The Rainbow Bridge

I said goodbye to my best friend.  I broke down and cried in a way I had never before.  My kids, each on either side of me while my knees buckled and I had no choice but to sit, held my hands clasped tightly in theirs.  It was as though they were now Dads, consoling a small child that couldn’t understand what was happening.  In truth, they were the ones who couldn’t truly understand, at least not the same way as me.  One week later, as I brought his ashes home for the last time, I pulled out the multi-coloured page that was nestled into the big white envelope that held his death certificate.  As I read about the Rainbow Bridge, I began to feel at peace.

Lou came into my life one warm, humid fall day in the heart of bayou country.  My wife had accepted a teaching position—her first—and so hastily we decided to pack up our life in New Brunswick to move to southern Louisiana.  That trip held many firsts for us.  It was her first full-time classroom.  It was the first time I had ever been offered a classroom.  Of course, had I finished my Bachelor of Arts on time before we had arrived, I would have also had my first classroom, but that wouldn’t come for more than a decade.  It was my first time traveling so far from home, let alone moving permanently.  The term was two years, but she had the option to opt out after the first year.  I was not legally allowed to work, but I was still able to earn cash under the table doing odd jobs.  I lived in constant fear that someone would blow the whistle on me, and the INS would come swooping in to ship me back home.  Fortunately, our adopted town was extremely supportive of us, and I was never in any real danger.  For the record, I legally applied for temporary work permits three times.  I was denied all three after waiting months.  The third and final rejection arrived via our forwarded mail, several weeks after we were back in Canada.  Had they accepted me, I might have gone back down to work for a few weeks, just in principle.

While my wife was working hard establishing her new career, I found myself in sporadic droughts of work.  It wasn’t uncommon to go weeks without any work, so when our friends asked us if we would like to adopt one of their new-born kittens, we jumped at the chance.  By ‘we’, I mean ‘she’.  My experiences previously with cats had been less than enjoyable.  As a child, our family cat was Ophie, a white half-siamese and all-evil spawn of Satan that delighted in ambushing you in the dark from behind appliances, corners, and shadows.  I still have some of her scars.  She was spiteful and mean.  As a child, I wanted to love her, but I grew to despise her, jaded from a life of rejection and sheer resentment.  I think she was about twelve or so when she died.  As I write, I can’t recall if my parents actually took the time to put her down or if she just disappeared.  All that mattered was that she didn’t have to live another miserable minute.

Our new kitten represented another first for us.  We were ‘pet parents’.  You know the types.  A couple may or may not want to have kids one day, but they get either a dog or a cat and then tell all their friends about their pet as though he or she was a real child.  Pictures abound in wallets and on cell phones.  Funny little tales reminiscent of ‘baby’s first ___’ stories are bantered about ad nauseum to the rest of us, who fall into one of two camps.  We are either childless, and fall into two sub-categories—those who want to have kids but have yet to have any, or those who want no children, and stories of children or pets are equally tedious.  The rest are people who actually have children, and know that raising kids and caring for a pet, while in some ways are understandably similar, are without a doubt very different experiences. 

Without question, we were pet-parents.  Picking out our special little fellow from his myriad siblings, all wandering about aimlessly in our friends’ kitchen, was like staring into the nursery through the big plexi-glass windows, cooing how much cuter our baby was than anyone else’s.  We didn’t choose him.  He was the only one that stumbled over to us, rubbing up against our legs.  He was already in charge of our household.  He was a mixture of white and orange, with unusually long hind legs that made him walk as though he were on stilts.  His ears each had a tuft of hair that made him resemble a tiny lynx.  The rest of his brothers and sisters were all really cute, but our kitten stood out from the rest.  We brought him home a few weeks later after he was strong enough to eat on his own, and was ready to use a litter box.  In his lifetime, I could count on one hand how often he didn’t make it to his litter.

We named him Lou for two reasons.  The most obvious was that we were in Louisiana, and knowing that we were inevitably moving back home, and expecting to still have him, he would be a link to our adopted land.  Indeed, he was.  The fact that he survived that first year was a remarkable feat in itself.  Most people down there kept their pets outside, and as we all know, there is an abundance of wildlife in the swamp that would welcome a Lou-sized meal.  We kept him inside mostly, but often he would sneak outside when we weren’t looking.  More on those adventures later.

The second reason, which I thought was rather clever, was because we brought him home on September 25, my youngest sister’s birthday.  My father always called her ‘Lou’, or various derivatives thereof, and still does.  So, it seemed a no-brainer that Lou was his name.  There was never a second option.  We often joked that we would officially spell his name ‘Loux’, since many surnames in the bayou end with an ‘x’.  Over the years, he developed a whole bunch of nicknames that derived from ‘Lou’ in some way or rather.  Everyone has silly nicknames for their pets, and I challenge anyone out there to disagree.  Lou became ‘Loo-bee’, which slurred into ‘Boo-bee’, and often, just ‘Boo’.  I even called him ‘Lubomir’ for a while (the Russian variation of Lou, of course!)  When he chewed my plants, I might have called him a less savoury name.  But most of the time, I greeted him with ‘Boo’.  I still do.

Young Lou was, like any kitten, fond of exploring and climbing.  I would let him play outside in our fairly rural subdivision in those early days.  He always startled easily, which is probably a good thing if you are potential alligator prey in Louisiana.  He would dart up the nearest tree at the slightest crackle of a twig.  Try opening a pop can within 100 meters, and you may as well have blown a fog horn in his ear.  One day, he ventured a little too close to the edge of the bayou.  My guess is that the soil gave way and he fell in, after which he bolted straight up the tree right there next to him.  Oblivious to all this, I had begun to panic that he hadn’t come to the door as he always did.  Great, I thought, I had had a kitten for a few months, and I had already lost him to the swamp creatures.  I was standing by the bayou, when suddenly a slow pattering of dripping water on the leaves by my feet.  As I looked up, there was Lou, well beyond my reach, his short hair matted to his skeletal frame and caked in mud, shivering, his little heart beating out of his chest and his eyes wide as quarters.  I had no means to get him down, so I went back into the house.  Minutes later, I heard a rushing sound as Lou dive-bombed down the tree, and my brave little Simba made it to the door, completely out of energy and wheezing slightly from the bruising in his chesthe no doubt had suffered from the descent.  After cleaning him up, he curled up beside me on the couch and slept.  He would continue to do this for almost sixteen more years, and I miss it.

