Larry Gibbons' Blog

Not My Eye Doctor, But Who's Counting

19/9/2023

Cheticamp Island

I went to an eye doctor’s appointment. I thought I was going to my eye doctor’s for my appointment.

I’m not blaming the eye people for not being my eye people at my eye appointment. You see, a new company had bought my eye doctor’s place.

I’m also not blaming them for not telling me that the main street was a torn up shambles.

Church in Cheticamp

When I arrived in the city and found the street bombed to hell, I had to find an inconvenient parking spot. I finally parked in front of what looked like a private garage on a parking lot. My friend guarded the truck. I tossed her the keys in case she had to move it.

Cows on Cheticamp Island

I then rushed through the war-torn street and noticed that the sidewalk had a closed sign. So, how the heck was I supposed to get to my eye doctor? I figured that maybe, they were only kidding about it being closed, because my supposed clinic was down there somewhere.

Hiker on Cheticamp Island

I ignored the sign and walked to the end of the sidewalk. My supposed clinic was somewhere on the other side of the road. Except there wasn’t a road and I was blocked off by a busy bull-dozer. So, it really was closed. Just like it said it would be.

Sue and Lloyd Stone on a Hike

So I hurried back down the sidewalk and found a store that I could walk through and exit out the other side. I then scurried down a lane and out and across the road and finally got to my eye doctor’s.

I was gob-smacked to see that the building looked the same, the inside looked the same, but there was nobody working there that looked the same.

Muppet's Character

After having to tell some woman on the phone that I hadn’t had my eyes checked anywhere else since 2018, so that the government would pay for my appointment, I sat down in the waiting room. It was the same room. However, there was a strange screen hanging on the wall which played nothing but the same video advertisements. Very monotonous. Also, all the nice paintings that used to be on the wall were gone. Now they were like the ones that are in most waiting rooms, which are guaranteed to raise your blood pressure and create panic about your medical situation.

Before I say more, I want to mention that I am firmly entrenched in my seventies. I have friends, who are around my age, who have memory problems. I have also lost loved ones from dementia. So, I am a little sensitive about my memory. I’ll explain, in a minute, why I mention this.

Our Road

Before I saw the actual eye doctor, I was called into a room, where there are different machines, which they use to check peoples’ eyes. There was one machine where I was told to stare at a green square or rectangle, hold my breath and clench my teeth. Then my eyeballs were hit with a bright light. I’m scared of this apparatus because the last test in 2018 said that one eye was dangerously close to the red.

So, let’s count. I had one test with the scary machine.

Then the eye doctor checked my eyes and then said that she wanted to take another eyeball scan, because she wasn’t sure about the results of the first test.

Puddles

She was a nice doctor. I’d never seen her before, but she was professional and pleasant. She also told me that I have the very early signs of cataracts, but not to worry. At least not for a while. Heck, I wasn’t worried at all, for any while, until she told me. So now I’ll be worried for quite a while.

I left the examining room and sat down.

Spider Webs

I was invited into the scary room to have another test on the eyeball flashing gadget.
That was my SECOND test. Please count them. One, two. One before the doctor looked at my eyes and one after. Two. Two. Two tests in One. You’ll see, in a few more words, that this little gum commercial ditty makes sense. I was about to fall down the Alice in Wonderland hole.

Early Morning Sun

After the test, I went to a room where another attractive, but strange woman explained about how much new lenses would cost, adjusted my glasses, etc.. They have been out of kilter since I smashed my head into the boards while playing ice hockey in and around 2019.

As she adjusted my glasses, another woman behind another desk said, “We need to give you a second test.”

I said, “I’ve already had a second test.”

She said, “No, you have only had one test.”

I said, “No. I had one before I saw the doctor and one after I saw the doctor.”

“No, you only had one test.”

“I firmly believe that I have had two.”

“No, you have only had one.”

I did what I was told.

I meekly followed her into the room, with the big eye ball flashing light machine and did the green light, clench teeth thing. THREE times. Or, Two, Two, Two tests in one. That would be the only logical way of having had only two tests.

When I left the place and walked around the war-torn roads, I felt strangely light and empty-headed, and wondered if I, at my age, had only had a vision of the second test. I also had a hankering for some chewing gum.

“Did I really have three eyeball scans, or was the one scan a figment of my imagination? Was the whole damn visit a figment of my imagination?

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Introducing Myself to Myself and the Green K-Car

20/8/2023

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A young starling, who came out of the forest, during Dominic’s and my early morning walk, landed on my head. I couldn’t get rid of him, so he came home with us.

He took over Dominic’s chair, landed on my cheese whiz sandwich, tried to steal a little piece of the sandwich from Dominic, bathed, preened, and peeped and squawked when he was watching me through the window.

Apparently, he had tormented some tourists about a mile away, so they drove the little tweeter to an area near my place. He’s now at my friend’s who likes little whipper snapper birds.

“And can it be that in a world so full and busy, the loss of one weak creature makes a void in any heart, so wide and deep that nothing but the width and depth of eternity can fill it up.”
Charles Dickens

The brash little bird, told me to write this section of the blog. Oh, he is such a character, and has almost as much personality as Dominic.

He also said to be sure to mention that I wasn’t blaming anyone, but that I was only explaining why I might be this way or that way. Smart bird.

I took his advice.

In Belleville Ontario

I’d like to add that I’m very thankful for my family and friends and am appreciative of everyone’s caring attempts to help me through my grieving, and they are still doing it.

