Complacency and Bubblegum

Allow me to share a story about my first election.  No, it wasn’t when I turned eighteen.  It wasn’t for an MLA or an MP.  It wasn’t even for Mayor.  No, it was much earlier than that, and arguably more important, at least in the life of a twelve or thirteen year-old.

My Grade 8 teacher decided to teach us how elections work.  It may or may not have had anything to do with a current event, or curriculum outcomes she was mandated to teach us.  I applaud her for taking the time to try to teach us perhaps our most prescient civic duty, to participate in the decision-making process to which we would be subjected only a few years later.  If you know anything at all about teaching middle school, you know how seriously a typical Grade 8 class would handle this.

Two candidates submitted their names.  One was a buddy of mine, who was admittedly not as popular for a number of reasons, none of which really matter to the story.  The other was a popular fellow, but was known to pick on people, like his opponent on this day, for example.  He was funny, but not ‘class clown’ funny.  He often got his laughs at the expense of others, and often found himself in trouble as a result.  The majority of the class admired him, I suspect mostly because we lived vicariously through him.  He could say whatever he liked, we would laugh, and if it all went south, he faced the consequences, usually emerging after the fact none the worse.  He was Teflon.  We knew we weren’t.  His role within the micro-village of our class was well defined and understood.

My friend stood in front of us and delivered his ‘campaign’ pledge.  I can’t remember what he promised exactly, but it was something admirable, at least from the perspective of an adult reflecting back.  For the sake of the story, I’ll say he promised to get us more recess break time, less homework, or something like that.  You get the point.

Next, the other guy stood up with the mischievous yet goofy grin.  Even the teacher was waiting with bated breath to hear what fountain of wisdom might come pouring forth.  What did come flowing was a pledge to give everyone who voted for him a piece of Bazooka Joe bubble gum that he had just bought at the canteen.  Cheers filled the room.  The teacher gently rested her face in her palm.  Actually, I really don’t remember what her reaction was; she might have cheered for Bazooka Joe too.  Remember, this story happened a long time ago.

When she tallied the votes, there was no doubt who won.  It wasn’t even close.  My friend didn’t receive even one vote.  It was a Frank McKenna-style clean sweep.  I asked my buddy: “Why didn’t you even vote for yourself?”  His answer:  “Hey, how do I compete with free gum?”

Of course, this election wasn’t binding in any legal sense, not even within the confines of our classroom.  By the end of the day, the gum was all chewed out of its flavor, and knowing our class, stuck underneath desks and chairs.  I used to make mini paper airplanes from the Bazooka Joe comic strips—no doubt I had a field day that afternoon.  We had our fun at my buddy’s expense, as usual, and life returned to normal.  The Election Day hero continued to torment people for cheap chuckles.  Meanwhile, we had learned a valuable lesson.  More on what that lesson actually was a little later.

I have another parable of sorts I’d like to share as well.  If you are unfamiliar with the William Golding novel Lord of the Flies, and would like to one day read it unspoiled, maybe you should skip forward.  I’ll leave a “*” a little later so you know when to cut back in.

In this classic of literature, a band of young teen aged boys are stranded on a tropical island, their plane having crashed while they were being evacuated from England during an unspecified conflagration.  The boys have no surviving adults to supervise them.  They learn how to organize themselves, hunt, find water, make shelter, and develop societal norms.  As the story progresses, the even-keeled leader who represents reason and maturity begins to struggle with a rebellious leader who represents action and impulse.  That boy becomes a romantic figure for many of the other boys, and after a series of events, a majority are swayed to follow him in his increasingly decadent leadership philosophy.  Things that would be considered crimes in the real world begin to happen.  All reason and civility appears to have vanished.

However, throughout the story, when the boys speak together formally, they agree to speak one at a time, symbolized by a totem they have adopted the speaker must be holding.  They used a large conch shell.  I once bought a large conch shell from a street vendor in the Bahamas, and more than once I’ve considered using it as a totem in my classroom.  Whoever was holding it had the floor.  Enter Piggy, a bespectacled boy who is clearly socially awkward and a friend to the mature leader.  Late in the story, Piggy protests against the now anarchic establishment while clutching the conch.  A melee ensues, the conch gets destroyed, and Piggy suffers a far worse fate than my friend who couldn’t promise bubblegum.

