The airplane thundered through the clouds, touching down on what appeared to be an impossibly tiny runway. Certainly not the network of runways akin to the sprawling airports I had just left behind: Vienna, London, Toronto. But then this Northern Ontario town could hardly be compared to bustling cosmopolitan centers. Cosmopolitan. That's what I had wanted to be, had dreamt of becoming, for as long as I could remember. At first opportunity, I left home, resolving to never look back, abandoning ordinary small-town life and the sleepy countryside for extraordinary urban life, lured to the bright lights by the quixotic promise of glamour.
It took awhile, but gradually I came to sample the true substance of what lay behind the enticement of glamour, the hypnotic appeal of the bright lights. Oh, I had skipped across the extraordinary stones, the last of which had seen me go to Vienna on a much sought-after posting. And education, coupled with bursting bravado, had nurtured an easy confidence in me, a confidence and style that many people envied. Yet together with the confidence and style, my quest for the cosmopolite introduced me to betrayal and falsehood. To interchangeable values and ethics. My clear, simplistic outlook on life slowly and sinuously eroded: I can't recall when or how it started but bitterness and cynicism eventually tainted many ideals and emotions. A subtle transformation. Several years would pass before I could sit back and assess the superficiality around me and within me, before glamour would reveal itself for the impostor that it could so frequently be.
Now I was leaving Vienna and Europe behind, to return to a small, non-descript cluster of villages, strung out in desolate random along the Trans-Canada Highway. The doors of the airplane swung open. I strained to catch sight of my parents and saw them amid the small crowd, eyes anxiously scanning the deplaning passengers. "They look frail, frail and oddly vulnerable." I read unmistakable pride on their faces as I went to them, "our daughter," they were silently shouting to the bystanders, "look at her!" My uncooperative body trembled as I moved into my parents' arms, tears threatened - the scalding heat brought an unexpected flood of warmth to an icy, deadened spirit. "I've been away too long," I admitted as we collected my assortment of luggage and walked to the car, "where and when did I forget what coming home is all about?"
Initially everything seemed the same; after all, how much could change in four years? But upon closer scrutiny, I saw that the farmhouse had aged some in my absence, aged in a no-nonsense, comfortable way. Here and there the fading wallpaper proudly displayed curious patterns of spattered grease; there were faint soot marks where the wood stove had once stood; the kitchen floor was scuffed and worn, as if finally protesting against the unrelenting patter of feet that had tramped across it over the years. The furniture invited the world-weary traveler to come taste of its coziness, establishing that it was of the utile type and not strategically arranged in order to best enhance some imaginary geometric lines that interior designers were always raving about. Everything about the house was so unlike the homes I had grown accustomed to in recent years; I had forgotten that calculated decor did not matter much in these parts. Instead, this house spoke quietly of joys and sorrows, of triumphs and tragedies, of big family gatherings where the children had run carefree, unfettered by the facades born of sophistication.
And my parents themselves had aged. Aged in a dignified manner, there was no evidence of artificial attempts to forestall nature's determined march of time. No, my parents were accepting their advancing years with an elusive, enviable grace. "They look like real grandparents, what old people are supposed to look like," I blinked suddenly, surprised that I should again feel the tears prick behind my eyelids, "graying hair, gently-lined faces, slower movements." The smell of fresh, pungent coffee invaded my senses. The same battered and discoloured percolator bubbled merrily on the stove. Music to my ears. I was almost seduced into believing, I so wanted to believe, that nothing had really changed while I had been away. Settling back in my chair, I felt the old ease descend upon me, and I knew that the magic of the big old house was weaving its spell once more.
"You remember old John Randall?" mother plunked a steaming mug of coffee down in front of me, "well he up and died last winter, the neighbours found him, already dead a couple of days." "Actually we've buried quite a few around these parts since you children all left," my dad quietly picked up the threads of the conversation, "some young, some old. Mostly old." And I listened, late into the evening, about the failed marriages, the tragic deaths, the ruined crops. And understood, with a jaded finality, that to the true sophisticate, all of these lives would seem terribly commonplace, not worth knowing about. Definitely not worth caring about. Nevertheless, these lives had been an integral part of my childhood, woven into my mind and soul, not easily dispensed with or dismissed with a casual shrug of the shoulders.