Green Peace

Green Peace   

“The human soul is hungry for beauty; we seek it everywhere - in landscape, music, art, clothes, furniture, gardening, companionship, love, religion, and in ourselves. No one would desire not to be beautiful. When we experience the beautiful, there is a sense of homecoming.”  (John O'Donohue, Irish author)

 

            Now that spring is well on its way into summer, I once again have the pleasure of tending to the garden beds carefully organized about our property. It has been almost three years since we located to Paris, Ontario. It can seem strange when stopping to take it all in. In slow motion, time passes and we often don’t know it. Sometimes one can see the changes, in glimpses, even if they are merely superficial. I stand here and I entertain it all, and like a Kinetoscope, picture after picture falls into line. One moment follows another, always leading, always moving, up until its end. Change comes in flashes. One must stop to notice rather than merely flipping through all those pages. Gardening and caring for our property has become a simple delight for me. I never would have imagined that at this point in my life communing with nature would become an instinct rather than merely based on impulse. I am a horticulturist whether I care to be or not. It has gone beyond family tradition, although I finally understand the thrill of it all. I have become my mother, in a sense, toiling and reshaping the grounds to my own taste and sense of Feng Shui. Each plant, each creation is a mixed evolution. The product from years of growth without me only added to the ease with which I took over the care. It is overflowing, a bounty of green and red and yellow and white. A stream of birds and squirrels and chipmunks too. The space is alive, and not just in some general sense. The land has tales to tell. It whispers to me and lingers for me. This notion has not always been. It has not always been this way. I held that gardening was an art my parents gave in to, not me. Now I understand what my folks were trying to tell me. Now I attempt to listen, I try to hear what Mother Nature is trying to say to me. Insignificant moments become a touchstone, and I find I have found home. Whether engaged at the bird feeders or sitting under the back tree, this is my space, to which I work and to which I manage. The shape of these things holds much revelation, a joy in the matter. It’s like an otherland made up of grass cuttings and bird crap pooped all over everything. It is a safe refuge even if I helped create it myself.

“I am the mown grass, dying at your feet,

The pale grass, gasping faintly in the sun.

I shall be dead, long, long ere day is done,

That you may say: ‘The air, to-day, was sweet.’

I am the mown grass, dying at your feet.”

(Margaret Gilman Davidson, American poet)

            If there is one thing I still hate about having property, it is cutting the grass. There is almost nothing else that I despise as much. There are reasons for my disdain. As a boy, my main source of income was mowing other people’s lawns. It was not a lifestyle choice. The chore was often divided. Some grass I cut for free and the rest I charged for the service. I hated raking it up almost as much. I used to dread Saturday mornings as the Church grass loomed. I never saw a penny. Saturday afternoon brought more of the same. This time I saw a profit. This type of income was my main source in the procurement of comic books. Every blade of grass, every weed, meant another page, another title to my collection. It was worth it to earn every penny. I gathered quite the stash and this set me on a lifelong love affair. Whether it was the little old ladies who lived down a lane, or my late Aunt Edna, it was little work for that much money but it seemed tailored to my angst about it. I remember cutting so much grass that I thought my name was John Deere until I turned twenty-three years old. As I left my youth, I actually thought I could escape it. It’s always easier said than it is to be done. Responsibility sucks especially if you hate something about it. I have rarely lived where the grass did grow but the places where it did were like thorns in my side. These days, I don’t think about this task. For many years, my partner Ben has done the dirty deed. I don’t have to think about it, focus on it, I don’t have to worry about it at all. Always mowing the grass is one of my favourite things about him. He can even change the bag on his own. At times, the life of a homeowner can seem more punishment than reward. I don’t have to concern myself, at least not with cutting the lawn. It might be a small joy, my exemption, with little of any thing but anything at all. Finally, it has become someone else’s chore.

“I could happily lean on a gate all the livelong day, chatting to passers-by about the wind and the rain. I do a lot of gate-leaning while I am supposed to be gardening; instead of hoeing, I lean on the gate, stare at the vegetable beds and ponder.”

(Tom Hodgkinson, British writer)

             Approximately one month after we relocated to Paris, my neighbour Barbara

set up house on the lot next to ours. I liked her right away. She is a dichotomy, at least how I see her. A little cranky, a little kooky, a little soft and a little hard. I appreciate women who can take care of themselves, whether with a man or without one. Barb seems to have done just fine, in spite of whatever circumstance found her alone once again. Although it took some time for us to warm up to each other, it was not a difficult matter. We worked right away and only needed time to discover more. Things got way better when her daughter Sam moved in. She is like almost every woman I have ever been friends with. Her carefree demeanour hides a softness I’m not sure many people have seen. She is warm and friendly and well travelled. I can get a little jealous of the freedom she still has. It’s not that I wish my life was different, it’s just that I would rather live it in the real Paris, or somewhere else beyond my hand. The pair of them have only added to a lovely out of doors. I look forward to seeing them. I like chatting with them both.  They make the front yard a charming space. I think we have actually become friends. One day, not so long ago, the girls adopted Oscar, a black purebred dachshund. I took to the puppy like he was my own. The time I spend with him is enchanting to say the least. On a regular afternoon, you can find him barking at my front door, craving the chicken liver treats I keep around just for him. He has become, in a true sense, part of the landscape around our home. His bark is enthralling rather than annoying. He is a pretty little thing and he most certainly knows it. His long black coat is soft like silk would be. His appearance is regal if you ask me. He is everything that anyone could want in a dog, at least from a short-legged little rascal like Mister Oscar. I look forward to the brief but lovely moments that we share. I would take him as my own if I could. His presence in my daily life has made me want to get a dog of my own. It has been well over a decade since we had to put Skippy down, a decision we often question out of guilt and remorse. It may seem like it is time again but with two cats, the chance of it happening anytime soon is fleeting at best. I would take Oscar in a heartbeat. Perhaps when one of the cats passes we might entertain the idea but until then, I will live vicariously through my buddy from next door.

“Negative feelings are like stray cats.

The more you feed them, the more they hang around.”

(Sister Joyce Rupp, American author)

            Long before the bird feeders went up and Oscar moved in next door, stray cat strutting was a daily theme in the theatre that has become my backyard. Since the first day we moved here, cat after cat has been stalking critter after critter. This unending parade of feline invaders was a constant distraction. I spent so much time chasing them away, I might as well have been a cat. As the landscape changed and evolved, touches were added to shape the backyard. These shifts in the green space only added greater places for the cats to hide. There were numerous strays and a few domesticated. It seemed that every day some new monster appeared, trying to disrupt my sanctuary. The worst offenders were actually the pets of my then next door neighbour. The two were a nasty pair. I cannot tell you how many burials I have had to endure because of their natural inclinations. The most disgusting issue with the cats from next door was how they disposed of the body. Whether a dozen Junkos out back or the chipmunks in the side yard, one body after another was found headless with the guts sucked out of it. For over a year, “Jack the Catnipper” roamed free about the neighbourhood. I don’t know how many creatures were devoured by the beast but the carcass total was more than two dozen. It was carnage. When we learned that our neighbours were moving to England, my first thought was whether they were taking their cats. I waited with bated breath for the news. As much as I would miss my friends, the idea of not having to kill the furry fuckers was quite appealing. Not that I would have done it but sometimes it helped to think that I could have. The world has changed since the departure. The grounds are overrun with birds and squirrels and chipmunks. Somehow the strays have learned to stay away or at least something has made them. Since the warmer weather, the doves have returned, the chipmunks are back and the world in the garden is safe once again. It is a peaceful place by all accounts. Life is better without all that pussy and I am unanimous in that.  

