Tag: Saint John

Road to Nowhere

Well, we know where we’re goin’

But we don’t know where we’ve been

And we know what we’re knowin’

But we can’t say what we’ve seen

-David Byrne

Take a look to the left of the map up top and if you look real close you’ll note that I call this a non-linear blog. Nearly two weeks away from Grand Manan and I still have to sort through photos from then until now.

Today, I had to return some pants. Not the usual start of a Saturday adventure, but hey, lesser things have motivated me. You see, I only packed jeans. This is no surprise to anyone who knows me.

If I’m ever going to appeal to a woman who likes a man in uniform, she’s gonna need to have an appreciation for jeans and black v-necks, for that is the uniform of Shpak. Throw a sport coat over it and I’m sometimes accused of being fancy. In fact, I simply need the pockets.

As a privilege of my acquaintances in Saint John, I discovered the secret handshake that will get me dining rights at the Union Club, rumoured to be the home of the local illuminati, literati, or mafioso. Once again, my flaky hearing kicked in, so I’m not quite sure. However, I’ve been by it several times and it’s quite swank.

Now, if I were an actual rock star rather than a pretend weekend version, I’d just walk in with my usual uniform and if anyone made a fuss, I’d have made a bigger one, craploaded with entitlement. You know, just for fun.

In fact, in the right mood I might do that anyway, fakestar though I am. However, the keeper of the secret handshake has gone all out for me so besmirching my own tattered reputation is all well and good, but it would not be smirched in a vacuum. The secret handshake would reveal my benefactor.

This is where the pants come in.

I ventured forth last night to repants myself in keeping with the Union Club dress code. Now, the corona plague has put change rooms off limits in retail establishments, making return policies far more important to me than they’ve ever been before.

As it happened, the dimensions that serve me well regardless of the source of jeans failed me when translated into dress sizes. There was no way the usual size was going to work in grey wool. I didn’t find this out until I got back to my suite and, standing there with no pants on, I wasn’t inclined to return to the store right away.

Instead, I pulled pants on today and went to the store after buzzing around Uptown, intuiting the way back to the provider in question. A straightforward exchange ensued and I was suitably upsized.

Then, instead of turning left, I to-hell-with-it turned right and drew upon many map viewings. I was vaguely aware of Kingston being across a ferry so I went thataway. The photos that follow were gathered along the way. Along with some fish cakes and a beef short rib, this year’s Thanksgiving protein. There’s no end to the blue skies in this province, and they’re setting off the emergent fall colours in a lovely way.

It was a good drive, even if I can’t say what I’ve seen.

Saint John Arrival 09/18/2021

Just 18 hours in, I’m already in my third thick fog. This would be of the literal maritime variety, not the thick mental version which plagues me more or less constantly. The fog isn’t the surprise. The ease with which it comes and goes is far more interesting.

Between the episodes of limited visibility, the cheerful summer sun breaks loose, shining on Greg and Clem and I as we sampled beers, chased pigeons and harassed passing motorists on the streetside patio of the Cask and Kettle, just down the hill from my suite.

Up the Downhill

A 3-D aerial photo pair, for those who need pictures.

Speaking of down the hill, though I was expecting the three-dimensionality of Saint John, actually being here is like viewing stereoscopic terrain photos. The perspective in these photos is exaggerated for detail. Reality is not as hilly as those photos made it seem.

Not so with the city. It’s exaggerated for reality. And of course, gravity being what it is, the downhill portion is much, much quicker than the reverse. The effect is such that it seems sometimes as though I’m going uphill in both directions.

As I’m huffing and puffing to boost my carcass to the required altitude to return to my suite, I look around at other pedestrians to see if they are similarly struggling. It’s like being a mugging victim in New York City, bleeding on the sidewalk, while passersby completely ignore you. The same with Saint John-ites and me. Work on your cardio, TouristBoi.

After some breakfast, I think I’ll venture out into the fog, if it hasn’t lifted. Maybe I’ll walk up to the market. Or up to the harbour. Or up to the beach. Just in case, does anyone know the number for 911 in Saint John, in case this Upper Canadian’s heart can’t handle it?

