There, Here & Everywhere

Hey hey, it’s T-day, ready or not. I am tired and trippy and trapped on the night shift, to be followed by much sleep I pray, so there is no putting this off. I will type a tiny tumble of text and let you get on with your day!

Today’s topic is thrown to us by the tidy, talented, talkative, tasteful, tactful and tactical; the tireless, tenacious, trustworthy and true, and a tad tubby; the thorough-thinking Thoughtful Educator, and it is:

Turtles

With tin can in hand I attended Poetry Corner. Such a fine variety of creative projects were shared, and then my turn: I held the orange-striped tin before me.

“I am going to creatively eat this entire box of turtles,” I said. The crowd seemed nonplussed. My god I think they believe me.

“Just kidding.” I popped off the lid and revealed 192 colorful cards inside; no chocolate caramel pecan funny-business. I explained the game I had invented. Here There & Everywhere it’s called. And there is a card for every Beatles song on every Beatles studio album.

Some of the cards are special: hero, place or widget cards, which reflect the nature of those special song titles. The hero cards have unique special privileges: Mean Mr. Mustard, Lovely Rita, Eleanor Rigby and Polythene Pam for instance. The widget cards have special powers: Maxwell’s Silver Hammer for instance. And the place cards (how lucky that the numbers of total cards and of place cards worked out so perfect) randomly placed, form the diamond-shaped array on which all other cards are stacked, in essence forming the game board.

Its a bit like the game of Concentration where you are turning up cards looking for the ones you want, but you win by collecting all the cards (songs) which complete one of their albums.

There are a few interesting parameters but that’s the gist of it. I would just like to find a way to make the game conclude a bit faster without changing its nature too much. The group was actually useful in making a few suggestions which I have written down for later perusal. I just might Get By With a Little Help From My Friends…

Fortunate

Tonight I dropped in on Skeeter Willis, the Thoughtful Educator and other fine gentlemen of the Strat-o league - now 25 years old! I enjoyed their friendly humour of course. Then on bald tires I ventured to another part of town to pop by the haunt of another fine member who couldn’t make it out tonight and who generously saved me from being eaten by the dire wolf he was wolf-sitting and also loaned me his copy of my current-fave board game Tortuga 1667 which I look forward to introducing to Aqualad and his fellow university-burdened pals next game day.

And then, to the perfect soundtrack: the haunting regal psychedelic sometimes-jazzy sounds of an old Pink Floyd collection; a sort of Dark Side of the Moon prequel at times, I made the long snowy slithery slo-mo slide home.

Neo put this together along with other new music, as he so often generously does for me. We spent the afternoon together. I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t rehearse anything. I tried not to be aggressive though to his credit he was prepared for that if required. I don’t know that we solved any problems today; problems that by my accounting are illusions, but that is partly because he has been man enough to tackle them on his own as best he can.

It broke my heart actually, at times, to hear him bringing the burden of blame upon himself. I want to say that I am proud of him but of course his accomplishments are to his own credit, not mine.

He was strong and kind and more apologetic than I needed him to be. He was uninterested in hearing my own confessions. However my shortcomings are real and I wish neither of us to forget them.

A lot of honesty was traded today and was gracefully received.

And he told me that he loves me.



I am very fortunate at this time to have so much support from special people; people who carry the burden of their own problems.

Now I must gather my own faltering strength and repair some of these worst of my own failings and become properly useful to these loved ones, just as they deserve from me. I simply must. 

How doth the city sit solitary…

…that was once full of people.

I remember many occasions sitting in my Streetsville apartment looking out the big window, contemplating at great length and seeing all these structures and machinations of society: I had never felt so alone; so utterly alien. At the time I regarded this with some degree of emotional peril; not as much as you’d expect, but more than I later would. My yawning separateness was to some degree just another observation; another new important revelation in a long roster of them. It was then that I found some comfort in that opening line from the book of Leviticus and then that I began reading the Christian bible for the first time since grade school, and then that I began finding wisdom instead of nonsense; wisdom which few priests would, so far as I imagined, ever interpret much the same way I was. It was then that I began to sense that much of this “religious” material must have been borrowed from other sources and that much of it was not intended at its roots to be a tool of Christian doctrine at all.