*

Here’s one final tale.  In 2006, the Palestinian Authority held elections, as they do periodically, like any self-serving nation would.  Palestine, of course, is not really a nation—not in the legally binding sense, recognized by the United Nations as a sovereign country, anyway.  I’m not here to discuss whether or not they should be, but suffice to say there is a significant, if not controversial movement for them to become independent from their occupiers.

Be that as it may, they elect a government anyhow.  The Palestinian Authority does however hold power over specific places, like Gaza and the West Bank.  They govern the people of those areas, much like provincial or state governments would.  In all matters of national concern, they have to acquiesce to the greater Israeli government, with whom the rest of the world interacts on an official level.

Now, for those not following along in the news, Palestine and Israel don’t get along.  There is a long, deep mistrust between the two parties, which has super ceded several generations, governments of virtually every political stripe, and countless attempts from other world powers such as, ironically, the Unites States, to mediate a peace agreement between the two adversaries that share the same geographic space.  Despite UN peacekeeping, assassinations, embargoes, wars, and even celebrity visits (even Whitney Houston showed up one time), the two parties are as far apart as they were in 1947.  Over time, this has led to the radicalization of a segment of Palestinian society.  Like Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland, some of these radical groups became full-fledged political parties.  Enter Hamas.

Hamas are officially listed by Israel, the US, and various treaty organizations as a terrorist organization.  The Palestinians who elected them in 2006 to be the new governing party of their meager land holdings had apparently had enough of a series of same-old governments who clearly had generations to get things done, yet were unsuccessful.  They were tired of people who didn’t really represent them constantly promising things they couldn’t do.  Therefore, they put their faith in a radical idea—a  new party that was going to tell it like it is, stick it to the man, and buy everyone bubblegum of Biblical proportions.

Unfortunately, and not unpredictably, the rest of the world didn’t share their enthusiasm.  Foreign aid started to dry up.  That meant the government couldn’t pay their civil servants.  Within weeks, strikes began to happen.  Soon, garbage began to pile up in the streets.  For all the bluster and bravado, it was a hard sell to convince people Israel was to blame for their stinky city streets.  And no, life didn’t improve much otherwise.  They found themselves no closer to getting more recess time or less homework, and the bubblegum lost its flavor way too quickly.  The little comic strips weren’t even funny anymore.

I’m not even going to bother talking about Rob Ford.

The point of all this of course is that the results in the US this week should not surprise anyone at all.  It’s human nature to romanticize the bully who makes fun of people for cheap pops and promises bubblegum to everyone who laughs.  When reason goes by the wayside, the conch gets broken, the garbage piles up, and the bubblegum gets rubbery and stale.  You read the comic, you roll your eyes about how cheesy it is, and you crumple it up.  Erstwhile, the people who have done their homework, spent time preparing what to say and proposing change that can affect everyone positively get shunted to the background.  After all, everyone knows that smart people just aren’t as cool.  That was the ironic lesson my classmates and I learned that day.

When enough bubblegum supporters congregate and gather in numbers, they dictate how social norms will be established.  They determine the culture in which they are kings and queens.  Everyone opposed had better learn to toe the line, or suffer the consequences, which could be as simple as the scorn of a bully, to the fate suffered by Piggy, to the loss of wages and public services. 

Perhaps even more ironic in all this is that it is also human nature to rise above this kind of anti-reason, anti-intellectual, and anti-empathy.  In a free society, the moral good usually prevails.  Even when a few glitches in the Matrix occur, people tire of bullies with empty promises.  Social justice prevails eventually, even if there is a painful lesson learned along the way.

The painful lesson the United States needs to learn is that those who are grieving a Donald Trump victory have no one else to blame but themselves.  No one.  Not Brexit.  Not Obama.  Not Bush.  Supporters of Trump were, and always will be to varying degrees and numbers seduced by the promise of bubblegum.  They will forever be frustrated with a system they feel has done nothing for them, perhaps even for generations.  Supporters of Hillary Clinton, or anyone else for that matter, will wonder why it happened.  There is, in my estimation, only one reason.

