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Seven Days of Christmas in the Pocket By Bobbie Smith  At 3am on Christmas Eve, I sit straight up in bed coughing. Stubbornly, my dry throat croaks at me for water. Just as stubbornly, I fight back. If I relax, this irritant will go away. Admittedly, I was a little shy about rummaging around for water in the mini-fridge downstairs available to the writers in residence. Yes, I am one, but it’s only my second night here and at 3am who wants to be caught lurking about in housecoat and slippers, hacking in someone else's establishment? So, I wait, but continue to hack intermittently. Damn it, why hadn't I brought my customary glass of water to bed with me? Chalk it up to being in a new place. I had been dizzy with excitement on arriving at this quiet and peaceful retreat especially designed for writers. Imagine a spot just for writers to write. That explains why my usual habits have run amok. I'm severely awake now and promptly experience more coughing - a lighter kind, so light it's like an out-of-body cough. Oh, wait, it is out of my body. That cough is coming from upstairs where the retreat owners live in a special, fully-contained suite. It sounds awful and there's much rustling about. Here I go again; I can be such an alarmist. For heaven’s sake, I need to stop this nonsense, act like an adult and go get myself some water. Good gracious, that light can't be...An ambulance! Oh, Lord, what is this? I open the door to witness my dear hostess, Micheline, retreat coordinator, helping her ill husband, Tony, writing mentor, down the stairs. Being the gracious souls and ever-vigilant hosts that they are, incredibly, they offer their esteemed apologies multiple times. In the throes of this personal and potentially life-threatening moment of their lives they are worried about me - A driveling wannabe novelist! I am floored and protest wildly as I wave them on. The paramedics warn Micheline of the highly slippery roads. "Madame, if you follow us in your car, be extra careful. Go slowly." What to do, what to do? Once everyone is safely out of the house, sheepishly, I go get my water. I'm not certain purgatory exists, but if it does, it must be like this: stuck, unable to sit or stand, drink or cough, sleep or stay awake. Poor Tony. What a frightening experience it must be to be carted off like that. Micheline will follow at a snail's pace and, I, the writer in residence, have no choice, but to write and reside. For five lengthy hours, I tap away trying to immerse my thoughts in the ch  allenges
of cooking up a feast with my raw manuscript. (It's now my retreat from
my retreat.) I check on the two dogs, Brownie and Zeb, occasionally to
feel safe and to offer them some semblance of normal life at the homestead
while mommy and daddy are out for the night.Much to my relief, Tony is fine, but must rest for a number of days. The house begins to breathe again and I go to sleep. Christmas evening, day four, is the first time I see Tony again since his middle-of-the-night ordeal. He seems much better now. We have a lovely turkey dinner over a glass of cheer, the three of us. Now that the dogs know of my existence, they manage to sneak over to this side of the house at some point each day to check on their harried guest. In
the meantime, the writing is coming along charmingly. I surprise myself
and actually feel like a fiction writer. It's day six and I have finally
given my 24 pages to Tony for him to do his editing magic. I drive down
the road to a small Canadian restaurant for some lunch and a change of
scenery. I got both and more. During my entire meal, an old woman is sitting
two tables down with her back to me. The waitress keeps talking to her
in a kid-like voice.
"Can I get you another coffee, Mrs. Poulin?" I just despise it when people talk to senior citizens like they're kids, but looking back, she may have been onto something. ...Zeb taking it all in. Photo by: Bobbie Smith Half an hour later, the woman is not responding at all. Her chin has dropped to her chest and she's not moving. Immediately I suspect she's fallen asleep, as does the waitress who keeps looking from the old woman to me and back as she tries to wake her up. Oh, God, not another crisis. I get up to see if she truly is asleep. Oh dear. It looks worse than that. I can't even tell if she's breathing. The waitress runs to get the cook; perhaps he knows first aid, I'm thinking. "Madame Poulin, ça va bien?" he asks her. Up, there she goes. She looks up, but says nothing. Aha, a uni-lingual waitress. But Mrs. P doesn't seem well. Only every second or third time does Mrs. P even respond at all. When she does, she speaks in slow motion, like a stretched magnetic tape. She says she's fine, but our friendly waitress is not convinced. Besides that, she refuses to go home. She somehow has the energy for that. The waitress has even offered to walk her home, but the woman will not or cannot budge. Hmmm. What to do, what to do?? The waitress decides to take action. She calls: an ambulance. Yes, I have been in the miniscule town of Stanstead, Quebec for all of six days so far and have encountered two ambulances. Finally they figure out who her caregiver is but they yell at her over the phone when the waitress calls them to let them know what's happening. I can't imagine she gets paid near enough to deal with such tangles. It turns out she did the right thing. When the paramedics ask Mrs. P to hold up her right arm, she fails. When they help her up, the waitress and I exchange looks that confirm this woman could never have walked out of here on her own. The woman's brother arrives in time to see this and agrees, “Yes, this is probably the best thing to do." We're delighted with his assessment. I figure I should get out of here before something else happens. Finally,
on day seven I decide walk to the States, yes, the United ones, to mail
a few letters before driving back home. In chatting with Micheline in
between hammering away at my keyboard during my brief but eventful stay,
I learn that the US border is pretty close. Now when I say close, I do
mean close. It's not only down the street; it's across the street. This
doesn't seem feasible at all, but then when governments get involved in
'fixing' things, all kinds of feasible options go out the window. Quite recently, they moved the border, so that this side of the road is no longer Beebe Plain, Vermont, USA, but instead, Stanstead, Quebec, Canada. Tony will have none of this. To him, he still lives in Vermont, USA. I imagine some of his American neighbours likely feel the same. I can hardly blame them; one day your house is in one country the next day in another? So the new border is the yellow line right down the middle of the road. Everyday I'm tempted to cross the road and touch the tip of my toe on the other side without going down to US customs and reporting in, but I chicken out. What will they do to me if I cross that yellow line with an orange alert out there in the US?? There's no telling! And with my personal record of encountering ambulances this week, I think I'll pass. So, instead, I walk six doors down to the US customs building to tell them I'm walking the 20 feet over there to mail some letters. "You're Canadian?" "Yes, ma'am." I go inside the distinctively non-Canadian postal office. While serving me, the postal lady answers the phone. "Oh, yes," she says. "Bobbie's here." My head jerks up automatically. There must be some urgent sensor in the neck, acquired at birth that makes people react so directly to their names. Of course, my name is written on every piece of paper I've given the woman. It's Micheline asking the postal lady to give me the retreat's mail. I'm in another country, somewhere I had to get permission to enter - this is hardly believable. What's that expression, "Truth is stranger than fiction?" I collect the mail and make my way back across the road, now to the Canada Customs building to return to Canada. Let's see, I've been gone all of four minutes. I knock on the locked door - these buildings must have top security, I suppose, as I look around at the wonderfully quaint surroundings. "Yes?" "Hi, I'm a Canadian citizen. I'm just checking in. I was at the post office." “Okay. Now, where do you live? I haven't seen you around." "I live in Ottawa, but I'm staying at the Writer's Retreat." "Oh, yes. Fine." That's it. My passport is simmering hot in my purse just waiting to be tested, but no such luck. I walk back down Canusa Street – Can-USA – towards the retreat thinking Stanstead or Beebe Plain could teach many places a thing or two about flexibility, boundaries and kinship. I plan to return to this pocket of community straddling the Canada-US border for my writing pleasure and peace of mind. www.WritersRetreat.com |
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