I decided in the wake of his harrowing adventure in the swamp that it would be best that he stay inside as much as possible, hence his beginnings as an indoor cat.  One day, I was sitting in the big comfy chair in the living room, when suddenly Lou began to meow at the door to be let in.  Odd, I thought, since I hadn’t recalled letting him out in the first place.  He came trotting nonchalantly in, and I went back to my book.  About twenty minutes later, I heard the same meowing at the door once again.  This time, I knew I hadn’t let him out.  Sure enough, it was Lou, and he once again strolled in, as though he knew he was late for curfew but didn’t care.  This time, I decided to keep an eye on him.  He lied down for a bit, then decided to go for a walk.  I quietly got up and followed him.  He walked down the hallway until he reached the washer and dryer.  Thin as he was, he slid in between them, and didn’t come back out.  I waited a few minutes then decided to investigate.  Behind the washer, there was a gaping hole, nearly two feet square in behind that I had never noticed before.  I moved the appliances back, and realized that the hole led under the subfloor, and eventually under the mobile home itself.  Lou could come and go as he pleased, but preferred to come in via the door.  I was relieved that I hadn’t completely lost my mind, but was suddenly horrified about the prospects of other animals two feet by two feet or less in size that could visit me at will.  We soon ended our time at that particular house and moved up the street into a much more secure dwelling.

In that new house, which was little more than a cottage, Lou remained an indoor cat, but that didn’t prevent the outside from finding him.  Lizards are common down south, and while harmless, they could be quiet pesky if they got inside, which they did often enough.  Fortunately, I had my own fierce hunter to keep us safe from our little reptilian friends.  One day, Lou had a lizard cornered, and was zeroing in on the kill.  The lizard had other plans.  He leaped up and bit him on the nose, enough to send Lou leaping about four feet backwards, his hair all frayed on end in his least-intimidating defensive posture.  The lizard escaped, of course, but not before Lou, in his best Sylvester impersonation spun his legs trying to gain traction to run, slipping and sliding all the way.  Another day, one of us had forgotten to let the bath water out, only to be reminded when Lou, who loved playing in the empty basin, swan-dove straight into an unexpectedly full (and probably by then cold) tub full of water.  It sounded as though a whale was breaching in there.  Yet, the dummy would continue to jump into the tub from time to time expecting it to be empty, with water occasionally still waiting to snap him back to reality.  We all have those ‘what was I thinking’ moments, and Lou was no exception.

The longer I type, the more I realize that I could fill whole chapters in a memoir about Lou.  He truly had a personality like no one else.  I know, everyone says that about their pets, and they’re right.  But Lou was unique.  He genuinely thought of himself as a person, just like the rest of us.  He was insanely jealous when Kieran was born, and had barely forgiven us for allowing this interloper into our family when Colby came along.  To make things even worse, we even got a second cat, specifically for his benefit.  He was lonesome when we returned to Canada, as I was working full-time again, and he was by himself more than ever.  Ivy was a dear little thing, mottled grey and black and a fraction of Lou’s now sizable girth.  He hated her passionately.  He bullied her away from her food, hissed at her, and generally tried to make life miserable for her.  She loved him nonetheless, and found ways to get her revenge.  One day, Lou was wandering past the kitchen table, unaware of the ambush Ivy had set for him.  I watched her crouch low so he couldn’t see her, and after wiggling her rump in anticipation, leaped in the air, all four legs splayed like a flying fox as she smashed his face into the carpet.  Instantly, she bolted, and as he came to his senses, he bolted after her.  You could have heard him cursing her.  Literally—he used to try to talk.  I could swear that he had learned to say ‘hello’, because he would say it in context.  I have witnesses, he could actually talk.  I can still hear his voice sometimes.

I intended to tell about the last few days of his life, but I just can’t do it.  Not yet, anyway.  He died just a few weeks after his sixteenth birthday.  I knew he was getting sick, but he just seemed like he was going to hold out for a while longer.  The vet suspected that he suffered a stroke in the end, and I refused to let him live scared and confused.  Just like I had done with Ivy several years earlier, I brought him in to the vet so he could fall asleep peacefully for the last time.  Kieran was there.  He held his paw, and told me that he winked at him just before he fell asleep.  I believe him.  When we came home, all it took was one glance at his food dish before I completely broke down and cried.  Colby, too shaken to be present at the vet clinic, held me tightly before Kieran came in, himself already in tears yet trying to be strong for his dad.

Lou represented more to me than just being a beloved pet.  I’ve had other pets I’ve arguably loved as much.  But Lou was different.  He was indeed a link to a much more innocent time, living in the bayou far from family and friends back home.  He was my first real attempt at being a parent.  He was fiercely devoted to me.  He was also a symbol of a relationship that has ended in recent months.  Moving into my new house was a little easier knowing my co-pilot was there with me even on those days when my kids weren’t.  He had commandeered the best seat in the new living room for his own, and to this day, I don’t sit in the big chair, because its Lou’s chair.  Kieran sits there when we watch TV because he feels Lou close to him.  He is. 

We’ve decided to put a collage of Lou photos up on the wall above it, with a small shelf to hold the small box with his ashes.  Colby wants to make a wood-burn sign that says ‘Lou’s Corner’.  We will also frame the poem the vet gave us with his death certificate.  It is called ‘The Rainbow Bridge’, and it describes how pets are waiting for their owners at the edge of the legendary Norse rainbow bridge that leads to the afterlife.  When we die, we find our faithful friends, and cross over together.  I like to think that when Lou arrived at the bridge, he had forgiven Ivy, and that they will be there playing together when I make my own journey.  I hope he’s forgiven me for leaving water in the tub or calling him not-so-nice nicknames when he chewed my plants.  For now, I still hear him jump off the bed, walk down the stairs, and say ‘hello’ when I come home from work.  A day doesn’t go by that I don’t talk with him.  I should never say ‘never’ I suppose, but I don’t think I’ll ever get another cat.  I was lucky enough to have had the best. 

