Wind in Her Hair

Two decades had passed before I returned to live back in my homeland of Nanaimo, B.C. Life as I knew it had ended, its remains sorted and rendered down to bare bones in boxes. A friend who lives in Nanaimo insisted that it would be impossible for me to find a place to rent because of an over-crowded housing market. “People live in hotels for months while on waitlists,” she said. “You need a place to land first.” But on the day my realtor listed my house in Alberta as sold, I got an offer for a condo rental in Nanaimo. And right in the place I most needed to be.

      In mid-December of 2021, I arrived to my small condo unit on Jingle Pot Road. The lofty ceilings made it seem even emptier during those weeks alone before my furniture arrived. But I came prepared: in my car I had packed my Christmas decorations, basic dishes and cookware, a couple IKEA chairs, an air mattress, and a tiny, wrapped present from a friend for under the tree.

      When I arranged to have my things shipped to the condo, I told the admin at the moving company that Jingle and Pot are spelled separately. She giggled as she asked me to spell it out. “That is just the funniest thing I’ve ever heard,” she said. A friend of mine I emailed my new address to shortly afterwards asked me, “What? Jingle Pot? Is that even a real name?”

      Despite the name that tickles like feathers, I have tested my mettle on this road many times.

      I rode like the wind down Jingle Pot Road on the bare back of my Quarter Horse when I was 11 years old. He ran the fastest in the direction of the stables, and despite several warnings not to teach him bad habits, I exploited this. On our way back to the stable, we were all mane, reins, and hair, rocketing through the hot summer air so fast that it filled my wild eyes with tears. I was convinced that we could outrun anything and anyone – including the thoroughbreds in the neighboring pasture. Sometimes I would race passing cars on the shoulder of the road, kicking up dirt and gravel onto their windshields as they came up from behind. Some cars honked in dismay, but several slowed down to match our pace just to watch us for a while. Not knowing then that our pace was matched only because they slowed down, I thought we were ready for the racetrack.

      “Clock us,” I said to my grandpa one day. “We’re fast, grandpa. You gotta clock us.”

      “Sweetheart, that ain’t no racehorse. He’ll run like lightning for a quarter of a mile, on his way home to eat. That’s about all he’s got in ‘im.”

      “But I want you to see.”

      And so, he did. For just over half a mile, my horse and I hurtled down Jingle Pot Road alongside my grandpa’s rusty yellow F350 pickup truck. With his left hand on the steering wheel, and his right arm draped on the vinyl seat, my grandpa watched me through the open passenger window, intermittently looking down at the speedometer while keeping an eye on the road.

      We met up at the gates of the pasture. Breathless and ablaze with excitement, I slid off my frothing and sweaty horse and walked over to the truck window.

      “How fast did I go, grandpa?”

      “Well, I figure that you clocked at about 35 km an hour for most of it.”

      “Is that fast?”

      He chuckled, took a drag off his cigarette. “Yup. Pretty damn fast, kid.”

      I know now that this was not fast. He knew this, too. But he also knew that I needed to believe that I could do great things and soar above everything that was happening at home.

      When I was in my late 20’s, I jetted up and down Jingle Pot Road on my motorcycle while going to university. The pungent, sappy smell of conifers filled my nostrils on summer days as I sped down long forested stretches, exhilarated by the warm wind lashing against my skin and hair. I rode to school on wet winter days too, with rain needling my eyes and soiling the edges of textbooks in my pack. After four years of these journeys, I rode back to my cabin from the convocation ceremony one sunny day in June, flashing by the old stables of my youth. I had a degree certificate rolled up tight in my pack, and a heart burst open wide. I had defeated the odds for kids like me who never made it through high school.

      That first Christmas morning on Jingle Pot Road in the empty condo, I awoke to silence. It was permeated only occasionally by the swooshing sound of passing cars. The world lay blanketed in heavy snow, with more falling gently on the bare branches outside my window. I lay quietly for a while, nestled under my own blankets and reluctant to greet the day.

      Okay, let’s do this.

      I took a deep breath and slowly rose from bed. I slipped on some soft, fuzzy socks given to me by a friend, then ambled over to the kitchen and made coffee. I put a couple homemade gingerbread cookies on a plate and sat on the couch by the light of the Christmas tree, wrapped in a favourite blanket.

      Just when I thought things were about to get heavy, I realized that I was not alone. With me was Wind in Her Hair.

      I see you, she said. I smiled.

      We sat together and ate cookies while watching snowflakes dance on the wind, and planned our next adventure on Jingle Pot Road.