Charting the Unknown

by Kim Petersen

  For how long, I wondered, had I clomped over the crust of the earth heedlessly believing myself above reality? Standing in the rain that day, I felt a keen sense of loss, not only for my daughter, but for the loss of my youthful innocence when my life was less complicated. Now, the future seemed uncertain, and each step I made was one that took me further into the unknown. As I stared at the white casket, I could practically feel the cellular structures in my brain transforming to include fear and doubt, and I knew that from that point on I would be a different person. The freedom and invincibility of my childhood receded and was replaced by a dread of future events. Now that I knew the truth, that control did not exclusively belong to me, would I ever be free to dream again?

  ~Part One~

  True course: a nautical term used to describe a course corrected for variation and deviation; one that is referenced to geographic north.

  1

  I try to remember what it was like to have the heroic, uninhibited, completely impractical dreams of a child. Now that I am over 40, searching the cranial hard drive that far back is like trying to catch a piglet in a corral. I played a game of this once at a summer fair, and just before the starter's whistle blew I wondered what the big deal was. Once the ten greased piglets were released into the corral, how hard could it be to grab the one piglet that had a ring in its nose? I studied my competition, five teenage boys, lined up against the gate next to me. They gazed intently across the broad corral that was full of mud and ringed with spectators in cowboy hats, and had little regard for a scrawny girl wearing a backwards baseball cap. None of it mattered to me. The pig was small and not nearly as smart as I was at thirteen.

  While the rest of the contestants bolted into the corral at the whistle, I hung back, intending to let them chase the little beasts right to me. The piglets ran in a large arc close to the fence, mud spattering against the paint-crackled two-by-fours, my cohorts in hot pursuit of their curly tails. The herd, moving as one, made a fluid turn, and continued to make tracks down the middle of the pen directly toward me. Not much in life is more daunting than ten stampeding, squealing piglets, followed by a company of teenage boys, both groups careening through the mud right for you as if you were a bull's eye.

  In my terror, I almost forgot to look for the pig with the ring but, at the last second, spotted him leading the pack. As he raced past, I made the lunge of my life, head first through the mud and slime. Pete Rose would have been proud. Amidst the trampling of swine hooves, I grasped a sleek, pink, torso for all of two seconds, before he slipped through my grimy hands. I looked up to see my rivals put on their brakes and change directions, resulting in a whirling of cartoon-like legs and a pandemonium of bodies attempting to avoid collision with my own. The spray of mud, similar to a school bus plowing through a gutter after a hard rain, hit me head on. Drenched, dripping, and dazed, I managed to stand. My attempt pleased the crowd, who burst into applause and laughter.

  By the time I was mobile again, some young buck in a cowboy hat was holding a shrieking, wiggling, prize with hardly a smudge on him. He won a cake and a hot air balloon ride. Memories are like that. You see a bunch speeding in your direction and try to nab one. Just when you think you have captured it, it slips away into the darkness. The whole endeavor is mucky business and you attempt it at your own risk.

  As a kid your greatest asset is that you lack the significant experiences that might cause you to pause in your dreaming. Through the mental mire, I have a vague memory of a now fuzzy faced adult asking if I wanted to be an astronaut. I examined the idea like a Rubik's cube, turning it over in my mind. Such occupations required helmets and space suits which reminded me of a man I had seen shot out of a canon at the circus. Exploding bodily from a plume of smoke to fly through the air was certainly something to admire.

  “Why yes,” I said, “I think I will be an astronaut and fly to the moon.”

  Or, on a different day, a pilot. Years of schooling, risks, and relocation, are not computed by youthful innocence which walks by the buffet table of life and says, “I'll have some of this and some of that.” The future is an Aladdin's lamp which you rub and receive three wishes. I knew nothing of Ernest Shakleton or the Titanic. I did know Luke Skywalker and Superman. Things seemed to work out just fine for them.

