The Endgame
Newsletter #120 - Me and my passport
Toronto, November 2, 2025
Me and my passport
A passport carries emotional weight. It expresses your national identity. Chat GPT says it’s “a small, sacred object that grants or denies access.” You can become neurotically attached to this small, sacred object. Your passport can loom large in your life.
I’ve had a passport all my adult life. I’ve kept all my old ones, as a record of my travels. Below is a picture of my first passport, issued in 1963. It was British. I got it before I became a Canadian citizen (in 1971). I still have a current British passport (for a while it was a European Community passport—the disaster of Brexit deprived me of that) but when I travel I always use my Canadian passport. Why do I bother keeping a current British passport? I suppose it’s because I have a slightly confused national identity, typical of many immigrants.
There’s a special place in our house where I keep my passport. I check that place periodically to be sure it’s still there. Why wouldn’t it be? Who knows. I need reassurance. When I’m travelling, I always carry my passport with me in the pocket of my jeans. I never leave it in the hotel safe. “That’s the first place crooks will look,” I tell Cynnie. “A hotel safe is child’s play for guys who can break into the Louvre.” When I’m in a foreign country, I stick my hand in my pocket frequently to make sure my passport is still there. I need reassurance.
It’s a disaster if you lose your passport while travelling. What do you do, and how long does it take to get new documents? A few years ago, Cynnie and I were in Kyrgyzstan (don’t ask). One day she suddenly said, “I can’t find my passport.” Canada doesn’t have an embassy in Kyrgyzstan. We would have had to deal with the Canadian Embassy in Kazakhstan. I had a bad feeling about this, and was quite upset. “Oh, here it is,” she said nonchalantly, pulling her passport out of an inside pocket of her large purse. “You need to calm down,” she added, looking at me sideways.
The other day, in the middle of the night, I got it into my head that we needed to renew our passports right away. Many foreign countries won’t admit you unless your passport is good for at least six months from the date of entry. We have a couple of big trips coming up. At three in the morning, tossing and turning, I convinced myself that we were in danger of running afoul of the six months rule. We had to act decisively. I woke Cynnie and said, we must move quickly on passport renewal, first thing in the morning. “Okay,” she said, and went back to sleep, but not before saying pointedly, “you need to calm down.”
Across the street from our house there’s a government office which has passport renewal forms. I was waiting outside when it opened. Then I dragged Cynnie down the street to a store which takes passport photos. Back home, we completed the application forms and attached the photos. “Let’s not waste time,” I said, “ let’s take a taxi right now to the passport office, and get these applications in, and pay extra for expedited treatment.” She asked, “Do I have to come with you?” “Yes,” I said, “just in case there’s a problem.”
Luckily there was no line-up at the passport office. I gave our renewal forms to a man behind the counter. He looked at them, handed them back, and said, “We generally don’t accept applications this far in advance. Your passports don’t expire for a year. Come back later.”
Cynthia was silent in the taxi going home. Suddenly I remembered my dear friend Brian, about my age, still super-competent, bubbling over with acute ideas and analysis, telling me he was once in the shower and couldn’t remember how to turn it off.
*****
Some reader comments on Endgame #118 (“A fixed point of navigation”)
From Patricia Chisholm: “Cool, especially the Khyber Pass part. Now utterly impassable.”
Philippe Poussier writes from Bordeaux: “Mention of the Khyber Pass reminds me of course of the beautiful novel of Joseph Kessel, The Horsemen, that I read avidly before travelling to Afghanistan by car with three friends in the summer of 1967. At that time, this magnificent country was peaceful, we camped there for one month, were free to go anywhere, were welcome by the people who were quite curious of these four young men (18 years old for me, in their early twenties for the three others) who did not have guns or wives. Another century! I am not sure that you and I ever realized that we had had the shared good fortune to visit this region long before it became a zone of conflicts.”
Danni Crenna, Bentley’s partner, sent me the lyrics of a song called “The Unfinished List” that her son wrote for Bentley after he died. Here’s one verse: “I have walks not walked, people I’ll never know./ And my unfinished list that only seems to grow./ There’s my love I didn’t finish loving, how could I ever?/ My only regret is leaving my love, forever.”
Some further reader comments on Endgame #87 (“Going home”), posted as an encore presentation on October 19
From Thea K Scott: My childhood was in Banbury. We were back in the States in time for 1970. Moving on, roughly 40 years ago I had a (lengthy) flight connection through Heathrow. I felt like I’d come home. First thing was a cuppa and scone at Victoria Station. Then a short bit of shopping before returning to Heathrow to board our flight to the continent. Then, 11 months ago I accompanied my partner to London, where he had three days of business. The air, the fragrances of flowers and foods. Maple leaves at their prime littered and nearly obscuring the sidewalks and the oh-so-familiar sounds. The accents, lilts and rhythms, politeness and bells. I’d come home.”
From Julius Grey in Montreal: “I, too, see rationally that I was lucky to be part of Canada’s and Quebec’s golden age and yet I cannot help a feeling of joy and even hope for the future when I set foot in my native Poland and especially the city of Wroclaw where I lived. For a few seconds I become a boy again with everything ahead of me.”
And, via X, an interesting comment on Endgame #82 (“Kelly, Rance, we hardly knew ye”) about Kelly Gruber and Rance Mulliniks who played for the Blue Jays in the 1990s
*****
Finally, buy the book!
All Remaining Passengers is available online from on line retailers, :
https://www.amazon.ca/All-Remaining-Passengers-Essays-Eighty/dp/0993638996
https://www.bookcity.ca/item/hM967DjL6IhW-gbhg0RMuQ
https://bookshop.org/p/books/all-remaining-passengers-essays-from-the-edge-of-eighty-philip-slayton/aa75cd7d3f34a2ea
…and from some independent bookstores in Canada (coast-to-coast) including Ben McNally Books and Book City (Yonge & St. Clair branch) in Toronto, Munro’s Books and Russell Books in Victoria, B.C. (where it’s been selling like warm cakes), and Salt-Water Ballad Books in Port Medway, Nova Scotia.
Great article Phil! Enjoyed reading it!
I hate the LA Dodgers, let's get that out of the way. I no longer carry dual U.S.-Canada papers, but I did down three gin and tonics during last night's game. But to other matters---:
Passports as objects of anxiety (let alone as visual documentation of our physical changes)
is a fine subject for Slayton and I was grateful this entry in The Endgame. Philip and Cynthia
have been able to travel the world and I believe appreciate that privilege; but Philip always
travels widely in his mind; as E Dickinson said, to travel all one needs to do is close one's eyes.
Some years ago, in Holland, I had to show my passport to some police official at the train station, because apparently I resembled a "person of interest." It was quite an unpleasant experience and took place in a small room. I suppose I so seldom think of myself as a person of interest, so there was that. Anyway, I feel strongly that Slayton should perhaps consider TRY TO CALM DOWN as a title for....something. He is a national treasure....oh, I meant international.