Complacency.

True, those who did get out voting did their part, and depending on which state they’re from, their vote counted to varying degrees.  All polls indicated Clinton would win all the states she needed to afford her the majority of Electoral College votes needed to secure the presidency.  Yet as the dust cleared, the wrong colour was popping up on Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and even Pennsylvania.  Where were all those people who made up all those educated guesses?  Was traffic too bad?  Were they all getting their hair cut?  Did they just do something else, figuring Hillary was going to vote by herself and win?

Complacency won the US election.  No one will convince me otherwise, that there weren’t enough reasonable people to have made a difference.  Hillary Clinton may or may not have been a good leader; it is moot now to even surmise.  What they do have now, whether they like it or not, is a bully who is promising Bazooka Joe-brand walls.  He has no problem whatsoever snatching the conch from Piggy’s hands and smashing it to the floor.  After the streets are littered with gum wrappers and broken conch shards, will he have a plan to clean it all up?

Meanwhile, recess is still too short, and I have way too much homework tonight.

Generation Me

One of my favourite movies in the last fifteen years is a Disney/Pixar movie called The Incredibles.  It is the story of a family of superheroes, forced by society to hide their super powers and live ‘normal’ lives in suburbia.  Frustrated with his dead-end, mundane office job, the father bickers with the mother constantly.  One day, they argued about the upcoming celebration for their son completing the fourth grade.  One line that struck me was when the father said, to paraphrase, that everyone seems bent on celebrating mediocrity. 

Now, I remember the feelings of joy when I graduated from one grade to the next.  To be honest, I was more relieved that school was over, and summer had finally arrived.  It could have rained every day from the end of June through September, and I wouldn’t have cared, as long as I didn’t have to go to school.  And I think most kids, whether they thrive in school or not, feel the same way.  I also remember that my grandfather always had a $20 bill waiting for us grandkids if we ‘graded’.  In the years before we could earn any real amount of money, that was like a windfall from heaven.  $20 is nothing to slouch at.  I got $20 in a Christmas card from KFC this year, where I still work a few hours here and there, and I was tickled pink.

Any of my classmates reading this can correct me if they like, but I don’t recall any big celebration for grading.  Maybe a class party, maybe a field trip to King’s Landing or across the ferry boats to Borden and back, but nothing like a graduation-style ceremony.  And I certainly don’t recall a bounty of high-priced gifts waiting for me at home.  Just Grampie’s $20, which was to me the same as getting a third paycheck in a month today. 

Everyone who knows me knows that I am a collector at heart.  It is a weakness.  Collecting has many beneficial qualities, but for the most part, when I get ‘into’ something, I am all in, to the point that I tend to obsess over it.  As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned to temper my addiction to the point that my hobbies do not dictate my day-to-day life, although at one time they used to.  Case in point:  I have been a life-long Star Wars fan and collector.  I’m proud of it.  I spent many years, especially during my university days, hiding it for fear of being teased.  As a young adult, with secure income and a partner who also had a secure job, I was able to amass a huge collection of toys, meticulously displayed and catalogued.  I even had insurance taken out on it.  And during the peak of my collecting days, I became a father.  Not only to a beautiful son, but a son who is an awful lot like me.

Kieran opened his eyes to the collecting that was such a strong aspect of my life.  He naturally fell in love with Star Wars just like his dad, but not likely for the same reasons I became interested.  There was all the excitement, colourful characters, and artwork all around him, of course.  But he probably liked it so much because he knew I liked it so much.  He looked up to me.  He also saw that being a part of that world meant being closer to me.  When he was three, he could name most of the characters.  And naturally, he wanted Star Wars toys of his own.

