Larry Gibbons
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Bats in our Belfry?

23/8/2013

1 Comment

 
Can’t believe it. Summer is hanging on by a few fingernails while winter is already beating his drum over the cooling night temperatures. It makes life seem as fleeting as a field full of dandelions.

But hey, we’re having an anniversary of sorts. We’ve lived in the Gold Brook Forest for a year. A whole year, listening to the whispering of the Middle River twenty-four hours a day. A relaxation tape without a machine.

PictureMiddle River
Speaking of, one morning we were in the living room, listening to satellite radio. We had the nature channel on. They were playing music mixed in with the calls of birds and the sound of running water. I turned the radio off and my god, we were still listening to music, birds and running water without the radio on. We felt privileged and lucky.

But you know what? The river rules. We have little control over the river’s temperament. She can be a sleeping cat or a fighting tiger. You see, we live on a flood plain. Which means that every heavy rain or rogue hurricane that wants to dump on us can induce a flood. And with the climate changing, well, do the math. Forget the one-in- every-hundred-years storms like the one in 2010.

We’ve had two floods so far. The last one surrounded our trailer with determined, knows-where-its-going water. It gave us a few pennies of apprehension. That’s for sure. We even drove to the hardware store and bought two pairs of high, kick-ass rubber boots.

“Take that, Middle River! Make our day!”

Yeah, like they’re going to help. But we like to feel we have options. A life raft may be in our future.


Picture
Middle River in Flood
After a flood, though? Exciting! It’s like when I was a kid and the fair left town. We’d be finding money and trinkets of all sorts that had fallen out of the fair-goers’ pockets. The river leaves interesting rocks, trees, pieces of docks and other interesting things when it calms down.

We get lots of other reminders that life is not really under our control. Like last night. We heard troubling sounds in the kitchen again. On further investigation we found mouse turds in different areas of the kitchen. So we got out the traps. Three of them. Loaded them with powder and peanut butter then cocked the triggers. Spread them around. We hate doing it but we do.


At one am we heard scurrying and rattling. We got out of bed. Reluctantly. I shone my flashlight around the kitchen. Spotted the little lassie. Looked like she was swimming in our butter dish. But what a shock when we realized the little critter wasn’t a mouse. She was a bat. She flew off before we could figure out what to do.

Probably the same bat we saw walking across our living room rug the other evening while we were watching TV. Walking, not flying, over the living room rug. Creepy, but the show on television was boring. What to do? What to do, seeing both of us are nervous of bats? Could be Dracula’s great, great, great---- grand-daughter.

Well, that little critter jogged across our carpet to my running shoe and took a break on the edge of said runner. I was able to gently carry the bat and shoe outside and let her go. I brought the shoe back in.

Picture
Last night we tracked the possibly same bat down. We found her hanging from the inside of our living room curtains. So we stood on the couch and cautiously and nervously removed the curtains from the window. The bat nonchalantly and not very nervously fluttered from the curtains to the curtains on the other side of the living room. Whereupon, after some deliberation, I stood on a stool, knocked the bat down and into a box with a towel and with the box covered and Sue getting the door, escorted the bat off the premises.
Then, in the wee hours of the early morning, we proceeded to bat proof our trailer. We screwed a board into the wall that covered the hot water heater, sealed the vent above the stove, taped the oil furnace cover to the wall with very red and very sticky tape and then we closed all the windows for good measure.

Afterward, we sat on the couch and watched a show about the history of Tupperware. I never knew Tupperware was so friggin interesting. Life in the forest. Can you beat it?

It was our passion for and love of nature which brought us to live in the forest rather than in town or in a place a little less remote. So we get what we get. Mice in the cupboards, birds at our feeders, tons of snow, floods, the sound of moose clomping around our trailer, humming birds trying to drink from our red truck’s key hole, minks skirting our property, a young grosbeak chirping madly into our living room window while sitting on the sill, deer eating plants in our back yard, crow babies squawking for mother to stuff more whatever down their throats, coyotes howling, owls hooting, eagles watching us, bats in our butter, bats in my shoes and all those folks who think we have bats in our belfries.

Loneliness, however, is not one of the results of living in the forest. That ladybug walking across the book I was reading is full to the brim with secrets that the scientists still aren’t close to discovering. Mystery and magic are great antidotes to loneliness and without them I find life boring, predictable, petty, enervating and lonely.