Miss you, Boo.

The Man Behind The Curtain

I finished cutting the lawn around 5:30, and since I had already had a light supper, I decided to pack up my computer and head down to Read’s to write for a few hours. With the weather hot and sunny, I knew most people would want to sit at the bistro tables outside rather than the comfy chairs inside. I need a power outlet handy in the likely event my computer loses its charge.  I also need to be able to sit where there is no glare on my screen.  The air conditioning also helps.  And the coffee, which is always great there.

An author friend wrote to me recently, asking if I would like to participate in a blog tour of sorts.  She is also a blogger, and she asked if I could share some insight into how I go about planning, drafting, and publishing my pieces.   I was very honoured to be asked to participate.  I have been blogging for almost three years, and my viewership is somewhat limited to family and friends. I don’t go out of my way to promote it.  Most of the time, I’m not sure why I do it in the first place.  Writers write in anticipation of getting discovered, perhaps even published, right?

I should really begin at the beginning, since blogging sometimes doesn’t necessitate a beginning or an ending.  If you back track through my entries, you’ll notice that the first few paragraphs often start as a sort of preamble, which may or may not tie in as tidily as I’d like with the main body.  I often edit them, sometimes drastically, but in the end I usually leave them intact.  Blogging is different from most forms of writing in that it is innately raw.  The fact is, most bloggers are not trained writers.  Blogging is a recent phenomenon, although not entirely.  My grandmother is in her early nineties, and has written boxes of diaries and journals in her lifetime.  She wrote mostly about the weather, current events, and people who stopped by to visit her.  She wrote about her day-to-day experiences, not unlike I do with my blog.  The difference is that she kept her work private, and she never wrote in a way that would lend itself to public viewing.  If you keep a diary or journal, in a sense, you’re a blogger.

It also makes you a writer. 

There is a misconception about writers.  They have to be super-smart.  They are always eccentric.  They’re artsy hipsters that wear hemp bracelets and pierce their tongues.  They read obscene amounts every single day.  They’re total snobs.  They all love Margaret Atwood.  Writers are stereotyped as much as any segment of society.  I know writers that may or may not fit any combination of the above. 

How do I rank in all this?  I graduated with a 76% average.  I did well in English and History courses, but struggled greatly with Math and Science, so it kind of averaged out.  I like to read, but I wouldn’t say I love it.  I am a very slow reader.  I often back up and reread paragraphs, and sometimes whole chapters to be sure I didn’t miss anything.  It’s possible I need reading glasses.  I like learning, and as a result, I have diverse tastes in movies, music, and books.  I truly hope people don’t view me as a snob.  I’ve yet to enjoy a Margaret Atwood novel, but I respect her for what she has accomplished.  I have never owned a hemp bracelet.  Yet a writer I am.

In the spirit of the blog tour, I am including some headers for paragraphs, which I don’t normally do in my usual posts.  That’s okay, because when you are taking part in something beyond your norm, and indeed your comfort zone, you sometimes have to follow along.  Following along is fine, because ultimately writers will blaze their own trails regardless.

How do you start your writing projects?

I am not an author.  For many years I have labeled myself ‘aspiring author’.  That’s like saying you’re almost finished a degree.  It’s all well and good that you’re doing it, but it’s ultimately not as impressive that you haven’t actually finished.  Starting a blog in essence provided me an opportunity to work on smaller pieces that I knew I could finish relatively quickly.  It gave me a sense of accomplishment.  Ask any would-be author, and they’ll tell you they have countless ideas in a virtual ‘parking lot’ just waiting to be drawn out.  Some are in sketch books in various degrees of development.  Some are on scraps of paper, some gestating for months, even years in tattered Hilroy scribblers.  My ideas are all over the place, scattered over some five or six different flash drives I occasionally lose and find again over and over.  I’m getting better the older I get; I have one flash drive that I try to keep all writing on now, and I back up my major works on my computer.  They can’t both go missing, can they?

How do you continue your writing projects?

If you’d like to get the true muse behind The Hole In The Fence, I’d recommend reading my first entry, called ‘The First Glimpse’.  I would then also draw your attention to an entry I wrote about a year later called ‘Quit Stalling’.  I wrote that one out of guilt, because I had stepped away from the blog for several weeks.  When you start a blog, it becomes a commitment to which only you hold yourself accountable.  ‘Quit Stalling’ was more a pep talk to myself to just sit down and start writing after a period of non-productivity.  It turned out decent enough, so I posted it.  What I try to keep in my blog is that rawness of the ideas themselves.  I still try to edit to the best of my ability.  One of my goals is to strengthen my writing as I continue to work on my fiction.

What makes a blog a blog?  It is, again, unique as a form of writing in that it can be anything the writer wants it to be.  A product of the internet, and visible via the world-wide web anywhere you can pick up a wi-fi signal, you can make your blog as plain or extravagant as you want.  Some blogs are intricately designed with tabs, links, videos, pictures, and other whistles and bells.  Not all of these are necessarily great blogs either.  I have read very prominent blogs that have, in my opinion, awful writing, with no attention to basic conventions and principles of the written language.  What the audience likes in blogs like these is the visceral reactions, the bombast, the shock and awe. 

Once you decide to write a blog, what will be its identity?  I mentioned above that some blogs are great, others less so.  What makes one good versus bad?  Like any form of entertainment, there is no universal standard.  Lots of people love Lady Gaga, while I think she’s mediocre at best.  I wouldn’t claim she’s any good, but most pop music fans like her.  I’ve seen movies that critics lambasted, but I thoroughly enjoyed.  50 Shades Of Grey was immensely popular, but the few paragraphs I read were mind-numbing.  If you are an artist, some people will like your work, while others won’t.  That’s the nature of being an artist.  I get a lot of positive feedback from my writing, but I am sure I could send my work to hundreds of publishers only to have them rip me to shreds.  That’s another benefit to blogging.  It is good for your self-esteem, if only in the moment.

