Aside from family and friends, I don’t miss Alberta often since I moved to B.C. eight years ago. The drive from Calgary to Fernie is an exception.
It is a drive of few surprises, and with it came an anxiousness that I never got used to, though for the time being I valued it and kept it close. An imaginary passenger. Unlike most periods in my life which I have decidedly marked as being significant after the fact, I respected these drives as they occurred. They carried an innocence due of the lone purpose of my passage.
The drive is true to both its provinces. A horizon of straight lines and wind farms give way to sharper edges and valleys with little time to spare. I would fumble with the radio from time to time, but never carried a station for long because of a broken antenna. Once in a while my mind would wander back to past visits- of trips to the movie store, with mock defeat because we’ve seen them all. Thai food, and should we make a reservation? Of breakfast at the same cafe and why find another when that one is perfect. We never did much but it was always enough. Static from the speakers would eventually bring my attention back to the road.
I always stopped at the halfway point, or what I chose as the halfway point because of the convenience store there. On what would turn out to be the last drive for years, the cashier gave me a punch card valid only for the Coleman location. It was windy there and I never hung around for long. It was usually dark by the time I drove over the bridge and into town, and I was always late. I was never able to make up time on the way and knew you would tease me about it. Snow was everywhere, always. I can say this with absolute confidence because if it wasn’t you wouldn’t be there.
It was difficult to pull up in front of the house, beside the piles of snow where I’d assume a sidewalk was buried, though I never saw it. Shoulders shrugged in an attempt to guard against tiny snowflakes so adept at finding skin regardless of precautionary layers, I rang the doorbell while watching my breath dissipate in front of my face. The dog’s bark came so suddenly after the muffled bell that it was difficult to say with certainty which came first, and I waited each time for longer than I felt fair, as anxiousness had worn out its welcome. -Allie Jenkinson
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