The Bear, #MeToo, and, well, me too....

   True story.
   A few years ago, I was walking through the forest, alone, and I came across a bear. It was a mother bear and she had a cub with her. From all I knew of wilderness safety, this was a bad combination. I stopped dead in my tracks and watched them. My mind, however, was racing a mile a minute. It was going through all the small bits of data it carried regarding bears--- their tendencies, behaviours and inclinations.
   I had been in close proximity to wild bears before but it was always from the safety of a car, stopped by the edges of mountain highways. I had never been on foot, alone, with only the fresh morning air between me and a bear.
   What I knew in that moment was that the bear was the one who would be deciding what happened next. I knew I could neither fight nor outrun it. 
   Without the presence of the bear, the situation was as

benign as you could have made it. The sun was filtering down through the treetops, the forest was moist and primeval, and the air was easy to breathe. With a bear and her cub added to the equation, however, I was suddenly faced with some terrible possibilities, the consequences of which might leave my life seriously compromised or, possibly, over.
   The mother bear saw me at the same time I saw her. Neither of us lost eye contact for what seemed like an eternity. Blessedly, the cub had no idea I existed and was intent on exploring its surroundings. Its curiosity took it across the trail I'd been on and back up into the forest. The mother briefly continued to look at me but then decided to follow her cub. I gave them a minute to get further into the forest and then I hurriedly continued on my way.
   It did not occur to me then but it strikes me now that this must be what it's like for women to travel a landscape which, as much as the forest is made for the bear, is almost entirely advantageous to men---men of many ilks and dispositions.
   I, obviously, am a man and part of a subgroup which benefits from a great many things not always afforded to women. Of all of these, personal safety is perhaps the area in which there is the largest chasm of difference. For the most part, men go where they want with no fear. Until, perhaps, you are in the forest with a bear.
   When you are in the forest with a bear, you are at the mercy of whatever natural instinct strikes them. You have no idea when (or what) they might have eaten last, what the nature was of the interaction they had with the last human they saw, or, more simply, whether they were having a bad day or not. If you are lucky, you get to safely share their environment with them. If you have picked a bad day to be in the forest, then you are maimed or dead.
   In a way, is this not the same for some, many or even all women? Whether or not it is at the forefront of their fears, is it not at least subliminally there, whispering warnings? As benign as the setting may be, if you are a woman in close proximity to a man you are unfamiliar with is it not that much different than coming across that bear in the forest? And how many hundreds of thousands of women have found themselves in the forest, on a bad day?
   

It is now the era of #MeToo and #TimesUp. In an age when communication between people is both instant and constant, women have been able to rally around these hashtags and share their stories and fears. Because of this, both collectively and individually, they have found the ability to rise up against the evil which men sometimes do and have almost always gotten away with. #MeToo has also exposed the pervasiveness of male sexism---at any given point in their lives, pretty well all women could justifiably claim to have been victimized in some way, shape or form.
   In part because of #MeToo, patterns of male behaviour have been laid bare, open for inspection, and many of us men have been found lacking. We have also been found complicit---many times by simply looking away. We have heard stories from other men about the many ways they might have abused women, or continue to do so, and we have remained silent.
   In the ongoing aftermath of all this, many men, I believe, are now looking back at their past interactions with women in an attempt to determine whether at some point they might have strayed. Some men may have done this in an effort to predict possible fallout headed their way. Other men, simply in an effort to understand how their attitudes and behaviours in the past can be changed for the better.
   As a man, you can learn if you pay attention. I have a female friend on Facebook I've known for many years. She has an amazing smile, in my opinion, but she rarely uses it when she posts photos. In the past, I have gone out of my way to point this out to her, while commenting on the occasional pic. It has only been since the emergence of #MeToo and the accompanying discourse on latent sexism, that I've come to realize how inappropriate it is for me to do this, regardless of how well I know this woman and and how light-hearted our exchanges seem. So I've stopped making this mistake and am actually contemplating an apology. It is simply not my place to offer an opinion to someone on how they can more closely live up to what my expectations are on how physically attractive I think they could be.
   This seems like just a small thing to me but I also think it is indicative of what hopefully the new climate around gender roles is bringing---men rethinking how they act and react around women. And if you are on social media and you are paying attention, women will actually provide you with do's and don'ts.
   For a moment, back to the bear in the forest. 
   I drew the comparison between me encountering that bear in the forest and women interacting with men in common, everyday environments. I'm not sure how far-fetched or unrealistic comparing those two things may sound to you but the fact of the matter is this---for that length of time I was in that forest with that bear, my life was basically upside-down. Whatever vestige of male privilege I'd carried with me prior to that moment slipped away into nothing. No amount of physical strength or intellectual reasoning was going to come between me and that bear. If the bear thought it had any good reason to seriously hurt or kill me, well, that's what was going to happen. I would have done nothing wrong but having been in the wrong place at the wrong time, with a predator. Is this not sometimes what women face? 
   I'm going to present yet another metaphor or scenario which, as far-fetched as it might sound, I think might actually be applicable. As women walk around in this world they are faced with about 50% of the rest of the population being male. Out of that 50%, perhaps 75% of men are capable of performing whatever act of violence they wish upon whatever women they encounter. As a man, I can only think of one sphere of existence wherein, on a daily basis, I might have to live my life faced with similar odds of having to face violence or possible death. Prison. 

