30 Days - Day 29

I could do my head some serious injury as I read the daily newspaper and bang it off the nearest hard surface.

Yeah, I renewed my subscription about 3 months ago. Call me a sentimental old fool, but there's something about the 7.30 a.m. delivery to my wee red box on the pillar in the driveway, the breakfast, the paper propped up before me. I know The Telegram, our Newfoundland daily newspaper, is on its last legs. It's shrunk to the size of a postage stamp and could be read from slender cover to back page car ads in 10 minutes flat.

But!

Where would you ever get to chuckle over the ad up above? I would want a washer not telling but actually doing: like offloading the wash into the dryer automatically, then the dryer decanting and folding the contents when dry and putting the laundry away in drawers? Now they'd be talking alright.

And then, a shudder of horror as I read about Labrador City who are rebating the 11 cent tax on each cigarette to bring more trade to local businesses. Yes, you read that right.

Imagine, if you will, the sheer madness of a government encouraging people to die more cheaply.

Something to Look Forward To

Newest Ad from Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism.

My father would say this at the beginning of the year:

To make life worth living, you always have to have something to look forward to in the coming twelve months.

He was right.

Daughter and I had one of our marathon phone sessions today. No, we don't do Skype as that locks you in place. We do Bluetooth. Which means we can move around and cook, clean, knit, let the dog out and some important etceteras.

My birthday came up in conversation and she really wants to plan a vacation trip for it, one with Grandgirl involved. The three of us have travelled a lot together over the years. South Carolina, Mexico, Ireland, etc. So Daughter said there are three choices I think Mum. New York, Iceland or Labrador.

You can guess what I chose (and Daughter agreed). Yeah, Labrador, the Big Land. There are people I know who have taken their vacations for the last 36 years in Newfoundland and Labrador and who have yet to see all of it. Truly.

We're much the same, we think. It is very easy to get sidetracked here. Every bend on the road produces a new vista, another outport to explore and stay a wee while. This year we want to head to L'Anse aux Meadows to the Viking settlement and then hop the ferry to Labrador.

Yeah, something to look forward to. I'm excited already. We 3 generations on the hoof. Again.

The Greatest Show On Earth

Somewhere over the vastness of granite and snow, glaciers and white rivers that is Northern Labrador, I thought to take out my Ipod and listen to Franz Joseph's Haydn's Missa Maria Teresa. We were at 35,000 feet and the day was crystal clear, a blameless iridescence of a sky stretching to infinity.

The music seemed like a perfect accompaniment to the magnificence of the landscape beneath me. Unknown and unknowable. The origin of our species. For surely fire formed this black granite, those inhospitable mountains, the deepest gorges. Fire and ice.

I was moved to tears, the combination of the inpenetrable forbidden landscape that slipped beneath me accompanied by the glorious music of Haydn which has never failed to affect me deeply.

I refused to be frustrated by the idea of flying over my province of Newfoundland and Labrador on my way to New York and then retracing this journey again. A flight that should only take four hours ballooned to 11, plus layovers, plus commutes that tallied to nearly 24 hours of travelling.

The clear azure of the day flooded this incredible panorama: highest mountains and blackest chasms strung with the milky pearls of glaciers and frozen rivers weaving and threading through the tapestry.

The panorama finally slipped away and I took a moment to survey my fellow passengers, hoping to catch the glance of a kindred spirit. All the window blinds on the plane were down apart from mine. Everyone was watching their mini-screens or asleep.

And no one had seen the greatest show on earth beneath their feet: three hours of shattering beauty.