Anyway, my blog readers might wonder why I write about some of my grief feelings. It’s because I think that many of my experiences are universal.

Taken From Cheticamp Island

A therapist told me that he sees his patients’ minds as being like a jungle. He attempts to enter their minds’ jungles, then tries to find the best pathway for the clients to take. He must be brave.

My Significant Other

I think the loss of our beloveds, or any major loss or change in our lives, throws us into a mental and emotional jungle. Strange creatures squawk and growl and some of them attack or, at least, show their teeth. Plants curse. Trees weep and grow upside down. Clouds scurry under our feet. Rats gnaw at our pant legs. Unrecognizable shadows stalk us. Fire flies burn black lights and the wind turns colour. Meanwhile, we see people living in a world, that we can’t relate to. It’s all chaotic jungle noises.

The Grief, who in my mind, drives a souped-up green K-car, is the most reliable part of the loss. Believe you me, Grief will stick closer than a brother. If you listen carefully, you can hear its car’s idling engine. Ready to take you for a cruise. For a time, it’s safer to be in the car with Grief, then to be leaving the car and venturing out on your own. And if you jump out of the car and try to find a way through or out of the jungle, why, Claustrophobia will teach you a lesson. Which is, “You’re cornered and their ain’t no place to run to.”

Face In Cheticamp River

“There is no way out, only a way forward.”
Michael Hollings
Grieving is horribly difficult, but it can also be very spiritual.
“Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver.”
Sophocles

From Canso Causeway

There’s a reason why people are advised, when they are going through great grief, that they should take one step at a time. Some times one can only take a half step at a time.

I remember a fella saying that every trip begins with the first step outside of your home. That’s how it is with grieving.

One of my monster fears, when I lost Sue, was that the reality I had lived in with Sue for so long, was going to vanish. So, I tried to hang onto as much of it as I could.

On Cheticamp Island

I said to a friend, “I’m not the person I used to be. I liked myself.”

I have tried to be a person who empathizes and is gentle with all those who tried and are trying to understand my grief and be helpful. However, not so much now, but earlier on, anger hunkered under my emotional surface. I’d often get miffed if people gave me un-asked for advice. Anything that disturbed and threatened the stability of what I had been able to salvage, after the grievous storm, could make me angry and argumentative. I felt so vulnerable and I didn’t want to show that part of me.

On Beautiful Acadian Trail

Also, sometimes, I was exhausted. I would have no energy to respond in my normal way. I was soul sick. A timid little deer mouse with sharp teeth.

Often, I’d think, “How can they give me advice when they have no idea what it is like. And many people had no idea what it was like. That wasn’t their fault, but the platitudes, Bible verses, what-worked-for-them ideas or attempts at minimizing my circumstances, or exaggerating my situation, would often irritate or confuse me, even when the advice was, in some instances, good advice. Hopefully, I didn’t, too often, show this side of me, but when you’re grieving, you’re pretty well on your own.

But there was the old souped-up K-car, idling nearby, and there were times, when I was glad to jump in with Grief and be driven back to my wee piece of known turf. At least my grief knew what it was all about and knew where I lived. Often, I’d sense Sue in the car. That would make it an easier ride.

I still like who I am. It’s just that I have to introduce myself to myself from time to time.

View From Acadian Trail

A woman, who lost her husband, said that one of the things she missed, was having a partner to compare her experiences with. She felt exposed, after visiting with others and then having to return to her empty home.

For me, it was mostly visiting couples. Specially in the early times after Sue’s disappearance, when my home felt like an empty mausoleum. After a visit, I knew, or thought I knew, that it was inevitable, that the couples would compare notes. Would discuss me. Topics like how I looked, what I said, new foibles they discovered me exhibiting, weird ideas I expressed, lots of things. And believe you me, I must have, at times, tired them out, with my unscreened choice of words, and them having to listen to my feelings about, well, let’s just say ‘ABOUT’ and leave it at that. These folks know what my conversations were ‘ABOUT’.

Back at my ranch, there was no Sue to discuss my observations with. So, I felt like a shooting duck or a half person. This feeling revved up my anxiety, crossness and defensiveness. Maybe, there was also some paranoia, but that’s what happens when you live in an unfamiliar jungle. You have to be ready. You have to keep your emotional back to the wall, because you don’t know what will come at you and where it will come from.

And, some of the people I visited, were also grieving the loss of Sue. Some of them had had a much longer relationship with Sue than I’d had. These folks would be trying to understand me, while grieving for Sue, who wasn’t in their lives either. And there was me, now single, a wee floating planet, spinning around in a different orbit. A stranger, in a way. Who is this person who doesn’t have Sue in his life anymore?

She wanted to Hike With Dominic and Me

So, if I visit you, or you visit me, and I get lost in my grieving jungle and get too intense or confusing, give me a thought when you are discussing my behaviour with your significant other. My significant other, will wag his tail and try his best to understand, but Sue was a way better at understanding my thoughts and concerns. This is not diminishing Dominic’s role in my life. He’s one bright little cookie and really cute.

Good news is that I don’t hear the souped up green K-car’s engine as often as I used to. That’s good, but I never really want Grief to totally go away.

And you know, now there are times when the jungle has opened up, even feels friendly, so I’m getting braver and don’t always need to hitch a ride.

