I’ve never come home to find my house robbed before, but I can imagine the feeling. Like being punched in the gut – dismay and shock. Disbelief.

This feeling of anguish was how I felt tonight, as I opened garbage bag after bag, brimming with food. I felt even more disgusted than normal.

It’s long overdue that I write about something other than the things I find in the garbage in New York. But… it never ceases to amaze me, so here I go again.

Tonight was lovely. I headed out on my bike after dark. Down Bedford Ave, through the Hasidic Jewish neighbourhood of Williamsburg, which was livelier than ever this evening. 

It’s still a bit embarrassing, I suppose, to pull up on a bicycle in front of a grocery store, and start carefully untying the knots on heaps of garbage bags with a headlamp. It’s not that I’m worried someone will see me and recognize me. I’d probably like that – I could explain myself. It’s all the people walking by that just casually glance over me. All those people that I can’t explain myself to. That’s who I’m thinking about when I glance around to see who’s looking.

Since the first day I got here, I’ve wanted to go out dumpster diving with my housemates. Partly because I’ve been eating the perogies and thai noodle soup and blueberries and apple cider and more (the fruits of their labour), and I want to contribute to our freegan based kitchen. And partly for the experience. (Freegan-ism, in a nutshell, is a vegan diet unless the food is averted from the waste stream)

I’m in transit. I’ve hugged my mum good bye and sat through my first flight. A 1.5 hour WestJet flight from Comox to Calgary. The coifed and smiling service counter ladies have told me all the best spots to go to in New York “And of course, you have to do the Empire State building!” and the times to get there to avoid security queues. Armed with my new knowledge of Manhattan tourism hotspots, I wave one more time at my mum through the glass and board the plane.

I have every intention of slowly filling in the blanks on this blog, but, for now, I want to give a quick update. We made it to New Orleans!

We spent three days in Memphis. Punctuated by visits to the River to stare out wistfully and imagine canoe-shaped dots on the opposite shore, we were a bit sad.

But Memphis claims to be the heart of the Blues. ‘The blues ain’t nothin’ but the truth set to music’ she sang at the only band we saw -for free in a dilapidated park.

Your appreciation for your surroundings changes when you feel like you have no choice but to be there. A highway is a marvellous thing, it’s a backdrop for adventure, for swallowing up miles and flying across the countryside. It’s a gateway, a passage, it’s an escape route or a way home.

But, when you’re standing on the side of it watching it take so many other people to where they want to be, it’s stubborn. It’s mean. It’s a clique you’re not a part of. Stone cold faces rush by, one after another, occasionally whipping their necks around to have a look at the strange phantoms on the side of the road.

The vehicles take on personas of their own. Some pass by smugly, acrimoniously. “Look at what you can’t have” they seem to sneer as they pass. Some are oblivious. Some are nosey.

More than ever, we yearned for the canoe. Sure, it was slow and exhausting. We could look back at remember the days the wind was so strong, we barely moved (or, if we let up for even a split second, we moved backwards). But it was a method of transportation and it was ours.

Lucky for us, some vehicles are kind.

When we arrived at the motel, Captain Alvin wasted no time in telling everyone our story “We just rescued them off island 10! Their canoe floated away! They’d been there for two days without water!” We were the talk of the town.

The motel was cheap and attracted a permanent crowd. Truckers Art and Robert that drive hazardous waste down to Arkansas, Danny the maintenance man, Lester the owner, and Ralph, trying to get away from it all, they all became our new neighbours. An interesting crowd.

The four men that rescued us, with their jeans and camo jackets and war painted faces, weren’t a group of duckhunters or fishermen like we first thought. There were several clues – first, they picked us up, and immediately headed, wordlessly, in the opposite direction (without asking us where we wanted to go). Second, they were wearing life jackets. Noone wears life jackets.

I figured this out as they gunned the engines in the turbulent water, to cross whirlpools in the middle of the river and ride over the wakes of passing barges in the channel. The roar of the engines, the crashing of the waves, and the howling wind made it impossible to ask, but I was pretty sure they were looking for us.

We sat, holding on tight and confused, as we sped downriver.

We lovingly named her Georgette, after Kevin’s dad, who gave her to us. She was steadfast. We often remarked on her reliable nature, how she held her head high as she glided elegantly through the water. Equally dependable was she in cresting waves, in surging swells, and in all weather. She guided us fearlessly through rain, sleet, ice-rain, snow, and even broke through a thick layer of ice one frosty morning in Illinois.

And then, three nights ago, with no fanfare or fuss, no bustle or bedlam, she made her graceful exit. Slowly, silently, on a beach on the Tennessee border, she slipped into the night. In water gently lapping against the eroding sands in rising water, she gradually headed southwards. Pausing on rocks, swaying in the current, she carried on without us.

She’s gone.