So, when a line of Star Wars toys came along marketed for young kids—with minimal loose parts and cartoonish, neutral poses—Kieran was hooked.  So was I.  In actuality, I had begun to collect them, but when I saw how much he loved them, I gave them to him so he had a line of toys to ‘collect’.  Now, at age three, it’s hard to find a job, so supplementing a hobby can be tricky.  Christmas and birthdays account for 2 out of 365 days in a year.  The ‘Galactic Heroes’ toy line was producing dozens of figurines every year.  How could he keep up?  Simple.  I just bought them for him.

Every few months, new waves of figures arrived on toy store shelves, and without fail, I picked up every one I could find.  Like all collectible hobbies, though, the toys became harder to locate as months and years went by.  Sometimes you had to get doubles to get that one ‘exclusive’ figure.  Some of them were only available in the United States.  Dropping a $10 bill here and there became a deeper financial commitment.  To Kieran’s credit, he didn’t become demanding.  He didn’t wait at the door to see what toys I came home with that day.  Quite the opposite, actually—he began to lose interest.

Over time, he knew that when possible, the figures would arrive.  He would beam with excitement when he opened new ones at Christmas, and he had his favourites that he dragged around with him.  Still, the whole thing just felt, well, normal.  It was nothing out of the ordinary for him to get new figures, so it became nothing special when he did get them.  He was no happier or sadder for having collected the Galactic Heroes.  Today, he’s glad he has them, but they are generally a faded memory of childhood; the toys themselves are kept safely in a storage tote.  He keeps saying he wants to get them out and set them up in his room, but he never does.  Naturally, he has moved on into more age-appropriate interests that most twelve-year-olds do.  Life moves on.

My years of enjoying Star Wars with Kieran bring back a lot of memories.  Most of that time was happy, but I would be lying if I said I had no regrets.  Every parent wants to have something in common with their children.  Every parent lives to see their kids smile.  Seeing them disappointed is one of the worst feelings in the world.  I would say that seeing indifference in their eyes is almost as bad a feeling.

I’m telling this story because I want to convey to everyone who reads my opinion pieces that I have been guilty of spoiling my children too.  My second son Colby fell in love with the movie Cars.  I did the exact same thing for him.  One day, he had decided that he had grown out of ‘Cars’ cars, and just like Kieran’s Galactic Heroes, the cars are all in a tote, stored away safely so they’ll stay in good condition for when he passes them on maybe to his own children.  Once again, the indifference to the hobby, entirely because it was nothing special, had crept in.  Thousands of dollars were spent between the two hobbies, and their lives were not any richer for it.

I told my story because the following opinion is going to be somewhat harsh.  I will likely offend people.  I’m prepared for that, and I am at peace with it, because I am not trying to be judgmental.  Far be it for me, a lifelong collector who instilled those values in his own children, to judge anyone.  There is nothing more personal, and potentially defensive, than a parent’s opinion on child rearing.  However, as an educator and a father, who has a lot of friends, family, and acquaintances with young children, I have observed a startling trend.  And I am not alone.

This generation is being referred to as ‘The Millenial’ generation.  Loosely, children born between the 1980’s through today, like all generations before them, share on the average a series of characteristics.  They are not always flattering.  Raised with the internet, children of this generation in particular have shorter attention spans, higher expectations, and less ambition to achieve something on their own.  Kids and young adults today know that they are just one click away from being an internet phenomenon.  Why not?  Justin Bieber got famous that way.  Social media provides a safety zone, so interacting with people in real life is less important.  You can text whenever you like.  You can post a ‘selfie’ as often as you want.  In fact, photographs have very little value today, because they are potentially infinite.  A twenty-four-picture roll of film you had to wait a few days to develop leant a more urgent nature to taking a snapshot of not just anything.  The scarcity of the product made it more valuable.

Music is the same.  Even if you don’t download illegally, you can legally stream anything you want on YouTube.  Even $1.49 individual songs on iTunes are going the way of the Polaroid.  As a result, the product itself is no longer special.  If you know me even marginally, you also know that I collect music.  I would rather buy only a few select titles in a physical copy I can actually carry in my hands than have infinite digital music.  If my hard-drive was wiped out tomorrow, my records will still be here. 