“In search of my mother’s garden, I found my own.“

(Alice Walker, American author)

            When my first partner died, the plot he was buried in sat alone with few neighbours. Twenty-five years later and there is little room left in the area for anyone else. The cemetery has filled in like a conga line. Almost immediately after the burial, a marker was ordered and when it arrived, I began to tend to the garden space around his headstone. Unfamiliar with the art of design, I covered the area with almost any plant I could find. It was overflowing and unorganized. Initially, I even used a trellis, just to the right side of the stone. It was covered from head to toe with Morning Glories. It was all just a little too much. I think, in a sense, my attempts at mandating beauty turned tacky and inferior. I was clearly overcompensating so I let it all go to seed. Eventually, the Lilly of the Valley that I planted in year one strangled out anything that would have grown on its own. I had to find a way to keep it all in. I took flagstone from my “in-laws’” property and created a rock border around the marker. It has rounded the edge ever since. When we moved to Paris, I decided the garden beds needed a border, badly. The myrtle that is so abundant throughout the yards was already growing over and into the grass on the front lawn. I had to confine it somehow. I decided, I was inspired, to create the same look that I had at the cemetery in Stratford. If the edging could keep Lilly of the Valley at bay then some measly groundcover would not be a challenge whatsoever. Although the flagstone was no longer available from Ben’s parents, I drove around for a few weeks comparing prices on the amount I needed. Soon enough, it piled up on the front deck like dominos. I started slowly, rounded the path and kept on going up to the back entrance. I only took a few weeks and the stage was set. I believe that the combination of the flagstone border, a pond of myrtle, grasses, and more grasses, plus black-eyed Susans, wild daisies and several fully developed types of lilies, make what now stands in the front garden look more like a swamp than anything else. It is organized chaos, overgrown exactly as I planned it to be. The large heron I place as the centrepiece creates the illusion of water, and riverbank and fowl. I guess there is a magic to working with stone and rock. You can’t really mould them to anything but the shape they came as. You have to work with their limitations. If you discern, like putting together a puzzle, the unshapeable becomes the very thing that ends up holding it all together. Every time I look out over the little piece of land that we own, I see old beauty and new beauty and beauty that is to come. It has become an otherland at times, but more refuge than escape. Even the stones that surround our parameter are silent whispers of another place and another time and of the man I used to be.

“When I go into the garden, I forget everything. It’s uncomplicated in my world of gardening. It’s trial and error, really. If something doesn’t work, it comes out, and you start all over again.” (Emilia Fox, English actress)

            I used to dream of faraway places where the space was quiet and still and gave me much needed rest. I would imagine warm beaches or mountain trails, always thinking they would settle me and lead me to a peaceful place. Most people seem to want the same thing, somewhere to go that you can call your own. They want sanctuary from the stress of the world. It’s too bad we always dream of someplace else. If only where we are would mean as much. I am a fortunate man. I don’t need to head to Maui or Rome to find it. I can go out the front door or walk out the back, that’s about all I have to do these days. Even in the roughest stretch, it is there for me to run away to. It has literally become an otherland. I have come to need it, to find what my parents found during all the years of their toiling. After all, we are all entitled to a little green peace.

“Little things seem nothing, but they give peace, like those meadow flowers which individually seem odourless but all together perfume the air.”

(Georges Bernanos, French author)

Photo

Summer 2016

Paris, Ontario

Damaged Goods

“We all bleed the same

We’re more beautiful when we come together

We all bleed the same

So tell me why, tell me why

We’re divided”

(Bleed, Mandisa 2017)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVKuA1s5I3o

            I had no idea when I was young just how difficult life would turn out to be for me. When I was a kid, I thought, I believed that everything would always be okay and that God, with all His mercy, would look after me. While these ideas may not be actual lies that I told myself, they pretty much hold the same validation. God does not assist us. He may guide us but the course is mostly in our head. I have had the opportunity to challenge my beliefs, something most other people don’t have the luxury of doing. Despite the challenges that have met me on the way, I have had a much easier life than most people. Yes, I know tragedy and have experienced physical pain beyond comprehension. I have struggled and I have lost. I am still standing but I’m pretty sure that life is easier for a white boy. It’s just too bad I’m also a homosexual or I really would have been set. I am told that life is better as a breeder. Granted, I have never once in my entire life been called a faggot by anyone. When people see me they wonder for their safety, not whether I am a top or a bottom. I’m only stereotypical in private and even then it is mostly for my very own amusement. The most important thing I have learned along the way is not necessarily that we should be kind. Although this rule is significant and should be followed, there is something more important to remember. I try to put myself in the shoes of the people I am exposed to. I tend to take the time. It’s easy to be kind to someone when you understand that the same way you are feeling is usually the same way everyone else is feeling. All the pain and all the chaos are the same for everyone but the circumstances are different. Instead, we do not tolerate each other. We seem to function on apathy these days. We don’t see that there but for the grace of God go all of us. It’s no surprise that this can be easier said than done. I too am limited as a human being so I can only do my best. Sometimes my best isn’t good enough and I fail horribly. I do what I always do. I pick myself up, I dust me all off and I start over once again.

“I believe that stories are incredibly important, possibly in ways we don’t understand, in allowing us to make sense of our lives, in allowing us to escape our lives, in giving us empathy and in creating the world that we live in.” (Neil Gaiman, English author)

            When Robert was a child, he slowly watched his mother dying in a hospital bed. For four long months, his innocent life suffered at the hands of a cruel world. This was the beginning of a slippery slope. After the death of his mother, Robert’s father showed his true colours and abandoned him to foster care. Robert never saw him again. What once seemed like a happy life now only seemed darker, as if it had somehow been corrupted.  There was not much sun in the little boy’s sky. He was always such a troubled lad. As the years of bouncing from guardian to guardian went on for much too long, Robert got lost in the rejection and eventually turned to injection. He grew cold and callous. It was all about the escape and protecting himself from becoming a casualty. In his teen years, he went from being angry all the time to crime. He would steal anything just to get a fix. His flavour was heroin. He was fifteen the first time he met a needle. The evasion was so much more than he expected. This otherland was the very best place. By the time he reached twenty-one, Robert looked like he was forty. His entire existence was at the end of a prick. His teen years had fallen away and he couldn’t even remember most of them. Life was a blur. Life was the buzz. If not for his friends, he would have been on the streets. He woke up one day face down in his own vomit. The paramedics came and they took Robert away. For 28 days, they forced him to get better. No matter what they said, he would not let go of the hatred and all the bitter. It ate him alive, or at least it seemed to. When his sentence had been served, and they finally let him go, he went right back to the life he had come to know. It was too hard for him without the drugs. He couldn’t function, at least not to some standard of human decency. I do not know what ever happened to him. He is as lost to me as he was to himself. I hope that he is somewhere safe rather than the stronger possibility. I am not sure anyone could have survived that kind of lifestyle. The very last time I saw him, we sat talking on my couch. I asked him what he wanted from life. I felt for him as he walked away without saying a word. I remember thinking to myself that he looked more like a concentration camp survivor than the friend I once knew. Speaking from experience, I understand addiction and what it feels like to stick yourself full of junk on an hourly basis. I can only suppose what the world looks like through his eyes, if he is still somehow with us. I hope that he is and that he has found the peace that once was so elusive. I have tried to picture him better. I try to imagine it but I am not convinced.

“Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It’s the capacity to

understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else’s pain is

as meaningful as your own.” (Barbara Kingsolver, American essayist)

            She was not what people expected. She seemed quiet at first, the silence and the space offered were the best things she could grant to other people. Calling her a bitch could seem quite redundant. She knew what she was and she didn’t care. She had trouble with relationships. Not only did she not understand people, she never tried to. She liked being alienated from everyone, including herself. She never got close to anyone. Try as she may, she just could not push others as far away as she wished she could. She was alone by her own making and unhappy at her own hands. She didn’t feel, at least she tried not to. In private, she was sorrow and sadness and invisible tears. She came to this place, she was not planted here. It was hard to feel for her. I didn’t know that she lost both her parents to the whims of a drunk driver. I didn’t know she was raped when she was twelve. It never occurred to me that she might have valid reasons for being the way she was. It didn’t really matter, she was just miserable and everyone around her knew it. I tried to be understanding, to empathize with whatever experiences had set her on her course. It was hard, month after month, to not exclude her from any kind of social gathering. We worked together for over two years and I cannot recall ever seeing her smile or laugh, not even a giggle. A few months before I left to work in Radio, we sat beside each other at a convention for media specialists. I didn’t know it at the time but we both grew up in North York, part of greater Toronto. We got along the entire day, at least I thought we did. After dinner together, we started to consume scotch like it was apple juice. We ended up in the hotel lobby talking for almost all of the night. I let her into my world and she seemed to let me into hers. It could have been a friendship in the earliest of stages. Understanding some of her history made it so much easier for me to put myself in her shoes. What she claimed somehow filtered past my own reservations and allowed me some insight, some clarity and a moment to comprehend. It was strictly on a limited basis. Come Monday morning and things went right back to normal. For all the sharing, for all that artificial closeness, it turns out she was exactly what everyone thought she was. It was like I wasn’t even in the room. I get it. It’s hard for some people to feel almost anything at all. We are broken and quite often unable to recover. We become damaged goods. I haven’t seen that woman since I left to live in Toronto with my first partner. I have no idea where she is or if she is doing alright. I’m not sure if she is even alive. If somehow she does still exist, I can only assume she is probably consistent. I have little doubt that she is still a bitch.

“If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand, if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.” (Daniel Goleman, American author)

            I was twenty years old when I sinned against God and His Church. I didn’t know that I was doing so, at the time, but that has always meant little to the God of my salvation. I didn’t know he was a minister when I had sex with him. I did not ask and he did not say. He neglected to mention anything but his need. I did not know he had a wife and several children. I discovered the truth when I walked into his Church a few weeks later. I was visiting friends in London, Ontario when they suggested I attend a service. I was much into theology and enjoyed church-hopping despite being an abomination. I don’t think he saw me swimming in the congregation. He lingered up at the front like some holy man, even though his proclivities would beg to differ. It was not really an issue for me that he stood there claiming to be a man of God. Even a guru will get an erection. It was his spouse and his offspring that put a bad taste in my mouth (so to speak). My friend pointed them out, sitting in the front pew, while he dangled the Lord Jesus over their heads. This was the ultimate hypocrisy for me. His sermon that Sunday morning was apropos. He preached about the absence of forgiveness and the struggle people have with accepting God’s, a love which seemed irrelevant as we had sex a few weeks before. It was hard not to be angry. It was all I could do not to stand up and yell, “He swallows!” I kept looking at the back of his wife’s head wondering if she knew anything about it. All his ranting and raving, all his empowering us with the love of Jesus seemed artificial in light of his true inclinations. He might as well have cheated on his wife with another woman, not that it mattered. It wasn’t about homosexuality, it was about conviction. I ended up feeling sorry for him. I thought about all the trouble I had with being gay and what he must be going through in spite of his man-made divinity. It was difficult for me to understand his position at the time. Hindsight does grant one a clearer vision. Every time I walk or drive past the place, I notice his name is still on the marquee out front. It is still a Baptist Church and he still manages the reigns. I cannot imagine what it must be like for him. I cannot fathom the conflict he must maintain within himself. Most gay people know what it means to hide. We mostly do it out of survival rather than shame. I thought the days of having to hide who you truly are, every day of your life, were over.

“Look at Christ, my dear friend: His life was divine through and through,

full of self-denial, and He did everything for mankind, finding His satisfaction

and His delight in the dissolution of His material being.”

(Mikhail Bakunin, Russian founder of collectivist anarchism)

            Earl is an ignorant pig. His whole life he has been reckless and had an inappropriate disregard for people in general. He is misogynistic, racist and homophobic. At least that is how he seemed when I met him. My friends warned me that someone nasty lurked about on the other side of their property. He looked the part, at least the part of Georgia that he crawled out of.  He played the part. His nasty disposition only worsens as one gets closer. He puts Duck Dynasty to shame, and not just because of his appearance. Granted, it’s not like his mother lives under his bed, not that I know of. At least he doesn’t walk around with a loaded gun like many of his brethren do. Still, the longer I observed him and his lifestyle, the more I did not like him. It’s hard not to judge someone so judgmental. Our interactions with each other were brief but succinct. On the first occasion, I simply walked on his part of the grassy knoll between the two driveways. Most of that path was tree-lined, so I only fell out of step for a moment. Out of nowhere, someone screamed, “Hey faggot, get the fuck off my lawn!” The rest of my friends filled me in on it later. Although I only stayed a week, there was plenty of time to find some amusement while having my morning coffee on the front porch. One morning, he hung a Nazi Swastika out to dry on his front lawn. I don’t know if he meant to provoke but it worked. I wanted to get up and go kick the shit out of him. The least I could do was tell him off, you know, for my friends. As soon as I started to walk over to his place, he walked out, grabbed the flag and then disappeared for the rest of the day. The day before I left for home, I was sitting out back near the pool. I heard the brakes squeal and the wheels spin out and I heard it drive away. I walked around front to see what had happened. My friends joined me near the porch. Lying near the side of the road was a dog, writhing in pain and agony. Our gut reaction was to help it but before we could, Earl walked down the lane, across the street and he snapped the dog’s neck in one motion. He picked the beast up, petted its head and took it out to the back of his property and he buried it. I didn’t see him cry. He barely noticed us, not that it mattered either. I am rarely surprised by people but I was by Earl. We don’t really ever know a person, not all of them. We only ever know what they show us. I have to believe that there is good in all of us, if only in degrees. I have Earl to thank for my position. He would hate the fact that he influenced me for good but I can live with that.