Is this what it's like for women, in a man's world?

   These are not numbers which will ever change and I doubt that many of us view life this way. But, for many women, this is a reality and for many women it will become a reality. As men, we need to understand our role in all of this and come to grips with some of the changes which need to happen.
   This will probably screw us up. How we treat women (how we treat people, in general) is something we started to learn basically as we were lying on our mothers' bellies for the first time. We learned from how our mother treated us and then watching how she was treated.  We have witnessed the many ways power can be used. We have spent our lives watching how the people around us used or abused relationships and we have formed behaviours around all this which will now be difficult to change. There will be confusion and there will be anger and we will rail against what seems to suddenly be an injustice we don't understand.
   Make no mistake about it, though, women will force a change.  Women will save themselves. Along the way, men will need to provide fewer reasons for women to be wary of us. We will need to come to grips with masculinity also meaning protecting, enabling, and respecting as much as it does anything else. We can do this if we just think. What we can't become, or continue to be, is the bear in the forest.
   
   
   

   

Old Friends

    Simon and Garfunkel had a song called "Old Friends" many years ago, on their "Bookends" album. It was a bit of a sad, yet beautiful, homage to the aging process. I was a young man in my early twenties when I heard it for the first time. 
   I had it running through my mind the other day after I left the restaurant I had just had breakfast in. I had been sitting near a table which had six elderly men, eating breakfast and generally being convivial. I'm not sure whether they were just a group of friends getting together or whether it was perhaps a "meeting" of some kind (a couple of the gentlemen seemed new to each other) but I found myself somehow or other enjoying being in their proximity. 
   Now, I did say elderly, didn't I? 

   Well, the fact of the matter was that they all were either balding or had white and/or graying hair, they were wrinkled in the usual spots, jowls were present, and they all wore eye glasses and short-sleeved dress shirts. And, wouldn't you know it, I just described....me!
   So, yes, I am an old man, by pretty well any definition you use. I am eligible for all the Tuesday Night Senior Specials and I get called "Sir" on a fairly regular basis. Dinner at 4:30 or 5 o'clock doesn't seem like that foreign of a concept. The eyesight's occasionally blurry and the hearing requires electronic assistance (although I am holding out on that one) and middle-of-the-night trips to the bathroom occur pretty well every middle-of-the-night.
   The accouterments of old age are all there and yet, somehow, I still feel removed from it.
   The adage goes You are only as old as you feel and I pretty well put full faith in it. For the most part, I have not stopped doing the things I have always enjoyed doing and this has always involved keeping the body and mind active. The body is active with running, hiking, golf and, occasionally, ball hockey. The mind is active with poetry, writing, crosswords and blogging.
   Because of all this, as I sat there in the restaurant the other day, it was hard to feel true kinship with all the gents at the next table. It kind of felt like watching my dad, perhaps sitting there with a bunch of my friends' dads---it wasn't like spying on a group of my peers.
   Sometimes I wonder if this is problematic, if maybe I should spend a little more time "acting my age". Of course "acting" would be just that---acting. There is no sense in attempting to be other than what you actually are, whatever that is. I suppose I'll just continue to do what I have always done until my passion for that thing has dissipated.
   Of course, it could very well be that every gentleman sitting at that restaurant table is as active and young-feeling as I am! Because I don't really know any of them, I am going to try and avoid the trap of making assumptions, based on their appearance. I think this has occasionally been done to me---because the trappings of old age apparently hang from my shoulders I have been conveniently placed in a niche, deposited on a mantle and only occasionally dusted off. This, of course, by people who don't know what I know.
   At one point in "Old Friends", Paul Simon says
                         Can you imagine us
                         Years from today,
                         Sharing a park bench
                         Quietly?
                         How terribly strange
                         To be seventy.
   Well, I may accidentally be sitting on a park bench someday with a friend when I'm seventy but it won't be terribly strange and the people around us are going to be wondering why those two old geezers are raising such a commotion with all laughing and giggling! And if it's not a park bench it just as likely may be a players' bench in a hockey arena or a participants' bench at a track meet!
   

Although it is quite easy to, I try not to judge people by what other people tell me. Generally, I prefer to react to people based on mutual shared experiences. What this means is that if you are a person in their sixties who acts like a person in their thirties then I am going to treat you like a person in their thirties, until given reason to do otherwise.
   I would only hope that people do the same for me---treat me as you know me to be. We will get along fine if you do!

Say Hello To "Hello Goodbye"

      I rarely blog about T.V. programming--generally there is very little out there I find remarkable. Which is not to say there aren't a handful of good shows we watch regularly but most of those I'm pretty sure you're already familiar with.

   Today, however, I wanted to mention a new show on CBC, one of Canada's T.V. networks. It is currently one of our favourites.

   It's called "Hello Goodbye" and stars a gentleman named Dale Curd. The premise is almost excruciatingly simple--Dale visits Canada's busiest airport, Toronto's Pearson International, and randomly interviews people who are there either waiting for loved ones to show up or seeing them off.

   As simple as this sounds, the results are always astoundingly poignant.

   Dale begins each interview (as the people are standing there waiting) by asking them who they are waiting for and why. Through a series of questions he then goes on to investigate the intricacy of their relationship with that person. The stories are never that dissimilar from our own but he has the ability to illuminate them through his questions.

