US-Canada Relations

Comics about a long-ago cross-border romance

Hello! In case you’re new here, this is where I post pages from my old sketchbook journal series, The Drawing Book. Sometimes these old stories and pictures are about Bob Dylan (like my post from last week about my speculations on the connections between Bob Dylan and George Eliot’s novel Middlemarch). But more often, they’re about my own adventures as a flight attendant based in Calgary in the late 90s - early 2000s.

This feels like a weird time to be posting comics - there’s a lot going on in the world that feels more important. I keep reminding myself that art is still important even during hard times, and hoping that these sketchbook comics aren’t too frivolous. Going back through these old sketchbooks has been a grounding exercise for me, and it’s nice to be able to share that with you.

Today, I think I can say that Canada and the United States are on the least friendly terms they’ve been on, in my lifetime! That’s… no good. Anyway, it just happens that the next few pages of my journal are about the start of an American-Canadian relationship. So, I guess that’s as good a subject as any, for the drawing book today.

The story starts in Calgary, with an update about my life back in early 2000…

Yes, I had been busy painting! I was going to have a painting show… and that will definitely be the subject of another Drawing Book episode. But that’s another story. The important part here is the last thing on the page: “I’m going to Santa Cruz!”

But, one other note about that last page. Right before the end, it shows me reading a line of text in Hungarian (a language I tried to learn a few times… that’s another story, too.) The line says: “And a stranger walks in.” That’s a bit crazy, in hindsight. I didn’t know, then, what would happen to me in Santa Cruz, California.

I went to Santa Cruz in March, 2000… why? To see Bob Dylan, of course! My friend and I went to see two amazing shows, and you can read all about that adventure here, in a previous Drawing Book newsletter, published just about one year ago! I posted that episode out of order, for the Bob Dylan fans. But this story isn’t about Dylan - it’s about how, on that trip, I met a Santa Cruz guy and… stayed a week longer than I had planned to! I didn’t draw anything during that time, but here’s what I wrote on the way home…

Here’s what I wrote about that last page, in my earlier newsletter about the trip to Santa Cruz:

I was back at the San Francisco airport, heading back to Canada after a whirlwind week, with the words from another Bob Dylan song in my head: “You’re Going to Make Me Lonesome When You Go.”

On this page, I wrote that this this song was there to counterbalance another song I’d written about in the drawing book a while before: “Lucy Ashton’s Song,” which I wrote about in this episode of The Drawing Book called “Flaky Introspection.” I had changed a gloomy song for a joyful one. The opening harmonica on “You’re Going To Make Me Lonesome” still sounds to me like pure joy.

Of course, “You’re Going to Make Me Lonesome When You Go” isn’t really a title that bodes well for a long and lasting relationship, is it? But at the time, I just thought of it as the soundtrack to a new long-distance romance that was going to be defined by meetings and partings. The trip had been magical in so many ways and, for now, I was happy.

I got back home, but I couldn’t forget that guy. Here’s the next page, 8 days later.

In between all these sketches, I kept working on my usual flights to Frankfurt. And I stayed in touch with the Santa Cruz guy. Here’s a page I wrote to explain to him what my everyday life was like…

Pretty soon, it was time for the opening night of that painting show I’d been working on! And the Santa Cruz guy flew up to be there.

He told me a story about John Lennon and Yoko Ono that I didn’t know. They went through a period known as “The Lost Weekend,” during which they tried to break up - but it didn’t work. They got back together, and Lennon said something like, “Our attempt to break up has been a failure.” The new boyfriend and I called our reunion “The Found Weekend,” and announced that our attempt to get together, against all odds, had been a success.

It’s a bit of a blur twenty-five years later, but judging by the drawing book, it looks like the visit was cut short by another trip to Frankfurt, during which I made a few notes about the new boyfriend’s impressions of Canada.

The realities of a long-distance relationship kicked in. Luckily, in the days before September 11th, 2001, it was still very easy to hop on planes and travel between Canada and the US. So we did, and you can read about those adventures in some upcoming Drawing Book pages.

It’s strange and bittersweet to read about these border-hopping adventures on the same day that Canada and the United States seem to have ended up in a trade war, with maybe even worse things to come. Back in 2000, I could not have imagined that things would turn out this way. But here we are, so I will keep retracing my steps through the old stories, in hopes that they will help me navigate the new ones. Thanks for coming along with me!