Afraid Of Heights

25 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by John Hanson in Literary, Prose, Writing

Tags

afraid of heights, bridge, Halifax, honeymoon, novel, painting, PEI, vacation

Halifax Bridge

Jesus Bill, you could have warned me about those bridges you know. You know I’m deathly afraid of heights. You knew I would never fly. That’s why we drove. You knew all of this. But Jesus Bill, you could have warned me about the bridges.

The Halifax one was bad. If you knew I might have the big one on it, would you have driven around? Would you have believed me? Do you think this is all a simple fault of my simple brain? Do you think it’s something you can just brush off and it will pass? All I can say about Halifax is that you’re lucky the view up there looked like the view from Signal Hill. Jesus b’y, you’re damned lucky it felt like home up there, just enough anyway to calm me enough to breath.

Signal Hill

Don’t think our time together made that big of a difference. I think you know I really enjoyed my three days with you in Nova Scotia, and I had just about forgotten about that bridge too. Halifax was fine; another St. John’s really. Nothing special as far as I was concerned. But that Fundy trip. Wow.

I really doubted your judgment leading us down that road, that narrow, tree-lined, back-woods highway along that bay with no view whatsoever, not in all that rain. That bottle of wine that night at the campground was nice, and I slept well, until we had to get up at 4am.

That day on that deck painting that bay was possibly the best day of my life so far. The vision of those cliffs so close in front of me glowing in the morning sun , and that bay, that channel of ocean squeezing through those rocks with such fury. I got lost in my painting that day, Bill. I’ve never been lost like that before, ever. I hope Tom likes it. He was a gracious host, and I really liked him.

Fundy Cliffs

God dammit Bill, why didn’t you tell me about that bridge to PEI? Did you think because I crossed Halifax Harbour alive that I’d survive this one? Christ Bill, that wasn’t a bridge; that was a monster. Only eight miles across, you said. Only 40 meters high, except where it’s 60 meters. Jesus H. Christ, Bill. I screamed the whole way across. Bill? How the hell am I going to get off this island? Tell me Bill!