   You have a mother, waiting to see the husband and daughter she hadn't seen in ten years. There is an elderly British woman, waiting to see the sister she hasn't seen in twenty years. A pregnant same-sex couple, waiting for a sister to arrive for a baby shower. Those are some of the "hellos".

   On the "goodbye" side, there is a nun who is leaving all her friends in Canada to serve in a third world country, knowing there is very little likelihood she'll ever be able to return. A man and his two young sons who are embarking on a year-long tour of the world, to honour their deceased mother's memory.

   The shows have themes, such as "Wish You Were Here", "Hard Choices" and "Honour The Past". All of the themes essentially explore the nature of human relationships and the different ways we are important to each other. Many times people are asked how their loved one has changed their lives. All of their answers make you stop and ask yourself some of the same questions. It is almost impossible to sit through an episode and not be reduced to tears, be forewarned.

   

Dale Curd

Coincidentally, Dale Curd was one of the co-hosts of the last T.V. show I recommended in this forum---"Life Story Project". You can read that post here. That show was similar in that Dale and Andrea Syrtash found ordinary people out there and were then able to bring out a wide variety of amazing stories. "Hello Goodbye" accomplishes something very similar.

   When he is done interviewing people, Dale parts company and the film crew there with him then hangs around and either films the arrival of the loved one or their departure. As the interview is going on, snippets of many of the other travelers in the airport are shown, as they greet each other. The music throughout this is also amazing.

   "Hello Goodbye" serves as a reminder of all our common bonds. This past year, I had the occasion to be at Pearson International four separate times---dropping off and picking up both my son and my wife and mother-in-law as they headed out on and then returned from world travels. Had any one stopped and asked us pointed questions as to why we were there and how had our loved ones affected us, I can only imagine a similar tearful response. The show is really about all of us, so take a boo and remember the kleenex! 

   

Coffee: Part Two

   About a year and a half ago, I wrote a post called "Coffee", in which I waxed eloquently about my relationship with java. I actually just re-read it and I couldn't believe how much I actually had to say about the subject. If you really want to see what I mean by that, you can go here and take a gander.
   Well, my relationship with coffee has changed in the last three weeks.
   About three weeks ago, I went about eliminating as much of the extraneous sugar as I could from my diet. This, unfortunately, included the spoon-and-a-half to two spoonfuls of sugar and/or honey I regularly took in my coffee.
   I have also avoided the use of any kind of sweetener---in the past, they've either caused more problems than the sugar has or they've been extremely expensive. All I have in my coffee now is a little cream or milk.
   This all has changed the coffee experience for me greatly. Before the change, I looked forward to and relished the idea of sitting down to a cup. It had the power to at least briefly transport me away from whatever I was doing or, if not, at least accompany me on the journey as a trusted friend. Nowadays...not so.
   These days, this is what my face does when I take my first sip of coffee:

This is EXACTLY what my face looks
like when I drink sugar-less coffee.

   Eventually, the shock of sugar-less coffee wears off and I can finish the cup with a more-or-less normal look on my face. It does take a fair amount of willpower, though.
   So this begs the question---is it the coffee I used to enjoy? Or just the sugar?
   In spite of the fact that I'm not enjoying the coffee as much anymore, I'm still drinking about as much as I used to. When I look at all the sugarless drink options out there, none inspire me. When you have loved the best....
   Anyway, I do ask myself why I continue to drink it if I barely enjoy it anymore? Could be that I enjoy the companionship, as weird as that might sound. It might even be that simply having a mug at my side somehow completes me, regardless of the nature of its contents. Perhaps it's the warmth on my hands, who really knows? There is something almost visceral about reaching for a cup or mug without even needing to look at it because you always leave it the same distance from your arm and the handle is always turned to the exact point you need it to be at in order to grasp your coffee seamlessly and effortlessly, without thinking about it.
   As I write this, I have about two more sips left of this evening's coffee. It's cold now but not enough's left to bother heating it up. I'm drinking it out of my "mr. almost perfect" coffee mug and things almost are perfect.
   Except for the coffee...

   
   
   

Autistic Boy Meets Damaged Woman

   Earlier on this week, a typewritten letter on pink paper made its way into the news, big-time.