That alien feeling persisted for a long time, varying in intensity.

I remember a long night wide awake in my attic eyrie which I rented from Long Time Companion; the friend formerly known in blog space as Peter Pan. I’m pleased to say that he has come a long way, finding some peace, and considering that when we were breaking up years prior to this rental arrangement and I’d threatened to murder him (and possibly meant it) in a fit of outrageous jealousy - I guess I’ve come a long way too.

That night I’d felt the weight of this threshold; this decision; this gateway to… what? Enlightenment? This reckoning that I’d found no one yet who was willing to take my hand and proceed with me.

It was that night when I strummed the guitar and the song The Line came out: a simple three-chord ditty in which I tried to voice this conundrum; this great step in evolution (or so it seemed to me then) and my concern that I was becoming too alien from everyone around me and that I was losing the capacity to relate and thus to communicate and thus the potential to teach or to guide.

I did not want my learning; these immensely powerful and useful understandings to benefit me alone!

What I don’t remember is any conscious decision; any intention to back away from that threshold, but indeed that is what I did; not ready to give up on others; and not feeling any confidence that I’d ever be able to reach anyone again if I took this step and launched too far into another realm.

I remember being surprised to so easily embrace a reverse-pretentiousness, how easy it was for me to “play dumb” in a way, to reveal no insights in day to day circumstances where I was wise in relevant terms but wise enough, also, to know that what I had to say would not be understood or not be embraced and so I remained quiet and nodded like some very simple man. I was surprised how easily I could keep my ego in check.

I remember feeling lonely at times because I had no one I could be completely myself with. I literally had no secrets. This is a huge statement to make. I doubt it can rarely ever be honestly said. I had no secrets but yet I had to keep quiet about some things, not for shame (I could admit any flaw or fault I was aware of) but for other people’s comfort. I had no energy or any mandate to challenge everyone’s illusions all day every day.

When I met Neo and observed what astounding mental freedoms he possessed, I knew he was very special and that I had to make myself available to him. And with the brainstorming of excellent associate JazzLion, I began writing a novel in which I tried to plant all my most important and relevant understandings, with the thought that if he read it (along with others if it got published) and was of the kind of mind I had been crediting him with, then as an adult he might unearth that book and look me up. I did not indulge in any romantic notions about such an encounter but in essence I could imagine him saying, “Dude! Remember me? I understand what you’re saying here! And I thought we should talk I don’t imagine you’ve been expecting many people to get it…”

Instead Neo took such an immediate interest in me that we became associates when grade school graduation should have otherwise separated us.

In hindsight, maybe that was all for the worse. Another regret? Should I have finished the damn book instead, and put it in his hands and said goodbye?

One of the joys in our association; call it friendship; call it mentorship, whatever, was that I had someone I could be one hundred per cent myself with. I regarded him as completely trustworthy. Not trustworthy in that I could trust him with my secrets (because I felt I had none) but trustworthy in that I trusted him to be able to handle the truth; to be able to handle the things I had to say.

For the first time in quite a while I had someone I did not feel alien with.

This is the crux of my broken-heartedness.

Imagine being a human but growing up on some far away planet where everyone is wildly different than you and finally you meet another human; the only other human on the planet, and you just feel so at home finally, and your friendship blossoms and then after eight years he just says, yeah I can’t do this anymore bye. 

Sometimes these days I think surely we’ll get back together again. Surely he’ll come to his senses.

But sitting here, trying to be a little present; a little wakeful, I think: How carefully have I monitored this alien issue over the last eight years?

Am I sure that no one else is capable of letting me be me, without me having to be concerned about scaring them off?

I know that the Ponderer and Skeeter Willis are frequent readers of this blog (god knows why; it is so scattered and indulgent) and I must ask with honesty; not to flatter, are they not willing and capable?

I wonder too, about Dog Whisperer and Earth Writer and Aqua Lad. I barely knew them eight years ago. Have we not developed an almost familial bond?

On that note what about my mother and my brother?

Surely JazzLion and Renaissance Kid and Global Citizen; though they live rather out of the way to varying degrees, so to rely on them regularly would be difficult.

