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Beware the Power of Wishes
The truth is, I didn’t want to go to Canada this week. I mean, I think Canada’s a great country and all—the people there are sensible enough to use metric, oppose unjustified wars, and make really good maple syrup sugar—but I wasn’t looking forward to all those hours trapped in the car with my parents with nothing but my knitting, an internet-less laptop, and a copy of El amor en los tiempos de Cólera to distract me. So, before we left, I kept wishing: please, don’t make me to go to Canada. Please, oh, please, oh, please.
And, as long as I’m telling the truth, I did dig my heels in for a few days. But after a handful of arguments with my mother, some sweet-talking from my brother and my grandmother, and a few irresistible pleas from three much-beloved cousins, I gave in (who wouldn’t?). But I did so grumpily, muttering dire warnings all the while.
For all my supposed maturity, I can act like a six-year old—a very stubborn and immature six-year old—when I set my mind to it.
We all trooped into the car bright and not particularly early on Saturday morning and made our way up north. I spent much of the nine-hour drive to Niagara Falls knitting, napping, listening to my cousin’s brand-new iPod, or whining about not taking the one-hour flight to Toronto instead. In fact, the only time I stopped doing any of the above is after I bought a cup of Ben and Jerry’s chocolate chip cookie dough at a rest stop. (See comment about immaturity above.) By that point, however, I’d already resigned myself to the whole Canada trip and stopped making wishes. Given that we were in the car, the whole enterprise seemed hopeless.
By the time we made it to Niagara Falls, I was so exhausted by the tedium of the car, I actually toured the Falls—something I’ve seen a half-dozen times now—with gusto. I let myself be refreshed by the rushes of soothing water, the beautifully constructed bridges, the giggles of young children in line for hot-air balloon rides, and jumped back into my dad’s Sinfully Unnecessary Vehicle with more cheer than I’d displayed all day. It would only be a few minutes to the US/Canadian border, and then an hour to Toronto and a waiting meal and bed.
Except, at the border, there was a problem with my cousin’s visa—if she left the United States, she would be unable to re-enter it after our trip. Looks like we weren’t going to Canada, after all.
So, here I am, back early with my wish unexpectedly granted. My grandmother was so upset at being unable to see her eldest daughter and other grandchildren that my aunt and uncle made a special trip to the Falls to pick her up and say hello to me; Grandma will fly back, American passport no doubt clutched firmly in her grip, in a week or two. The rest of us meandered back to Manhattan, taking lots of breaks and consoling ourselves with lots of Ben and Jerry’s.
The universe can be an odd, odd thing—and the truth is, I don’t regret how things turned out. I just hope that when she comes back, my grandmother brings some maple syrup sugar just for me.
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