   It was a letter full of invective, which had made its way to the doorstep of a household in Newcastle. The woman who lived in the house was the grandmother of an autistic boy, Max, who had been staying with her. The letter was from an anonymous neighbour who objected to the presence of Max in her neighbourhood.
   The grandmother brought the letter to the attention of the police, it then found its way into the news and then, instantly, on to social media.
   It was a letter that was almost physically difficult to read, as full as it was with hatred and ignorance. It was also a reminder that, though we think we live in an enlightened age, there are those of us out there still dwelling, for whatever reasons, in very dark places.
   I have worked for over thirty years with intellectually challenged people, many of whom have autistic tendencies or disorders. Relatives and close friends of ours have children with autism. I know that taking the time to look beyond what might seem like a challenging behaviour on the outside will generally result in finding out just how "normal" a person actually is and, in fact, may lead to discovering a world of wonder nestled there on the inside.
   The anonymous woman who wrote this letter and then felt empowered to actually deliver it does not have this same ability.
   Not surprisingly, the tables have now been turned. Howls of protest all over the printed press and social media have been directed at this woman and my understanding is that the police are investigating. Many have called for this woman, once she is discovered, to be charged with a hate crime. According to the authorities, the woman's actions meet all the criteria for a hate crime except for one--it was an action taken in private and was not meant for public dispersal or consumption. Notwithstanding this, the police are investigating the possibility of charging her with other crimes, e.g. public mischief.
   Charges or not, the worst punishment this woman will suffer, however, is simply being found out. I suspect that hanging out with the autistic kid next more might suddenly seem way more comfortable than hanging out with the rest of the neighbours! It will be hard to feel sorry for her.
   I do, however, feel sorry for her.
   As much as the world has come to the defense and support of Max and his family, the woman who wrote the letter is now on an island and, I'm fairly certain, is feeling trapped there. She is trapped there by her own actions but I suspect she has been hardwired to respond the way she has. People are generally a product of their life experiences and I can't help but wonder what might have gone on in this woman's life to make her so pre-disposed to this amount of anger and hatred.
   What, if anything, has she been taught about acceptance and understanding? What must have gone on in her life on an almost daily basis which might have, in turn, bred this vitriol? How truly damaged must this woman be? Almost as importantly, what is she teaching her children? I find it sad that being so enmeshed in what her life needs to be like that she becomes this angry (and almost panicky) at the thought of the new and unknown disrupting it.
   Because she does seem so damaged, I hesitate to hurl anything her way. Some of what I've seen being said about her by the shocked masses comes way too close to echoing the types of things she herself has said about Max. There used to be what she thought was a pariah in her neighbourhood, an autistic boy she had no wish to try to understand. Now that she herself has become the true pariah, it only behooves us to afford her at least an attempt to offer the kind of understanding she was unable to afford Max.
   Autistic Boy meets Damaged Woman.
   Autistic Boy wins!
    
  

  
  

Sleep

  

I still haven't figured out the whole sleep thing. I used to take sleep for granted as I've been doing it since Day One and every single other day for over sixty years now. It's the same with breathing, I do it all the time but I never take it for granted, I have a pretty good idea what the purpose of breathing is and why I need to do it so much.
   Sleep is different. Of course it gives the body an opportunity to rest and that is important but why can't you simply rest your body by plopping it down in an armchair for six to eight hours and leave it at that? Why is there a need for the human body to periodically enter a state of unconsciousness simply so that it can carry on the next day?
   Even scientists are a little vague as to why sleep is necessary. One theory has it that animals, in an attempt to avoid predators, would choose to remain still and quiet at times when those predators were out and about, in order to avoid detection. When evolution took over, this adaptive safety measure became sleep.
   Another theory is that sleep evolved as an energy conservation technique---you saved up your energy for when you really need it ie. hunting.
   Brain plasticity and the ability to grow cognitively are also touted as reasons sleep may be necessary.
   In all of this, though, there is still no hard and fast reason why sleep is necessary.
   What strikes me, though, when I really think about it is that sleep, unlike nourishment, does not simply produce a cause and effect relationship. It seems to assist the body with physical revitalization but this is not all that occurs when you sleep. You dream when you sleep.

   Is dreaming, then, also a vital by-product of sleep?
   If sleep were to be truly restful then there are lots of times when I would not want to have been dreaming when I was sleeping. I have awoken from a sleep beset by dreams which, rather than leaving me rested, only caused anxiety or fear, based on whatever it was I dreamt about. This does not seem restful to me.
   I wonder why we dream, then.
   As much as scientists have been unable to pin down exactly the need for sleep, they also have failed in the same way to discover the need for dreams.
   Dreaming occurs when you are the most deeply asleep, this occurring during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Some theories suggest that dreaming is a result of the brain trying to process the increased stimulation of the limbic system, the part of the brain which involves emotion, sensation and memories.
   Another suggestion for why we dream is that the brain, much like a computer, is simply trying to "refresh" itself. Another is the possibility that the brain is responding to and trying to interpret external stimuli in the waking world. As an example, a radio might be on somewhere and somehow the song on the radio becomes part of a dream.
   These are all theories and no-one really knows why we dream and why we sleep. Personally, I see sleep and

dreaming as the brain's opportunity to flex its muscle just a touch and show us that it's actually in control. It transports us out of the everyday flotsam of our waking lives and gives us little glimpses of what our hopes and desires are. It takes us places and puts us in situations we would never have entered, on our own. Dreams make us question our self-worth, sexuality, imagination, motivation and self-control. They show us our fears. Our brains, when we are asleep, screw with us.
   When I was younger, I tended to listen to and appreciate orchestral pieces of music. I heard these pieces in school and my parents had a couple of albums which highlighted them.
   Occasionally, as I was drifting off to sleep, I would hear music in my head---grand, sweeping pieces of music that I seemed to be in charge of and could propel in whatever direction I wished. These were always wonderful, semi-conscious moments. As an adult, I found I had the ability to sit down and compose similar music, with almost no formal training, apart from a few clarinet scales in Grade Nine. It's almost as if my brain were bridging some kind of gap between my own little dreamworld and the waking world I am familiar with.
   One of the other theories as to why we dream is that it provides an opportunity for psychoanalysis. It gives us the opportunity to look at a dream and try to figure out what it says about us that we might not already be aware of. I have some pretty weird dreams (we all do) and sometimes I have no idea what they're all about. Generally, though, if I really think about it, I can figure out why I was dreaming what I was dreaming. Often a dream will reference some occurrence from the past, even if that occurrence couldn't possibly be more inconsequential. It is up to us, then, to try and decipher the meaning of that dream. Possibly that inconsequential occurrence was a little more significant than we thought...?
   If I could choose to have dreamless sleeps I'm not sure that I would. I believe that a dream is as valid an experience as anything that might happen when you are fully conscious. They sometimes will show you a different way of looking at things. They might inspire or provoke you. Even the ones which scare you might tell you something about yourself (whether you like it or not!)
  
