Conrad Boyce is the editor and publisher of the Cosmos. He has a BA in English from the University of Alberta and a diploma in journalism from Grant Macewan Community College in Edmonton. He lived and worked in the Yukon and Vancouver Island before arriving in Ontario in 1995. Beyond these pages, he is the Artistic Director of OnStage Uxbridge, and the technical manager of the Uxbridge Music Hall.
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Wither on holiday
I don’t know about you, but where to go on holiday becomes a more perplexing dilemma the older I get.
You would think that the more I read and learn about the world beyond my own narrow experience, the longer my list of desirable destinations would grow. Instead, I find more and more reasons to cross places off that list.
As I wrote in this space many moons ago, I found the popular book 1001 Places to See Before You Die both pleasantly surprising and mildly depressing. Surprising because the number of places in the book I’d actually visited amounted to more than the fingers on both hands. Depressing because no matter how much the book tried to hype the 978 places I hadn’t been, I found no more than a couple of dozen even mildly appealing. Perhaps it’s because I grow less adventurous with every wrinkle; I tend to re-interpret the book’s title as 1001 Places to See As You Die.
For example, a couple of close friends recently left for Israel to work at the Baha’i International Centre for 30 months. They are working in the beautiful city of Haifa, full of lush gardens and breathtaking architecture, not to mention being chock-full of fascinating history, which would normally draw me like a bee to honey.
Unfortunately, Haifa, despite its beauty, is located in a region where every second citizen seems to possess a sub-machine gun, and isn’t particularly discriminating about who happens to be in the way when he uses it. No matter that I’m a WASPish thespian/journalist from small-town Canada; if I’m between him and the object of his loathing on a particular afternoon, too bad for me.
And even were I able to avoid guns, Haifa is within easy lobbing distance for rocket-bearing nations like Lebanon, Syria or Dubai. After the recent mess in Gaza, who could blame me for being even more leary of rockets than I already was?
So alas, I informed my Haifa-bound friends that as much as I wished them well on their mission, and encouraged them to send many pictures, they shouldn’t book the spare room for me. I’d look forward to seeing them in 30 months.
Speaking of bombs, my wife and I had contemplated a visit to Ireland, perhaps as soon as this summer. She and I both have family connections on the Emerald Isle, myself in Donegal and she in Belfast. Besides, we have a tour guide waiting for us in Dublin in the person of Cosmos correspondent Jennifer Carroll, whose job prospects (if you’ve been following her column) are looking up to the degree that we’re quite confident she’ll still be there through the summer.
And in my mind, there are few places on the face of the planet more lovely than dear old Ireland. On my last and only visit more than 30 years ago, I happened to pick a very hot, dry, brown season, and I loved it then, so how would I feel if I dropped in when it was its customary velvet green?
Alas, I would be constantly looking over my shoulder. If you’ve missed the news this last week, there appear to be some idiots who, despite all the prosperity that peace has brought in the last few years, appear determined to bring back the nastiness of the bad old days.
Back in 1976, the bitterness in Northern Ireland was at its zenith. But I suppose I felt the invincibility of youth at that time in my life. No longer. I have no desire to deliberately court danger any more.
So instead of Haifa or Belfast this summer, we’ll probably just spend an extra week or two up at my wife’s sister’s cottage on Lake Muskoka. Well, OK, it’s not a cottage really, it’s a house several times bigger than ours on Reach Street, but it is on a large body of water, and you can hear the loons at night, and we’ve little to do up there but catch up on our reading and walk Lacey the mutt, and let our hosts regularly defeat us at euchre. Blessed idleness.
Oh, come on, I can hear you say. The chances of meeting your demise in Haifa or Belfast aren’t really a whole lot worse than on Lake Muskoka. Your canoe could be run over by a reckless water-skier, or you could be bitten by a rabid mallard. When your number’s up, it’s up, no matter whether you’re in the Middle East or the middle of a traffic jam on Hwy. 400.
But I’m sorry, I’m not really a believer in all that number’s-up business. I’m not into Fate.
Ever since my university days, I’ve been an existentialist, convinced that how your life turns out depends entirely on the decisions you, yourself, choose to make. Like where to go on holiday.
Jean-Paul Sartre would approve of the Muskoka option.
