John Southworth Tour Diary: Part Two

You may remember we posted the first half of John Southworth's tour diaries a couple of weeks ago. Well, we've finally got the rest of them, so here's the latter half of Southworth's train trip across the nation...

Winnipeg To Edmonton
Endless panoramic views 360 degrees... Edvard Munch would not fair well in Portage La Prairie or Melville. Thinking of the Icelandic immigrants travelling by the hundreds over a century ago over sea, rock, wood, lake, down the last great mighty hill into the flatland, silent and wide-eyed in the night slowly twisting the land into the great wheat ocean, a land fit for leather-skinned crews and skippers of the plough, rogue grandmothers with stone stomachs, giants with hockey sticks in hand... is that the Titanic I see half buried and surrounded by cows and kangaroos? The sky is filling with fish clouds high above the mythical vastness. I can only begin to remotely sense from my cute little train seat the epic undertaking to turn seed into grain... what scattered feverish ants the rest of us are.

Edmonton, Victoria Day
Day off in the Day's Inn. Downtown is deserted. The Queen is here to celebrate Alberta's 100 years of Confederation — good for her. Sadly it is raining and windy and people are staying home... it's always peculiar and dreamy to stroll though a new city especially when it is empty and founded in 1981.

The next day, the sun is out and I am performing a series of improvisational dances in front of the Alberta legislature 15 minutes after the Queen was here. I'm in my own private musical. I love fountains, and I love to dance and move like a wild bird beside them.

The Rockies or Mother Mountains
It is almost sadly Disney-esque, sinful and frustrating that we can't get out and stop and feel this miracle of creation weighted with immaculate histories everything experience through one sense eating blueberry pie and ice cream while viewing holy naked wonders. Met Tree, who is returning from seeing her father for the first time in 16 years, everyone has their own journey and myth and dream.

Victoria
The train pulled into Vancouver at 8 a.m. It is the last of the railroad we will see. The ferry ride to Vancouver Island fills me with old memory and loss. A band of Swedish girls are practising their dance routine on the upper deck. After checking into the hotel in Victoria, I meet my father. I am exhausted. I have averaged about three hours of sleep a night over almost three weeks. We stroll to the ocean and sit on the rocks. Today, he is younger than me.

At the show, a sample of Victoria's ripe and irrepressible youth come out. Some are dressed as faerie stewardesses. Others are screaming and making wild bird noises. It is very Lynchian. Apparently Victoria sits on moving earth. Now I understand. After the show, I wander up to Fernwood and walk through a surreal garden belonging to teenage herbalists, talking and moving quietly 'til dawn.