And the Earnest Chef too. And The Healer. Thinking about them now, are they not slam dunks? Have I not already felt free with them and just not done the accounting?

Perhaps even the Thoughtful Educator. Haven’t all these relationships broadened and solidified over these years? Have I failed to give some special people fair credit?

And then there’s Dr. Lock of course. I’m surprised as I think about this now - how many friends I am able to consider in this regard

Perhaps I need to sample the waters; open up to more people the same way I did to Neo and see how it goes; if they are comfortable or not.

It would help, I’m sure, if I could be my gentler self with them. Which would happen naturally I’m sure if I could bring myself to be more present; more mindful. I might not be ready though. Let me cradle myself in the writing for now.

With regards to that evolution, I suppose this is another regret: When Neo asked, But why wouldn’t you want to embrace enlightenment if you could? Why ever choose otherwise? For some reason I gave him a cryptic answer that was more about my remaining addictions; my susceptibility to identity, instead of a straight answer. God knows why. It just happened.

I should have told Neo the more simple and sincere perspective: that I was waiting until he was ready to go there with me.

Knocked down

The Thoughtful Educator came to town for a lunch date and it was great to see him and very sobering to hear how his rare medical conditions are keeping him from the work he loves. I remember how he half-tricked me into volunteering at his school five years ago and how unexpected the experience was. How the kids were not annoying and the teachers so dedicated and so nurturing and the strong sense of community which I never sensed in my grade school as a kid.

But mostly I remember how T.E, engaged with the kids in such a delightful manner, so approachable and fun, and with difficult matters: how sensitive and respectful. How he always seemed to know exactly how to handle any situation; how precisely to balance priorities. How he empowered the students and how he coached and led and challenged the teachers with intelligence, wisdom and humor. And how uniformly he was loved and respected by students and teachers alike.

To see him removed from an environment where he so brilliantly thrived and made such a positive difference to others' lives, is - a sad thing. If he doesn't make it back, I pray that he finds another effective outlet for that brilliance.

The Liberal Theologian is back home. She arrived today with hospital bed and oxygen tanks and managed to stay up until I got home from my evening shift. We hugged for a long time and held hands and I smiled with my mouth and so did she and we tried not to cry too much.

It hurts to see good people knocked down.

But I made a vow to make 2015 a celebration of life and I aim to keep it. The universe is mainly ugly. Let's face it. But people, for all our faults, and our struggle to be good when it's really hard to be, are just plain beautiful.

Yes. You are. So there.  

Now or never, once again.

A colourful sunshiny landscape constructed primarily of Smarties candies with vague cartoony characters leaping around and diving into colourful pools. A giant mouth - the one from the Scream mask, perhaps. moving forward through a dark tunnel, threatening to consume everything in its path. What else? That's all I can remember. I was sleep deprived today, as usual lately, and so I experienced many waking dreams which I call dreamettes. They're always lightning quick. Do other people get those? I presume you do. Though if you don't experience sleep deprivation then they probably don't register consciously.

I haven't slept well for a couple weeks due to illness, which struck about the same time I found out that the Liberal Theologian has not triumphantly defeated her cancer after all. Wave One took a beating from the chemo, surgery and radiation, but here's a surprise second wave and Wave Two is - What can I say? Wave Two will not take a beating. Docs will do what they can to slow it down. My friend and excellent housemate will suffer until the end. And I can't do a thing to stop it.

The nice thing about sleep deprivation is that the brain doesn't function very well so it's rather easy to mentally procrastinate. My brain doesn't want to deal with this business right now and so it doesn't. L.T. has been in the hospital the whole time and I can't visit for all the coughing so... no pressure to deal with it.

She could finally be home tomorrow. So I'll have to start dealing with it, which is good. There are a lot of people in my life right now that I need to be strong for. Like Dog Whisperer says. I have to look after myself first, if I'm gonna be useful to others. She's right of course. When the cabin depressurizes, it's your mask before your child's. I know that. And that means taking care of my health. And that's gonna be a lot of work.

I can't take any more holidays from life. Do I have what it takes to get this train back on the rails? I have serious doubts. I have a bad record.