Call me crazy, which you might, but I believe societies that have no connection with the wild can yield a crop of aberrant, oblivious and wired-up citizens.

With a connection to and a consciousness of nature, societies become more whole, compassionate and alive.

Nature. Always unpredictable. In this world of rising greenhouse gases, forest destruction, water pollution, wars, false witness and species extinction, nature still lets us know that she holds the power. Keeps throwing the universal curve balls, hammers the trick slap shots and this is one of the reasons why I write about my love, reverence and respect for nature.

I leave you with a picture of my new bike standing proudly in a misty early morning on the shore of beautiful Lake O’Law. I call the bike "Buddy Lee". Can you figure?

Cheers!


Picture
Buddy Lee at Lake O' Law
1 Comment

Ms. Authority

9/8/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
I often find it difficult beginning a new project. It’s like I walk into my office and there’s a hungry tiger or a scary monster sitting on my desk. Licking its chops. Intimidating me, and making me afraid to sit down and write. Afraid I might not be able to come up with anything.

Many writers have this problem and I think the best thing they can do in this situation, is to raise the white flag and hand over control to their Muse. Might as well, because if she acts like mine, she won’t listen to them anyway.


The “Oxford Canadian Dictionary” states that the word ‘Muse’ can refer to any of the goddesses who presided over the arts and sciences. They were the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, traditionally nine in number. The Muse is also described as a poet’s inspiring goddess, a poet’s genius and a source of inspiration for creativity.

The term ‘preside’ is defined by the same dictionary as, “to be in a position of authority”.

So, given that the Muse presides over creativity, I can definitely tell you that my Muse is a good presider and damn close to being a full-fledged banana republic dictator. Because she hardly ever listens to me. Definitely not when I get caught up in the-way-you’re-supposed-to-write frame of mind. Because I have, after all, spent years reading books on finding a theme, putting together a list of characters, scoping out pertinent scenery and outlining a plot. Then I bring all this learned material to my desk and there’s Ms Authority smoking a friggin cigarillo and blowing smoke rings in my face. Sometimes smirking, or even worse, outright guffawing.

Simply put, my Muse wants me to write what she wants me to write, when she wants me to write it. And I’m kind of pissed off at her right now. I’m trying to tell her that I’ve had some luck with short stories and maybe even some proficiency, seeing that I was on the last “Canada Writes” Long List. Well, big whoopee-doo. She doesn’t give one ounce of a crap.

You see, I recently waved a white towel and stopped writing a novel. Because of you-know-who. Instead I decided to begin a brand new and improved short story. Yeah, right. All my attempts went nowhere. Because of Ms Muse, who was rummaging through my bottom desk drawers, looking for god knows what.

And when I said, “Excuse me, ma’am, but could you give me a little hint?” She told me that she’d like to keep it a secret for now. Maybe we could chat about it a little later. Oh, let’s say, at three am?

Well, I started writing anyway. Got some words on my computer screen. But then I got stuck so I slammed my hand on the desk and demanded that Ms Muse spit it out. Now!

“Is this going to be a short story or a novel for fink sakes?! How about a novella? Come on!”

Silence.

So I asked in a calmer voice, “Is what I’m writing a good beginning for something that involves reading? Is it going to go somewhere, if I keep on tapping out these words on my gd computer?”

 She’s friggin gone. She’s not even in the room. She hasn’t heard a word I said.

So what do I do now? Writing exercises until Ms Authority gets around to spitting it out? It’s not like she doesn’t know. She knows. She knows.

So, I left my desk and went looking for my Muse. I found her in the basement. Smoking another cheap cigarillo between sips from her plastic cup of red wine. Rummaging through some of my old children’s stories. Which I had written about, oh, a hundred years ago.

“Have you considered touching up these stories and submitting them to a magazine?” she asked. Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Problem is, my Muse is usually right. Dare I say, always right. Even if the rest of the world doesn’t think so. Because Muses have the difficult task of dragging us writers out of our suffocatingly rational, the-way-it-should-be boxes into the big fertile world of juicy plots, vital themes and animated characters. Into writing what will always remain universal. Writing about what is really important to us. And what can touch the souls of our readers.

So I think the Muse has a hard task and I’m thankful Muse is who she is. And I think there are lots of people who, when they read the stuff the Muse has given the stamp of approval to, will agree.



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