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to

what lies within us.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist)

            It is the life I have led that has made me empathetic. I try to write through that empathy rather than through experience. It is not always easy for me to put myself in someone else’s shoes. By the time that idea even comes up, I am usually quite angry. No matter how I try to be kind and no matter how often I stop myself from attacking, circumstance always gets on my last nerve. It’s hard not to understand why most human beings just can’t get along. We focus on our differences instead of our commonalities. It is difficult to have empathy towards every person that you know or encounter. Too much information can short out your give a shit button. You have to distinguish where this method is applicable. The easiest part of being empathetic is the ability to relate. I understand pain because I have known pain. I have been abandoned and I have lost my way, more than once. Having gone through your own life should make it easier to identify these symptoms in others. One must be careful, however. You cannot dish out empathy like it’s water. You can’t dissect every bug in the yard. You try to do your best well knowing that we all are damaged goods.

“We may not know one another but what if we treated each other

Like we were sister and brother

And say it with a kiss, no matter what it is

Put love back at the top of our list

Find a better way, to make a better day

Don’t you know, don’t you know, don’t you know that

There’ll be more happiness when we do that

Oh what a wonderful way to live”

(Say it with a Kiss, Amy Grant 2017)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe6b6GRYjPk

Photo

https://en.paperblog.com/excuse-me-no-damaged-goods-here-222216/   

The Bed

Soundtrack

Part Two

“Now close your eyes, look into your hand

What do you see?

Life is our song to give and learn to take

Time will not wait

Oh won’t you please come dance

While the song’s still playing

Won't be long till the silence falls”

(It’s Not A Song, Amy Grant 1985)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuIgy1NHaWk

            My love for both Amy Grant and her music is my longest relationship with any woman outside of my family. She has been part of my life since I first heard her sing “Giggle” back in 1977. For a few years, my appreciation of her sound evolved along with her style and presentation. When she released “Age to Age” in 1980, I fell completely and unconditionally in love with the entire package. It was the meaning that spoke most to me. It has been over forty years and I still sense every heartbeat. Everything changed when I discovered Amy. Every project she manifested seemed to flow in parallel with my life at the time. It was like she played in the under, a cornerstone of Christian ideals and New Age ecumenicalism. To this day she continues to release new music, music which still plays like it is the soundtrack to my life. I find something in every lyric, in all the phraseology, in the musical bed that plays underneath my chaos. I have never met her and I probably never will. If the occasion just so happened, I would really only have “Thank You” to say. Words could not express. She is tied into my history. Sometimes, she was my history. Every song, and I do mean every song, has been imprinted in my heart and my soul. I know every word. The three times I have seen her in concert were Canadian tour dates. I have almost every song she ever recorded on CD or MP3. I have her book “Mosaic.”  I even have a gem mint copy of her on the cover of Marvel Comic’s Doctor Strange issue 15. I actually own a hard copy of all her videos. I have two certified autographs and the 1994 poster of House of Love. For years, I always knew she was more for me than against me. It’s not been easy for her to be pro-LGBTQ. She encouraged me to think it would all be okay if we just come “out in the open.”  It’s not just that she speaks to me, it seems that she sings to me. 

“For the sake of never making waves

I kept my secrets to myself

And no one ever really knew the

Darker shadows of my heart

But I will be a witness

That there’s nothing in me dark enough

The power of forgiveness

Cannot rescue from the deep”

(Out in the Open, Amy Grant 2003)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS8Qln5mwaQ

            It was my first day of music class, back in grade 6. Without warning, we were forced to pick the musical instrument we would be playing, they told us, for the rest of our lives. This was the string section. The violin was too classy for me. The viola is too squeaky. The cello had already been chosen by my sister. So I stood beside a grandfather bass, ready to learn how to play it. One of the Smothers Brothers stood with his. I had never really given much thought to playing anything. I took piano lessons for a year when I was even younger but they never took. From Elementary school, all the way to High School graduation, I held my trusty friend. Sometimes I found it easier to hide behind it. I also took voice lessons for a few years during this time. Needless to say, I have an extensive background in music theory and music history. The same class that trained me on bass, also introduced me to Classical music. At first it seemed so foreign, almost alien to me. Where the hell were all the words? It turned out to be like eating a Tootsie Pop. You lick and lick and lick until you get to the centre. The reward is in the flavour.

           Over time I fell in love with Classical music. I now hold a greater passion for it. It is the main genre I choose to listen to on the radio, especially when I am driving in heavy traffic. It soothes this savage beast. I also took trumpet and saxophone while attending Strathroy District Collegiate Institute, although for much shorter amounts of time. I wanted to play the bass. I wanted to listen to anything like it. It was Mozart who first struck gold.  His Symphony No. 40 in G minor captured me the moment I heard it. The Piano Concerto 21, also by Amadeus, cemented my appreciation and loyalty to the brand. Classical music had become like an otherland for me. I can escape there, into aesthetic sounds and pleasant ideas. Again, it soothes this savage beast. Whether Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Holst’s The Planets or even Beethoven, Handel, Brahms and Bach, Classical music is an agreeable music bed for a life well lived. If you’re looking for a soundtrack for solace and comfort and ease, turn on 96.3, The New Classical FM out of Toronto, Canada. It is available online and offers “beautiful music for a crazy world.”

“Today I found myself

After searching all these years

And the man that I saw

He wasn’t at all who I thought he’d be

I was lost when you found me here

And I was broken beyond repair

Then you came along

And you sang your song over me”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m_dP2n-5W8

            I don’t listen to popular music, Country music or even Alternative music. I get samples here and there from other people’s choices but I don’t seek out any other form of music besides Gospel and Classical. I listen to Christian music. When I need more than just Mozart, I turn to Amy Grant, The Afters, Michael English and Plumb. Bands like Third Day, Sanctus Real and even Diamond Rio only add to the spiritual mix that finds me wanting. Sometimes it can seem as if the very voice of God is reaching out to touch me through these songs. It’s not some message of salvation or a moral treatise that draws my attention. It’s the feeling I get when I hear people sing about God’s love and faithfulness. They can send me to reeling. At one point, many years ago, it was John Denver that held me captive. In the late 1980s, it was Country music that soothed this weary soul. Ever since the death of my first partner in 1995, other Christian artists beside Amy have filtered into my world and my mind and my being. I am lost inside each one, always wishing that God really worked that way. Always hoping the words and the melody could bring me closer to the peace that passes all understanding. In the 1970s and early 1980s, my mother listened to Christian artists like Evie Karllson and Keith Green. I discovered Petra along the way and the foundation for my current focus was laid in those notes of gold. I have to admit, sometimes hearing folks go on and on about worshipping “The Lord” can seem rather repugnant to me. There are times when hearing about Jesus’ love for me does not ring true. Still, always lying beneath it all is the message of acceptance and forgiveness. I feel hope when I tune into the power. Christian music has become like a soundtrack to my spirituality. It is a door to the other side of living. It lies there like a spirit would.   

“So I say

Thank you for the music, the songs I’m singing

Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing

Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty

What would life be?

Without a song or a dance what are we?