Yes sir, grieving can be, at times, almost impossible to bear, but it is spiritual. The emotions it brings, are valuable, and will, hopefully, lead one to a little better understanding of just how this universe is put together.

This blog has been approved by Sir Dominic and Mr. Starling.

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Marketing Dead and Not Dead

28/6/2023

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Cape Smokey

There I was, in Baddeck, on a sunny spring morning, sitting on a box of my books. I was watching the tourists and the non-tourists driving by, and I was thinking, “Here I am sitting on a box of unsold books. How many people have spent so much effort, for such a long time, to get the chance to sit on a box of their very own unsold books?”
I suppose more than I could count.

However, they were comfortable to sit on and I didn’t have to worry about my perch collapsing. There are cheap lawn chairs that aren’t as strong. Yes, my unsold books were strong and true, because they were many, and as I sat on them, I came to another conclusion, which I will also put into quotes.
“I am a decent writer, but I am not a good marketer.”

Cape Smokey

Now, the novel's title, ‘Dead and Not Dead’ did cause a stir for a little while. One reason is because some folks thought it was about my partner, who disappeared. It wasn’t. Sue liked the title. She was alive when she liked it.

Catching Some Rays

The readers’ comments have been varied. Some readers liked the novel very much, and said they hoped I’d write a sequel. Some found it difficult getting through Part one. Some said the sexual scenes were too much for them. One woman wanted me to read one of those scenes to her. Another person, who didn’t like those parts of my book, said, “I’m a nun because I get none.” That was funny.

Some readers found Dead and not Dead too intense to read at night. One fella said it was very difficult to read the descriptions of the characters’ residential school experiences, specially the perverted sexual molestation sections.

Dominic and Me-Pepsi in Cup

Some have said nothing. I think that some reasons for this could be because it is different, they didn’t like it, never thought to say anything, or they didn’t read it and only bought it to be kind. That was nice of them.

Some people, in this age of machine gun fire social media pictures, don’t find reading a book easy, if it isn’t flashing pictures and tiny kernels of shocking news clips.

I think a few folks, didn’t get it. That’s okay. The novel’s main point is based on something that many folks can’t intrinsically get their heads around. Hell, I don’t get lots of things. I don’t get how to market my book.

Getting His Daily Calcium

Let me tell you a story.

An Indigenous fella was sitting next to a Non-Indigenous fella. When the Indigenous man was asked what he did, he said that he was the Chief of a community.

The other fella said, “I guess I pay your salary.”

The Indigenous fella then gave the man a economic’s lesson. He told him about where money comes from, and that access to land is the basis of the economy that our society gets its wealth from. He went on to discuss the sad abuse of the Indigenous People, the many broken treaties and the theft of their land.

Morning Hiking Trail

A lot of my novel was about the oppression of the Indigenous People. Much of it had to do with the effects of the Residential School on these people. It was also a speculative novel in that it offered a very different solution to the theft of their land.

As I once commented, “Truth hurts, but it’s still truth.

Hugging a Friendly Tree

I’m proud of my book. Sure, I might’ve changed some things. I might have taken another look at Part one, but overall, the novel said what I wanted it to say. If it wasn’t liked, or read, or whatever, well I’m still proud of it. It was to some degree inspired. I won’t go into that.

It was good enough for a national organization for the blind to pick it as one of the ten books chosen last year to be published in braille. I saw the braille version. It’s about three feet high. Maybe more. The braille version is mostly accessible by computer.

Let Me Out

I have one more little story.

I was walking Dominic, my super dog, who is now outside hiding in his squirrel hunting blind, and I was troubled. Grief affects people in different ways. I find mornings the hardest. That’s the time when my mind is turning like a hamster running on a wheel. Maybe it’s my mind’s way of looking for existential equilibrium. This morning was not one of my better ones. Some mornings I will talk to Dominic or to Sue or to the big power that many of us suspect is everywhere or some believe is only in their church.

I suddenly thought. “I’m going to take one of my novels and give it to the high school in Eskasoni.”

As I said, I’m not a marketer. It’s not easy for me to push anything, and if it’s something that came from the vicinity of my soul, then it’s even harder. However, I decided I would.

Soon Won't Have tp Paint Trailer

On the way to Eskasoni I had to get gas. I stopped at a self-serve gas station on another reserve. I was about to get out and pump gas, when the security guy came over to my truck. I said, “Is this full service?”

“No. I just felt like doing it for you.”

It was on the way to the Eskasoni Reserve that it struck me. The universe is amazing! It brought a tear or two. It was probably a coincidence that this day, a day when I decided to deliver a book to Eskasoni, that an Indigenous fella chose to pump my gas for me. However, my book came from numerous coincidences.

On the way, I stopped at a friend’s house, and while there, only coincidentally, an Indigenous person dropped by and bought one of my books.

Foggy Rush Hour Morning

I plan to go around the Cabot Trail on Sunday and put a few of my books in some of the establishments. A friend is going with me and she is going to try really hard to also be a marketer. That way, we may, be able to, together, be one good marketer.

And the irony doesn’t escape me. I will, on the Canada Day weekend, be marketing my novel, Dead and Not Dead. When I will be trying to punch through the veil and see what happens.

Taking Photo of Peace Tree

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SOMETHING STINKS IN DENMARK

2/6/2023

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“If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic character,
The philosophic and Experimental would soon be at the ratio of all things,
And stand still,
Unable to do other than repeat the same dull round over again.
William Blake

I’m looking outside my living room window and I can’t believe how many birds are out there. Purple finches, evening grosbeaks, white throated sparrows, crows, blue jays, hummingbirds, pine siskins, chickadees, goldfinches, and others that I can’t name.

