Category: Poetry

The Miracles of Spring

11/6/2016

Buster Exploring Spring's Gifts

Well, damn it!! I should have used my mouse. You see, yesterday I had, on my little computer, written two blogs. Sometimes this happens. The blog gets very long and then I realize, hey, I have two blogs here and like a squirrel, I squirrel part of the blog away.

Well, this morning, (a gray, dreary morning, I must add), I sat in the living room and began to work on Blog 55. I usually leave my mouse in the office and move things around on my computer by using my finger on the computer’s built-in mouse-pad.

This drab am, I tried to highlight the part of the blog I was going to cut and copy and turn into blog 56. However, I had trouble getting the highlighting to halt where I wanted it to halt so I could cut and copy. So——I decided to hit a key to un-highlight it. Then I planned to fetch little Mickey Mouse from the office and highlight the blog 56 segment by using the mouse.

Well, one big F)(*&^%$ DUH! What key did I hit? No need to tell you, but only to say that the word rhymes with "BEAT".

This is the new Blog 55. Enjoy. I hope!

One evening recently, around ten pm, I stepped out onto our deck. Oh, the sounds, scents and furious busyness that greeted me! It was as if I’d entered a busy perfume department. The trees budding, flowers blooming, wet grass growing, cool mountain breeze blowing, the sound of the swollen, freshly rain-filled river flowing and the riotous mayhem of the peepers hooting it up in our pond. “Oh joy! Hallelujah! Spring has broken out!”

NEW GROWTH IN A TWO-YEAR-OLD CLEAR-CUT

Why it even made me think of the hymn, ‘How Great Thou Art’, I used to hear sung by George Beverly Shea. It also got me thinking about what a co-worker once said to me. ”Being born is like winning the lottery.” Some folks might not agree, but I think most would.

And speaking of the peepers, which I’m sure I had spoken about in my first, now vanished attempt at Blog 55, they were emanating a riot of sound. When Sue, Buster and I were hiking on the road one evening, and the moon had just begun to stick its head up from the top of the basement stairs, the peepers were so loud that I suggested we all wear ear protection the next time we take this walk. Well, maybe not Buster. We all know how Buster reacts to his ears being frigged around with.

Moon Rising Over Mountain

To me, the fact that spring comes every year is a gigantic, in-your-face miracle. So magnificently huge, and yet a large number of people barely give it a thought. Except for the part about it being warmer. Therefore, I sometimes think, because I’m part of the human race, that it's an undeserved miracle. But then again, that’s a rather human-centrist thought. There are more beings than us living on the earth.

Luckily, Spring is gracious in her giving. Even though the human race seems to work so hard to remove the spring from Spring. Economic babble guff goes on and on while the peepers riotously shout, “Bull ship. Bull ship.” Cutting to the chase as our civilization chases the almighty dollar.

                            “There is a glory in the world;
                                        The morning is like wine,
                              And pale ascension lilies lean
                              Like gods who late in heaven have been,
                                         Half flowerlike, half divine.

                             O sweet revival of the grass!
           O sweeter songs that rise,
                             When jocund April leads her train
                             Through the gold sunlight and the rain,
                                         And earth is paradise."

                                                         Charles Hanson Towne, AN APRIL SONG

The Pond Beside Our Driveway

When I see spring ravishing the earth, I think of some of those folks who see life in a dreary, bunker sort of way. Spring must be, in some scrap of their minds, connected to sin. So much colour, scent and noise. With much of this gorgeous spectacle bursting forth because of some previous plant and animal orgy of sordid lustful copulations.

Riotous Dandelions

Oh, they must have some pretty kinky styles, I’d think. But effective. Like the maple trees I planted a few years ago. I think I planted five. I placed them in a field that gets plenty of sun. I’ve since heard that’s not recommended. I was ignorant.

Anyway, this year I walked over to the crowd of growth and located the trees. I saw four. Figured that’s a good result. However, yesterday I made a more careful inspection. I was surprised to see that I’d missed one maple tree. I’d thought that tree had died, but there it was. Except, where I’d planted one maple tree, there were now three small maple trees. Kinky.

A few days ago, Buster jumped up on me. He wanted to go for a drive with us and that’s one of his ways of asking. I looked at his eager, trusting, brown eyes, his little moustache, comically curved paws, his teeth, which stick out over his wee red chin and I said to Sue, “Buster is so cute that maybe we’re committing a sin by enjoying him so much.”