So I say thank you for the music

For giving it to me”

(Thank You for the Music, Abba 1977)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dcbw4IEY5w

            The truth is there are not many forms of music I don’t at least appreciate. I like Incubus as much as I like Matthew West. Abba and One Republic may not have much in common but the years separating them mean little to the symphony that plays constantly in my head. Good is good, if you know what I mean. It’s not often that I tire of the sounds. Sometimes it can seem like a cacophony, song after song playing over and over again in my head. Most times, it flows all together like strawberries and cream. The uniqueness of my experience with music is not that different from other people’s. I think the artists change but the message lingers just the same. I am never surprised when the music touches me negatively. Sometimes remembering something through a song is not the road to travel. With the wrong choice, you can fall back into the place you were when you first heard that melody. Music summons, and not always in a productive way. Even the pain is part of the mosaic, the underlying bed of emotions that sings out loud and strong. It is also silent and calm. It is everything and yet nothing at all. The days of heading to a record store have almost faded into dust. The Internet, streaming and YouTube have all claimed a place in the universe known as music. The radio station in my head is full from each of them. Each song in my heart, goes on and on. It’s a comforting thing to know I have connections with my history through music. Sometimes I can hear them all playing underneath it all, the mix comes to a crescendo and I just happen to sing along. I like Madonna and Rihanna and Adele. I’m not much for Beyonce or Gaga. I like Bruno Mars and Keith Urban but I am not much for Sam Smith or Justin Beiber. I have an eclectic collection stored up in my noggin. It plays like any music bed would. It dances. It lingers. It makes me feel alive and I thank God for it.

“A musical bed is a songwriting-composition term used in music production. A musical bed consists of the bottom layers of tracks consisting of bass, drums, the main harmonic progression with chordal instruments like guitars or keyboards, and other musical effects, usually created by a music producer. The musical bed is then given to an artist to compose the melody and lyrics on top. The musical bed is like the foundation of a song and its creator receives writing credit and royalties, the finished song cannot be licensed without permission from all who created the song.”

  

Photos

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-orchestra-octobass-1.3810990

Sources

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-meaning-of-a-musical-bed-in-music

Soundtrack

“It’s not a song till it touches your heart

It’s not a song till it tears you apart

After what’s left of what’s right and what’s wrong

Till it gets through to you

It’s not a song.”

(It’s Not A Song, Amy Grant 1985)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuIgy1NHaWk

            Music has this way of creeping up on you. It can play like it is the soundtrack to your life. We can travel with it if we care to pay attention. It seems we have no choice but to let the music play. Almost every event in our lives is accompanied by this song or that song. When we look back, those songs play in our head, over and over again. We associate our lives with the euphony. There plays a symphony, a melody, a parade of note after note. Some love you like a love song, others scream like it’s a hard song. Some tell a story while some just linger, both ever associated with one thing after another. We collect each tune like comic books or silver spoons. Each song we encounter takes its place on the list. When we close our eyes and focus, we can hear them. Sometimes they flow in the background, a subtle reminder that, at times, the brain really is little more than a cerebral version of YouTube. Some are fierce, their volume is often more than you can handle. Just let that music play. As life goes on and our collection grows and grows, so too does the affiliation. I got into Radio Broadcasting for just that reason. Songs become our friend, we rely on them in the end. I think music is as important to our lives as the lessons that we learn. Everything has an underscore. Every note of music is more like God humming along than anything else.  

 “Everybody finds somebody someplace

There’s no telling where love may appear

Something in my heart keeps saying

My someplace is here”

(Everybody Loves Somebody, Dean Martin 1964)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-2_OstpR5c

            I remember it like it was yesterday. The first time I actually recognized music for what it is stands out as one of my strongest memories of my childhood. My father and I were both working in the basement, it was just the two of us. I can see the turntable, sitting on a small table just inside the rec room door. I can see my father switch it on, reaching for an LP jacket and then he quickly removed the black disc from within. I thought to myself that it would make a grand Frisbee or a ninja weapon, whichever. He placed it on the playing pad, engaged a button or lever, then walked away as the song began to play. I can still hear that singing in my head. My father has always liked the older stuff. At the time, most of his listening pleasure was new stuff. Charlie Pride, Waylon Jennings and even Dean Martin all mixed in some cacophony, a blaze of scales and vocals and performance anxiety. As “Everybody Loves Somebody” played in the foreground, I first joined into the singing. This memory is strong within me. I have to admit that the idea of a Dean Martin song left me confused. No country backbeat, no mandolin or banjo reached out to greet me. I believe it was the Tin Pan Alley sound that most garnered my attention. It was an introduction to music outside my listening pleasure. I’d heard the sounds before but this time I noticed. My Mom only added to the mix. The Mamas and the Papas, John Denver and Judy Collins danced with George Jones, Charlie Rich and Dolly Parton. These variables well blended, leading me, I dare say, to appreciate much more than a mere artist. It was the sound that attracted me the most, although the lyrics always paced close behind in the running. When I stop to think about it, Dean Martin and that silly song helped to begin my musical definition. The song has become a touchstone of sorts, despite the fact that I just cannot stand it. It did me well at the time. Any future orchestrations would consist of the same concoctions, a potpourri of varying styles, and motifs and genre. My tastes are quite diverse, just as experience has taught them to be. It can be heartwarming, almost comforting, to see how it all began for me. It is better to just listen, to let the soundtrack lead the way. The music has a way of telling the story for you.

“High on a hill was a lonely goatherd

Lay odl lay odl lay hee hoo

Loud was the voice of the lonely goatherd

Lay odl lay odl loo

Folks in a town that was quite remote heard

Lay odl lay odl lay hee hoo

Lusty and clear from the goatherd’s throat heard

Lay odl lay odl loo”

(The Lonely Goatherd, The Sound of Music Soundtrack 1965)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=za7dAJtYXwo

            I have to admit that as a homosexual, I find it awkward to like something that is stereotypically gay. I don’t care if people know I am but sometimes I don’t necessarily want to be associated with certain behaviours. I am a little embarrassed to admit that my greatest musical influence came quickly after Deano. I discovered the LP mixed in with my mother’s musical treasures. The soundtrack to “The Sound of Music” remains one of my favourite exposures. Most of the mid-70s found me dancing around the living room thinking I was a “lonely goatherd.” I abducted it, took it to one of my hiding places, then signed the front cover so everybody knew. My Mom just let me have it. I still have it to this day, name and all. It hangs safely, on a wall, deep in the basement. I have another copy of the same LP, for my listening pleasure. The original is not in mint condition like the newer. Few things rarely are when you use them like I did. The music still plays well but the sleeves are withered and browned with age. The 1965 album has decayed right along with me. We share the same birth year, yet have other things in common.  I am also worn and ragged. My edges have softened and my spine has frayed and faltered. I look older and I sound older. Unfortunately, I would assume for some, I still work as well. I do not hang on the wall like my old friend does. I am not worth more now than I have ever been.  I am always affected. No matter how much times passes. No matter the melodies that came before and since, “my heart wants to sing every song it hears.”

“Do you get

What you’re hoping for

When you look behind you

There’s no open door

What are you hoping for?

Do you know?”