  Back then, I didn't mind that in superhero storylines there was always a life threatening battle to be fought. A hell bent Medusa to foil. Evil may loom around the corner waiting to take over the world, but that isn't a problem for a kid who routinely plans to rescue it in one gallant swipe of a cut-out cardboard sword. The universe awaits your glory when you are five and wearing a red towel for a cape. Your mother may tell you, as she rolls her eyes, that the neighborhood absolutely needs saving. It's a good thing you're around. Please go out and rescue it in time for supper.

  On the first day of kindergarten, you quickly learn that a cape is not appropriate and certainly does no good in saving you from the numerous snide comments that will be hurled in your direction should you choose to wear one. From that day forward, you begin to compartmentalize. Things you can do. Things you can't. The pain versus reward ratio reveals itself to you in botched attempts at skateboarding down the stairs. The elders of the community regurgitate the dangers of a world gone mad on the six o'clock news, which confirms your fears, and you become a skeptic at age 7. Unknown to you, a sleeping giant has been roused in your brain who may shake her head doubtfully and mutter for the rest of your days, “I'm not so sure you can do that.” If you are one of the lucky ones, you can ideally transfer your imaginary superpowers to your father, who will remain invincible until he loses his job, sees your first bad report card, or turns out to be Darth Vader.

  With considerable clarity, I do recall wanting desperately to be quarterback of the Denver Bronco football team. In my elementary years I watched the lanky quarterback, Craig Morton, throw bomb after bomb to the lithe and quick Rick Upchurch. I loved the drama of watching a play begin in a huddle of desperados who whispered to each other in code, nodded in agreement, patted each other's butts, and clapped in confirmation. Strategy came to life in a Napoleonic effort to claim turf. Wars of this magnitude would be nothing without the world looking on, cheering or groaning, and spilling beer on their neighbor. From my own seat on the couch in the family room, I watched every Bronco game religiously. I knew all the players and stats. On the days I wasn't wearing the team colors of orange and blue, I drank the teams carbonated beverage, Orange Crush, by the barrelful. In 1978, the Broncos lost to the Dallas Cowboys in Superbowl XII, and I lay on the same couch and sobbed. Upon expressing my quarterback dreams, certain significant others, seeking to spare me disappointment, asked if I might want to be a cheerleader instead. Perhaps it was natural as I was blonde and leggy even as a child. I was mortified. Who would want to stand on the sidelines when you could be in the game?

  I was nine years old when I learned the hard truth that women could not play in the NFL. I learned it from Avery Adams, youngest member of the “Adams Family” who lived in an unkempt, dilapidated rancher on the corner. Jokes abounded. During a schoolyard game, I stood on the line of scrimmage, my hands ready to receive the hike, and told Avery where to stand. He refused. I was furious. I told him I was the quarterback and he would do what I said or I'd bench him. He yelled back at me, “Whatever boss lady, it's not like you're ever going to play in the NFL!” I stuck my tongue out at him and subsequently threw the ball 10 yards to my wide receiver, who ran across the goal line for a touchdown.

  Later, I considered his comment. I worked systemically through all the teams in the NFL. Sure enough, not a woman in the lot. It was the first time I realized that there were certain things I could not do because I was a girl. Frustrated, I all but gave up on my gender that day. After all, what fun did they have? While women took care of the food and the cleaning, not at all thrilling, men watched football, a highly valued pastime in my opinion. True, they may be in charge of the barbeque, but that was outside and near the
croquet set or volleyball net and there was always time for a game in between flipping burgers. I admired this work/play strategy and aligned myself with it whenever possible.

  As I neared adolescence, I found myself on the opposite side of a growing chasm from my girlish contemporaries. I could not relate to their annoying giggles or their frequent and dramatic spats. While they seemed content to huddle on sidelines, I wanted in on whatever game was being played that recess. To influence certain boys holding the keys to the forbidden city of male dominated sports, I distanced myself from my playground sisters. I practiced throwing a football through a tire hanging from a tree branch on the weekends. This did little to eliminate the grumbling of several boys every time I tried to get in on the action. After several successful attempts at proving myself, classmate Greg Tanner, keeper of the keys, called my name relatively early in the picking of teams and from then on I was a normal addition to recess sports.