Meanwhile, the largest wild fire in Nova Scotia’s history is burning bright. And, not far from here, I believe they are doing some clear cutting.

Cape Breton Crocodile

Something stinks in denmark.

Only a few mornings after Sue’s disappearance I had a choir outside my window. A large alder bush was covered in blue jays singing their blessed little hearts out. I approached them and they stayed put. I couldn’t help but think that I was getting a peek through the invisible veil.

One of the reasons that there are so many birds at my place is because I feed them. And, gosh, but aren’t they having a good time. But, I’m feeling guilty, because I’ve heard that feeding birds can get them partying together and then they might get sick. So far, they are just singing, eating and having a good old time. I’ve found no bodies.

I feel responsible though. I’m a human being and the partying birds are, in our scientifically harsh views of the world, to be controlled. They are a resource. We’re even considered a resource. Aren’t we doing a good job.

Sometimes, when I look at my dog, Dominic, I feel that I think too highly of myself. I feed him scientifically approved food when he loves the unhealthy food that I eat. When I give him some of my food, well, he practically swims in his bowl. When I’m preparing his meal, using some of my chow, he’ll stand on his hind feet with his front paws resting on the counter. He’s trying to hurry me up. “Get that food stirred and down here”.

I know best, but still, he survived in the wild. He drank out of dirty puddles, probably ate dead mice, garbage, who knows, but I’m the human and he’s the beastie.

So, the birds are out there, singing their hearts out, while clear cutting is rampant, wild fires burn, politicians push for more oil production and many animals border on extinction. Because, of our hell-bent attacks on nature. But we know best. We interfere and think that we are helping.

Something stinks in denmark!

A little bird, a chickadee, told me that it’s all ass-backwards and we should butt out and let them enjoy their happy chow-down time.

“How do you know but every Bird that cuts the airy way,
Is an immense world of delight, closed by your senses five?”
William Blake

I have found that people who are grieving can recognize others who are grieving. I run into many who are dealing with grief. They are kindred spirits and I’m thankful for encountering them in my life. We don’t need many words.

One of the things I find difficult to do is, and hang onto your hats, it will seem really silly, but, it’s true, it’s eating in the public.

You see, it’s not easy for me to understand how I can not talk while I have food in my mouth. What if it’s hard to swallow and somebody has just told me something and is now waiting for a reply. Do I just keep chewing until I can swallow the food, do I spit it out or do I talk while my mouth is full? Am I being neurotic?

I am an accident waiting to happen. After I spilled red wine on a very elegant and beautiful white table cloth, Sue told our host that giving me red wine, when it’s my first visit, is not a good idea.

Another time, Sue and I visited her relatives. It was one of the first visits to their place and Sue wanted them to think highly of me. She wanted me to have good manners. To not choke, talk with my mouth full or do other things that she knew was hidden in my eating mishap bag. I pulled out a new twist to my eating out behaviour.

Lunch Break

I looked around the table and discovered that I was the only one that had a napkin. I was a real Sherlock Holmes.

I said, “Why am I the only one with a napkin?”

The answer was, “Because ours are on our lap.”

Oh dear!

Cleanliness, is another one of my problems. Last summer, I got invited for a nice breakfast. It was outside on a patio and the view of the highlands was gorgeous.

Poached eggs was on the menu. I love poached eggs. During the meal I couldn’t help but be impressed by how well the other two breakfasters were able to eat. They spilled not a dribble or a crumb onto the table.

At the end of the meal, the table cloth under and around their plates was void of crumbs, egg bits or spilled liquids. Not my place.

Our morning Hiking Route

Do you know how hard it is to properly manipulate a fork and a knife, and at the same time, to talk without your mouth full, to say things that are smart and relevant to the topic at hand and to not have food tumble off your fork when you’re lifting it up to your mouth.

Recently, I went out with a group of people. I ordered fish and chips. Two of us got our food on square plates. The other three got round plates.

I tried to join into the conversations and reply when it was warranted while making sure my mouth wasn’t full when I did say something exciting or relevant.

Now, that wasn’t such a big deal, because there were five of us, and I could, for the most part, just keep my yap shut and concentrate on not spilling or dropping.

However, within a minute, of getting my food, and I’m saying a minute, one of my fries ran away from my fork and hit the deck, one fell onto my lap and while I was trying to pick them up, I was told by an observer that two of my carrots had jumped ship.

Shadows

Okay, I looked after that problem, but there was a long term puzzle for me to deal with. It seemed just to be my problem.

For some reason, my plate kept rocking and rolling when I was digging into my door with my fork and knife. Every time I pressed down on the plate it would do a rocking horse movement. So, the whole meal people could hear the click, click of my plate. Click, click, click. It was as if I were playing the bones. Everyone else’s plates rested solidly on the table.

By the way, have you ever tried to use those sophisticated milk and cream jugs that they have in upscale coffee shops? How the hell do you get the cream to come out faster than a dribble? I know. It’s easy. Piece of cake, but not for me.

Or hotdogs at a gas station. How the hell do you get the relish, mustard and ketchup out of those little packets. I’m afraid if I try to open them with my teeth my partial will fall out. So, I usually have a bare naked Weiner in a bun.

There’s just too much to remember when I go out to eat.