(Do You Know Where You’re Going To, Mahogany Soundtrack 1975)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DnxTvqOe-I

            If I wasn’t listening to Julie Andrews, I was listening to radio CFTR-AM out of Toronto, Canada. It was very much a Top 40 station, even before that term became all the rage in the 1980s. I would lie in bed listening for hours, absorbing each song as if it were my very own. I had never before purchased any form of music but when I first heard that song, I knew I had to have it. I had old 45s my brothers no longer used. I had LPs my mother or father had given me. I had a nice little collection for a 10 year old. When I initially engaged with the song, the sensitive child in me took over. I cried just a little when I heard her let it go. Still, I have never really appreciated the talents of Diana Ross. I’m not sure that in hindsight she had many to speak of. I was not a fan and, for the most part, I still am not. It was just the one song. With the theatrical release of Mahogany in 1975, came the radio release of “Do You Know Where You’re Going To,” in the fall of that year. It was a chilly and windy day when I grabbed my stash and headed out to find heaven. There was a loose baseboard at the top of the stairs. It moved just enough so that I could conceal my stash behind it, for no one else to know. I hid it in plain sight so no one else would see. One time, my Dad re-secured that loose board and I had to get a hammer for access to the $14.54 hidden just behind it. I would have stored my comic book collection there but there was no way they would fit. Even as a child, an exorbitant amount of my time and money was spent in the pursuit of comic book after comic book. The song itself motivated me out of the little otherland that I zoomed around in. I walked into the record shop, the one right behind the Dominion grocery store where my parents shopped. I walked in, spotted the section I was after, and I fell upon a new love.  I felt much glee, it was almost the same feeling I got when I discovered a new issue of the X-Men or the Avengers. I headed towards the checkout and had to stop myself from skipping. For the first time, I plopped down my cold hard cash for my very first 45. It was something other than a comic book (or candy). It was rare for me to spend my money on anything but comic books but when I first discovered the song, I was swept away. I remember how I felt such hope in the words and melody. It fit right in with my world at the time and seemed like destiny to my 10 year old reality. It was played over and over and not just up in my head. This was my first tactile experience with actually acquiring music. The 70 cents I paid seemed outlandish to me then. Music has evolved as the second-most collected item in my home. If only I could go back and reclaim my guiltless and unobstructed nature the way you can with music. We all know, deep down, we cannot. I still hear the music. I guess that underneath it all, she is still singing. I was quite innocent when the lady first sang the blues.               

“You got your passion

You got your pride

But don’t you know that

Only fools are satisfied?

Dream on

But don’t imagine they’ll all come true

When will you realize

Vienna waits for you?”

(Vienna, Billy Joel 1977)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wccRif2DaGs

            I assume that most people under 30 years of age don’t know what an 8-track player is. I will not get into the details other than to say they still exist in retro and the albums are like giant cartridges you almost have to slam into a large dock. My brother’s room was a bastion, a citadel of access. It was there that much of the music I craved dwelt. It was an otherland of LPs and 45s and the much exalted 8-track. It was a giant room of music to me, large and very forbidden. It was full of those songs which I could not afford. I used to wait until my brothers would leave then sneak through their collections, listening here and there or almost anywhere. I discovered the new album where it had not been before. I had no idea who the artist was or what they sounded like. I just liked the title of the piece, The Stranger. Although Billy Joel has become a staple in my musical universe, at the time I was a virgin. I listened to that album so many times that I can still sing every note, every word without pause. I bought a copy a few years later, on the standard cartridge that was so vogue in the 1980s and 90s. When I finally switched over to CDs in 1994, The Stranger was the first purchase I made.  It remains one of the top 5 albums of my all time. I still play it often, sometimes weekly, especially if I am heading off somewhere in the car. My favourite track from the work is “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.”  This was not always the case. I used to play and favour “Only the Good Die Young” but I lived with my family back then and my mother banished the song from being played in her home. I played it anyway, cursed from above as she screamed down the stairs at me. It was written as if the perfect accompaniment to my life, and still is to this day. There is something to be said about being able to go to “Vienna” anytime I wish or sitting in the front window of some place with Brenda and Eddy. There are times when I actually hear these songs like they are some music bed in my head. They play as I do. Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, I rarely favoured any male artist as much.

“No one compares

You stand alone

To every record I own

Music to my heart, that’s what you are

A song that goes on and on”

( Love You Like A Love Song, Selena Gomez & The Scene 2011)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgT_us6AsDg

            My life has been like my taste in music. It is diverse, eclectic and, at times, very expensive. A mix of Tin Pan Alley, Country, Pop and Gospel, all rest with me still, even if only for a moment or two. My tastes have changed over the years. I no longer chase the meaning of a song, I just let it resonate with me. I have to admit, if not for radio I would barely venture outside my current tendencies. I find most forms of modern music nothing but noise with a catchy beat. In 2011, Selena Gomez released “Love You Like A Love Song.” I still love this ditty. It is the last contemporary hit that I even garnered with attention. It played like a theme song for me. So I sit with my old songs and some new songs and the songs I have carried with me. If I lined them all up, they would be one huge soundtrack to go along with my days and nights and everything in between. Along the way, my musical universe varied as I added new talent, as I discovered new songs. Artists like Lionel Ritchie come, then go. You try it, then you move past it and keep on running. Sometimes exposure shifts things, and it is like being given a new song. Everything evolved when I discovered Amy Grant.

Photos

http://www.tourisme-montreal.org/meetings/2016/01/28/songs/  

https://www.amazon.com/Everybody-Loves-Somebody-Dean-Martin/dp/B00I5XHLE2

https://eil.com/shop/moreinfo.asp?catalogid=386178

http://images.45cat.com/diana-ross-theme-from-mahogany-do-you-know-where-youre-going-to-tamla-motown-2.jpg

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/the-stranger/158617952

http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/File:Selena_Gomez_%26_The_Scene_-_Love_You_Like_A_Love_Song.jpg

Touchstones

            A touchstone is a reference point against which things can be evaluated. It is an ideal by which something may be measured. It is a measure by which we can assess and then discern. Touchstones are a “standard or criterion by which something is judged or recognized.” A touchstone can be an object of significance. Whether a memento, a pet, or even the dead , a touchstone is an acknowledgment, sometimes a memory. A touchstone can be a significant other, a person you believe completes you and makes you whole. Ideally, this person comes without criticism and judgements. They love unconditionally and hold great importance. We turn to our touchstones when we need them the most. We rely on them to ground us, to bring us back to reality even in the midst of great chaos. Some of my greatest touchstones are not just people or places. Physical objects in of themselves hold much meaning. I think we all have little trinkets and keepsakes that we give not only great sentimental value but they act as a touchstone, a way to treasure or fear, depending on your state of mind. Like a cherished old sweater or a picture of your mother, these connections bring us back to a place and a time without having to venture there ourselves. They act not only as a reminder but also as an escape of sorts, an otherland of objectification. We feel them. We see them. We know just what they are and why they are with us. Almost literally, noting each is like touching a stone. They can act like old friends if you let them, a safe harbour on a sea of despair. .