One step at a time? I need a plan. And I need inspiration. Here's a good sign maybe: Neo, World Citizen, Jazz Lion and the Thoughtful Educator have all come out of the woodwork just lately, wanting to get together. Good timing guys. I had one date, scheduled two more and expect to see Neo some time soon. And Dog Whisperer was very generous with her time tonight. I've been receiving wise advice lately. And the poets speak to me too. Discipline, they say. Not my strong suit. But I'm blessed with the finest associates; these and others. My love for them is really the only thing that keeps me in the game. And if I ever start winning, it will be to their credit.
  

Happy. New year.

 

I spent the holiday season at Multispirit House, home of the Thoughtful Educator and his family, enjoying the company of two excellent cocker spaniels while the human contingent had gone off to Florida.

My stays there are very enjoyable. I love the affectionate, well-behaved dogs, and in the absence of house-mates, I can sleep well during the day before pulling occasional night gigs at the jail. The house is always clean, organized, well-stocked with anything I might need, and it's decorated in a very multi-spiritual way, with Hindu, Buddhist, Christian and Jewish iconography, so it's all very attractive and soothing to me and a perfect environment in which to achieve superior work - and the lack of a human audience allows me to noodle at the guitar without inhibition.

However there are rare treats too. Big TV's for superior movie-watching, and for video-gaming, and now a hot tub. It's getting to be a bit of a resort by my standards. And indeed I might be accused of making this last stay pretty much 100% vacation and zero work.

But pondering the theory of a restorative nature of vacations, I might honestly say that I feel well-equipped now, to get back to work in a big way.

It seems many things are lining up and pointing toward a successful 2014. I will stay in touch. That's a promise.

Who's flying this thing?

IF GOD IS YOUR CO-PILOT, MAYBE YOU SHOULD SWAP SEATS

This is what the sign says outside the Baptist church as I drive by. It concerns me that I have no clue what this means.

[Editor's note: Yeah, sure it does.]

Later, driving back to Multispirit House, home of the Thoughtful Educator and his excellent wife and daughter, I share with them my concerns. We have just been to dinner at Red Lobster where a steady parade of staff dropped by the table to see how some of their most regular of customers were doing.

"I'm not sure which seat the church expects that I'm in," I explain, "Nor which seat I'm supposed to be in. Am I the pilot? Am I supposed to be the pilot? I'm not sure if I should be changing seats or not."

The rest of the car's occupants sympathize. They don't get it either.  Also, we're worried whether it's safe to be playing musical chairs while the plane is in flight. Shouldn't we land first to be safe? And since this is all metaphorical, just what does landing the plane mean? Death and rebirth? What if I come back from the dead a zombie or vampire? This is now getting scary.

T.E. is taking a slightly longer route home. I've come to stay for two weeks to look after their two lovely dogs, Princess and Oliver. The three humans in the family are about to bugger off to Northern Ireland for shits and giggles - oh yeah, and a wedding.

I'm also lookiong after their fishes who remain sadly anonymous. I think I shall make it a goal this particular visit to get to know them better. I'll see if I have any innate fish-whisperer abilities.

"You're not going out of your way just to see this sign, are you?" I ask.

"Of course I am," says the Thoughtful Educator. Not only that, but he pulls into the church parking lot. "I have to ask them what the heck this means," he says, and sure enough he proceeds to the front door while the rest of us shake our heads and laugh.

He has been invited inside and does not quickly return.

"Okay," says I, debarking. "I'm going to go say I'm a doctor and my patient has escaped." I intend to describe T.E. and ask if they've seen anyone by that description wandering around.

But T.E. and the pastor (priest? Minister?) are just emerging as I approach. The holy man is a tad too friendly and sets off my creep-meter when he invites me to come around for a good ol' baptist celebration some time. Not likely, Thumper. You're sniffing up the very wrong tree.

Oh - I almost forgot. The explanation: Bumper stickers have been common, apparently, which read: Is God your co-pilot? Father Baptistman disagrees with this. God should not co-pilot your life. He should pilot your life. You are just a giant nobody who is along for the ride. So don't even bother getting out of bed in the morning.