I hope you readers don't mind me doing a little self-promotion in this blog. I do very little and figure my blog may be a way of getting a few folks to hand over their hard-earned money and buy a copy.

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The Character

20/5/2023

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Rare Forest Rabbit

“A smile is quite a funny thing,
It wrinkles up your face,
And when it’s gone, you never find
Its secret hiding place.”
Author unknown

I was recently on a public bus. It wasn’t a big city bus and it was crowded. I am not very often on a public bus, so I was intrigued by the passengers. Many of them were staring at their little virtual rectangles. I think there are people who barely know what the real world looks like.

The bus had seats that faced the side of the bus and seats that faced the front. I was sitting on a side seat. Directly in front of me was a blonde woman who was looking at her phone. A man with a massive belly sat behind her. He wasn’t looking at a phone. He was staring at the woman’s head for much of the time. A young man sat facing the opposite side of the bus that we were facing. He was looking at his phone. A man sat beside me. He had a walker. He wasn’t staring at a phone.

My friend, who sat on other side of me, and wasn’t staring at a phone, said that some of these folks spend the day riding around and around. They get off, buy a coffee or use a washroom and then go for another spin.

Middle River

One couple always sat apart. They would bring their lunches. The husband would eat his at the front of the bus. The wife would eat her lunch, while sitting on the wide seat, at the back of the bus.

I thought to myself, what a bunch of interesting characters.

I turned to my friend and said, “These characters would make an interesting CBC or BBC show.” My friend smiled and agreed.

However, it wasn’t as if they were doing anything news-worthy. They just looked interesting.

Near Middle River

I, meanwhile, was trying not to look interesting.

At the same time, I worried about not wearing a mask. The blonde woman kept coughing into her sleeve. I think her sleeve was drenched by the time she got off the bus.

Let Me Go

Anyway, as I hinted earlier, I tried to sit in a proper bus passenger way and not look like a character.

Suddenly, I found that I couldn’t move my feet. I wasn’t having a stroke or anything like that. No, my lace got attached to a hook on one of my boots. So, I had to do some subtle squirms and foot twists as I tried to disentangle my boots.

Tree Near Sue's Memorial Place

You see, I have boots with metal hooks, and my lace got tangled around one of them. That’s why I couldn’t move my feet. I finally had to bend down and try to locate the source of the problem.

Near Sue's Memorial Place

Really sounds not too difficult, doesn’t it? However, at my age, bending down isn’t so easy and my eyes aren’t so good at seeing clearly from my head to my feet.

People were beginning to take note.

Near Memorial

“Damn it,” I whispered, as I tried to separate my two boots. I was coming very close to being called a bus character.

The man with the walker was now looking down at my boots. So was the man with the belly and the sleeve cougher. I was now hoping that many of the bus characters were firmly embedded in their virtual world and were too busy snacking on social media tidbits of almost important information, to pay any attention to me.

However, the small circle around me were looking, and so to give them some idea of just how dangerous a situation I was in, I said, “these boots can be dangerous. I know an elderly woman, who had the same kind of lace mechanism and her laces got tangled up and she fell on her face. She was badly injured.” I made the last part up, but it helped the bus people to understand just how much danger I was in.

I finally got the boots separated. By this time, we were getting close to our destination, and damn it all, but didn’t a lace, once again, get tangled up.

“How close are we to our stop?” I asked my friend, as I grunted and bent. I wasn’t bothering to hide my actions now because it was, frankly, too late. I also realized that I was entertaining this crowd. This was what made their bus-ride addictions so worthwhile.

Our Morning Walk

The young man, who was facing the opposite wall, had taken note. To make it worse, the blonde woman, the big-bellied man and the fella beside me, plus who knows who else, had become not only fascinated by my black boots, but by my socks. I knew I shouldn’t have worn my pants that had shrunk in the wash. Follow directions

“If we stop and you can’t get off, you can just stay on the bus until the next time the bus gets to our stop,” my friend joked.

Part of the reason, I was struggling so, was because I was in a bit of a panic. I get clumsy when I’m in a dither. I’m not super mechanical anyway, and there’s a reason why two different bosses at two different factories suggested that I should look for alternative vocations. I actually almost destroyed a photo processing business.

Top of Blueberry Mountain

So, I pulled and twisted, as the man, sitting next to me, tried to get a better look. I think they were all about to give me advice or even a helping hand. However, the man, sitting next to me, had trouble moving to get a better look or to help, because I was sitting on his coat-tail.

I apologized and then said, so as to explain the whole reason for why I was being a character, “I’m from Cape Breton.”

Anyway, I finally managed to get my boots separated just before our stop.

Yep, as I said, it was a bus full of characters. Guess who the main character was?

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Puppets, Concrete and Goose Eggs

4/5/2023

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Eagle Cloud

I spent a weekend in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. I stayed with two friends. They were very kind and it was a pleasant time and a nice change. I got to meet many of their friends and to see how their environmentally friendly new building was coming along. It’s named Tree House.

We also watched a puppet show, that Judy put on, before she headed to the valley. Everyone enjoyed the show because Judy is a great story-teller. Her home-made puppets mesmerized the children

Where's the Wisdom Hidden?