            I cannot remember life without it. All these years have passed and it is still with me. It is one of my first memories. I remember spotting it on the corner cabinet in our living room when I was six. It sat there for years. When we moved from Toronto to Strathroy in 1976, that tin was delegated to a secondary position. The top of our kitchen cabinets would have to do, I supposed. Eventually, I just asked my mom if I could have it and she surprisingly said yes. In hindsight, I think she knew that I would keep it and care for it and hold it to myself. I have many family treasures in my possession for exactly that reason. The tin itself is nothing to speak of. It still holds its shape and most of the illustrations, but it is dented and aged and worn from the life it has passed through. It had looked like that long before it came to me. The ravages of five children clearly shows on its skin. There have been no new dents or scratches since I claimed it from my Mother over thirty years ago. It was once ornate and polished but time and those children have managed to dim and ding the newness away. It is an oriental, eight sided tin with a brass handled top. I treat it like it is worth as much as anything else in my home. It is prominent in the room regardless of its appearance. It is a treasure, a touchstone for me. I don’t have to literally touch it to remember all those years I have held it as my own. It is connected to my childhood and my mother and it represents both at completely the same time. When I miss her, I can caress that silly little tin, almost as if it was a gravestone or burial marker. I could not cherish anything more.

            Emma and Abby met on the first day of kindergarten. They became fast friends and travelled through their youth together. No one could have been closer. No one could have been more connected. At least, that is what their youth told them was the truth. More sisters than best friends, the two shared years together. For Emma, no one mattered more. As an only child she had wanted a sibling but Abby was more than she could ever ask for. They were kindred spirits. For Abby, her pal gave her refuge and sanity in a world that was not so friendly. Em was an escape from the ravages of abuse.  Whenever she needed to run, whenever she ran, it was always to her bestest friend. There was sanctuary since the day that they met. High school was a experiment in torture. Both girls we not on the top of the popular list. This only strengthened the commitment they had to one another. They joined clubs together and attended social events in spite of the poor reception. They would laugh and then they would laugh some more. There was nothing sweeter than the time they spent together. Eventually, all good things come to an end. After graduation, Emma moved to Montreal to attend Concordia University in pursuit of a Nursing degree. Abby finally found emancipation in New York City. Columbia University offered Film and Media Studies. The day they parted was not a big deal. They could text, they could chat, they could email. They was no real reason not to stay connected. Time surprises everyone it seems. The distance and work load made it difficult for the friends to stay in touch with each other. Eventually, the relationship eroded and slowly faded away. Both women got married and had children. Neither was present for the other’s wedding. They had no clue of anything in the other person’s life. They might as well have been strangers. News spread of Emma’s battle and soon Abby became aware of her friend’s new struggle. Abby knew Emma had once been there to comfort her when the world around her fell apart. It was Abby’s turn now. She left her family and her life and headed home to be with her champion. When she walked into the hospital room, she could see the fighting on her old friend’s face. No words were required. In fact, it was like nothing had happened, like no time at all had passed away. All night long they sat together, playing cards and laughing again. Emma gained much comfort from the visit. It grounded things for her. This was her touchstone. It was well into dawn before the darkness came.

            

            I was born and raised in Toronto, so when my first partner and I moved there in the spring of 1994, I fell back into heaven. You can go home again. For seven months we lived in the Kensington Market area, just minutes from the downtown core. The CN Tower was a neighbour and Lake Ontario was just down the street. When life got complicated, or when the money ran out, we would take our miniature television set and head down to the Skydome. While Doug listened to the baseball game, I would toss bread up for the seagulls to catch. It was an easy time, these moments I remember. I can still see him sitting on a grassy knoll, volume turned up and not a care in world. At least, that’s how things looked at the time. I could not foresee the darkness brewing within him. I am glad to have these memories to remind me. Things were good between us, most of the time. Every time I have stood at the base of the CN Tower since then, I can hear the gulls calling and the Blue Jays squawking. I am with him and he is with me. I do not mind a journey through this otherland. It is a pleasant standard by which I judge all of my memories of him. I don’t even need to actually be there to visit. That miniature television set, antenna and all, still rests in my home like it always has. I am not sure if it even works anymore but I have it. I am lucky to have two interconnected touchstones, both a place and an object. One has granted easy access while the other requires some effort. In 2014, my partner Ben and I travelled to this familiar place. I had not been there in years and it clearly had a new tenant. The Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada opened earlier that year and it sits just feet to the west of the CN Tower’s base. Yes, I could still feed the birds if I wanted and the grassy knoll sits just as it did before. It’s now a crowed space, however, and the foot traffic is severe. I don’t suppose I could recreate those moments. I could try but there really is no sense. I have both touchstones to measure my world against. Whether I am standing face to face with 553 metres of concrete or holding a broken down piece of technological history, I am at once in a happy place. It’s nice to have things that make you go there.

            When my first partner died I was left with little choice. I tried to give up only to have to go on without him anyway. It was humbling to experience such darkness, such gloom. Out of nowhere there came a glimmer of light. I met Rob and Brenda when I returned to the United Church my family attended. I reverted to Christianity out of fear and hopelessness and despair. I was crying out and somehow thought if I was actually part of a community, I could find more strength to carry on. With that community came my new friends. The married couple were only a few years older than me. They came with a young son and lived on the far side of Strathroy. For a few years we made much history. We studied together, sang together, we ate and laughed and shared together. During that time, the couple visited Israel. I would have loved to go with them but they never asked. Rob waited until Christmas to give it to  me. The polished cedar box came with Hebrew markings on a simple wood background. The lid was to shape. Inside, tiny scrolls of Hebrew writings wrapped themselves around  a rather plain and uninspiring stone. I had no idea that Rob had grabbed a piece of the Wailing Wall for me. He hid it well and brought it back, just for me. I still have that tiny morsel from the Holy Land.  Although, I haven’t seen either Rob or Brenda for years, I often look back on that time with good thoughts. We just faded away from each other. Some people come into our lives not to stay but to serve a purpose then leave. At the time, I had just come out of the closet and in so doing lost almost all of my friends. Brenda and Rob were hope when all seemed lost. Their friendship was a pleasant distraction from the reality that I faced.  If I am looking for an example of hopefulness, I always find it in that small cedar box, sitting on my television stand with all the other little extras.

            I have many mementos that I cling to for a sense of what once was and what might well have been. For example, the two collars once warn by our two dead dogs hang about for all the world to see. One even dangles from the rear view mirror of our car. My Dad’s fireman badge, sits in glass and safety. His picture, in uniform, rests beside the silver pin. I have pictures of my mother, and my first partner, and cuttings from the hair of each. I have people that I turn to in times of crisis. Some of those people I even turn to on better days. I have places I can visit when I am looking for any sign of that often elusive peace. I have many things in my life that act as a touchstone. The security they bring me may be artificial but its better than nothing, that’s for sure. Anything that acts in such a capacity, is good for the soul. We need to touch base sometimes. We need to feel the connection we once had with something. A touchstone can be a great source for reconnecting,  reconnection with the past as well as our own place within it. We hug our touchstones. We hold them dear. We use them to measure the things we hold near. In the end, the only thing a touchstone does is activate whatever rests within each person. All that we call upon is already there. Sometimes we just need something to tweak us, to awaken that part of us. This is what a touchstone is for.

Photo

http://www.awakeninghealingarts.com/black-zen-stones/

           

The Old Tin Can

Paris, Ontario

March 2018

https://www.northwesternmutual.com/life-and-money/the-financial-steps-to-take-after-a-loved-one-dies/

http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2011/08/ripleys-aquarium-canada-holds-potential

Just another piece of the Wall

Paris, Ontario

March 2018

https://www.um.edu.mt/newspoint/noticeboard/notices/2017/11/touchingbase

Sources

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/touchstone

Moonbeams

“Would you like to swing on a star?