I chose to keep my blog observational at its core.  My favourite writers are two ‘Andy’s.  Andy MacDonald, the subject of my penultimate posting, was an extraordinary story teller.  He took simple, everyday happenings and created wonderfully witty tales.  His books are among the select few I reread frequently.  The other is the late Andrew Rooney.  Best known for his commentary on 60 Minutes, Andy was a columnist who shot from the hip, telling it exactly as he saw it, but had the poise to tackle challenging issues without necessarily tipping his hand one way or the other.  He was able to present his views without being preachy.  He left the reader to make up his or her own mind. 

I try to approach my blog with both Andy’s’ principles.  I want people to smile when they read it.  I’d like them to be able to relate my work to their own experiences.  I suppose most writers seek a connection with their audience, and I’m no different.  I’ve noticed that my entries that have a sentimental basis are the best received.  Some of the pieces of which I’m most proud are among the least viewed.  Some of them were, at the time they were published, excellent, while I now look back on them as rubbish.  One thing I’ve promised myself not to do is to go back and overhaul them.  I might fix grammar here and there, because I have no editor, and can’t always catch everything no matter how long I revise them, but the content has to remain the same.  ‘The Fence’ is a scrap book, and it represents me as a writer at the time I wrote it.

How do you finish your projects?

What are my routines?  There’s not much magic to share, I’m afraid.  I often wonder if other writers feel like the Wizard of Oz, terrified to be exposed.  Tonight, I showed up at Read’s, my favourite little coffee shop, bought a medium decaf because it’s after supper, set myself up in a comfy chair near an outlet, and started a new document.  It’s taken me about an hour and a half to write what you’ve just read, and as I literally type these words, I’ve yet to look back beyond this paragraph.  I will have, of course, by the time it’s published to ‘The Fence’.  Ideas are floating around for my next entry, but it might be another month before it’s developed enough to publish.  Then again, I might find myself inspired tomorrow morning, and before nightfall the next entry will be up.  This represents the 35^th official ‘Fence’ blog post, because I don’t count the two short stories and my annual top twenty albums list that appear.  In three years, that averages out to once a month, which may or may not be slow compared to other bloggers.  I have a friend who blogs almost daily, and I admire what he’s doing.  While his are brief, concise pieces, mine tend to average around three or four pages each on a standard Word document in size 12 font.  I think it takes great skill to write within smaller parameters.  I have a background graphic, but otherwise no photos or video links.  It’s just not my style.

Other bloggers, as I mentioned earlier, prefer to lay it all out there, as though they just sneezed their ideas all over the screen.  Some of them get a staggering amount of hits.  I try to aim for more stringent, well-developed ideas, with an emphasis on quality over quantity.  I’m probably displaying that writer snobbery, but I won’t apologize for my motivations.  If I can only share one piece of advice, it’s to never compromise your artistic integrity.  Write for your own reasons.  You don’t have to reveal what’s behind the curtain.  Everyone else will just have to deal.

Things Fall Apart

It didn’t creep up on me like a surprise twist ending or anything.  I didn’t just wake up one day and realize that for the first time in almost eighteen years I was single.  Yet, for whatever reason, the other day that’s exactly what happened.  I woke up, unnecessarily early for a weekend, stared at the clock which was about to go off since I had forgotten to disable it, with the terrifying realization that I was alone.  Alone in this house, in this room, in this moment.  For the guy who has always enjoyed solitude, those stolen times when I could escape everything to recharge my spirits, I found myself confused as to why I felt the way I did.  The difference this time is that when I come back recharged, I’m still alone.

By alone, I mean no longer in a relationship.  It’s neither here nor there how I got there.  My ex-wife and I have two amazing boys, and we’ll be forever linked because of them.  We also share a desire to do right by them, and that means that no matter our differences, we’ll work together to show them how separated parents can raise children without having to expose them to the issues that drove us to where we are.  For all intents and purposes, we just grew apart.  The boys probably knew it before we did.  We did them no favours trying to continue with the same cycle that kept us distant.  We were becoming worse parents for it.  There was no worse day in my life than the day we told them that our marriage was ending.  There was no greater relief than being able to be honest with them, and by extension, with ourselves.

The New Year signaled the beginning in earnest of our final split.  We hadn’t been a functioning married couple for almost six months prior, and life was certainly not easy for months more before that.  We agreed that the path of least resistance was the best course of action.  She opted to keep our house, and I began to plan the process of buying my own.

Buying my own house! I would be a third-time home buyer, but for the first time, I’d be flying solo.  For the first two houses, my income was much less than hers, and as a teacher still finding his way to a permanent contract, my employment has been a year-to-year thing.  I’ve been very fortunate to find consistent work, but in the climate we face today, even seasoned teachers are having trouble securing full-year work.  Supply teaching pays reasonably well, but the competition is staggering, and nothing is guaranteed.  You need part-time work to supplement, but try finding an employer that can accommodate last-minute calls and abrupt shift changes.  There is a reason supply teachers often abandon the profession.

The process of buying my own house seemed like an insurmountable task.  The problem I faced was that a lot of the skills people learn in their twenties, such as online banking, pricing insurance, paying taxes, and the like, were skills I never had to learn.  I married someone who was skilled at number crunching and paperwork.  It wasn’t like I couldn’t actually do it, but when you have someone who looks after all that stuff, you become complacent.  The fact is, I paid all my own bills before we met.  I got into serious credit trouble along the way, mind you, but I knew generally what to do.  Income tax?  I always found someone to do it for me.  Bank rates?  Someone just told me what to do, and I did it.  When we got married, she took on all fiscal and paper-based responsibility.  I was in no hurry to learn any of it.

So, better late than never.  I’m thirty-eight, I needed to buy a house right away, and I had no idea what I was doing.  I also needed to perform well at work so I can continue to secure employment.  I also needed to be a decent father to my children.  I kept telling myself that it would all be worth it when I could be alone at last every other week.  There was a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.  I told myself to concentrate on one aspect of the process at a time.  I consulted mortgage brokers.  I met with my banker.  I secured a lawyer.  I hired a real-estate agent.  I found an insurance provider.  Everyone along the way was friendly and helpful.  Of course they were; they stood to make a lot of money off my predicament.