Watching us on Our Early Morning Walk

I have to mention, however, that after spending most of my time in the woods, it was a big change being in a town. I’m comfortable living in the wilds. In towns, I’m walking on pavement with vehicles continually zipping by. It’s a different kind of river. It has fumes. Also, my knees began to ache because pavement is so unrelenting. I believe that many buildings and concrete tell a different story from what the wild places say and represent. It must be true because I was warned not to try swimming in what looked like a beautiful river. It is polluted. Its supposed infinite abilities to handle pollution were found to be finite.

“——whereas most modern buildings do not. On the contrary, they are often soulless and, if anything, induce negative emotional responses because they were planned, built, paid for and used by people whose mechanistic world view did not acknowledge the validity of subjective feelings.”
Rob Wood, The Zone

However, I know some people work very hard to maintain a spiritual connection with the wild places, even when they live in a town or a city.

Bike Trail Near Mabou

An interesting aside is that a friend told me that the next photograph made it appear as if I materialized out of nowhere. I guess I look like I’m part of this little place in the forest. I did feel like I was at home and not alone.

Sometimes, I have difficulty getting my head around the fact that so many people are able to be comfortable or even enjoy not being close to nature. I believe that buildings, amenities and concrete can be addictive. After awhile a person can wonder why they even need quiet, green, forested places, if they even think about it.

I suppose there are many reasons for this and maybe, someday, I’ll also have to move into a larger community.

Our Morning Hiking Trail

However, I still wonder if they know what they’re missing? I think many ailments are caused by not maintaining a connection with nature.

And you know, it’s difficult to see something that you love being destroyed almost everywhere you look. Often, just little bits at a time. I’m talking about the wild places. Our society seems to treat the finite world with an assumption of it being infinite, such as the river.

Early Morning Light

Since my wife disappeared, I have struggled with, well, with almost everything. My once solid views on life feel shaky. So, when I’m in a busy place, and am surrounded by so many people, all with their own egos, I feel as if my consciousness is continually being raised or getting a good kick in the ass. Some times my consciousness gets so elevated that I risk it bumping its head on these many thoughts and behaviours and getting a goose egg.

I can’t help thinking that the assumptions that many modern towns and cities are built on are not attached to the wisdom that comes from understanding nature. They oppose it. It’s all so solid and it’s hard to find places that are spiritually vital for our sanity.

Woods Near Meditation Spot

Really though, in this day and age, even in the wilds, if you have some form of virtual device, the socializing, grasping, contrived necessities can niggle away at the surrounding balance. Roaring, roaring, in the form of words and pictures. Turn them off and you’ll find, scary as it may seem, that your soul can breathe. It can poke its head out of its bunker and have a chat with you. Its voice is gentle, but essential, because it’s connected to something powerful, important and universal.

You're Not Touching This Tree

“Your buildings, tall, alien,
Cover the land;
Unfeeling concrete smothers, windows glint
Like water to the sun.
No breezes blow
Through standing trees;
No scent of pine lightens my burden.”
Rita Joe

View From Bike Trail

It’s in the wild places where I find my best counsellors.

A Carving

It’s where I find my centre.

My Good Friend Rick and Buster, Both, Sad to Say, Deceased. Both Good Hiking Buddies

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SORRY

1/4/2023

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Priceless Real-Estate

“Why should Punishment Weave the Veil with Iron Wheels of War
When Forgiveness might it Weave with Wings of Cherubim?”
William Blake
There is sometimes collateral damage when one goes through a crisis. Losing a loved one being
one of the most difficult of loses.

I felt sorry, after the loss of Sue, for my body and my mind. It was an emotional super storm. Most people survive the pain, but they are never the same.

The loss of a loved one pretty well firms up the belief, specially if you are older, that nothing is permanent. Not even taxes.

Dominic and Friend

Interpersonal relationships can be more difficult at this time. I’m afraid that the shock of Sue’s disappearance probably resulted in my losing at least one friend. If not, then it has certainly cut off any communication.

Now, you’d think that people would cut you some slack when something tragic happens, but everyone is different. Forever my friend, that’s what I was told, and then not my friend. Forever, and then not. Sue gone and my friend gone.

Forest Creature

Dominic has done everything he could to make me feel better. He wags his tail, licks me, sits with me while I drink my beer in the woodshed, sits on my lap, chases squirrels and makes me laugh. He has been a great furry bundle of help.

Do you know what is needed. COMMUNICATION!

“Come hither, be patient. Let us converse together, because
I also tremble at myself and at all my former life.”
William Blake

Forest Creature

Hell, I’ve actually apologized, a few times, and I don’t even know what I apologized for. Maybe there’s a reason. There’s only one reason that I’ve heard of and I’m innocent as charged.

Give me a clue! Put the reason behind one of those three doors. Let me guess which door it’s behind. Give me a chance to win a prize. Spin the wheel between commercials. The prize being a straight-out statement. This is what you did that so pissed me off and that’s why I will never, ever be your friend again.

Dominic With Another Friend

The crowd would cheer, the station would jump to the one billionth commercial and I’d go home with my prize. An answer.

However, I’m also aware that maybe something that has nothing to do with me is the problem. However, I don’t know because nobody is coughing up a clue.

Stopping For Lunch

So, I’ll end this section of my blog by apologizing to any friend that I may have upset or hurt. Whether I need to or not.

Happy Hikers

Ah, what the heck, I might as well whine some more. As I said, the loss of Sue and of a friend or two has pretty well firmed up my faith in the impermanence of things. It also screams that I am getting older. It grabs me by the collar and says, “look around you, everyone who is in your age-group is either checking out or getting involved in old-peoples’ activities.

