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The saplings they had planted in front of the main building were trees now. It had been over thirty years since I had last seen them. The homecomings in my first year at U of Toronto and then next year as well. I almost made it back in 81, but I hadn´t been able to rent a car without a credit card. So I had spent the night at the Airport Hilton in Dorval and then taken the train back to Cornwall and spent Thanksgiving at home. And some five or six weeks later I had flown down to Buenos Aires for my temporary posting. I get out of the car and walk a few paces through the snow to stand between the trees that line Moulton Hill Road at this end of the senior football field. The paths from Williams and Smith house are visible, tramped in the snow, and the sky is clear. It´s almost 3 PM. I see two students walk out the front doors and head towards the infirmary. It´s Monday. A good day for a cold. Isa remains in the car. She´s worried about us getting back to Ottawa in time for our fight back on Tuesday. This side trip was unexpected.

Hello! Can I help you?

I start a little and turn. Some master dressed warmly with gloves and a silly toque. Or do they even call them masters now? I breath in and say,

Afternoon. Just having a quick look. An unplanned side tour.
Why don´t you come up and have a look around? What year were you?
Ah ... 1976

He nods. I feel out of place, lost, unaccomplished.

You don´t look it! Ha! Ha! he grins. Has he spied Isadora in the car?
We´re really rushed I say uncomfortably.
Well maybe you can park in front of Williams House. It´s a little tricky here you see ...
Yes. That´s true. I´ll turn around ... yes.

I feel a mild nausea suffocating me. I shake his hand and stamp quickly through the snow back to the rented car. I turn the keys, wait for a Hummer to pass, ( who the hell is that I wonder ), and turn the car around. Instead of parking in front of Williams I keep heading straight past Smith House and over the bridge. I turn right onto what is now apparently Rue College and and drive into Lennoxville where I turn right on Queen Street. Isadora has said nothing. She understands perfectly and doesn´t fuss about how I´ve wasted a trip out to the Eastern Townships. For her, just seeing me stare briefly at my old school is enough.

Y tutti ... cuando llegamos a Montreal?
Mas bien las 18. Sera un caos.

I answer grimly. I´ve never liked driving. But it´s beautiful country, the Townships, even in winter I think as we drive past Orford. The sky is holding clear for which I´m grateful.

Ahi aprendi a esquiar I say pointing.
No era Owles?

It´s true. My first ski trip with the school was at Owl´s Head and not Orford.

Owl´s head I correct her.
Si amor.

She remembers everything about me. And me about her. Dangerous, awkward and lovely I suppose. Are we still in love? I think we are. The autoroute is clear and I´m able to do 120 km an hour easily. So we should make it to the Champlain Bridge by 6 PM, even with rush hour. I´m not sure what made me do this drive, but it was somehow necessary. Just that short awkward meeting with the master and a quick look at the school were proof that I had long ago left behind that careful path. Boarding School, Economics degree, job with a bank. I had felt lost when I first quit the job in early 82. A panic really that had lasted over a month. But after a few wonderful summer months at the cottage near L´Esterel I had returned to Kingston and soon after was writing songs with ... oh well the names don´t matter. And I still can´t let go of music. Over 25 years of trying to get something, anything, to happen, and I´m still writing songs. A handful of CD´s sold at iTunes. No idea who bought them. How I didn´t end up jumping off a building or in the Mental Health Centre on Queen West I have no idea. You never know how close in fact you are to suicide if you never actually attempt it. I just had to believe that things would get better without any proof that they would. It had been an act of faith really. The counselling with the psychiatrist came a couple of years after the worst was over. Then the retreat from Toronto, from Queen Street West back to my parent´s home. I turn on the car´s radio and look for the CBC. Isadora should hear CBC Radio at least once before we return. Something by Hawksley Workman is playing. She turns up the volume and we drive west past the exit to Granby. Still no clouds or snow.

King Edward Avenue. Greenfield Park. The South Shore. Father´s childhood home is somewhere over there to the right. Between the wars he would wander the fields and streams near his home. Green fields indeed. The suburbs have been spreading south and east for decades now and those fields have long been subdivisions - I´d see them out the window of the Voyageur bus on my way to and from school. ´The traffic is heavy as we head up onto the bridge. I focus on the driving, my arms tense. Isadora is looking out the window. She´s not smoking I realize. I brake as a Toyota Highlander cuts me off. She hasn´t smoked in more than a week ... I have to concentrate on the driving damnit. It´s fairly dark already. A deepening dusk and I´m not used to night driving. We head off the bridge and onto the island. We should reach Ottawa by a little after 8 PM.