Catch up 2: Friday, August 4, St. John's, NL.

Being in St. John's reminded me of the feeling I used to get as a child at Christmas. The house would fill up with people and with colourful foods and packages and lights, and there would be so much going on - good things all, but just so much - that I would end up running down to the basement and hiding because I just needed a little space and a little quiet. I loved the excitement, but I could not take it all in at once. I'd sit at a little distance and think about all the exciting things going on - my favourite foods, presents in boxes, my cousins playing games, and then after a little while, I was happy and ready to jump back into the melée.

By the end of my first day in St. John's, I was somewhat disoriented. The landscape and the culture were just different. I wasn't at all unhappy - getting to go on an adventuresome holiday and take in a folk festival pretty much made me feel like a kid at Christmas - but I was sure not at home, either.

I spent a good portion of the day wandering downtown streets. I loved the row houses, colourful, distinctive, and no two alike, but it unnerved me to find that many of these old houses do not have front yards. You can just about touch them from the sidewalk. It felt very close, larger and brighter than reality. The air is heavy and salty as well, leading to a sensation of being pressed-in or squeezed.


Some of the roads are a bit steep too.

It took me a little while to get used to the scale of St. John's. There are not a lot of large buildings, but having a lot of buildings close together changes the shape and size of movements a person makes. The great thing about it is that there is something new to discover with every step. The old houses are full of character, and there are a number of lanes that are accessible only to pedestrians (and, perhaps, stair-enabled vehicles). Some go around corners; others pop out of nowhere; others end unexpectedly. Cats wander freely. Occasionally there is something left on a doorstep to hint at the corners of people's lives: a book, a basket, a child's toy.

Being so close to houses means you get to see lots of mailboxes. St. John's has the best mailboxes of any town I have ever visited. Lots of people paint them interestingly: to look like a set of row houses, a miniature of their own house, a garden, or something else entirely. I did not take many pictures because I thought it might be weird for the owner to look out the window and see a camera aimed at the house's front.

Still, I could not resist when I saw a house number that was not an integer. Go figure eh?

It was in a row of three: 28, 28 1/2, and 30. I can only surmise that, being on the "even" side of the street, 29 was not an option. Does St. John's have watering restrictions, like many other towns do, where you can water your lawn on even days if your house number is even, and on odd days if your house number is odd? If so, what does this place do? I love to wonder.

Anyway, after my wandering, I found something for dinner and wound up at the Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival for its opening on Friday evening. I was excited, let me tell you. I love me some good folk music, and the N&LFF is reputed to be among the best.

It was then that I began to encounter the race that knows Joseph (go read your L. M. Montgomery if you don't know the reference. It means "kindred spirit"). Heather and her family turned up after a hard day's travel home from holidays, but still with spunk and smiles, ready to hear some great music. It was so good to meet them in person and have friends to enjoy good company and good music with. I had been having fun, but joy shared is doubled, as they say.

Memories from Friday night are scattered and snapshot-like in their quality: hearing Frank Maher sing "O'Brien is Dead," which I still think is one of the funniest songs in the world; seeing Heather's Eleanor dive behind her mother when introduced to me; meeting their friend Andrew, another member of the race that knows Joseph; eating a moose burger and not being sure if it was really moose meat or not; and trying to get back to the university in the dark after having taken a wrong turn, not exactly sure where I was.

As for the music: it was incredible. Superlative, delightful, and it, too, was larger than life, as any music must be when you've come to love it from recordings and suddenly get to hear it played live. My expectations were not only surpassed, but also reshaped by the musicians and the atmosphere. I had done my best to imagine what it would be like, but I had only imagined the edge of things. There was a whole dimension I had not known that unfolded before me until I just sat back and let it all wash over me. I guess the folk culture is just deeper and stronger than I had thought. What I had imagined to be a sculpture turned out to be a creature, with complexity of structure, as well as mannerisms, eccentricities, humour, and personality.

It was harder to capture than I expected.