Speaking of. I was asked to buy a lottery ticket for a place that holds events for seniors. I thought, as I filled out the form, that I hoped the young woman didn’t think that I needed to go there. I took a quick glance at my hand as I wrote my name and phone number and I thought that she definitely was thinking that I was an attendee.

Getting older is also making me less tolerant of television commercials and commercialism in general. Is there any limit? I’m fed up to my gills with all the phantoms that people are chasing which often end up as no more than a little old man behind a screen. The Great Wizard of Nothing. Oh Auntie Em, when can me and my little dog just land this bicycle and see what is real?

“It seems to me absolutely true, that our world, which appears to us the surface of all things, is really the bottom of a deep ocean: all our trees are submarine growths, and we are weird, scaly-clad submarine fauna, feeding ourselves on offal, like shrimps. Only occasionally the soul rises gasping through the fathomless fathoms under which we live, far up to the surface of the ether, where there is true air. I am convinced that the air we normally breathe is a kind of water, and men and women are a species of fish.”
D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Incoming System

See what getting older has done to me. I’m really starting to believe that watching a woman crying over a dead child, wild fires burning up miles of forest and leaving the wild-life charred or dazed or homeless, dead shooting victims and much more, and then having the screen switch over to an ecstatic family making a big deal over a cheese sandwich is, well, what’s the word, nauseating. It’s the authentic and tragic trivialized. It’s dehumanizing. No

Judy Meets a Hiker

wonder there are so many kitchen tables laden with bottles and bottles of medications. “What’s wrong with me Auntie Em.”

“Nothing child. It’s just your morality showing.”

Morning Hiking Route

Oh I know, there has always been crazy stuff to bitch about, but it’s me talking and my getting-older mind is beginning to say enough is enough. If something, in this society is sacred then leave it sacred and not a ditty for selling the latest toss-out toy.

Well, that’s my rant for this blog.

“It is simple truth that the Indian did not, so long as his native philosophy held sway over his mind, either envy or desire to imitate the splendid achievements of the white man. In his own thought he rose superior to them! He scorned them, even as a lofty sprit absorbed in its stern task rejects the soft beds, the luxurious food, the pleasure-worshipping dalliance of a rich neighbour, It was clear to him that virtue and happiness are independent of those thing, if not incompatible with them.”
Charles A. Eastman, ‘The Soul of the Indian, An Interpretation’

Our Laneway

And one more thing. I know that I don’t have a zillionth of the knowledge of what is really happening on this fine earth, but I do know what I feel.

Sunrise

“I am perhaps the most sinful of men:
   I pretend not to holiness,
   Yet I pretend to love, to see,
   To converse with daily as man why man,
   And the more to have an interest in the Friend of Sinners.”
   William Blake

Strange Tree by Shubenacadie Residential School Lot

Sue's Memorial Lamp

Chewing My Glove on My Truck Roof

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Checking

24/3/2023

1 Comment

This blog is a test to see whether my blog was discontinued or the message was a scam. If you see this blog then I think it was a scam.

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Unimaginable

12/2/2023

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Hiking Kelly's Mountain Trail

“Look deep
Into the water
Of your nearest stream
For the spirit of it
Will capture you
And you will never need
To thirst again.”
John Williams, Look Deep

Fairy Land

One of the reasons I don’t like watching nature shows is because the narrator almost always ends his narrating by mentioning a threat to these wild areas.

Say for example, I’m watching a show about a pristine untamed area. The wild animals are minding their own business in their wild homes. The creatures, big or small, beautiful and flawless in every curve and line. The trees tall and thick. Strong and ancient. The waters clean and drinkable.

But, Oh, Oh! Here it comes. It goes something like this. “This area is under growing pressure from industry, and it’s ever increasing need for resources.”

Chop, tear, gouge and scrape. Nothing is safe from a culture which sees everything as having a bottom line. Including for ourselves.

“When Nations grow Old, The Arts grow Cold--
And Commerce settles on every Tree.”
William Blake

Look Out! Here Comes Dominic

There is a poem that brings tears to my eyes. I believe I’ve quoted it before. It’s about the last wolf who is running through a crumbling city. Civilization has collapsed. A person waits for the wolf in their room. They listen to the wolf’s approach.

Jalal Taking A Photo

Here’s part of the poem.
“I heard his voice ascending the hill
and at last his low whine as he came
floor by empty floor to the room
where I sat
in my narrow bed looking west, waiting
I heard him snuffle at the door and
I watched
He trotted across the floor.

He laid his long gray muzzle
On the spare white spread
And his eyes burned yellow
His small dotted eye brows quivered

Yes, I said
I know what they have done.”
Mary TallMountain, The Last Wolf

Out Of Focus Photo Of a Bobcat

I remember the night I baled out of theology. I’d been attempting to cope with the study of the stuffy imaginations of the human mind. In a stone hard place where we dissected God and tried to comprehend the comprehensions of theologians and philosophers. This building, filled with mummified air, seemed non-transcendent and unconnected to where my soul wanted to be. Studying God had tired me out, and when the Prof told us that we could take a ten minute coffee break, well, I took a life-time coffee break.

Find The Cute Little Face

I remember walking down the hard steps, imagining that I was a wolf, who had escaped from his cage.
A stone, slung out of David’s sling.

