At the same time that travel restrictions got even tighter this week, in Canada and other countries, I hear that friends of a friend have just booked travel to southeast Asia in the fall. I really had to stop and think about that; is that a short time or a long time away from now? What will change between now and then?

I find it almost impossible to imagine travel in the future right now. My imagination isn’t working that way these days, it’s too busy amusing me in the present I guess. It may also be part of the wider time warping phenomenon I’ve found all through this past year. Time has become a fluid, shifting experience – I can’t remember whether something occurred a week ago, a month ago, or 3 months ago. And future time didn’t work out so well either, when everything I had looked forward to never happened. For me, thinking of a time in the future means I have to imagine that future, and I can’t. So I don’t. At the same time, I have never thought of “getting back to normal”, as wherever it is we’re headed, that’s not it.

Like a lot of people living in the middle of global pandemic there are things I miss doing, like getting together with friends and family, near and far, and traveling for a change of scenery both locally and abroad, but I don’t think much about where I’ll go when some day it would be possible again. Because I can’t see that far away.

So instead of thinking about future travel, I’m amusing myself by second hand travel, in the here and now. Turns out I’m traveling to all kind of places. Video.

For example, if I had a bucket list, Scotland would be on it. Last fall local public television was showcasing Scotland in their programming for a couple of months and aired a wide variety of shows – travel, arts, history, natural world – and I watched a lot of it, roaming the country on my screen, letting someone else do the driving (and drone filming), and act as tour guide, allowing access to places you’d never see even if you were there in person. I have never been to the country of my father’s birthplace but this has to be the next best thing so I traveled vicariously. Travel shows are keeping me going.

The real fun began when I came across a You Tube channel of a woman who lives in Italy, on the Amalfi Coast in a town called Positano. Originally from the U.K. she lives there with her Italian husband and teenage daughter and films scenes from her everyday life, posting a weekly video about this and that – selected scenes from life – making pasta, gardening, having lunch with friends and family, walking the dog, kayaking, taking a boat trip to Capri for the day, and visiting other towns along the coast. The real star of the show is the gorgeous scenery that she captures beautifully in every episode – or maybe it captures her.

Now Positano has featured very large in my imagination and memory, going back a long, long time. When I was a teenager, I happened to read an article in Gourmet magazine at my Aunt’s house about the town of Positano and the famous San Pietro Hotel, carved into a cliffside and was completely enchanted by it. (I still have that magazine and rereading that article elicits those same feelings of longing). It became a dream of mine to visit someday, to walk the steps of the town and see for myself those bougainvillea and Mediterranean views.

Years later my dream came true. More than 20 years ago, Howard was working in international finance and mentioned to his Italian counterpart my long-time dream of visiting Positano. The next meeting the group was having was scheduled to be hosted by Italy. “I’ll see what I can do,” said Lorenzo. And he did, he went the distance for me in planning the meeting location. “My apologies, it can’t be in Positano, the town is too small for this kind of meeting, but we’ve arranged for it to be held on the island of Ischia, in the Bay of Naples, which is close enough for you to easily spend time in Positano after the meetings. ” And so, there I was, tagging along to southern Italy. Thank you Lorenzo.

Ischia was a dream. I remember the sheer beauty of the buildings, the stone walls and gardens under the Mediterranean sun, exploring by motorbike, enchanted by the vegetation and flowers. I found out for the first time what a real lemon was (as opposed to what we buy in our supermarkets) when we walked past a low-walled garden filled with lemon trees and struck up a conversation with the owner/gardener, who as it turned out had lived for some years in Toronto. He gave me a lemon from the garden. Its smell was so extraordinary that I carried it around for three days, constantly sniffing it and sighing loudly. If anybody noticed, it wouldn’t have been the first time to raise eyebrows among the locals. There was also the time I went into a small shop selling produce and, valiantly trying to put together a sentence in Italian, I ended up asking the woman for “a kilometre of cherries”! Laughed and laughed (still do). Speaking of three days, that’s how long it took for the airline that misplaced my luggage to get it to me on the isIand. I wore the same clothes for three days and couldn’t have cared less. I was so happy in Ischia.