I shouldn’t be spiteful.  Everyone works in their profession for their own reasons, and these folks are no different.  They got themselves educated, found work, and work hard for the same reasons I do.  Whether we want to believe it or not, most people are not crooks.  They are honest, and do their best within the frame work they have.  My lawyer was very reasonably priced, didn’t charge me an extra hour when we went five minutes over that one time, and was prompt in her correspondence.  My mortgage broker was not as reliable.  He was charismatic, and had all kinds of optimistic scenarios we could pursue, but in the end was too slow getting paperwork filed, and cost me a week’s delay for closing.  He did manage to get me a fantastic rate though, so now that I’m actually in the house, I can simmer a little.  My insurance people were extremely happy, even kind to me as I stumbled through what were likely novice questions.  Mind you, insurance companies make a lot of money for a service they’ll likely never have to provide.  Hell, if someone paid me to make you dinner, and I only occasionally had to actually give you dinner, I’d be richer too.

It’s the little stuff that gets in the way.  I have an oil furnace, which I swore I would never have.  I looked into going with only electric, until I was advised how much my power bill would be for a 65 year old house like mine.  Oil it is.  I have a hybrid oil/electric furnace newly installed, getting some extra funds from my mortgage thanks to my clever, if slightly unmotivated mortgage broker.  He also secured enough for me to get my electrical work up to code, partly for my own safety, and partly for the happy insurance lady to green light me for coverage.  As it stood, the likelihood she would have to provide dinner was too high for her comfort.  I was amazed at the difference between the highest and lowest estimates from the various contractors.  I learned which companies were most interested in fleecing me for all they could.  The electrician was able to show me why the previous owner had a dozen different fuse boxes throughout the house.  The furnace man couldn’t believe the old man before me had an oil furnace rigged up in the shop upstairs to draw oil from the basement.  He actually took pictures of the whole contraption.  Neither the pot-belly stove upstairs nor the old wood stove in the basement were able to provide me wood heat, but both could potentially be sold to camp or cottage owners.  I wondered what their insurance people would say to that.

My oil tank is only six years old, contained in the cellar, and in immaculate shape.  I have to get him to fill out a form for that for my insurance lady.  An oil leak would most certainly cause her to have to make me dinner.  Irving also sent me a form to fill out to take on the rental of the tank.  Rental?  I thought I just bought the damned thing.  I still need to clear that up.

Then there are utilities.  Setting up my own power account was easy.  Why I am still sent the bill for my previous home is beyond me.  I managed to weasel my way into a cheap home phone bill, but only because the cell phone they had offered me was not serviceable where I teach.  After some confusion, I came out with a great phone rate, but I’m still trying to find a suitable and affordable cell phone.  Don’t send me your suggestions, please.  All cell phone providers are evil.  They all tell you what you want to hear, and more often than not are lying. 

Internet was another adventure.  The big companies couldn’t provide anything for me in Penniac.  I am five minutes from the capital city of New Brunswick, and I may as well be on the moon.  I once read that there is high speed internet throughout the entire country of Mongolia.  That’s right, you could be in a yurt in the middle of the Gobi desert and get better internet than in Penniac.  One company told me I could get it, then sent a guy to my identical street address in Quispamsis, a town which is most likely a lovely place, except I wouldn’t know since I have never been there, let alone live there now.  When we cleared up the geographical quandary, the guy on the phone sheepishly informed me that my services weren’t possible in Penniac.  If your window was open that day, you might have heard me telling him off.  I settled on the only other option available to me, a company that services rural NB with questionable rates and speed.  It’s that or hang out perpetually in McDonalds and Tim Hortons restaurants.  Or move to Mongolia.

Then you move into television territory.  Usually, all the services can be bundled, but since the big companies can’t seem to provide all of them to my new yurt, I have to go piece by piece.  Satellite or cable?  I began to ask myself how much TV I was planning to watch.  Being alone for half the time, it seems as good an opportunity as ever to try to get into better shape, so why not use the exercise equipment I’ve had for fifteen years and not used for fourteen?  It’s hard to get in shape in front of the TV.

Still, I’ll miss out on my sports coverage, so I figure to get some sort of service set up in the weeks ahead.  I figure it’s best to see how I’m juggling all the important bills first, just to be sure I can actually afford it.  I have no false impressions about my situation.  My income is secure for the next few years, but it’s only my own.  Gas and food are still expensive, although I can control those.  I don’t need TV.  I’m pretty sure that at this point I need phone, power, and internet though.  I have also decided to downsize my vehicle.  A brand new Grand Caravan doesn’t seem so important anymore.  I have to make enough off the sale to settle some of my debt, and then I need to buy a cheap yet reliable car.  The savings in gas alone will be worth it, but I’m ultimately rolling the dice with an older car with which I’m not familiar.  Mind you, a new car doesn’t guarantee there will be no problems.  My mechanic had to replace my brakes this morning.  I should send the bill to the province of New Brunswick, because I’m sure the pothole dodging I’ve been doing all spring was the cause.

Now that the sale has been finalized, and the school year has wound closed, I face the most significant part of the whole process.  I get to unpack.  Sure, I’ve been there for three weeks now, and some rooms are unpacked enough to feel comfortable.  Still, it’s an older home, and I still have things I want to do.  I can’t stand the pink carpet in my room.  My hobby shop has hardwood floors, but they’re all stained and dirty.  The water smells like sulfur when you turn it on hot.  I can pick away at these, and I can slowly start to set up my camp as I see fit.  Because I can.  The reward for doing it all yourself is that you don’t have to share the reward.  I can put Star Wars toys in my kitchen if I want.  I probably won’t, though. 

I am just days into my vacation, starting the slow process of settling into my new surroundings, and now of all times I find myself looking backwards.  I have accomplished so much in the past six months.  I am stronger and more confident than I can ever remember.  I used to be tired when I spent time with my kids, but now I find myself planning our days together to maximize our time together.  We all benefit from that.  Their eyes glow when they walk through the front door, and they now get to help make their rooms comfortable too.  We eat at the table, and wash our dishes together after our meals.  They are keeping their spaces tidy, and helping out with the upkeep around the house.  It’s when they have to leave that I find myself getting messy again.