Millenials are coming of age in a disposable society.  When I managed KFC, I remember wading through piles of resumes and interviewing for the best candidates to work at our store.  As years went by, though, younger people stopped applying.  Those who did were changing from the older guard.  They felt they had a right to check their cell phones as they pleased.  They could show up late.  They could arbitrarily miss work because something more important came along.  And they knew that if this job didn’t accommodate their demands, the next fast food joint would.  Good help has always been hard to find, but today it is seemingly impossible.

This generation, for whatever reason, has learned that there is always an excuse, always a back door, always greener grass, therefore there’s nothing to really worry about.  Can’t afford to move out?  Mom and Dad will keep them.  Not enough money for the weekend?  Here’s another $20—or $50 if you’re going to the movies.  Parents that have to work longer hours to pay for all this stuff often feel guilty, and buying things to fill the void is a short-term solution that always gets the ‘pop’, or the wide-eyed elation upon receipt, but ultimately, like the Galactic Heroes or Cars-cars, at best are forgotten, and at worst are expected.

It isn’t enough anymore to just wake up and run around the house looking for chocolates.  It isn’t enough to get $20 for grading.  It isn’t enough to even get through the day without someone commenting on your Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat.  It isn’t enough to get hundreds, even thousands of dollars’ worth of big-ticket items for Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and even Halloween.  It isn’t enough to go to the movies when little Billy’s family down the street went to Cuba again for two weeks.  It isn’t enough when the Tooth Fairy leaves some kids a toonie when the rest of the class gets $10 per tooth.  It isn’t enough to play a team sport when every kid on the team expects to be the next Sidney Crosby. 

It is infuriating to see so many young people filled with so much entitlement.  It is frustrating trying to teach children who expect that someone will eventually do their work for them.  And it is mind-numbing to see young people have absolutely no idea how to do the most basic of things, like write a cheque, make a simple phone call, or write a resume.  Regardless, I can’t for the life of me blame them.  I am a teacher, and I love what I do because of the kids. 

I blame the parents.  And I have to count myself among them.  It is my generation, ‘Generation X’ that has somehow allowed this generational landslide to happen.  People, this is serious business.  There is an entire segment of our population, perhaps the most crucial segment, who is ill-prepared for the world that awaits them.  Last year, Time magazine published a cover story discussing this very problem.  In it, the writer suggested that the Millenial generation most closely matches that of the early 1900’s.  They were also a devil-may-care, freewheeling generation, who faced young adulthood in a hurry when the Great War began.  Ultimately, they had no choice.  Life came crashing through the window, and the sniveling, entitled brats suddenly had to go to war, work in factories, or raise their younger siblings.  They ended up seeing their own children go through World War II.  They suffered through the Depression in between, and passed on their experiences to their children, who grew up with a crust of stale bread for dinner and a raggedy stuffed teddy bear as a Christmas gift.

It is frightening to think of a possible future—not to be apocalyptic—where a global crisis forces today’s Millenials to come of age in such a cruel and unforgiving way.  The article in Time suggests that when the chips are down, ‘Generation Me’ will get the job done, just like their ancestors did one hundred years ago.  How millennial it is for any of us to think that it will all just sort itself out.  Today’s youth is deficient in the skills and, quite frankly, the wherewithal to commit to a five-hour work shift let alone save us from a global crisis.  What’s even more scary is the fact that one day, when we are retired, these people are the ones who will actually have to take care of us. 

I’ve tried my best to learn from my past mistakes in parenting.  There has never been a perfect parent, and never will be.  Most parents I know love their children, and do their best to raise them right.  Most are doing a decent job.  Buying a gift for your son or daughter for Easter is not going to ruin them, just as my collecting-by-proxy habit didn’t ruin my own.  Still, it’s logical to extrapolate the outcome of spoiling a child.  Every time we shower our children with the notion that they are beyond special, we are doing the exact opposite.  They are children, therefore they are precious.  They aren’t that special.  They’re all potential celebrities, just a click-and-send away from a pipe-dream, a guaranteed lottery ticket, a first-round draft pick, the next American Idol.  They are all, and nothing.  Why?  Because we told them so.

 

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.