when I ran away to Canada

“How long will you be staying in Canada?” asked the border guard.

“Um, I don’t know … probably just a night or two.”

“What will you be doing while you’re here?”

“Um, I don’t know … I might find a place to camp. I’m just driving.”

A quizzical look from him. A tear-streaked smile from me, my hands up in helpless explanation.

He frowned in sympathy. “Well, have a nice time,” he said softly, and handed me back my New Hampshire license. I pulled forward and crossed the border.

I had left Portsmouth the evening before, shortly after finding out that the first man I had ever fallen in love with had died of cancer. I hadn’t even known he was sick. I didn’t know what to do, and was so shocked that I was practically numb.

I didn’t know where I was headed. I just knew that I didn’t want to be home and that I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I did have the foresight to stop at the traffic circle for a bottle of scotch on my way out of town, but, by midnight, I was somewhere in Vermont in a driving rain, realizing that I needed to find a place to crash for the night and I didn’t even have a toothbrush. Miraculously, I found an open convenience store where I bought the latter, as well as some toothpaste, and finally stumbled upon a side-of-the-road motel. I checked in, sipped some scotch, smoked cigarettes amid the muggy, mosquito-laden July air, brushed my teeth and woke in the morning wondering what I was doing and where in the hell I was.

I consulted a map to find my location, but further inquiries were inconclusive. All I could tell was that I wanted to keep going north.

Driving the winding, hilly roads through the sunny Vermont countryside was reassuring and peaceful—a welcome change from the previous night’s lashing windshield wipers as I barreled up the interstate. As the towns grew smaller and further between, I could tell that I was approaching the Canadian border, but it still somehow surprised me when I reached it. All of a sudden I was there, in line, then across.

The unexpectedness of what I was doing excited me, so I hit the highway and drove all out—windows down, radio off and speed rising. It was like a sprint, and when I became breathless, I veered off at the next exit and decided which direction to turn as I turned it. I traveled through town after faceless town until I found myself in what seemed like a national forest.
At some point, I realized that I had pretty much no cash—U.S. or Canadian. It was getting on Saturday afternoon, and I didn’t know if I would be able to find a bank, or if my debit card would work in a Canadian ATM. I also noticed that all of the signs were in French, of which my knowledge stops at “merci.”

In the first actual “town” I drove through, I pulled into a little gas station that looked like it had been plucked from the 1970s. It was so small and close to the road that there was barely enough room for vehicles to pull up to the tanks, and the lot consisted of a tangle of cars parked at varying angles across puddles in the dirt. I had gotten my tent out of storage at the beginning of the summer but never found a good place for it in my apartment, so it was now convenient that it had been rolling around the boot of my station wagon for months. My hope was that someone at the gas station could tell me where to find a bank, and then I would head back to that forest and find a campground for the night.

At the side entrance of the gas station, vines draped a low arbor shading a haphazard array of herbs and perennials for sale. Inside, more plants hung everywhere, and electronica music buzzed and thumped off of blood red walls. I walked through a library of videos for rent and past an industrial-sized wooden spool that had been sanded and stained and turned into a table—it looked like a sunny breakfast nook—and slowly approached the counter. The young woman there spoke little English, but managed to convey that Jean Phillipe would be back soon. Whoever that was, it sounded vaguely promising.

Jean Phillipe, it turned out, was the owner of the gas station (and the gardener). He was tall, very tan, middle-aged, handsome, gregarious and extremely laid back. I explained my monetary dilemma. It was a national holiday, he informed me. No banks would be open. He asked how much money I wanted. I guessed a hundred bucks. He instructed me to give him my card. He ran it, it went through, and he handed me Canadian cash. That simple. No charge. No care of being taxed on it if it looked like income for his business. Just done. If the parking lot and signs in French hadn’t told me already, I was now convinced: I was not in the United States.

“So,” he wanted to know, “what are you doing here?”

“Um, I don’t know,” I replied. “I left yesterday. I’m just driving. I was thinking of camping in that forest nearby.”

“Camp? You have a tent?” Yes. “There is a campsite right behind the gas station.” Oh, really? “My friend runs it.” How convenient. “It’s right on a lake. I rent kayaks.” You’ve got to be kidding me. “You camp there.”

I almost didn’t believe him. But, sure enough, there it was: a grassy little campground on a finger of land at the edge of a lake. There were showers (bonus), a game room (I’d pass) and neat little bundles of firewood for sale (how much?!). I signed up for the night, moved my car, set up my tent and headed back to the gas station to rent a kayak.

My meandering across the lake mirrored the way I had gotten to Canada in the first place, alternately sprinting, resting and just generally poking around. The day was gorgeous and the lake big, but not daunting. I was tempted to dive straight in to cool down, but settled for splashing my face, neck and arms with the water. I floated. I paddled. I lolled. I considered. Getting away felt good.

I took Jean Phillipe’s advice and went to a bistro down the street for dinner, and followed it up with a fire by myself amidst the French-speaking families that had filled the campground. Just like at the bistro, there was life all around me: laughter, conversation, voices raised in excitement. I couldn’t understand a word, and people seemed to know that. They looked, but no one spoke to me. No questions asked. No answers needed.

The next morning, I headed to the gas station again, this time to see about a phone because, finally, I remembered that I had a cat. Jean Phillipe handed me the cordless, and I called a friend who would require little explanation. He gladly agreed to check in on Sada. 

“So, where’s a good place for breakfast?” I asked Jean Phillipe. 

“You eat breakfast here,” he said, pointing to the kitchen.

A kitchen! In the gas station! It was fully equipped—even the pantry and refrigerator were full. I cooked up some eggs and toast, he poured me a cup of coffee, and we chatted about our nights like we were roommates.

“How much do I owe you?” I asked.

“We settle up later.”

I traded my kayak for a mountain bike and headed back to that forest, which was laced with miles and miles of dirt trails. I got lost but finally came to another lake, this one swarmed with beachgoers. I was drenched in sweat and had no bathing suit, but hell, I didn’t know these people. I stripped down to my bra and underwear and went for a dip. (Fortunately, I couldn’t make out what people were saying about me.) These unknown waters, at last, cooled me down.

On the deceivingly long and steep decline back to town, I was finally able to stop pedaling and just cruise. Relief turned to fun as the bike picked up speed, then turned again to childlike fright as my momentum continued to gain. But, like a child, I refused to brake. I flew down the hill, cackling out loud in glee that vied to be heard over the sound of the wind whipping past my ears, the dirt and gravel giving way beneath the tires. The path eventually evened out, the bike slowed and I picked up a steady pace.

I was ready to go home.