Maritime Mac once said, “When I look at my dog, Buster, I get to thinking that I’m so happy whistling so copiously that I’m going to have to go to confession.” Thus sayeth Maritime.

Maritime Mac sometimes uses big words.

Back from popular demand. The Buster show. See how Buster manipulates his surrogates. It’s all about meals and who is training whom. Our persistent philosophical Buster puzzle. The Buster mealtime conundrum.

This is how it works.

First off, we now realize the our meals have to be tailored, not only to us, but also to Buster.

It all begins with Sue laying the meal out on my plate. It is presented to me, under the watchful eyes of Lord Buster. We usually sit on the couch when we eat. I sit closest to Buster so he gets a better view of my plate and what I’m eating.

I eat my meal. Buster watches. Buster watches. I eat. Buster watches. I break a tiny piece off my meat or fried potato or slice of bread. I offer it to Buster. He eats it or doesn’t. Not eating it is a bad sign. He’s not liking our meal. Eating it is a good omen. He likes our meal.

                         “You gonna eat that?
                                       You gonna eat that?
                                       You gonna eat that?

                                        I’ll eat that.”

                       Karen Shepard, BIRCH

I eat some more. Buster watches while I break off little pieces of carrot, potato, meat, pickle, (Buster likes ketchup), and put them on the side of my plate. When I’ve cleaned off the part of the plate that was ordained for me to eat, I take my plate to his dog dish. His dog dish has dog kibble already poured into it. It is dog food. Buster knows dog food isn’t human food. That’s the rub.

I take my fork and I scrape the remaining bits off my plate and into his dish and then I tap his dish with the fork. I always wondered when my psychology course about Pavlov’s dogs would come in handy. Now I know.

Buster will usually check out his dish after I tap his dish. Then he may drool or not drool. He may eat or not eat. Depends on how hungry he is, I guess.

He may, instead of eating, watch me make my tea. Watch me spread my toast with honey or jam or peanut butter. After which he watches me eat it. I will break off some pieces, like a dutiful master. He watches. When I’m finished, I take the few pieces I've set aside, and I dump them into Buster’s bowl. I tap his bowl with a fork or spoon or knife. He may drool or he may not. He may eat or he may not.

He may, instead, sit on the floor and stare at Sue. Give her a careful scrutiny. Surveying her whole food/eating situation as he looks to see if she has any more food to cough up.

If satisfied that we have both totally finished our meals, Buster will, most likely, not always, but most likely, eat.

He will remove some of the pieces from his bowl and carry them to the rug. Because he is a delicate eater. Some might say a picky eater. And then he’ll eat them like a right proper gentleman.

However, I’ll be damned if I’m going to lay a place for him at the table. Not doing the plate, knife, fork, spoon, maybe a dessert spoon and the napkin thing. Not going to happen.

Besides, we have no room at the table. Sue’s office is spread out all over the table, along with hats, gloves, papers, poop catcher bags, collars, grooming brushes, dog leash snaps, and three or four of Buster’s leashes, in colours of red, green and blue.

No Room for Buster at the Table

Anyway, at one of those three stages, he will usually commence to eat his meal while we hold our communal breath. It is truly pathetic. Isn’t it?

After he finishes eating, do you know what happens? You may have guessed it. I won’t give you the word, but I’ll give you a hint. Buster gets something or two somethings that rhyme with DELETE.

Who runs this forty-five-foot trailer anyway? The whole thing is a pitiable sin.

Lake o' Law...Just down the Road from Middle River

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Maritime Mac

24/4/2016

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Misty Morning Mountains

Once upon a time, an old, white-haired fella by the name of Maritime Mac, entered a coffee shop. Now, he knew that coffee shops taxed his mind and his nerves, but he went into the coffee shop anyway.

Maritime Mac in Person

Where he ordered a tea. Which didn’t go so well because he was on the wrong side of the tea purveyor who had a dead ear.

Maritime Mac shifted his position and ordered again.

“One tea, please,” he shouted.

The nice server, his hair all bunned up, grabbed a tea bag and a tricky brown tea jug. He dropped the tea bag into the little jug and poured steaming hot water over the crinkled up bag. Maritime Mac watched him screw the complicated plastic lid onto the jug as he felt the beginning of the jingling and jangling of his nerves.

The server handed Maritime Mac the jug, a tea cup with a spoon in it, and a saucer.
Maritime walked to the counter where they kept the tea and coffee additives. He set down the cup and saucer and the brown tea jug.