    
  

Dead building

   The other day I walked into an apartment building in west London. I walk into this building at least once a week in order to see one of the people my agency supports. I've been coming to this building regularly for over twenty years now and, in fact, lived in it myself for a year almost eight years ago.

   That day, as I walked in, the building had now become the site of a double homicide this past Easter weekend.
   This was a surreal experience. The murders and disposition of the bodies, from all the news accounts, were grisly and not even discovered until the smell of decomposition began to permeate the building. The only suspect has been arrested and charged.
    It is not the same building anymore. I spoke at length with the person I support and he is having a difficult time coping. This was not hard to understand. The whole atmosphere of the apartment complex seems to have changed. There did not seem to be as many people around, and there were not the same smiling faces I am used to seeing. The person I support said this has been the case since the murders were discovered. He says his friends in the building, many of whom we support as well, are also suffering varying amounts of anxiety and fear. It's almost as if the building itself has died its own little death and is pondering how and when to rise up again.
   We have gone out of our way to describe the murders as very isolated incidences, committed by one person against other persons he knew. We have also said that the chances of this happening again in that building are infinitesimal and that the same chances would be just as good anywhere else you might want to move to. I don't know that any of this helped and I'm not sure that I really expected it to.
   For myself, I'm pretty sure that if I were in the market for an apartment I wouldn't hesitate to move back into this building. It could be that this is easy for me to say because I haven't just had my living space defiled in such an egregious manner. Or it could be that I've been able to compartmentalize these murders and shunt them off elsewhere.
   As much as I might want to think that eventually everything will blow over and return more or less to normal, it's still hard to convey this to someone who is in the middle of it right now.
   A few years ago, a young man and two young boys were killed in a horrific car crash at an intersection in a rural area near London. This intersection is on the way to the school in Delaware I've been driving my stepkids to for the last seven years or so. For a while they asked me to go a different way--they had heard all the news reports and felt uncomfortable passing by the scene where it had happened. I didn't have a problem taking a different route but eventually the talk about the accident faded away and we returned to driving past the scene. Even though we do this, however, it is difficult to see the small crosses which have been erected there and not be taken somewhere unpleasant, all over again.
   So there are spaces around us all which, if not actually haunted themselves, still haunt us with the memories we associate them with. I doubt very much whether I will ever be able to enter that west London building without thinking about what happened there. I do only need to go in it once a week--the tenants of the building will enter it constantly and lie there in their beds imagining all manner of thing. Or not---we are all individuals and cope differently with such traumatic experiences.
   I can only hope that the people who live in that complex do eventually come to grips with this tragedy and move on. Whether they do this emotionally, physically or a combination of both, I hope they do find a way to separate the evil that goes on in some persons' lives from the all the good which goes on in their own. 
  
  

Bump On My Head

   I bumped my head last night. I actually bumped it for the second time in a week and a half. We were hooking up a PVR and I was leaning over the TV stand to get a better look when my forehead caught the sharp corner of a shelf. Usually, I don't use this space to talk about my little nicks, sprains, cuts or bruises but bumping my head is different.
   Bumping my head infuriates me, like almost nothing else. More than barking my shin or cutting my finger, bumping my head seems like a personal affront, almost as if the universe has conspired to direct its forces against me, malevolently and violently and personally.
   Last night, had there not been a young and impressionable  lad around, I would have turned the air blue. There was such an urge to vent my anger that it almost felt unhealthy containing it. I'm sure this would surprise most people who know me, generally I am one of the least aggressive and most passive people you are ever going to run into. Nothing much fazes me. Unless I bump my head.

The damage...

   When I bump my head badly what I want to do is flip over the dining room table, yank the fridge out and send it tumbling down to the lower level, rip the doors off the cupboards, throw pots and pans, and toss a lamp or two. Basically, I want to trash the place.
   I have no idea why this is. All sorts of different things can cause me varying amounts of pain without the accompanying urge to fly off into a rage. Why I take so much umbrage with headshots makes little sense.
   There's an expression called "still waters run deep". This is meant to demonstrate that what you see as a personality trait in a person may actually belie a contradictory trait hidden below that person's surface. This may be what's happening with me--outwardly, I'm all calm and gentle while, inwardly, there is this angry beast just waiting for a good enough reason to break free.

