Novelty

I remember a trip to Labrador when I was very young - maybe five, maybe six years old. Certain images impress on me; the huge dam on the Trans-Labrador highway, the freezing cold water of the lake by my uncle's cabin, the toads around the shore. But, the thing the most impressed on me was the feeling of novelty - of being in a new place. Like the first time I saw the lights of St. John's when I was youngster; such a metropolis in my mind at that time.


I remember leaving St. John's for Fort McMurray, to find work after graduating from university. Flying high above the prairies, and then landing in Alberta, trying to bear in mind that I have never been remotely this far West. I was in a new world. Novelty.

A few years later, I remember setting out to drive for Victoria, British Columbia. Just me and the road, threading through the Rocky Mountains, stopping to visit my sister and brother-in-law in Vancouver, meeting my infant nephew, then taking up the novel road again; boarding the ferry, passing through the the Southern Gulf Islands, and landing on Vancouver Island. I recall soaking up the feeling, trying to keep center-mind the idea of where I was; holding on, white-knuckled, to novelty. 

Then, some time later I felt the tug of home. I packed up my things, crammed it all in my car, and drove from one coast to the other. Back through the mountains, over the plains, around Lake Superior, into the Maritimes, and crossing the Gulf of St. Lawrence until I saw the fog-shrouded rocks of Port Aux Basques.

There it was, the feeling of novelty, that followed me right to the top of Signal Hill: I looked once more upon the city where I hadn't lived for 10 years.

Now there is no more novelty here; that lies outside the borders of this country, or far to the North. Someday I will find it again, but I will not chase it for its own sake. The thing about novelty is that it wears out, it is not constant - every time I found it, it eventually became routine. Even if I were to move to Rome tomorrow, it would only be a matter of time before routine found me, before the same worries and doubts came knocking on my door: "would you like some strutto with that uncertainty?"

Novelty will betray the one who loves it too much; I think now I would rather an even keel and calm seas. Which isn't to say that one should never wonder, but perhaps the best kind of wonder is the kind you find in routine; to still look up at an airplane, after seeing so many countless airplanes, and to wonder at it.