His nerves began to further unsettle as his mind switched to auto-dumb mode. He searched for the milk container. He felt the coffee shop customers watching him as his mind slid to other nerve-wracking times. To places with polished wooden tables, formally set with forks, spoons, knives, plates, tea cups, saucers and napkins or serviettes. And who the hell knows what those mouth wipers are supposed to be called? These eating objects all placed on the table, in their correct places, as decreed by the Department of Correct Positioning of Consuming This and Thats. Rules thought up by the powerful cabinet of etiquette-crowned heads ruling from the great city of Oz. Not to ignore those fellas behind the curtain.

He pictured the intelligent folks in other coffee shops, scrunched up around tiny wobbly tables, many with wireless ear buds hanging out of their ear holes, some reading books or papers or conversing with each other about urban topics that were super important for people to know in order to converse in such establishments. And most importantly, all of them knowing exactly how to load, pour and carry their teas and coffees.

Birds at our Coffee Shop during a Recent Snowstorm

Before him were three imposing shiny metal jugs. Like three doors, but only one that would lead to milk. Must it not? But where the hell was the label? Tea a la Russian Roulette. His friggen’ hands began to shake and to make it worse, a couple, looking wealthy, healthy, well-dressed and wise, was checking him out.

He picked up a jug. Tipped his glasses down and searched the container from stem to stern. It was on the handle. The word, ‘milk’, written in ancient Greek script.

Maritime Mac tried to pour the milk. Nothing came out. He spotted what looked like a bear spray can trigger. He pressed it. A little milk peed out.

He pressed harder. Too much milk poured out.

Someone behind him had surely consumed too much coffee, for a stink bomb was now wrapping itself around Maritime Mac’s taste for tea. His tea was paler than he had planned, but he didn’t want to hang around the counter much longer or his tea would have a Flint City tang.

He looked for the sugar. No sugar, but instead a shiny honey container. It had a wee, bear spray trigger. He pressed the trigger. The thick honey crept out of the little honey pot so slowly that he’d have to be fumigated before he got a teaspoonful.

He thought he heard the well-dressed couple chuckling.

He tried to pour the tea. Nothing came out. He spotted an arrow on the plastic top so he aligned the arrow with the spout. Good thinking, Maritime. But nothing came out. He loosened the lid. A pathetic bit of tea wee-wee’d out. He loosened it some more. He poured. The top fell off and into the cup.

He grabbed some paper mop-ups and wiped up the spilled tea. Threw the mop-ups at the garbage can under the counter. Half-point for the effort.

He snatched up a long wooden stir stick that looked like what he should use to stir his tea, drop of honey and abundance of cow milk.

The couple had escalated from chuckling to laughing. Maritime Mac didn’t look up.

He stirred with the wooden stir stick. Was irritated by the spoon that got in the way. The metal spoon which had been in his cup the whole time. He put two and two together as he heard more chuckling. As he had feared, the aroma was sticking to his new winter coat.

“Lord god almighty,” he whispered. He tossed the stir stick at the garbage can. Half point for the effort.

He then slunk to a quiet table in a section far away from the toxic table. He was so relieved that he hadn’t tripped and spilled anything. So happy that he could settle down with his dripping cup of tea, his spoon, his tricky jug, his saucer and ten or more paper slop suckers.

He sat and watched other folks work for their tea. He smiled and chuckled from time to time, just for the effect.

When he’d finished his tea and was heading for the large, darkly burnished front door, he stopped to ask the nice server about the arrow on the tea jug top. Asked, if he lined the arrow with the spout, wasn't the tea supposed to pour out? That rhymed and he damn well knew he’d just made poetry, but the server was a professional coffee shop employee, or maybe he couldn’t hear the full rhyming cadence and so he ignored Maritime Mac’s great poetry and explained to him, in a deafening voice, that the arrows do not work anymore.

                  And there was a poet I used to know,
          Who built a balloon and let it blow
                  On the curving track of the Southern Trades
                  That caress the breasts of Samoan maids,
                  And brush like a lover’s hand across
                  The great grey wings of the albatross.
                  And that poet, in his balloon, still flies.
      —-And the earth has lost him until he dies.
                                                  Farley Mowat, BALLOON SONG

Buster by our Pond

“So screw the arrows, the bear spray milk and the anal retentive honey containers,” he mumbled to himself as he opened the door of his truck. There he was greeted by the ecstatic tail-wagging whirligig of a little dog. Who had been told he was to stay at home, but had, by some sleight of mind, been able to connive his way into this epic trip to a Cape Breton coffee shop.