...and the cause of the damage

   One of my favourite stories as a kid when I was six or seven was the one my mother would tell to her friends who had stopped by for coffee. She would tell them about the time she was looking out the window and saw me with a cluster of friends on top of me, playfighting. At some point, though, the playfighting gets a little too physical and I suddenly rise up from the bottom of the pile and kids go flying everywhere. Thinking back to that story now, I'm wondering if maybe I got bopped on the head or something, at the bottom of that pile.
   I suspect that there is likely dormant anger in most people, veins which are only tapped under certain circumstances. Mine, obviously, is a blow to the head, although there are circumstances under which this could happen and it would not bother me--getting whacked with a hockey stick or clipped by a tree branch while pruning, as examples. These activities involve varying amounts of risk to your noggin and these risks are self-evident before you begin. It is the random and unexpected head injury which has a whole different feel to it, it's almost as if an inanimate object slapped you on the face, called you "stupid" and then laughed at you. When this happens, all I really want to do is get back at inanimate objects everywhere, even the "innocent" ones.
   Knowing that there is this side to me is a little re-assuring, actually. It would be nice to know, if all of the sudden I was accosted in a dark alley somewhere, that there is a hidden enrgy reserve deep inside which I could then unleash on my attacker(s). With my luck, though, they'd probably hit me in the stomach...

Forgetting

   I am almost sixty and my mind is changing. It has been for quite awhile now and the process has been a fairly slow and gradual sort of thing. More than anything, I am forgetting.
   Forgetting is nothing new to me but now it is happening in the blink of an eye. It is happening in the space of time it takes for something to travel from my left hand to my right or for me to walk from one end of the room to the other.

It's not THIS bad........yet.

   It takes almost nothing to distract me these days. A fleeting thought will do it. If I could control the fleeting thoughts, I would. I want nothing more than to replace empty toilet paper rolls but the fleeting thoughts prevent this. I want to close the kitchen cupboard doors when I'm done with them but, again, my own thoughts get in the way.
   It seems I have no way of prioritizing what goes on in my head, no way of placing one thought process above the others even long enough to simply to get one thing done.
   I realize that this is not an uncommon occurrence in the aging process. This does not particularly console me. Even though some of the time it is mildly amusing, when you begin to extrapolate it becomes downright terrifying! For that reason I try not to extrapolate too much. I try not to think about just how much worse this could eventually get. I sometimes envision walking into a room, not knowing why I walked into the room, not even recognizing the room and being frozen there, so unsure of my thought processes that I have no idea what to do next.
   At the best of times, my mind has not been organized. I have never been one to make lists, create reminders, use datebooks faithfully or make copious plans for the future. Eventually you learn to cope, though, and if your friends, family and co-workers are aware of your special abilities in this area you can get by not too badly.
   It seems, however, that the best of times may be slipping by. My forgetting from one second to the next has impacted me finally, and not just the people around me. I have had the opportunity to watch my Dad's mind slowly fail in his later years and I can see myself headed there. I think I could live with the speed with which his Alzheimer's crept up on him, if it happened to me the same way. But what if it happens to me so much faster?
   I am at the point now where I have adopted a what you see is what you get kind of attitude. People will occasionally ask me to do something for them at some point in the future. I take care to remind them of how tenuous an arrangement this is. Generally we come up with some kind of plan for reminding me closer to the time. People have come to understand this about me, for the most part.
   For my part, I have made some attempts to re-structure how I think. As an example, if I am driving to the other end of the city and know that one I need to make one or two stops along the way I stop thinking of it as a trip across the city and I start thinking about it as a trip to the first place I need to stop at, on my way. And then I hope that I can maintain this mindset long enough to actually make that stop. If I set my car keys or travel mug down somewhere unusual, I will try to make a special note of the uniqueness of that spot. If I take my car keys out of the ignition but then need to sit in the car for awhile arranging things, I put the keys somewhere on my person so that I don't end up  locking them in the car. I spend a lot of time stopped in mid-action, contemplating the possible results of that action.
   Memory aids are great--if you remember to use them. I have a date book that I use principally for work. It is, however, only helpful if I remember to take it with me, remember to input times and dates, remember to refer to it, remember where I left it and remember that I have one. There are electronic reminding devices--cellphones, i-pods and watches that will all message you a reminder of important events. If you can remember how to program them.
   Most of the really important things, I remember. If they are part of a routine, this makes it easier. Routines sometimes get interrupted, though, and my ability to remember then becomes an issue. If you are a hockey player, there is nothing much more important than your helmet, stick and gloves. At various times, I have forgotten all of these. If you are headed off to work, there is nothing much more important than your wallet, watch and phone. Once again, at various times, I have left all of these at home.
   When I look back at all these instances of forgetfulness, what seems obvious is that I forgot mainly because my routine had been disturbed. Perhaps I forgot my hockey gloves because I set them off in a different area to dry. Maybe I forgot my watch because I had to set it down on a counter to wash some dishes. Somehow or other I got on to the next step of my routine, things seemed normal, and I let the house without something important.
   What is the very worst of all this is that a fading memory takes along with it some self-worth. People, particularly your loved ones, see you differently suddenly. You seem less trustworthy to them. Perhaps an important responsibility is shuffled on to someone else's shoulders. You are checked up on, sometimes needlessly, sometimes necessarily. It is sometimes hard not be viewed as foolish, rather than forgetful. It does not mean that you are any less loved, it just feels uncomfortably different than the way it always has.
   This, then, is my ongoing struggle. I try to do things which occupy, and therefore strengthen, my mind as much as possible. I count blogging as one of those things. I love word games and puzzles. I am quite willing to explore whatever holistic approaches there may be to retaining my memory. My contemporaries are aging as well and I can see subtle little signs in other people of some of the same things I am experiencing. This leaves me feeling a little less alone in all of this.