Being alone is really just a concept.  It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.  I have decided to be more social these past few months, and it has made me happier.  Who knew?  I’m fortunate to have a week where I can come and go as I please, only to be thrilled to have my boys home so we can plan fun things to do together.  I found the answer to my own rhetoric.  How I got here was just the process of my own personal evolution.  Things fall apart, but what you rebuild in the aftermath is what matters most.  I think I’ll dig out my yurt and go camping next week.  Mongolia is a bit of a stretch, but there’s always Quispamsis.

A Requiem For Dummies

Every small town has its characters, and mine had Andy.  As a small child, I remember walking with my parents down Main Street as we ran errands.  It usually meant stopping at the pharmacy, the local grocery store where the proprietor was the butcher who wrapped your cuts in brown paper and string, the post office where our box was number two hundred-something, and most boring of all, the bank, where standing in line for a young child seemed like waiting for Christmas.  Once in a while we had to make other stops, but for the most part, those were the only services our town afforded in those days.  Indeed, they’re much the same today.  The buildings are different, for the most part.  The shop keepers are different, some the next generation inheriting family businesses.  When I walk along Main Street now, which isn’t often, the village seems so quiet, as though the few who still call it home are hiding out, watching for strangers from a safe distance.  There is a certain distrust in every small town. 

For a character like Andy to have settled in our village with all his eccentricity was quite an accomplishment.  As a small child, I would often keep my eyes peeled for Andy’s vehicle.  You couldn’t miss it.  If he was walking, you couldn’t miss him either.

Andy MacDonald was already an older gentleman when I first met him.  I can’t remember exactly when I did, nor can I count how often I ever interacted with him.  Like many older folks who knew me without me necessarily knowing them, I was to him ‘John and Joan’s boy’.  Most children want to be known for themselves of course, but I’ve never minded the stigma.  He had a long, grey beard, which grew whiter with the years.  He dressed in sharp red tartans, wearing his Scottish tam in public at all times.  He smiled a lot, and he interacted with people with ease.  Trips downtown for Andy, unlike mine, were never boring, because he seemed to be friends with everyone he met.  Everyone knew him, and everyone liked him.  We often say that about people, but rarely can we say it with such honesty.  He was just a nice guy.

I say ‘was’, because Andy passed away last week.  He was 96 years old, and for a near-centenarian, he was independent and mobile for all but the last couple years.  His passing made the news.  You see, Andy wasn’t just a colourful character.  He was a published author and some referred to him as a ‘humourist’. 

In 1976, with the guidance of his daughter, Andy published a collection of tales from his childhood, titled Bread and Molasses.  His book was an instant hit in our region.  The title was derived from his staple school lunch—a slice of homemade bread drenched in molasses carried in a soggy paper bag.  The setting was the 1930’s, at the height of the Great Depression, in Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia, a poor mining town in Cape Breton.  He was raised by his doting, loving mother, known in his books as ‘Ma’, his hard-working and severe father ‘Pa’, and his numerous siblings.  While he had several older sibs that only fleetingly appeared or were mentioned, the main stories focused on Andy himself, his twin Murray, older brother Billy, younger brother Teedy, and baby sister Pearl.  Like most families in his town, they were dirt poor, and most of the tales were about how the MacDonald kids ate, worked, played, slept, and survived, in spite of strict teachers, questionable employment opportunities, and the ever-watchful eye of Pa.  Throughout the book, you get to know the family really well.  In my mind, I can picture how the kids might look, so vividly he described them.  Try as I might, I can only imagine a young child version of Andy with a full grey beard and a tartan coat.

One time, Andy accidentally knocked one of Pa’s giant coal-mining mitts into the family stew pot, as the mitts were hanging over the cooking stove to dry.  The stew, of course, was made from a rather expensive cut of meat, so when the black coal dust began to froth up in the pot, ruining maybe a week’s worth of supper, the family had to go back to—you guessed it—bread and molasses.  It seemed that every time the kids were on the verge of something big and exciting, it always seemed to fall apart, and they had to fall back on what they already had.  Like the time they caught wind of an actual bathing suit they could borrow for swimming, since all Pa could afford to buy them were second-hand wool dresses for them to wear at the beach.  They had to find it on some guy’s boat drying after dark.  When they snatched it up and ran, only later did they realize all four brothers could have fit inside it simultaneously.  There is more than one lesson to be learned from that particular tale.

About two-thirds the way through the book, Ma passed away.  I remember feeling Ma’s loss when I read it the first time.  Pa, so strong as the head of the family, had no real way of taking care of himself domestically, so the children devised a schedule for preparing Pa’s lunch, getting him up to work on time, cleaning the house, and preparing the meals.  One day, one of the brothers accidentally woke Pa for work several hours too early, only to have him arrive at the mine for work at an ungodly hour.  I could only imagine Pa’s reaction when he returned home.

Andy’s stories continued over four more books.  You can read them and decide for yourself which ones you like the most or least.  I’ve read them all, and I like them all for different reasons.  His tales became more far-fetched with each book, but were no less entertaining.  He told the ‘story’ of how he fought his twin Murray for supremacy in Ma’s womb in his second book, Don’t Slip On The Soap.  After his third book, Tell Pa I’m Dead, he began to include stories from his early adult years, and by his fifth and final book, Don’t Be Funny, Daddy, he began to include stories of his own family, completing the circle he had begun so many years before.

There are very few alive now who can relate first-hand to life in Depression-era Cape Breton.  Still, you could relate to Andy’s stories because there was nothing particularly special about them.  At the root of most of them were fairly average tales most kids would understand.  One example is the game the brothers and their friends used to play, where they crawled around on all fours like cows, and one would be the farmer, letting them out to graze in the pasture, and guiding them back to their stalls.  I think everyone made up silly games when they were kids, but Andy was able to tell it in a way that made you want to go crawling around, mooing and chewing grass yourself.  He hated going to school.  Who wouldn’t, when the teacher was cruel and your mind was on the towering cliffs, crashing waves and rocky shores?  He reminded us that you could still be a success in life even if you weren’t keen on reading and writing.