Our Home Sweet Home

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Does Wily Have a Microwave?

28/3/2016

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Our Local Coyote

This coyote is wanted by some angry neighbours. He is wily and I think he’d catch the Road Runner in quick fashion. Anyway, I snapped the photo while he watched Sue, Buster and me strolling down Gold Brook Road.

We are pretty sure that he’s the coyote who killed a neighbour’s cat. He also ate all the cat food and dog food that our neighbour had put out for her many pets. But get this, there was also a bowl of frozen milk on the woman’s porch. Old Wily picked up the bowl of milk and carried it into the forest, I assume to defrost it before he drank it. Milk builds up the calcium in your bones and is good with kibble. The coyote is more than crafty and a vegan he is not.

Of note is that Buster is now nervous at certain spots on the road. He is a smart dog and does not want to become a coyote sandwich.

***

I think I need to give a wee explanation about my Buster Wear photo. And while I’m at it, also let you know that Buster is excited about how well his Buster Wear clothing project has been doing. It’s selling like hot kibble.

Anyway, a fella read my blog and wondered afterwards what the yellow area was on the front of the black Buster Wear shorts. I explained to him what it was and now I am going to explain it to the whole blogosphere.

It is a picture of a yellow chick who is looking at a fried egg on a plate. The chick is saying, “Holy crap! Larry, is that you?!?!

***

Here’s part of a poem I could have used in my last blog, in which I expressed one of the reasons why I regard money the way I do.

   “Honest John Tomkins, a hedger and ditcher,
               Although he was poor, didn’t want to be richer;
               All such wishes in him were prevented,
               By a fortunate habit of being contented.”

                                               “Anonymous” John Tomkins

***

It seems to me that I spend an inordinate amount of time writing blogs with the word ‘Buster” in them. Have you noticed that? Lots of photos of him too, and here’s one more.

Be cool. Wear Buster Wear!

A friend of mine told me that she often thinks her husband’s dog is the other woman. I sometimes wonder if Buster isn’t the other woman in my blogs.

You see, I could write a blog that answered one of the greatest philosophical questions of all time. The question being: “Why are we here, in this world?” This blog answer could potentially set the world on a new course and still, I’m sure, I would receive emails that wouldn’t mention my solving the big universal question. Nope, they’d ask me, “Where’s the Buster stuff?

***

And yes, Buster does give me material for my blogs. Like last week...

I have read that some Indigenous tribes believe animals can understand what we are saying. I have never really believed this. My line of thinking has been that animals, especially Buster dogs, have an ability to glean an amazing amount of info from the tone of our voice and from our body language. As one fella told us, dogs have had centuries and centuries of time to learn how to understand us humans and how to fit into our human lives.

Well, after yesterday’s walk, I may have to change my theory.

You see, every afternoon without fail, Buster waits around in the trailer while Sue finishes up her lunch. Once she’s finished, Buster goes into his song and dance. Which is to bark, bother, growl, and get in the way. Because it’s his Sue/Buster walk time.

Sue will, right smartly, snap a leash onto Buster’s red collar and then off they go. Usually for a one-and-a-half to three-km walk. The weather plays no role in this operation. Buster has decreed.

However, Buster’s decree has played a key role in one aspect of Sue’s life. He has improved Sue’s health immeasurably - both physical and mental - and I recommend that people get a dog to improve their health.

Anyway, after the walk, Buster and Sue will come inside where Buster gets his treat and then afterwards he has a little nap. Where he dreams about expanding his Buster Wear business into Buster Punk Rock Neck Collars. Using Trump’s foreign workers to save money.

Well, yesterday, while I was walking with Sue and Buster, I mentioned to Sue that I was going to go to Margaree and get some post-hockey beer and then maybe drop into the excellent Dancing Goat Coffee Shop and have a tea. Sue asked me if I wanted her to tag along. We got into a confab about this. The conversation theme was whether or not Sue will or won’t ride shotgun with me. We discussed this at some length while little furry Buster sniffed, peed and walked his walk.

At some point in our discussion, after we’d parsed to death my words, ‘Yes, I want you to come with me’, and we were able to come to the conclusion that I really did want Sue to be part of my coffee shop adventure, we also decided, somewhere in the smoke of words and meaning, that we’d leave Buster at home.

When we got to the deck, Buster wouldn’t climb the stairs up to the front door. No sir. He just wanted to laze around outside. Enjoy the scents and sights. Life is too short to rush, that kind of attitude.

