Psychonav 3 (3 days)

I totally screwed up the navigation on Saturday. I was going to Oakville. I even had a map! But I refused to use it except for the fine details at the end –the street and house number and I was stymied several times in my attempt to navigate and manoeuvre through the suburbs. I had to backtrack finally and use the QEW which I wanted to avoid. I blame the suburbs. That’s easy! No, I blame myself because I was too rushed and felt nothing as I was driving. It was all in my head and not in my heart. I was too logical and I forgot to calculate Bronte Creek. I assumed that because it was the suburbs that it would be all logic. I was ok with the reason (a bridal shower) for having to go to what ended up being the northern outer edges of Oakville closish to Milton. I was kind of curious as I always am about families and bridal/baby shower rituals. I learned a new one this weekend – that during the gift opening, you present a gift to the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first (the bride-to-be should be so lucky!) giver. “It’s a tradition!” shouted the maid-of-honour/hostess. I have a sense that you could make traditions up on the spot and justify them with that phrase. But the route to marriage and the future with someone else is also subject to psychonavigation. The bride-to-be on Saturday was lovely and assured and held all the babies of her best friends with confidence. At the last shower I attended (in April), the bride-to-be and the rest of us played a game in which we were blindfolded, spun and then had to stick a flower on a larger-than-lifesize drawing of the groom. We had to try to press the flower against the paper close to his heart. A senior with a deft touch won the game. I won something too (a pedicure kit) for having a special mark on the bottom of my chair.

Why am I so determined these days to avoid the QEW and the 401 and those other superhighways? I think it has to do, in part, with pacing and concentration. It’s also aesthetic. I like driving down Concession 6 W in Flamborough because it’s kind of a narrow road and the trees arch over it. I like Gore Road too (except for the speed limit which is 60 km.). A few weeks ago it was all lilac-lined and I could drive by smell. There’s the roundabout on Townline Road and the black bridge. I stopped by the side of the road on Sunday to top up the oil (the car was making a clicking/ticking sound) and I was completely alone for about 10 minutes. The big wind – prelude to a coming thunderstorm – blew the high grasses all around me. It was hot. The grasses were five and six feet tall. They were in full bloom. A Fortinos bag in my trunk billowed away out of my reach as I fumbled for the funnel, the rag, the red bottle. I could feel there and then that I was on the right track.

On Friday morning, I took the GO bus to Toronto and let go of the driving. The navigation belonged to someone else. I read over some notes I’d made from an article I’d read which I intended to refer to in my conference paper that afternoon. I felt pressured and tired and I didn’t pay much attention to what how and where we were driving. The only thing I really noticed was that though it was just after 7am, we were moving all the time. And this turned out to be (apparently) the driver’s preoccupation. It seemed that it didn’t matter where we went, what route we took, what mattered was that we were moving. We all have our reasons for moving. At one point, I looked up and saw an unfamiliar building and briefly wondered about it. At one point, I looked up and saw Pearson Airport and wondered, why are we here? It was a very strange route to take but we kept moving and then we were going south on the 427 and then were on the Gardiner/Lakeshore, the Lakeshore, York Street backtracking to Bay and arriving at Union Station at 8am. We had ranged all over the GTA and made it to our destination in less than an hour during morning rush hour. While we were on the 427, I counted the number of World Cup flags flying from cars moving in the opposite direction. There were an incredibly small number – only 21 out of thousands of cars. Actually, only 20, because one was an Oilers’ flag. I wondered about this. I wondered also why so many people were supporting Switzerland until I realized that they were England fans who fly the St. George’s Cross (not sure why –always thought that was the Welsh flag) – definitely this is the most popular flag next to Italy and Portugal on the 427 at 7:40 am. I can’t read all of the flags though…just don’t know what they are.