“God is an ambiguous word in our language because it appears to refer to something that is known. But the transcendent is unknowable and an unknown God is transcendent, finally, of anything like the name “God” God is beyond names and forms.”
Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Winter In The Forest

One can find great strength in knowing that the Creator is not understandable and is outside our brain’s ability to see beyond opposites and three dimensions.

Winter's Back

A person can also drown in this view, but for myself, knowing that the universe is huge beyond my knowledge is a source of strength. Peeking through the invisible veil’s tiny holes is enough to keep me afloat. It allows me to have faith that what I can’t comprehend is rock-solid and authentic. Is where my soul dwells.

Scene On My Morning Walk

Last Sunday, Judy, Jalal and I hiked part-way up Kelly’s Mountain. It was gorgeous. The snow clung to pencil straight trees. They looked like a line of white hooded monks bordering the trail.

Another Scene On My Morning Walk

When I walk on these trails, and look at the beauty that surrounds me, I try not to think about how much our society’s main belief is to make everything refer back to ourselves. To view all of nature as ours. To see every creature as inferior to our great and overwhelming brain organ.

He Loves Them All

On this particular hike, my friend said that she felt as if she was on a fairy trail. In one photograph I took, she mentioned that although our clothes were modern, they didn’t diminish the sense that the photo was not taken in the twenty-first century. It was timeless.

Another Morning Walk Scene

At one point, she took a picture of a tall and thick tree. When I looked at the photo, I felt that it, in some way, preserved the tree. Immortalized it. It was as if she’d put a ring around its trunk and then it became a representative of everything that exists. All that we can’t put in words.

Maybe that’s one reason I take photos.

Judy Taking Photo at Broad Cove

“These the Visions of Eternity,
But we see only, as it were, the arm of their garments
When with our vegetable eyes we view these wondrous Visions.”
William Blake

Too Cute

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Surreal

31/12/2022

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Off Red Island Trail

“Art is the Tree of Life.”
William Blake

Angel on a Mushroom

On Christmas morning, Dominic and I went on our four K walk. However, this Christmas walk felt different. Why? Because I was checking the rain water that was rushing down from the highlands, for any signs of Sue.

I thought, what a surreal life I’m living.

Corney Brook

However, I did receive a great Christmas gift. A few weeks ago, when I lost quite a bit of electricity in my trailer, and was feeling rather hopeless that any reasonably cheap solution could be found, an electrician came over, fixed the problem, and then, when I asked him what it was going to cost, said it was free. Now, that’s the Christmas spirit.

Judy's Puppets

I often find, when I’m reading a novel, that the words expressed seem very relevant to my life. For example, I was reading ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’, written by Charles Dickens, and these words jumped out at me.

Many of you will understand why they did.

Brook by Homestead Trail

“I rather grieve to think,’ said the child, bursting into tears, ‘that those who die about us, are so soon forgotten.”

“And do you think,’ said the schoolmaster, marking the glance she had thrown around, ‘that an unvisited grave, a withered tree, a faded flower or two, are tokens of forgetfulness or cold neglect? Do you think there are no deeds far away from here, in which these dead may be best remembered? Nell, Nell, there may be people busy in the world at this instant, in whose good actions and good thoughts these very graves-neglected as they look to us-are the chief instruments,”

By Red Island Trail

A blog or two ago I wrote about walking on one of Sue’s favourite trails. I'd noticed a thick decaying branch spread across the ground, and this thought jumped out at me.

“This branch was likely here when Sue hiked on this trail.”

It wasn’t that this rumination was so profound, it was the effect of the thought. It was like a deep prayer inside a koan, if that’s possible.

Dominic's Squirrel Hunting Blind

There’s a Celtic parable that says:
“Sometimes when I pray I utter the words,
But I do not feel or think them.
Sometimes when I pray, I utter the words,
Thinking about what I say, but not feeling.
Sometimes when I pray, I utter the words,
And I both think and feel what I say.”
Celtic Parable

Plenty of things have changed in my life, and maybe that’s why I was more aware of the overwhelming commercialism that tore through this Christmas season. So, I now have even more trouble watching commercials on television. Because, it seems that the overwhelming pummelling of our brains, is way-over-the-top intrusive. Way beyond what could be called moderate or sane.

It’s as if our society, in so many suits of clothes, is drowning us in more and more reasons to become morally desensitized, fearful and desperately grasping for the finite resources of our planet. I mean, how many wants, worries, guilt-trips and plain old bull doo doo, can a human brain handle without ending up with some ailment described in those big blue books that sit on specialists’ desks.

At Corney Brook Falls

Frozen Puddle

And what about all those disease commercials where we are told what disorders we should worry about? Don’t get me wrong, I know there are plenty of people suffering from a sickness, but I still maintain that maybe, one way for me to cope with this bombardment of being educated in all the terrible, not so terrible and made-up diseases, is for me to make multiple medical appointments. Cluster bomb the doctor’s with appointments until I reach that idyllic space, where I will finally not have a reason to get poked, jabbed or run through clicking and sucking machines. I will have finally been fully educated and protected from all diseases.

Furthermore, you advertising people, I have read so many articles and viewed so many commercials on the first signs of so many diseases that I have decided not to educate myself. I’m calling it my Ostrich Philosophy. That way I may have a chance to lower my low-grade constant feelings of anxiety into a I don’t give a damn feeling of release. Until something real happens. Not virtual. Not spun. Not implied. Something that is as real as the sun rising every day to nurture and sustain our planet’s real needs.