So we hooked the outdoor dog chain onto his collar and then we went inside while Buster nosed around. However, when I took a peek out the door window, there was Buster, sitting on the porch looking in while I looked out. Making no attempt to get us to let him inside. Where he would get his usual post-walk treat. Rather unusual, wouldn’t you think?

Had Buster understood that we were planning on leaving him at home? In which case, his coming into the trailer would make it a damn sight easier for us to carry out the leaving-him-alone procedure.

Anyway, the result of Buster’s approach to this situation was that he enjoyed a bird’s eye view from my truck’s arm-rest, as he watched Sue and me sitting inside The Dancing Goat Coffee Shop enjoying our mugs of hot java. Did I mention that they make excellent home-made bread and other baked goods? We didn't tell Buster that, needless to say.

***

NEWS FLASH! NEWS FLASH! BUSTER WINS ANOTHER DECISIVE BATTLE! WHAT CAN I SAY, OTHER THAN “MAY THE FORCE BE WITH ME”?

Buster has been turning his nose up at his meals. Even when we mix some of our food into his dry kibble.

The reason we feel that some dry kibble is important, other than because it’s the accepted and politically correct way to feed our presently scientifically raised canine buddies, is that it stops him from having an anal blockage. And I’ll tell you something, if you heard your beloved Buster dog trying to blow crap out of his or her intestinal pipes and not being successful, well, the cries and whines and howls are memorable.

However, last Sunday morning I said, “Screw it. Forget the correct dog feeding methodology.”

Instead I said, “Get the frying pan, kettle and toaster rolling. Move ’em on out. Yah, hah,” and all that sort of Sunday morning nonsense.

You see, most Sunday mornings I make breakfast for Sue and me. I usually cook up fried or scrambled eggs with bacon or sausages, toast some bread and add a few slices of tomatoes or cucumbers. Often I sprinkle curry and pepper on the fried eggs. Two eggs for Sue and two eggs for me. Three sausages or bacon strips for Sue and three sausages or bacon strips for me.

Last Sunday we had sausages. And here is what I did. I fried six sausages, because that was all I had, fried five eggs, sliced up some cucumbers and made some toast.

Notice I said five eggs? Well, to quickly summarize this part of my blog, I made three breakfasts this morning. And Buster loved his and then he even ate his kibble. He looked awfully happy. And he ate the cucumber slices. Can’t even get plenty of kids to eat their cucumbers.

But when Buster jumped on my lap, turned his head to the side, so he could catch my eyes and then telepathically ordered a cup of tea with a teaspoon of sugar and a little milk, well, I had to draw the line. You have to draw a line somewhere. Don’t you?

But when he sat next to me while I was watching another pathetic bit on CNN about this Trump blow-hard, Buster telepathically said he would like to remind me that he was expecting a few buddy burgers when we go to Kingston, and I knew that buddy burgers it would be.

Since that breakfast, Buster has feasted on bits of steak, carrots, baked potatoes, spaghetti, bread and jam, but, and I must emphasize the BUT, he always has kibble with it. And he eats the kibble last of all. BUT he eats it. And he’s crapping just fine, thank-you.

And there you are. An almost one hundred-proof Buster blog. Please be warned. Blog 53 may not have Buster in it. Sorry.

***

       “Now I’m walkin down that long lonesome hallway
              Headin’ for the kitchen again
              All I want to do is eat everything
              Then I want to eat it all again.
              I need way more food, Babe.”
              Four-course meals at 8, 12, 6 and ten.
                                                    Merrill MARKOE, Ballad of Winky

Snowshoers on the Skyline Trail in a blizzard a couple of weeks ago

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The Trail to Friendship

7/1/2015

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I think it’s time to quote Stephen King, who wrote, in the third foreword to his book ‘On Writing’, “…the editor is always right.” He also wrote, “To write is human, to edit is divine.”

I haven’t written these blogs all by my lonesome. No way, Hosea. I have an editor. Sue is my editor and it’s Sue who corrects my usages of ‘had’ and ‘have’, ‘practice' and ‘practise’, ‘take’ and ‘bring’ and all the other language practices I have learned or not learned to use correctly over my life-time. As a matter of fact, as I write this, I’m thinking that the last ‘practices’ I just wrote, might, by the time it strikes your eyes, be spelt ‘practises’. (Ed. note: Not this time, Larry, though I can see why you might think so!)

