Magic Mats

I was driving the QE2 today.  Windows down, sun shining in, the Fuzz nowhere in sight and I was transported to a summer gone by when I was at my grandparent's farm in Manitoba.  I think I was about 13 or 14 years old, my cousins were 2 and 4 years older than me.  While we sometimes watched my eldest cousin wreak havoc on the locals – she was the early version of punk in small town rural Manitoba – mostly my other cousin and I pouted and cursed our lives.  We were stuck in hell.  One day we were sun tanning, the day was hot and the wind warm and I wrote a poem called Magic Mats. It started out “here we sit in the flats, brought here by our magic mats”.  And that summed it up.  When I look back on it I can still feel the palpable boredom and distain at being on this secluded farm.  No other kids. The biggest excitement of the day was seeing if the mail truck stopped at the gate or not.  Usually it did not.  And if it did stop, none of us kids wanted to walk down the hill to get the mail – it wasn’t going to be for us anyway.

I arrived at the farm with my cousins via my cousin’s mom, my Aunty.  I’m not certain of the logistics but at one point I remember being part of her entourage that was visiting my Uncle’s relatives.  Those folks were kind and welcoming and I remember listening to The Cars – Drive on cassette in a tree swing.  Eventually we got to the farm and Aunty went home; leaving us cousins on the flats with no magic mats.  It wasn’t a full working farm then.  The orchards were overgrown, the fields were rented by other farmers, the barns were empty but the place was picture perfect.  Not a weed in sight. My Grampa would be gone from sun up to sun down “farming”.   Just before suppertime he would show up, cook supper for us and then sit back and watch. We grandkids must have been entertainment for him; surely we filled up the house with noise.

During the day we would sleep until the afternoon then go exploring, play silly games in the barns like scaring ourselves silly imagining ghosts. There was a river nearby and we would do all the things you shouldn’t do.  My cousins would get leeches on their legs and run screaming all the way back to the farm house for Grama to help them.  I was always too scared of the water to go in so they would be the ones to get into trouble for playing in the river.  On rainy days we would try to use the satellite dish.  Gramps liked to watch the playboy channel at night so we were warned not to touch the tv.  But sometimes we found the MTV satellite/channel and I remember Bruce Springsteen and Courtney Cox - Dancing in the Dark. There was a big picture window in the kitchen that overlooked a meadow.  I would spend hours looking out that window watching for coyotes crossing the field. It was a real score to see more than one.  I admired their independence, their sideways loping, ever wary of the unknown.   I think that is why I have such an affinity to the coyotes now.  

Eventually someone, maybe my mom, came and picked us up and we went home.  The next time I was at the farm was probably 7 or 8 years later for Grama’s funeral.  I did not stay very long.  My cousins were not there.  The picture window was dirty and the view was obscured by overgrown trees.  Some of the barns had obvious structural issues. But it was still beautiful.  I haven’t been back to the farm since.  But on days like today, sunshine, wheat fields, windows down and farmers in the field – I think about the flats and the magic mats and I am back there.