  Since I believe in a life after this one, it is my hope that there might be opportunities to fulfill unrequited dreams. You can be sure that I will look up Craig Morton, assuming he is post mortem, and get him to give me some pointers. We'll track down Rick Upchurch and Haven Moses and have ourselves a Denver Bronco-Dallas Cowboy rematch. I will be quarterback. There will be a stadium filled with fans eating hot dogs and doing the wave. In the last 10 seconds, with our team down by three, I will hurtle a Hail-Mary cannonball from our own 30 yard line which Upchurch will catch while diving into the end zone. He'll hold the ball up and wiggle his knees back and forth. After the game, I will run into Tom Landry, coach of the Cowboys during that fateful Bronco-Cowboy Super Bowl game. He will want to congratulate me on my success, and although I have the utmost respect for him, I will probably have to cross over to the other side of the street.

  My fourth grade math teacher's name was Miss Kahn. I also had her for social studies. She was young, I thought, for a teacher. She had a thin, willowy, frame, long dark hair and, my mother said with some aplomb, was Jewish. We were Christians and from what I had picked up at Sunday school, Jews were practically kin. A religious grandparent of sorts. For this reason, I had an affinity for Miss Kahn, but also because she sighed. Voluminous breaths were slowly expelled from her small frame whenever we misbehaved or wrote a wrong answer at the blackboard. Mostly she sighed in math class and this I could relate to.

  One day we were reviewing multiple digit subtraction and she said, “Class, I'd like all of you to take out a blank sheet of paper.” There was a pause and a rustling of wide ruled sheets. “On the top I'd like you to write the number two thousand.”

  Another pause.

  “Now, directly below this I want you to write the year in which you were born…everyone have that? All right, now I want you to subtract it from the two thousand.”

  A lengthier pause and the sound of pencils scratching.

  “Paul, what number do you have?” she asked. Paul wore thick glasses and was quick in math, not so good in football.

  “Thirty two,” he said.

  “Good. Anyone else have anything different?”

  A few kids had thirty three, but most, including myself, had thirty two.

  Right there at the front of Room 8 where nothing exciting ever happened, Miss Kahn morphed into an enchantress. She stood up from her desk and walked to the doorway, lifted her small hand to the light switch and flicked off the light. I turned around in my desk to look at the wide eyed girl who sat behind me. We shrugged our shoulders. The air was tingly. This, I thought, was the best kind of math. I glanced at my classmates through the dimness of light let in through thinly curtained windows. For the first time all year the class was completely absorbed.

  “Now, I want you to close your eyes and imagine that you are in the year 2000.…think hard…what might life be like so many years into the future? “

  Into my mind came a picture of the space age cartoon The Jetsons. Simultaneously I heard the theme song: “Meet George Jetson…..his boy Elroy….”

  Interrupting the chorus in my head, Miss Kahn continued in a soft voice, “What do you think it will be like in the year 2000? Raise your hand if you have an idea.”

  I raised my hand and said, “We'll travel in flying cars.” Hands shot up across the room. I was peeking. Someone else said, “We'll live on the moon.” “We'll eat instant food.” “Travel by teleporting from one place to another.” “Maybe we'll have our own robots and they'll do all our chores for us!” This got us going. “Maybe there won't be any school!” a boy from the back row shouted out without raising his hand. There were numerous shouts of “hurray!” at this answer.

  Miss Kahn, leery of the boy in the back row, steered the conversation along by saying, “Class, I want you to open your eyes and look at your sheet of paper….The number you have written down on the paper in front of you is how old you will be when we leave this century, the nineteen hundreds, and enter into a new one, the two thousands. I want you to close your eyes again and imagine yourself at thirty two or thirty three. What will your life be like? Who will you be?” This time, there was a lengthier pause.