IF GOD IS YOUR CO-PILOT, MAYBE YOU SHOULD SWAP SEATS

Now if some prankster came around and fiddled with the interchangible letters of this sign, what might Father McBaptistpreacher find on the lawn as he arrives at work one morning?

One possibility:

GO AHEAD MISS - SWAP YOUR SPIT, IF YOU BE COY OLD LOTUS

Hmm. Sounds more Hindu than Baptist, doesn't it? How about:

GOD SHOULD SWAT YOUR MOIST ASS, YOU LIPPY-FACE BOIE

Hmm. Overly rude and bad spelling. One more try:

YO BOY - FEED US SPAMSLAW, YOU STUPID COOTISH GORILA

I know. I know. I ran out of L's. Oh well. Fun with anagrams. Try it some time. Or not.

Amazing Kids

When I was young I always wanted to be around older kids. The ultimate experience for me was when older cousins would visit and let me hang out with them.

As a young adult I wanted adult things and adult pursuits. I wanted sex and booze and sophisticated conversation. And aside from that I wanted peace and quiet. I never wanted to be in the company of children. Ever. They were noisy and unpredictable and beyond my comprehension. I was always sure I'd never want kids of my own.

Forty-one years into this experiment called life, I had a conversation with an excellent friend who happens to be a very conscientious and free-thinking educator about my desire to re-enter the volunteer community but working with people with special needs.

Super-condensed version of conversation:

"We have kids with special needs in the schools. Come volunteer with us."

"No," says I. "I don't get on well with kids." Okay, so I'd actually never once made any effort to, but it was a safe assumption.

"You like books."

"I love books."

"So you could start out by volunteering in the library, cataloguing our great collection of new books."

"I couldn't do that. It sounds like too much fun. I wouldn't feel like a proper volunteer."

"But you could see how you feel being in a school environment and find out if you might be comfortable working with kids." He then proceeded to tell me stories about some of his former students with special needs which broke my heart in about eight places.

"Okay. Let's do it."

The great cataloguing project took up close to half the school year. The kids and I got along fabulously. I couldn't believe how many of them loved books. That shared love of literature finally bridged the gap between me and youngsters. Then it was time to make the move to the special needs community. And here my principal friend played the trump card.

"You have no experience working with special needs kids. It's not easy. Why don't you run a reading group for advanced readers instead. We don't have the library material nor curriculum to support them."

And once again: "I couldn't do that. It sounds like too much fun. I wouldn't feel like a proper volunteer."

"It's a much needed service and it would be right up your alley."

"Okay. Let's do it."

Well.

The experience has been - the bomb.

I'm running three groups which takes up the entire school day once a week. I work with eleven young people; seven girls, four boys, aged 12-14 I guess; grades seven and eight but for one grade sixer who is in a special situation. They're all amazing. Bright. Curious. Sincere.

They're seriously more intelligent than half the adults I know, perhaps to some degree because they simply haven't collected as much detrimental false learning as adults have. They've collected less fears than adults. They've constructed less walls that ostensibly guide people along paths but really serve to block out possibilities in their lives. They're not clinging to societal investments that shut down realms of perception. They're open.

Among them are musicians and singer-songwriters! Some are visual artists, sound-collage artists, photographers and at least one junior videographer! And of course writers and poets. They have socially conscious, enlightened voices that I never heard from my peers when I was that age, at least that I remember.

While ostensibly helping them learn to get more out of their reading and to increase their love of reading, my not-very-hidden hidden agenda is to turn them all into permanent writers and creators. Because the only path I know of thus far to find real joy, peace and harmony in life starts with the contemplation of the blank page and so it is my duty - and joy - in life to propagate the creative and poetic lifestyles.

They still have the possibility of joy and harmony for their futures but of course high school and college will exercise their massive powers to destroy all that, and that knowledge is a needle in my heart because I really do love them. I'd like to take them all home and be their dad and protector but I'm guessing they already have parents who probably would rather keep them! Oh well.

I'm already mourning the approaching closure of the school year and the loss of participation of the five eighth-graders. I hope we'll stay in touch somehow. I hope all the younger ones will return next year.

So what is the deal here? Are these the eleven most amazing kids in the world or are all kids amazing and I'm just the last dull idiot to figure that out?

FWG