Once again, Marty and I were spending a lot of time together in the studio—still friends, just friends. I had a boyfriend, he had a girlfriend, nothing to see here.
One day, after reading The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino and then visiting my sister Anna—who was, by then, a mother of two with a third not far behind—I got that song feeling again, the one that appears in my chest like a little animal, and when I sat down at my piano, a most surprising thing came out: a happy song! I don’t think I’d ever written a truly optimistic love song before. The chords were simple and repetitive, but it rolled itself out to me so easily, so intact—this story about a family who lived in a tree house in the middle of the ’burbs, who had two kids now, and the husband said he wanted a third. It was a song about a couple who were true partners; people who knew how to love each other. It’s a song about a dad who was just as into kids as the mum was, and I guess that’s what I’d always longed for: someone who could be a true partner not only to me and my dreams, but also to our kids and their dreams. This was a song about a man who didn’t need saving—a man who just needed enjoying. A man who knew how to love.
On this side, things they work differently.
Me oh my, we’re all that we hoped we’d be.
Because this time—we dared to believe.
I was pretty sure this was just the kind of song Henry would absolutely … hate. Too conventional. Too obvious. Too hopeful. I tucked it away for another time.
I loved Henry madly, would have done just about anything for him. He was not only my love, but also a mentor. In some secret part of me, I looked up to him so much I really did think he was God.
But still, when I was offered an exchange scholarship to the University of British Columbia, in Canada, I took it. Had to. Needed to. It was the final test, really, in working out whether I was actually recovered, was actually capable of taking care of myself.
Considering what happened last time I went overseas on my own, my parents must have been a little worried. But, as always, they tried very hard to show their confidence in me, and later, at the airport, although I told Mum not to, she of course slipped me an envelope with every holy medal from the shop inside, and a new rosary to boot. I was crying so much I couldn’t stop laughing. Dad also slipped me an envelope—one of his legendary letters and a couple of hundred bucks, for luck, he said.
My father was a beautiful writer and had a most masterly way with words. His letters revealed a side of him, a playfulness and humour, that in the busyness of work and family life wasn’t always on show. I sometimes forgot how well he knew me, and how dear I was to him, but his letter made these things clear. He began with a lovely list of what he saw to be my qualities, starting with my openness, which he called both convenient and inconvenient at the same time (he was rather honest, my dad). When I did go to Canada, there was one part of this letter I read to myself again and again, the one where he’d written:
I expect you will meet with frustrating times as well as ‘challenging’ ones, but you have worked through such things before. And you will meet with depressing situations and things that are hard to cope with. Again, that’s life, and those things will not hold you for too long. Disasters are never welcome, but you know my analogy to muscle-building, It is those tough times that we have faced and dealt with that have built up the strength of the Sandy Bows and, in the process, we have all the more to give to others. You see such a wonderful example in your mum.
It was an extraordinary year. I lived in a share house in downtown Vancouver, marvelled at the maple leaves in the fall, skied on the mountain-tops in winter, worked at the Museum of Anthropology, studied writing and Ethnomusicology, busked for my bus-fare on Vancouver Island, tried brand new songs at open mics all over town, took a train right across the country, went on a road trip to Mexico, volunteered at every writers’ and music festival I could, wrote for the local student newspaper in exchange for gig tickets, hiked and camped in bear country, explored Japanese gardens and huge cedar-tree forests, was mentored by a senior radio producer at the CBC, then I myself made recorded radio documentaries, of a drag queen competition in Edmonton, and a pole-raising ceremony in the far Pacific north-west-coast island of Haida Gwaii. I even got to spend an hour interviewing Warren Ellis, the famous violinist from one of my favourite bands in the whole world, Dirty Three. I was such a big fan and so scared, I was shaking, and possibly chain-smoking (a minor lapse, I promise). But, most of all, I wrote songs about home. Every night, I slept with my guitar
