This is what I see:
A nice handbag. I have my eye on a few. Tom Ford’s Jennifer and Prada’s Aimee are at the top of the list.
Inside the bag is my old coach wallet, bought in Florida a long time ago. It’s a bit scarred and battered, stained from a slice of pizza bought in Sete, France. My friend put it in my bag, thinking the paper sleeve would protect it, and the grease spread. I was mad at him all day when it happened.
In my vision – or dream snippet of my future reality, I’m not sure – the weathered leather wallet is filled with cash: Twenties, fifties. Hundreds. I see Canadian, American, Sterling, euros and Aussie dollars spilling out of it, haphazardly, the way tissues fall out of my current non-Prada purse during allergy season.
I throw the bag easily on the floor of the passenger’s side of my shiny SUV. Sometimes it’s a van, but one that is always easy to park. Whatever it is, I always see myself stepping up to the driver’s seat, as the new car smell wafts over me.
In this little snippet of my life’s dream, the sun is always shining and I’m always wearing comfortable shorts and a white tee shirt. My footwear alternates between flipflops and sandals – ones I can easily kick off as I love driving in my bare feet. Usually I’m parked under some trees, my van is clean and organised, the gas tank full, my bag full of money, and I am off on an adventure. The road beckons, and finally, I am on my way. I see this scene easily, and it comes to me often, unbidden, usually when I am tired or discouraged. Sometimes when I am trying to fall back to sleep. It pops up when I need some peace, some solace. To believe there are good things coming.
The best days of my life have been spent on road trips – finding places for coffee, seeing tourist sites, hiking parks, pulling over randomly to simply see the view. My first long, non-family road trip happened one summer when I drove with a partner at the time from New Brunswick to Vancouver, British Columbia, via the US. I camped in Acadia Park in Maine, spent a very hot and emotional day at Arlington Cemetery, had my picture taken outside the Fred Flintstone house in Bedford, Arizona; climbed the Grand Canyon, had fried chicken in Winslow, Arizona (Eagles fans will get this) biked and hugged trees in the Redwood Forest, and spent two days seeing everything in San Francisco. I remember changing my clothes in a jeep in a car park long before the days of CCTV. The 90s were the best time to travel.
Later I travelled through France on three different occasions with my friend Andrew, seeing Paris and Normandy and the chateaus of the Loire Valley. I introduced him to the Doors in a small bar in Tours, cried my way across the battle sites of the Great War, and happened upon villages that were so small people stopped what they were doing to stare at us as we drove by. One time we were parked at a small road reading a map, trying to sort which way to go, when a local woman stuck her head in the car window and we ended up talking for almost an hour. She had on lovely earrings and her lipstick was perfect – and she lived in a town that had one old church, one street, and maybe two dozen homes. I joked with my friend as we drove away that she had dressed up for our visit. We sang along to Lobos I’d Love You to Want Me in a French restaurant after perhaps one too many glasses of Cotes du Rhone. We played Cribbage and drank cold beer and have had so many good times that we still talk about.
In 2018-2019, I visited Australia for the first time. I drove through the Blue Mountains and small towns in Australia, sleeping in shorts and a tee, too tired from the sun to change. I fell in love with Bellingen, Mullumbimby, Tweed Heads – places I only discovered because I was travelling with a local. I can’t wait to return, and I think that is why in my vision I see Aussie dollars. I am coming, Adelaide, one of these days.
The year is coming to an end and like most people I am reflecting on what transpired as I anticipate the reset that comes with an arbitrary date. Me, I can’t quite figure out 2025 – a lot of stuff that could be seen as being bad happened, but it didn’t really bother me much. Maybe some changes are like that. I did have a wonderful trip to Rome in April the weekend they buried the Pope. It was humbling and overwhelming to be a part of such history. I will always remember standing with a big crowd outside a large church, wondering what was happening and learning the Pope was being interred inside, and the crowd was standing vigil, while I was eating hazelnut gelato. It felt disrespectful, but that’s the Catholic still in me, I guess.
I spent the month of June in Canada, seeing friends in BC and taking a road trip through Vancouver Island. I signed copies of my books in Tofino and spoke at the library in Gabriola and had a wonderful event in Chapters in Nanaimo, where I made some new friends. I walked a beautiful beach (I can’t remember the name) and took a spill in Lighthouse Park. As I picked myself up my friend said, ‘I won’t tell anyone’ while I laughed. I’ve told a lot of people, and am telling many more now, here. I flew across the country and had an event in Indigo in Bedford, Nova Scotia. Later I played on a trampoline with the smaller members of my family after a glass of wine. All I can say about this is remember to point your toes, and that is harder than it looks.
In September I visited Naples and took the train to Pompeii. I’ve always wanted to see the place, but it was how the sun shone and the blue of the sky, how Vesuvius is smaller than I anticipated, and how good an ice-cold beer tasted that I remember more than the ruins – and wouldn’t it be nice if life worked that way, too? I thought about the woman we met travelling alone, who needed help with train times and knowing what exit to take, and how my friend helped her, and how we ran into her later that day and heard of her adventures. As we spoke, I thought perhaps she was lonely, travelling on her own, and after she walked away I mentioned to my friend that perhaps we should have invited her for a drink. He said he thought so too, but it was too late by then. I thought about her over the following few days, hoping she was okay, as we saw new places. We took a day trip to Sorrento, and I saw the hotel where Caruso had lived and for the thousandth time since he died wanted to call my dad and tell him all about it. He wasn’t much to travel, but he loved opera. I loved Sorrento, and finding new places to love has always counted as a win in the great ledger that is my life.
As this year has played out, and my publishing life has not shaped up how I had hoped – (see bad things that I think are good, noted above) I have thought about the ultimate road trip, also stated above, when the funds are unlimited and the whole world awaits. My way of visualising the perfect life for me: a nice handbag, money to travel, the open road. That is my idea of freedom, of happiness, a sign that I have made it. One day I believe it will be more than a snippet in my imagination, it will be my reality. That’s what keeps me going, some days. Until then I have trampolines to master, hills to climb without falling, and so much to learn.
Here’s to 2026 and the kind of joy and life’s experiences, road trips and nice handbags bring – for me, at least.