so far, with the next stop being Kilmarnock. Kilmarnock is where my friends and I used to sell the scrap metal we stole from the salvage yard in Ayr. (Just got a picture of the glasgow drunk before he woke up btw.) I've recently found out that the yard we stole it from belonged to a man my dad went to school with. Feel a bit horrible about it now.
Just changed trains at Kilmarnock. I had a few minutes between trains so I walked around a bit looking for a coke. A young guy about 20 was changing trains too, and he came up and said (in a good Glasgow/west coast accent) "Nae bar here?" I said not that I know of and he said "FUCK'S sake!"
ah home.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
england
I am rolling through the countryside of Northern England, headed for my hometown in Scotland. It's a beautiful day, by which I mean the sun is high and warm and bright enough that it ignites the colors of the hills and trees and homes and trains in full spectrum high res. A 1080 HD kind of day.
The train is quiet, a gentle rocking with a white noise whirring hush keeping my state meditative and near transcendent in the moments that I start to nod off. The only other sounds are those of the girl sitting across the table from me, writing in her notebook and humming a soft soprano celtic tune. A stolen glance at the pendant bouncing about a bouncing cleavage reveals a heart shaped locket wrapped in a thistle and I'm proud again to be Scottish.
Ancient walls line the tracks as we pass through the cities and towns, stained black with the centuries old coal smoke of warm hearths and orange lit cobblestone streets.
In the countryside it all opens up though. Trees and rolling hills covered in lush green grasses that seem somehow wetter, thicker, softer and warmer than ours. Faraway cows and faraway sheep are stuck like steak pegs in the hillside, and the high def sun shows 10,000 shades of green, constantly shifting in the shadows of North Atlantic clouds.
The rivers I pass are dark murky and cold, more a grey blue slate than the blue green liquer back home. Still used as highways by lumbering barges and cargo ships, lined with quays and docks older than any family tree I know of, they are dotted with elegant white swans drifting lazy noble and with an English calm on the gentle waves.
It's autumn and occassionally we'll pass freshly fleeced flocks of foolish sheep, standing thin and stupidly vulnerable like newly shorn shih-tzus waiting to go out for a pee.. The term 'sheepish' never more accurate than it is on the face of a plucked poltroon of a sheep lamenting it's lost wooliness.
I have to confess that I hated Britain before this trip. I was here before, in my teens with my parents, who were then approaching 60. I saw nothing of the country except what nostalgic 60 year olds wanted to see. It was all Coronation Street and Marks and Sparks and chippys. I'm seeing a different Britain this time around.
This is a progressive country. More concerned with the environment than the average self righteous Canadian. Walking is a preferred method of commuting here. In the clubs of Newcastle I danced all night, and never once feared for a fight. If while dancing in a drunken stupor I happened to bump into another guy, more often than not we'd wind up in wildy exuberant dance ourselves. There's a palpable enthusiasm and joie de vivre here. The workers that I'm here to train are some of the finest young people I've ever met. So different than the sleepy kids back home that sit drooling with anticipation as you contemplate sending someone home early each night.
The confidence, humor and perseverance I see in the average English kid is inspiring. I can honestly say I no longer harbor resentment towards the English.
That's all that I have for now. I'm writing this on the train and I'll publish it later.
It's time to slip back into that beautiful meditative state. It's a strange and mystic roll through the Roman Frontier for the next little while, travelling through places impossible to say without a Scots accent;
Carlisle, Gretna Green, Annan, Dumfries, Sanquhar, Kirkconnel, New Cumnock, Auchinleck and Kilmarnock.
The train is quiet, a gentle rocking with a white noise whirring hush keeping my state meditative and near transcendent in the moments that I start to nod off. The only other sounds are those of the girl sitting across the table from me, writing in her notebook and humming a soft soprano celtic tune. A stolen glance at the pendant bouncing about a bouncing cleavage reveals a heart shaped locket wrapped in a thistle and I'm proud again to be Scottish.
Ancient walls line the tracks as we pass through the cities and towns, stained black with the centuries old coal smoke of warm hearths and orange lit cobblestone streets.
In the countryside it all opens up though. Trees and rolling hills covered in lush green grasses that seem somehow wetter, thicker, softer and warmer than ours. Faraway cows and faraway sheep are stuck like steak pegs in the hillside, and the high def sun shows 10,000 shades of green, constantly shifting in the shadows of North Atlantic clouds.
The rivers I pass are dark murky and cold, more a grey blue slate than the blue green liquer back home. Still used as highways by lumbering barges and cargo ships, lined with quays and docks older than any family tree I know of, they are dotted with elegant white swans drifting lazy noble and with an English calm on the gentle waves.
It's autumn and occassionally we'll pass freshly fleeced flocks of foolish sheep, standing thin and stupidly vulnerable like newly shorn shih-tzus waiting to go out for a pee.. The term 'sheepish' never more accurate than it is on the face of a plucked poltroon of a sheep lamenting it's lost wooliness.
I have to confess that I hated Britain before this trip. I was here before, in my teens with my parents, who were then approaching 60. I saw nothing of the country except what nostalgic 60 year olds wanted to see. It was all Coronation Street and Marks and Sparks and chippys. I'm seeing a different Britain this time around.
This is a progressive country. More concerned with the environment than the average self righteous Canadian. Walking is a preferred method of commuting here. In the clubs of Newcastle I danced all night, and never once feared for a fight. If while dancing in a drunken stupor I happened to bump into another guy, more often than not we'd wind up in wildy exuberant dance ourselves. There's a palpable enthusiasm and joie de vivre here. The workers that I'm here to train are some of the finest young people I've ever met. So different than the sleepy kids back home that sit drooling with anticipation as you contemplate sending someone home early each night.
The confidence, humor and perseverance I see in the average English kid is inspiring. I can honestly say I no longer harbor resentment towards the English.
That's all that I have for now. I'm writing this on the train and I'll publish it later.
It's time to slip back into that beautiful meditative state. It's a strange and mystic roll through the Roman Frontier for the next little while, travelling through places impossible to say without a Scots accent;
Carlisle, Gretna Green, Annan, Dumfries, Sanquhar, Kirkconnel, New Cumnock, Auchinleck and Kilmarnock.
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