Carry moonbeams home in a jar?

And be better off than you are?

Or would you rather be a mule?”

            The ability to learn is the most important part of being human. It is inherent, built into our framework. If you do not learn, you are destined to repeat. For those who wallow in their own crapulence, life does the same. The reality is that the process of life is nothing more than a learning curve, and then you die. If there wasn’t teaching, and studying, and recognition, there would be no growth, no change and no evolution. Life would be static and seemingly unmoveable. Some people are born limited. They struggle with their own ignorance regardless of how many years of education any one person might have acquired. Higher learning requires one to actually learn. Some people remain as simple as a woodchuck. An education does not automatically negate the lasting effects on those stupefied by the very act of their genetics. You cannot be a little bit pregnant. Sometimes it comes right down to stupid is as stupid does. I should polish up my political correctness. I could choose my words with moderation. This would not take away from the fact that some people just don’t have a clue.

“A mule is an animal with long, funny ears

He kicks up at anything he hears

His back is brawny and his brain is weak

He’s just plain stupid with a stubborn streak

And, by the way, if you hate to go to school

You may grow up to be a mule”

            He was stunning and I appreciated that. While I was security on one side, he was bartender on the other. We became friends, at least in a casual sense. He sure was pretty. His solid muscular body, his very handsome face and his general demeanour made him the star attraction in many a gay man’s night. Management was right to put him behind the bar. Sex sells, after all. The entire package of him was what another co-worker called rather “yummy.” I agreed with her completely. Good always comes with the not so good. There is always a price to pay. James was dumber than a tree knot. We had to explain to him how ice was made. He could mix drinks for 10 people, all at the same time, but he couldn’t manage to put his shoes on the right feet. I am unsure if James was aware of his limitations. He struck me as the sort of man who didn’t stop to do anything but brush his teeth. He was shallow and I am sure not only because he was vain. It was like talking to an empty vessel. He was 26, at the time, and he somehow managed to get through a quarter century of existence. You would think that journey might have rubbed off on him. In the end, he was a dull light bulb ready to be changed. He only lasted a few months then the exhibit closed for good. He was gone but so was his beauty. He didn’t leave because he found another job. He didn’t leave to improve himself with an education or training in an apprenticeship. James, an innocent child it seems, left because he was afraid that by working in a gay bar, the gay would rub off on him. I asked him when he shared his fate, “Aren’t you gay?” He replied from outer space, from his otherland.

“Or would you like to swing on a star?

Carry moonbeams home in a jar?

And be better off than you are?

Or would you rather be a pig?

A pig is an animal with dirt on his face

His shoes are a terrible disgrace

He’s got no manners when he eats his food

He’s fat and lazy and extremely rude

But if you don’t care a feather or a fig

You may grow up to be a pig”

            Without some semblance of decorum, we are nothing but animals.  Tell that to my late friend Tammy. She died a few years ago yet somehow the odour remains. She was a hoarder, and a rather dirty one at that. For the 20 years that I knew her, I rarely ever went over to her place. She was embarrassed, humiliated and yet did nothing to rectify the situation. Her home was a pigsty. I have known several other hoarders, including a family member, and their chaos was nothing compared to Tammy’s. It wasn’t just too much furniture, too much stuff. Garbage and filth were everywhere. It got worse every time I climbed over what used to be her living room. At least she didn’t seem to collect her own feces or urine, although I could never be sure what laid under all those piles of debris. I am not sure why I never said anything to her about her quality of living. I suppose, in a clear sense, I was just as embarrassed for her as she was for herself. It was heartbreaking to venture into her world. I never knew what might crawl out of the piles of trash that literally littered the place. At one visit, I thought the floor was moving but it was only a combination of ants and roaches that tricked my senses. The longer her rampage went on, the harder it was to breathe in her place. I suppose the black mould on almost every wall was the culprit. Eventually, any invitation I had to return to the scene met with distance and excuses and disinterest. I still cared for my friend but I could not just keep going, condoning her behaviour and her lifestyle. She definitely needed the help I could not give. Even if she had a mental condition that caused the behaviour, she had other options besides ruminating in her own mess. She had no shame, no sense of pride. I’m not sure if this detachment was the problem or if she was. All I know is that her death was just as messy as her life had been. Her body, like her kitchen floor, filled with foreign invaders. Cancer still grows in a crowded house.

“Or would you like to swing on a star?

Carry moonbeams home in a jar?

And be better off than you are?

Or would you rather be a fish?

A fish won’t do anything but swim in a brook

He can’t write his name or read a book

To fool all the people is his only thought

Though he’s slippery, he still gets caught

But then if that sort of life is what you wish

You may grow up to be a fish

A new kind of jumped-up slippery fish”

            Every word out of his mouth was a complete fabrication. He was a falsehood, even to himself. Throughout the last decade I knew him, he managed to create one drama after another. Always trying, it seemed, to weave something out of nothing. I never really understood to what end. I had no idea why a person would need to do that. Any deduction I made was irrelevant. I could not believe a word that came out of his mouth. One day he had a disease and the next he was getting married. He won money then lost it the very same day. Someone got hurt. Someone always got hurt. Every day of contact with him seemed riddled with bullshit. This happened or that happened, all the while his claims of suffering fell upon deaf ears. I have lost contact with him over the years. The truth is, it was a conscious choice not to continue to associate with him. There can be no relationship without trust. I do not trust him, not in the least. Everybody lies. It matters little whether you care to admit just that, we all do it. There is something to be said for moderation. My old friend did not seem to understand the simplicity of the term. When people believe you are a liar, it doesn’t matter what  you say or what you do, there will always be that absence. I remember one incident, while I was still in contact with him, when he claimed to have had surgery. Of course, it was quite serious but he managed to get home at the end of that day. There were no scars, no bandages, no anything but a million excuses and a million more reasons. It’s hard to have faith in someone who doesn’t seem to understand the meaning of truth and honesty. At least, I try not to make it a personal priority to fill the air with nothing but prevarications. I’m not above a good lie here and there, but when it’s all you give, it’s all you get.

“And all the monkeys aren’t in a zoo

Every day you meet quite a few

So you see, it’s all up to you

You can be better than you are

You could be swingin’ on a star”

(Swinging On A Star, Bing Crosby 1944)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CDs067081E

            I don’t believe in fate or serendipity. God’s Will is all good and well but I doubt very much that the idea is anything more than just that. While I do not entertain notions like destiny and “meant to be,” I do believe there are lessons implanted throughout our lives, lessons we must learn or face repeating. This is why learning is so very important for a person who wishes to move past their own folly. If we don’t learn then we don’t move forward, we don’t evolve and we become stagnant. Some people like to rummage around in their lives. Staying in the same place is comfortable and easy. It takes no effort at all. You can always do better. If you are stupid, study. If you are dirty, take a bath. If no one believes you, try the truth. Regardless of our limitations, each one of us has choices and those choices will dictate who we will turn out to be.

Photo

https://www.pinterest.ca/cherylc1970/vintage-goodies/