How else can the COVID lockdown be described other than moderately memorable?
It was a brave new world, with classes morphing into Zoom meetings, grocery stores mimicking the final stages of a municipal licensing bureau (as we took turns posing for our photos, albeit never smiling), everyone taking spacious turns and daily nutrition T-1000ing into obscene amounts of chicken fingers and mozzarella sticks in untold freezers.
Although I did my best to use the rarely allotted time to relax, I found myself taking walks along our lakefront with my earbuds full of Deftones, reading the razor-wit writings of Pierre Elliott Trudeau from when he was writing for Cité Libre, and finally taking in the entirety of Canada: A People’s History and The Rick Mercer Report.
Good jams. The works of a brilliant writer. A gem of a comedian exploring our beautiful country. Rest. Relaxation.
But as Scottish poet Robert Burns once wrote, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.”
Again, the universe had other plans.
I received a call from Kenora. An invitation to deliver 34 speaking engagements over eight weeks on an accurate understanding of our treaty (as well as its philosophical implications) to doctors, nurses, staff and medical students at the Lake of the Woods hospital, as part of the foundations of the All Nations initiative in health care.
Absolutely!
To ensure that travel wasn’t too intensive, there was a warm and thoughtful invitation to stay at a cabin next to a beautiful lake. This was amazing, and I gladly accepted the offer.
It was Thanksgiving morning.
I packed my bags, clothes, writing materials, art supplies and things to keep myself occupied over the next month and a half to two months. After everything was packed, I parked my SUV in front of the Aspen House apartment complex (where I lived at the time), put my bags in the hatchback, plugged in my phone to enjoy good music during the drive, started the vehicle to let it warm up, lowered the window (so I could get back in) and went back upstairs to see if I’d forgotten anything.
Being 2.5 hours away from my destination, it felt like the most responsible thing to do.
I went back up to the third floor to double-check that nothing had been left behind, did a double-take, reached out, turned the doorknob, heard a “ping!” and suddenly, the doorknob felt ridiculously light.
“What in the world just happened?”
I reached out again, grabbed it, and instead of turning, it spun like a roulette wheel.
The internal mechanism of the doorknob had snapped.
I couldn’t leave my apartment.
My vehicle was three floors down, running.
Keys in the SUV.
Window down.
Phone plugged in.
Somewhere downstairs, my vehicle was patiently warming up for a journey that its owner was apparently no longer qualified to attend. I walked out to my balcony to ask if anyone could open my apartment door from the outside.
Then it dawned on me.
Thanksgiving.
Our residents’ parking lot was mysteriously empty. There was no one to ask for help. With my phone three floors down, I couldn’t call anyone. My intercom could only receive calls, not make them.
All I could do on this humbling Turkey Day was wait on my balcony for passersby and request random (and potentially hilarious) help, like a spiky-haired male Rapunzel waiting for salvation.
Except instead of lowering my hair, I was prepared to lower my standards of dignity to whatever altitude was necessary.
Hours passed.
Had my vehicle been stolen? Had it run out of gas from running so long? Would I need a tow? Would I eventually become a local cautionary tale about a man who successfully packed for eight weeks but couldn’t make it through his own front door?
Seconds felt like millennia. Minutes felt like eons.
Finally, someone pulled into the parking lot (having made a wrong turn and now attempting to correct it). I petitioned the better angels of their nature to buzz the intercom, let them into the building and they freed me from the honey badger den.
On the road again.
After arriving, checking in and relaxing a bit, I learned that it was an actual resort. The owners would be travelling, leaving just me and a former rez dog turned resort king named Duck.
Duck, I quickly learned, was living a better life than most provincial cabinet ministers, and with considerably less public scrutiny. The owners told me there was a washer and dryer in the basement, which was locked, and gave me the number of someone who could unlock it whenever needed.
I shared that I’d brought detergent. Tide Pods!
In the coming weeks, I opted not to potentially bother him (with the holidays approaching), so I reverted to Robbie, the young me who once watched a relative use a sink, detergent and a hanger to wash and dry clothes in International Falls.
This is where things tilted off the rails. Slowly. Insidiously.
You see, I opted to “do laundry” once a week with a kitchen sink full of hot water, a broken Tide Pod or two for freshness, lots of elbow grease in the grand tradition of Mr. Miyagi and Daniel-san, and good old-fashioned air drying.
Wax on. Wax off. Rinse. Repeat.
Except, apparently, the rinse cycle was being conducted by an entity with a personal vendetta against human civilization. However, something began to change.
Grow. Come to life. Probably move.
Each week that I travelled to the hospital boardrooms and conference classrooms, something was following me. Circling me like a psychotic, twitching vulture. Travelling with me. Something smelled musty, like algae that had seen better days.
Gradually, over the next seven weeks, it grew stronger, like a disembodied demon desperate for others to believe in him so he could gain strength. However, I never said its hidden name in the bathroom mirror five times. I left that to the imaginative output of Clive Barker, and only at Cabrini-Green.
This was like a cloud. A fog. A pissed-off poltergeist that rode upon my shoulders when I presented, rested on my knee when I drove back to the cabin, and slept next to me while trying to invade my dreams like a Springwood custodian.
I was essentially travelling with a paranormal entity whose only supernatural ability was making people reconsider the ventilation system. If I was experiencing the mystery, the listening and learning audiences must have been distracted by it.
Hundreds came and went over the weeks of speaking engagements, and I have no doubt that at least a few left with a deeper understanding of treaty relationships and a sudden desire to open a window.
I used Tide Pods, did laundry regularly, tried multiple Tide Pods in the hot water, and always travelled with my Drakkar Essence cologne, Aveeno oat and coconut lotions, and coconut milk shampoo and conditioner. That’s how I roll.
Unfortunately, Pazuzu appeared to ride along.
At this point, I was no longer applying cologne. I was negotiating a ceasefire between competing chemical and biological forces, with absolutely no diplomatic progress. Progressively worse.
By the final group, I nearly had tears in my eyes from this succubus that had latched onto me. I had come to Kenora to discuss treaties, philosophy, history, and the responsibilities we carry toward one another. Instead, I had apparently become a mobile ecological incident with a PowerPoint presentation.
On the final night, I realized what had happened.
This cabin was not the equivalent of the apartment in the Falls that I remembered. That had well water.
The cabin pumped in lake water.
That’s right.
I was submerging my clothes in lake water. Lake water in November that was still, stagnant and gradually devolving into swamp water. For seven weeks, I had been lovingly handwashing my wardrobe in what amounted to a seasonal retirement community for microorganisms.
And then hanging everything up to dry.
Naturally. Like a responsible adult. It was remarkably strong and, in turn, greatly humbling.
Robert Burns was correct. The best-laid plans to present, speak, educate, be professional, pack cologne and shampoo, use multiple detergent pods and dress stylishly can all be undone by stagnant pre-winter lake water crawling into your cabin.
It will teach you that while the teachings, knowledge, and transmission of ideas should be taken seriously and handled with care, you should never take yourself too seriously.
It will remind you.
As for the learners…
Hey, sensory learning aids long-term memory.