Andy was known for his books, but he became more famous for his other significant pass-time.  He was retired as far back as I remember, but he spent most of his time creating ‘dummies’ out of recycled items, anything from old clothes to jug bottles.  He made goofy-looking little characters, and wrote sayings on signs made from scrap wood or vinyl siding that described their personalities.  He literally created hundreds of dummies, and arranged them all over his property, eventually calling it the ‘Dummy Farm’.  ‘Andy’s Dummies’ became a tourist attraction.  He notably posted signs advertising his farm every few miles between Sackville and Port Elgin, so you really couldn’t miss it.  Andy’s car, the same one I used to watch for on Main Street, famously had a dummy fastened to one of those old woven-strap lawn chairs on the roof.  I once saw Andy driving by in Moncton, only because his dummies gave him away.

In my university years, I took a job for the village of Port Elgin at the tourist booth.  My job was to keep the grounds clean, literature updated, flowers watered—standard fare for a small tourist stop in a small town, except I had one rather unique responsibility.  As a village, we were proud of our resident author, and as he was promoting his fourth book, ‘Tis Me Again, B’y’, we had one of Andy’s dummies as a prop we kept outside the booth.  It had to be brought out in the morning and brought in at night.  I remember boxes of that book sitting behind the counter waiting to be bought.  Ironically, today I find that one the hardest to track down; it was the last one I had to get to complete my set.

Last year, I found myself searching for a decent book I could read aloud to my Grade 3 and 4 students.  Most of the well-known ones are either made into movies or have already been read.  I thought I’d try Bread and Molasses, because I figured the stories would relate to the small town kids I was teaching, not to mention it was a Maritime book from an author I actually knew.  Sure enough, it was a huge hit.  The kids begged me to continue it when it was time to switch to another subject.

When I heard the news that Andy MacDonald had passed away, I felt a sadness I have only felt for lost family members, even though I didn’t know him particularly well.  I will never meet so gifted a storyteller.  I like to tell stories too; I have always looked up to him as a mentor of sorts in his ability to take a simple moment in time and weave a magical story from it.  He was as witty as he was kind.  One day, I was canvassing with my Cub pack for Apple Day, and when Andy greeted me at his door, he bought an apple, then gestured to the apple orchard in his back yard.  He showed me some of his dummies around the yard that day.  It makes me sad that I can’t remember any of their personalities.

I will, however, forever remember Ma, Pa, Billy, Murray, Teedy, Pearl, and of course, Andy.  I had briefly considered having my students write to him after we had read Bread and Molasses to let him know how, generations later, his life growing up in the ‘hungry thirties’ was still capturing young imaginations.  I wish I had.  Who knows how many young writers have put their pen to paper because of Andy?  I can name one for you right now.

La vie en rose

I remember sitting around in the living room with an old friend, empty beer bottles and caps strewn about, smoke hanging heavily in the air, and Edith Piaf crooning away, that 1940’s crackling vinyl sound despite modern CD technology.  My friend insisted on showing some old home movies, and by old, I mean black and white, silent, converted from old Super-8 reels.  The videos showed various scenes of a toddler waddling about on a beach, or in a living room, with family reaching to pick him up, smiling, and happy to share a tender moment with their young son.

“That’s me,” my friend sighed through the exhalation of a cigarette.  The videos were equal parts charming and haunting.  On the screen, we saw the embodiment of William Blake’s ‘innocence’, a child filled with wonder and amazement, adored by a loving family, in what would surely be the happiest of times.  The man slouched in the big arm chair, in a cramped apartment littered with empty bottles, pet hair, and unwashed dishes, was so completely removed from the boy on the screen, you could only take his word for evidence that he and the boy were one and same.

You see, we had just spent the day sampling from a selection of craft ales from both home and abroad.  We had a great time.  A buddy had managed to secure unlimited sample passes, and we didn’t hesitate.  By supper time, I was probably more incapacitated than I’d ever been in my life, all from shot-glass samples consumed far too quickly, and no food to counter-balance.  The plan was to enjoy the festival, crash at my friend’s apartment and watch some movies for the evening.  All in all, it was a fairly harmless evening of relaxation.  And it was, if not a bit disconcerting.

At the time, I thought the combination of distant childhood memories, especially of a simpler time, mixed with alcohol, smoke, and depressing music could only lend itself to heightened depression.  I reminded myself that some people struggle daily with depression.  My friend was no stranger to vices.  He was a good man, in a noble profession in which he helped others through their own difficulties.  How ironic it was for someone who offered hope to so many to have needed so much for his own.

The older I get, the more obvious it is to me that I have lived with some form of depression for most, if not all of my life.  In recent months, I’ve been more open about it, with myself as well as my friends.  I’ve taken steps to try to combat it.  I’ve learned that it’s likely something I’ll face for the rest of my life, and that much like the first 37 years of it, during which I’ve developed all sorts of coping strategies, I’ll find more appropriate and effective ones so I can maximize my own happiness for the next 37. 

Here are some moments I have identified as indicators that I’ve been harbouring something that has held me back or hindered me in my own personal growth:

Ø  In play-school, way back when I was four years old, we had wonderful teachers.  I learned my alphabet, numbers, how to tie my shoes, and made friendships I still keep today.  We made lots of crafts, some of which I still have (no surprise there).  We also played games.  One game, which I think was ‘Mother May I’, or some variation, involved trying to reach the other side of the room on silly commands, such as walking backwards, crab-walking, scissor walking, or whatever else.  It was a fun game, and completely harmless.  And I wanted no part of it.  The problem was, I found myself extremely uncomfortable with all my classmates watching me.  We played all sorts of other games that were similar, but in this one, I was absolutely terrified.  I remember the warm feeling when I finally played, how everyone cheered and encouraged me.  I was equally terrified the next time we played.  As a teacher today, I still won’t play this game with students.