-Scott. 09/18/2021 Saint John, NB

The 15-Day Rule 09/12/2021

On the Sunday prior to departure, some of the administrative odds and ends began to resolve. I received, at last, confirmation of my home in Saint John, on the second floor of a stately old heritage building at the top of Chipman Hill.

Home.

That idea takes me back 6 years, to another September along the North Sea coast in Fife, Scotland. A friend was driving me up the coast, fishing village to fishing village, to the point where I began to wonder if it was possible to get one’s fill of fishing villages, and if I had reached that point.

Coming down a narrow road with a high wall on the right, it wasn’t until reaching the intersection at the bottom that the harbour of Pittenweem unfolded before me. It was a complete, gasp-worthy, take-your-breath-away moment. Clearly, the thought formed, “oh, I must live here,” followed quickly with some form of, “but of course that’s not possible.” Here’s what I was faced with:

Redefining ‘life’

So, why was it not possible?

A tab opened in my head devoted to the question. Travel outside of North America came late in my life, so to see everything there is to see, including the stuff I won’t know I want to see until stumbled upon, there’s no way to devote a lot of time to picking up and moving to every place, like Pittenweem, that steals my breath.

That’s what sits underneath the 15-day rule. Since conventional residency was at best impractical, a new definition emerged.

So, a conventional vacation is a week or two, at least it was when the corporate, suburban routine had a hold of me, long before work-from-home was thing. Fifteen days, though, one day more than a typical two-week vacation, could be my dividing line, given that I’ve already shuffled through more than half of the mortal coil allotment.

Anywhere I spend 15 days or more based out of one location now counts, for the purposes of my life, as residency, even if it’s not recognized by the various levels of government, near or far.

By that definition, I’ve added Maastricht, Holland, Boizenburg, Germany, and Titusville, Florida since 2015 to my Official With an Asterisk “Lived There*” list.

And now I know what the front door of my next home looks like. I get there Friday.

-Scott. 09/12/2021 London, ON

Saint John Pending 09/11/2021

When you take a stab at a long shot, sometimes it pays off. It was sometime last winter when I encountered a CBC news story about something called a Workcation being offered by the City of Saint John. If you can work from anywhere, said the City, why not work here? They not only arranged accommodations, tours and social life, they offered to subsidize the cost of a month’s stay.

Work from Anywhere

I do have the luxury of working from anywhere where there’s a valid internet connection or phone signal, so I certainly qualified in that regard. In 2017, there was a week spent on the Bay of Fundy in the Advocate Harbour area, and enjoyed immensely, so I applied for the Saint John Workcation.

However, I was rejected. Perhaps my mistake was that I’d shared that I would prefer to rent rather than own, should I decide to move to New Brunswick. There was no room to elaborate that I would take some time determine where I wanted to live and would rent in the meantime.

It’s easy enough to project the intent behind the Workcation initiative, to stimulate the local economy by bringing in reinforcements to the tax base without the more complex task of job creation to initiate the influx. And, hey, the real estate transactions would be a cash flow stimulus.

2nd Time Lucky

It never hurts to put the effort into connecting, even through email, and my witty repartee (citation needed) made me memorable enough that, when a vacancy in the program opened, my contact with the Workcation program remembered me and extended a participation offer for the Fall of 2021, even though it was already half past summer.

Well, I’m flexible of schedule if not so much of physique, so my ears perked up and I requested more details. They arrived, they were satisfactory, and since, I’ve been putting together the pieces of the puzzle, and now I’m just a few days away from my pending departure.

As is my wont during travel, I like to take and post photographs, typically at the end of each day. My photographic style is instinctive. I don’t like the camera to stay in between me and the experiences of a new place, so I shoot quickly and often without much thought, my personal take on Cartier-Bresson’s Decisive Moment philosophy, a principle I’ve intellectually struggled with for over 30 years, variously agreeing and disagreeing with Henri’s thoughts on the matter.

Here, in this tentative blog that hasn’t been used much since the original idea a few years ago, is where I’m going to post photos and thoughts, should any occur to me, rather than start yet another single-trip blog. That is, at least, the intent now. We’ll see how it goes.

-Scott. 09/11/2021, London, ON