That was the appetizer. Then we got on a boat and sailed across the Bay of Naples, passed the island of Capri, continued down the coast a bit, turned the corner and there it was. The town of my dreams.

We were there only a short time, just a taste, but it was wonderful. We stayed in a sister hotel to San Pietro in town, the Miramare, with its balconies and terraces covered in bougainvilleas. Cliffside buildings were all shades of cream, yellow, peach and coral. Purple wisteria was in bloom – I had never before seen these over-the-top dripping blossoms, making gorgeous messes of violet petals on patio floors. Pots of flowers were everywhere, in front of every door, on every wall, windowsill, lining pathways and steps. And, always in view, was the sun shining on the glistening Mediterranean. Sigh.

So now, I’m having a great time binge watching someone filming her surroundings as she lives and hangs out in Positano and the surrounding Amalfi Coast, traveling around with her and rekindling my own memories and imagination. Oh, and there’s a huge upside to this kind of visit to Positano. There is also the issue of the defining feature of this gorgeous town. Stairs!!

There are only a few roads that run through the town from the Amalfi Coast highway above so access to most of the buildings in this town is by foot. And because it’s built into a steep hillside that means walkways and lots of stairs between the buildings and garden walls. Anywhere you want to go in town will be 500 steps. And back. I know this very well. Our hotel was only accessible on foot, some guy carried our luggage on his back down (and up) from the road, and we walked and climbed and climbed and walked the entire time. I thought those stairs were killers then and that was over 20 years ago! So now it suits me just fine, to have my YouTube Positano host do all the climbing and walking as she films the scenery, or takes me with her on the back seat of a motorbike, watching the landscape pass through her IPhone. I’m leaving all that climbing to someone younger.

One day the time will no doubt come when I can dream about a future of travel plans to somewhere but not just yet. For now I’m traveling through memory, imagination and video – the next destination, who knows where, but only a click away.

Meanwhile, back in this time zone, in this decade, I took my camera for a walk at the beach the other day at high tide. It was cold, cloudy and damp. 4C degrees. That morning it had even snowed a little but that melted in short order. I had on three layers under my jacket plus a large scarf, hat, jacket hood, 2 pairs of gloves. This is what I found, painful to watch. You will never find me swimming in the ocean on the coast of B.C. in January – never. I have known that some do swim all year ’round in all weather, so there must be something about it that fulfills something. But my imagination doesn’t stretch quite that far.

One of the consequences of going away for the first half of December is you miss a lot. Christmas carols in the stores, decorations, over-shopping, crowds – all that is a bypass. Turns out that is all good. In New Zealand, every time I would catch a glimpse of a Christmas tree somewhere it would feel like an out of body experience, given that it was summer.

But another consequence is it has turned out to be pretty, darned difficult to find a Christmas tree around here past the middle of December. We’ve looked for two days. At the very last possible vendor, a garden centre in Parksville, Mike and I stood looking at the last remaining specimens in the tree lot – tall, scrawny, poor, leftover misfits. We were at last ready to admit defeat.

“We need to go to Plan B”, I said.  “What’s Plan B?” Mike asked.

“I have no idea”.

So we poked around and found a few large evergreen boughs, a big green reflective thingy, some pine cones, some overpriced sticks and 100 bucks later poured it all into the trunk of the car.

Here’s Plan B. O Christmas “Tree”:

Speaking of Christmas trees, it would appear that my beloved home town of a gazillion years ago, Montreal, has got itself into a bit of a jam. Intended to herald the upcoming 375th anniversary year of the founding of the city, organizers planned to display the biggest Christmas tree in North America, determined to outdo even the famed New York Rockefeller Center Tree.  Well, pissing contests don’t often end well, and Montreal is now a laughing stock, with its tree being named as the Ugliest Tree in Canada (if not the universe). Take a look at trees Canada-wide.

Vancouver – Robson Square 50 ft.

 

Toronto City Hall – 60 ft

 

Ottawa – Landsdowne Park

 

Montreal – 88 ft.

To add insult to injury, the tree has no star, and is decorated with red triangles with the Canadian Tire logo (its sponsor).

Oh, and that rival Rockefeller Center tree? It went even bigger this year and  topped Montreal at 94 ft.

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