Just An Old Lady

I got to spend an entire afternoon alone with The Exchange yesterday. We went to the CN Tower. Now, you'd think that would be a real treat, like a dream date or something. And it would have been, if I weren't such an old lady.

To be sure, The Exchange is beautiful to look at, a pleasure to stand beside. But it's been a long time since I've been downtown. In fact, I can't remember the last time. And it's certainly been never that I found myself at Union Station during rush hour when suburban office workers disgorge from concrete towers with furrowed brows and harried paces.

So that was how I hooked up with The Exchange. We put The Boy on a bus to Hamilton for a gig, then went to the CN Tower through the underground pathways of Union Station. After a few steps, I felt disoriented, like a trapped animal. I remembered why I hated underground passages. Soon, I was overwhelmed by the human traffic and white noise around me. I couldn't focus or turn the sound off.

I was surprised that The Exchange knew how to get to the CN Tower through these interior corridors. I felt I should have known that route. I was sure I had been there before. Yet, every step I took felt new, and at every junction, I didn't know which turn to take. For the first time, I had a sense of what claustrophobia or a panic attack might feel like and I wondered if this wasn't an extension of my inability to sit in an enclosed non-moving car. In those winding tunnels of Union Station amongst the mole-like scurrying and shrieking of bipeds, I felt a depression come over me.

When we finally got up to the CN Tower, it was an hour's wait before we could get up to the Sky Pod. We stood in line. Throngs of people moved back and forth in the narrow hall of the observation deck where we queued for the elevator. Soon, I was fanning myself and heard The Exchange ask several times, Are you okay? Sure?

I knew I was okay. I just didn't know why I had broken out in a sweat and was heaving for breath. Sure, there were lots of people around, and it may have been hot. It dawned on me I might've been having a hot flash.

To normalize my attention, I struck up meaningless conversation with The Exchange (as if any of our conversations have ever been anything but opportunities for me to stare at him in wonder) and people in the queue.

The young woman in front showed me her drawings. She had been sketching furiously in her pad during the whole line up. She was from Belize, the only English speaking country in Central America. I didn't know that Belize operates much like Canada, with English its official language and Queen Elizabeth its head of state.

Still, it was pleasant enough, this excursion to the CN Tower. But it was obvious The Exchange would rather spend time with The Boy than with me. Thank god he's normal. In our chats, he reveals he is more than just a pretty face, full of political opinions, quite worldly and knowledgeable about Canada.

But I am afraid that I too am more...more of an old lady than I thought. Funny that nature should assert itself so to remind me to keep my distance and behave.