   We are rather at the mercy of our brains. I know that forgetting can sometimes come across as uncaring, spiteful or malicious but I am trying to learn not to accept the responsibility for this. It is what it is, I truly intended to change the used-up toilet paper roll (in fact, I was almost looking forward to it) but this just didn't happen. I know that many times I have changed the roll and I have started the dishwasher and I have attended the meeting and I have brought my mug safely home and, for the moment, I am happy with this. The quintessential me is still in here, alive and content with who I am and this is something which will not change for a very long time!
   
  
  
  

Fear of heights

   I believe my first misadventure with heights occurred back when I was about four years old, or thereabouts. There was a swing in a tree out behind the duplex we lived in, in Youngstown, Ohio. My dad was pushing me in it and I was going higher and higher and suddenly was terrified.
   I don't know what terrified me. I know that at the apex of the swing there was really nothing between me and the ground. I'm just not sure how I knew that was a bad thing.

don't look down

   Perhaps I fell one day, from someplace high. Perhaps I fell that day, it was long enough ago that my memory is perhaps cloudy enough to not remember the possibly almost tragic result of my ride on that swing. For whatever reason, the fear of being in a high place has been with me for a long time.
   Fortunately, I have been able to avoid situations where I might actually have to deal with this fear. Any time I have had to deal with it, it has been something which crept up on me that I was unable to plan ahead for.


   Back in 1973, my Dad and my brother Bob and I made a trip back to Gibsons, B.C. for a visit. My mum had passed away in the spring and we just wanted to connect with the family we had there. One day, my Dad, my Uncle Keith and my brother and I decided to climb Soames Hill. Soames Hill towers over the main harbour at Gibsons and provides a wonderful view of the town and surrounding islands. We set out for its base one afternoon and began climbing. At the beginning, it was a fairly gradual ascent. Little by little, though, things got steeper and the landscape more difficult to traverse. At some point, I found myself inching my way up a sheer rock face. It had been a path which simply narrowed, got steeper and then petered out into merely footholds. I had been looking up for the most part, trying to find the easiest way. There stopped being easy ways and I made the mistake of looking down. I was about a hundred feet up in the air and knew, from where I was and what was below me, that I would not survive a fall from there. I was paralyzed, almost sick to my stomach, and seemingly unable to go up or back down. Eventually, my Dad and Uncle talked me through taking very small steps forward and I finally found myself at the top of the rock face. From there, things were easy and we ended up at the peak of Soames Hill, looking out over Gibsons. We took pictures up there but none of them contain any of the real terror I'd undergone getting there.

The view I survived to see.

   I think little bits of that day have followed me around--a watermark of fear had been created which has been etched indelibly on my psyche. Part of the dynamic going on was the feeling I had that falling off that rock face would have ended the almost unbearable fear I had been experiencing. I now wonder how many other people who might have been in similar but perhaps even more dire and inescapable situations simply decided to jump and end the fear.
   I now approach high rise balcony railings very gingerly and test them before I actually lean up against them. I then am able to lean out and look over or simply take in the view. Often, however, I almost forget what I am doing and suddenly what feels like tiny electrical shocks pass up the backs of my legs as I realize once again just how high up I am. I almost imagine there is no railing and I am suspended in space, then falling.
   In what seems to me an unthinkable and almost evil  incongruity, it is much easier to climb to a high place than it is to get back down. I found myself needing to get on to our roof last weekend to check things out before the remnants of Hurricane Sandy blew through. Getting up on the roof was not an issue. My unreasonable fear kicked in, however, when it was time to get back down. I had had a dream earlier that week that I found myself suddenly on a rickety and narrow footbridge suspended over a several hundred foot drop into a river.  I was terrified and wanted to jump, to end the fear. Little bits of this dream came back to me while looking down from the edge of the roof. Jumping off the roof, in a twisted way, seemed almost preferable to the fear involved in being suspended up high for the three or four seconds it would take to orient myself on the top of the ladder. I approached the ladder more than once and had to back off. I have been on the roof several times before and had to keep reminding myself of this as I finally negotiated my way back down.

   I even found it difficult to to Google fear of heights, in order to get a pic or two for this post. It is way too easy to superimpose myself into many of the pictures you find when you do this particular search. Each and every time I got that same electrical pulse up the backs of my legs and an almost metallic taste in my mouth, in my fear.
   This loathing of heights generally does not impede my ability to function normally on a daily basis (apart from making it a bit of an adventure to clean my eaves troughs) and I have never had any particular need to address it in any corrective way. The technical term for a fear of heights is acrophobia. There is apparently some debate as to its cause and treatment. Some believe it occurs as the result of an early childhood trauma, others believe it is an innate part of a person that they are born with. Some believe it has something to do with how we process the visual cues we need in order to perform motor activities. As a brief example, the visual cues available to me at the top of the ladder (grey sky, other rooftops) are vastly different than the ones at the bottom of the ladder (solid earth being one of them).

   Fear of heights is not something I am particularly ashamed of. It is certainly common enough. And it almost makes sense, to have some level of fear of potentially dangerous situations. At least up to the point where it paralyzes you.
   So you will never see me working on a skyscraper and you will never see me piloting a hot air balloon and you will never see me rock climbing in the Grand Canyon. My friends will all be in low places and, hopefully, the only lofty things I will need to deal with will be my aspirations!
  