  In my mind emerged a vision of me in biggie size, the face obscured. I was wearing a long, straight, blue skirt and was busy getting ready to leave the house for an important job like taste testing ice cream flavors for Baskin Robbins. On second thought, I would likely be a double agent and secretly packing heat around my waist. It appeared I was married to a man with dark hair who wore a blue pin stripe suit and a red tie around his neck. He sat at the kitchen table eating Fruit Loops. I was shooing two (or three?) children out the door with bag lunches: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, apples, and Ding Dongs for dessert. I watched the kids board a yellow school bus and then the future me went down the front steps carrying a black leather briefcase, jumped into a car, and sped off in a hurry.

  I was surprised to find that the future me was a stranger. A stranger driving in an unknown car. I didn't recognize her hair or her body or her shoes. I imagined my fourth grade self walking down the sidewalk carrying a load of school books and my grown up version pulling over to the curb next to me.

  Rolling down the car window, she would ask, “You need a ride there, hon?”

  Peering skeptically inside, fourth grade Me would quicken her pace, frown, and say, “I'm not supposed to get in the car with strangers.”

  Future Me would say something like, “Okay then. Your loss,” and drive away. Later I would try to shake the curious feeling that I'd seen her someplace before. All too soon, Miss Kahn turned on the light and the moment was gone. I was left grasping at something I could not quite put my finger on, but felt like it was important and I had missed it. Through a dissipating mental fog I heard her say, “Children, you can open your eyes now. I wanted you to stretch your imaginations and learn that numbers are important. Remember that.”

  2

  After high school graduation, I decided I agreed with Miss Kahn. Numbers were important. For instance, eighteen years was far too long to live in the same city, the same house, with the same people. I had zero tolerance for any numbers that happened to make up a curfew or the amount of chores needing to be completed on a Saturday. What I needed were fresh numbers in my life. Like the telephone digits of new friends who didn't insist on recounting all my embarrassing moments at every party. And it was definitely time to live at a new house number on what was preferably an avenue or a boulevard. Better yet, a Rue Le something-or- other. Going to university provided the opportunity to mix up the numbers in my life. To eliminate any possibility of running into people from my past at the mall, I decided to go to someplace outside the United States. I wanted something foreign, exotic, but not third world. Nothing too crazy. Canada, I thought, could be just the place. I applied to a university and got accepted. When friends asked where I was going for university, I told them British Columbia. Several of them asked why I was going to school in South America.

  My preconceived ideas of Canada came largely from watching the fiction
al characters Bob and Doug McKenzie on SCTV, and later, the movie Strange Brew. I had further instruction from them in a tape cassette possessed by a friend called, The Great White North. I wasn't much of a beer drinker at that time, but I figured jelly doughnuts, if truly as prevalent as implied, would help ease my culture shock into Canadian society. I found the interjection of “eh” to be a quaint locution, much better than the American “huh.” The summer before I left for school, I practiced calling my younger brother a “hoser” and found it to be a more than adequate insult. I told him to “take off eh” when he tried to tag along to the mall. Yes, it would seem to be cold in Canada, as evidenced by Bob and Doug's toques, but I figured I would keep warm by singing, with friends in a round, the catchy, “Coo Roo coo coo coo coo coo.”

  On a more educated level, I had heard of Canadian political giant Pierre Trudeau. If his antics, including mouthing the euphemism “fuddle duddle” to opposition MPs and performing a pirouette behind the back of Queen Elizabeth II, were any indication of the passion and humor of Canadians, I figured I was in for a rousing four years.

  I was shocked to find that life in Canada was less than shocking.

  Even without the help of jelly donuts, no more numerous than other doughnuts, I settled into a similar culture whose subtle nuances were initially lost to me. I was at university to get educated, not to get the famous MRS. degree. The first week of school I told my roommate I was not interested in boys or dating. She smiled and gave me two weeks before I succumbed like a wuss to having a boyfriend. I told her in no uncertain terms that I had my life all worked out and a boyfriend was not in the plan. I wanted to graduate and get a good job. It was important to me to be able to provide for myself without being dependent on some guy. She grinned.