Ø  I have always adored sad music.  Even on the old Sesame Street records, the slow child-chorus songs like ‘Somebody Come and Play’ and ‘Sing’ were my sentimental favourites.  My favourite Burton Cummings song was ‘I’m Scared’, and from his earlier band, The Guess Who, my favourites were ‘Undun’ and ‘Sour Suite’.  You can look up the lyrics if you’re unfamiliar with them.  As I grew older, I found great solace in music, through both the melody and the lyrics.  Now, just because a song is sad or depressing doesn’t necessary mean I have to love it, but I always go back to the emotionally-heavy tracks.  To this day, people have jokingly referred to the mellow, indie bands I follow as ‘slit-your-wrist music’.  I can see where they’re coming from.  As I’m writing this, Sigur Ros is in my CD player.  Again, if you’re unfamiliar with them, look them up.

Ø  In one of my earlier blog posts, I recollected my struggles with the Kamakaze slide at Magic Mountain.  There is a really steep water slide at our local water-themed park, and to conquer it showed you were brave in the face of such a staggering obstacle.  In Grade 11, and was determined to give it a try.  I was all the way to the top, and was even hanging from the support beam, dangling over the gaping mouth of this terrible beast intent on swallowing me.  Thoughts of those two or three people over the years who had been injured on the Kamakaze were strong enough to cause me to haul myself up and unceremoniously walk back down the stairs to jeers from the crowd waiting in line behind me.  We bought Magic Mountain t-shirts that day, and I wore mine for almost fifteen years afterwards.  Even when it was faded, stained, and stretched beyond recognition, I kept it.  It was a reminder of my failure.  I never realized why I had kept it so long until long after it finally got cut up for spare rags, pieces of which I think I still have.

Ø  Speaking in public has never been my favourite thing to do.  Granted, many people feel the same way, and for someone who decided to become a teacher, you might think I have it licked by now.  Hardly.  I still get butterflies before I begin a lesson, less now than before, since I know my students pretty well and am comfortable teaching them.  One time, in anticipation of being evaluated by a university professor during my internship, I felt so nauseous I very nearly drove past the school driveway with the intention of quitting altogether.  I didn’t, of course, and proceeded to deliver a great lesson.   

I trace this back to a public speaking event for which I was chosen to co-represent our school with three others.  It was in French, and it was about a subject of my choosing.  I chose fly-tying, because at that time it was among my favourite pass-times.  I had done so well with my speech in my own class that I took it for granted I would do equally well at the competition.  Naturally, I scoffed when Mom urged me to practice.  

When I took the stage, I partially froze, and when I did speak, my speech was full of mistakes.  I was humiliated.  Now, when something like that happens to you, one of two things can happen.  You can learn from it, pick yourself up, and improve upon it.  Or, you can be completely scarred to the point it becomes a monkey on your back.  Three things happened that day:  I became very reserved when it came to speaking in front of an unfamiliar audience; I became very insecure about my ability to speak French, and my enthusiasm for learning it began to wane from that point forward; and I also started to lose interest in fly-tying.  I continued to tie, but it wasn’t the same.  I’ve made several attempts to pick it up again, and it is lots of fun, but the same passion I had when I was younger isn’t there anymore. 

Ø  Skip ahead to spring, 2013.  I decided to take my son skiing, since it was a sport I had never tried before, and he was really excited to learn how to snowboard.  A snowboard enthusiast friend of mine came along, and we went to Crabbe Mountain for a relaxing day on the slopes.  Having cross-country skied most of my childhood, I was comfortable on the bunny hill, picking up really quickly how to control my speed, shifting from side to side, and stopping with that slow-arc shower of snow that you see from professionals.  My son took the snowboarding lesson and showed real promise, mastering his balance and tackling the hill with ease.  We took on some more challenging courses, and with a few scary moments, I felt quite confident I could at least ski on the basic hills.  That’s what I decided to do, keeping it simple as the weather was warm, and the snow was starting to get sticky with ruts from dozens of other skiers carving up the mountain side.

Making our final run of the day, I navigated my way down a hill I had done a few times earlier without incident.  This time, however, I hit a ridge unexpectedly and tumbled.  I was holding my ski poles tightly, and when my right hand collided, my grip on the pole contributed to the snap at my thumb joint.  At the time, I thought it was a bad sprain.  The x-rays two days later confirmed the fracture.  My son was horrified, and for a time he blamed himself for my injury.  I assured him that one day, I would bring him back and try again, because I didn’t want him to harbor the same anxiety I do. 

A year later, almost to the day, I brought both my sons back to Crabbe.  We tackled the same hill on which I had fallen before.  My snowboarding pro had no trouble at all, but my youngest and I decided to take it safe midway down.  I saw the part of the track where I fell.  He asked me if this was where I fell, as though he was there when it happened.  We took off our skis and walked down the steepest part, then put our skis back on to finish the rest.  No one got hurt that day. 

When we got back to the bunny hill, I felt the anxiety rising in me again.  Having successfully descended it dozens of times at this point, I couldn’t understand why I was still so scared.  I smiled, giving the boys the thumbs-up and made my way to the base, and for the last time.  Possibly ever.  You see, I felt good about facing my demons.  I gave it another try, but at the end of it all, the echo of something now long-past still rings inside me.  It’s the inability to find a way to overcome these things that makes me feel that there is something more afoot. 

There are days when it is all I can do to slide my two feet over the edge of the bed to start my day.  When I don’t have any commitments to keep, I sometimes curl up in a ball and stay under the covers longer than I normally would.  I could be in the middle of listening to a catchy, up-beat song and suddenly need to turn it to something more mellow.  Sometimes, within a matter of minutes, I feel the need to just be alone, and if I don’t, I find myself becoming more irritable than I have any reason to be.  There are days when I even feel like I’m a fraud, and that the successes I have achieved in life really aren’t mine.

Now before you start to panic and plan an intervention, rest assured I’m doing fine.  I love my job, and apart from professionally writing, can’t imagine anything else I’d do instead.  I’m raising two wonderful children, and am trying to be aware of my childhood anxieties as I help teach them how to become confident young men.  I’m single now, for the first time in over seventeen years, but I’m looking forward to the next chapter of my life.  I always used to joke that I would one day end up buying some small cabin in the woods where I could just spend my day with my thoughts, writing, and maybe fly-tying.  I think my desire for that kind of solitude just couldn’t wait any longer.  

There are two types of days.  There is the kind when everything comes up roses.  And then there are the rest.  Maybe depression or anxiety can be calculated by the ratio of one type you have to the other.