Perceptions

   Quite a few years ago, I received a very excellent lesson in perception. At the time, I was working in a supervisory capacity with the agency which currently employs me. I was sharing an office with another person who held essentially the same position as myself.
   One afternoon, one of the employees appeared at our door with a concern which he stated to both of us. We gave him as much feedback as we could at the time. After he left, we compared notes and realized that we had diametrically opposed views on what had, only seconds before, gone on in our office.
   She thought the employee had stated his views in an angry and frustrated kind of way whereas I thought he had been calm and collected. I remember looking at her and not being quite sure what to say. I had the distinct impression she was looking at me the same way.
   This was a seminal moment in my somewhat limited understanding of human nature. What it meant was that I couldn't believe what I saw and heard. It was as simple as that. And it wasn't just that I couldn't believe my fellow co-worker. I had been given some reason to not believe myself.
   I am not so self-centered that I believe my perception of things is flawless. My perception of anything is simply that--my perception and not too likely the same as anyone else's.

   I think of that day in our office on a pretty regular basis. As I listen to people give me their observations on things going on around them I remind myself that these are only their perceptions and that mine could very well be totally different. I have also become very suspicious of gossip, particularly as it applies to myself. In the past, I have occasionally been told negative things that other people have said about me. As tempted as I might be to take things like that to heart, I always stop and remember that day in the office. I have vowed since then that I will form no second-hand negative opinion about other people within my sphere of influence. Until they actually do me me wrong right to my face, I will continue to relate to them as I would any other.
   The problem of different people's perception of things is mind-boggling when you think about it. I imagine a boardroom with maybe twelve people sitting around a large desk, working on a venture. What hope would there be in this with twelve different perceptions of the same issue? For that matter, how the hell does someone get an education?!
   Best to double-check, I guess. Or triple- or quadruple-check. Don't take anything on face value if it is at all important to you. Feel free to ask other people for input and then weigh it carefully. Find someone who generally sees things the same way you do and run stuff past them. Then find someone who never sees things the same way you do and run it past them as well. It might be an eye-opener.
  

Cemetery Truth

   Okay, there is something kind of creepy about 'the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth'.
   I say this because I don't believe any of us actually want to be weighted down by the truth. The whole truth, that is.
   Here is an example of what I mean by the 'whole truth'.
   I drive past a couple of cemeteries on my way to and from work each day. I was stopped in traffic once beside one of these cemeteries and found myself gazing out over it. There were hundreds of headstones, many pathways, and beautiful shrubbery. All in all, a pretty landscape. My imagination, however, kicked in while I was sitting there and I started to picture what I actually would be looking at if there was no grass, no dirt, no trees and no shrubs, if somehow all those things were invisible. I realized I would be looking at thousands of caskets, just suspended there. I then imagined what I'd be faced with if those same caskets were invisible. I would be looking out over a sea of decayed or decaying corpses. That is the 'whole truth' I am talking about.

   I suspect that, if we were faced with this particular 'whole truth' on a regular basis, most of us would find a way to avoid driving past cemeteries. Ever.
   This,then, is what I mean when I say 'truth', in this blog.
   It's not just cemeteries. I am sure there are vegetarians out there who looked down at the meat they were eating and realized what the truth of it was simply by going backwards to the cow. In between the live cow and the dead meat there were a million other truths as well while that steak made its way to us. The server who brought it to us or the butcher at the supermarket or the cashier who rang it in all have their own truths and, in a truthful world, we would know what those are. We know what they are thinking, where they've been, and what went on in their bathrooms this morning. We know what their hopes and aspirations are, we know what their plans are for the rest of the day. We know what their fleeting thoughts about us are.
   What would it be like going to work in a truthful world? How much more difficult would it be to function there if you knew what your co-workers were thinking about you. No, what they were REALLY thinking about you! How much altered would your work life be if you knew that no-one there trusted you? On the other hand, how might things change if you knew that the majority of the company's employees thought you were a top-notch worker? What if you knew one of them hated you? How would it be different if one of them was in love with you? I'm thinking that it would end up being almost impossible to work there, anymore.

   If the concrete in high rise apartment buildings was invisible what would you see, looking up? A little bit of everything, I imagine, most of it boring and likely a lot of it would be stuff you didn't really want to see; people going to the bathroom, taking out the garbage, vacuuming, having sex, beating on each other, and on and on. Much of it, I suspect, would be people just sitting there in front of one screen or another, ruminating. Or worse.
   I occasionally (constantly) find myself stopped in traffic, surrounded by people in cars on all four sides. It's hard not to wonder where they're headed and why. Sometimes I find myself wondering at the sheer numbers of them. I often try and imagine what kind of a mood they're in and what disasters or triumphs have recently occurred. I assume that in the vast number of fellow drivers I've had the occasion to share a stoplight with there were one or two who had just committed a crime, another two or three who were about to, several who'd just received a cancer diagnosis, a few who'd just been proposed to, some on their way to brand new jobs, some who'd just been been fired, a handful who were on their way back to get that thing they'd forgotten, some who were driving for the first time and some who were driving for the last.
   Were we to know all these truths, how easy would it be to sit there at that light and simply wait for it to change? Probably not very.

   So I am thankful for the dark earth and the green plants in cemeteries and I am thankful for the impenetrable concrete in buildings and I am thankful for the steel in my car which shields me from its machinations and I am thankful for the thousands of miles between me and starving children and I am thankful for occasional blank stares and forced smiles. They all help me get from here to there and back again.