Oh, and then there’s all that punctuation! You see, I sometimes add too many punctuation marks, put them in the wrong places or don’t use them at all when I should. Then it’s up to Sue to grab her grammar broom and sweep some of them away. Or scoop up her grammar pepper shaker and begin jiggling a few of those there punctuations into their grammatically correct hideaways.

Grammar could make a person scream, “Bloody hell!”, if it weren’t for an editor. Tenses getting all tense, co-ordinate conjunctions constipating the writing flow and the proper use of ‘taking’ and ‘bringing’. I mean, it all gets there, doesn’t it, whether you bring it or take it?

Then there are those possessive endings, passive and active verbs, quotation marks gone wonkers, and on and on and on. AND ON. Per se and ad infinitum.

                          “I’ve an inkling to stutter and stammer
                       In an effort to subjugate grammar
                       For although I love words
                       I adore the absurd
                        Punctuated, pauses; tend to enamour.”
                                                            Mike Youds, T’talking

When I write this blog, I often get passionate about an issue, whether it’s about language snobbery, earth degradation or what I perceive as our society drowning in a deluge of social media dribble. See what I mean?

So, when I’ve finished writing what I have written, and then handed it to Sue, I’m expecting she’ll temper my passionate over-kill with a few cautionary pixels of advice. I listen to her advice, because I don’t want to piss the wrong people off. And when I say the wrong people, I don’t mean those who are in power, but the folks who regularly read this blog. Thank god I’m not paranoid or full of conspiracy theories. Would I write this blog if I were? However, I don’t always listen to Sue and then I do or don’t pay for that decision.

Sue also does all the blog set-ups, as I’m not as familiar with the computer as Sue, nor do I want to be. She also chooses some of the pictures from time to time, or suggests quotes that she finds on her beloved computer.

So there. I didn’t want my readers to think this is all me, me, me. It’s also Sue, Sue, Sue. And it only took thirty-three blogs to say it. What a guy.

Note from "Editor Sue":
Every writer has an editor and I feel lucky to be Larry's. He has a unique way of looking at things that I find thought-provoking, so I thoroughly enjoy reading what he writes and occasionally having my suggestions accepted.

***

Cross on Eskasoni Hill

A few weeks ago I drove to Eskasoni. It’s a Mi’kmaq reserve in Cape Breton. One of the reasons I went there was because of a poem I read. Here’s a portion of it.

    “In Eskasoni there is a hill you may climb
    There is a cross and the image of the Blessed Mother
    You may climb as we do, especially on Good Friday
    Then maybe we may look upon each other as friends
    Like we wanted you to since the day you came.
    Na ntalasutmaqnminal mawita’tal-Our prayers will join
    Aq we’jitutesnu wlo’ti’.”-We will find happiness
                                                    Rita Joe,    There is a Hill

A hiking friend from Eskasoni, had given me a fairly good idea where the trail up the mountain to the cross could be located. Also, when I drove through Eskasoni, I could see the giant cross standing on top of the mountain, so I knew its general location.

I turned into what looked like the trail. An Aboriginal woman, on the way up her steep driveway, stopped her car. She rolled down her window and shouted, “What are you looking for?”

Her voice wasn’t particularly friendly. There was a little park nearby and she was probably wondering what this gray-haired guy had in mind while poking around the area.

I asked her if she could tell me which trail leads up to the cross. Her face went smiley and she directed me to the correct path.

I thought of the lines in the poem:
     “You may climb as we do, especially on Good Friday
                                   Then maybe we may look upon each other as friends.”

A Station of the Cross on Eskasoni Hill

All along the route up to the cross, are Stations of the Cross. As I looked at the pictures and read the words, I thought about the suffering being shown in the stations. I meditated on some of the hardships the Aboriginals have suffered as they’ve tried, and still try, to fit into a society which seems set on its present course of pursuing infinite growth and the resulting destruction of the natural world. How they’ve had to learn to forgive those who were connected to the residential schools. Places that were established, not to segregate the aboriginals from the colonists, but, as was infamously said at the time, “…to kill the Indian in the child”, by removing them from their families, and refusing to allow them to speak their own language.

                    “I lost my talk
                     The talk you took away
                     When I was a little girl
                     At Shubenacadie school.”
                                                          Rita Joe, I Lost My Talk

Also, treaties signed in good faith were broken and the list goes on, and as I looked at the stations of the cross, I thought, this is why many Mi’kmaq can relate so naturally to the Easter story.

                    “If we are slow
                      Embracing today’s thoughts,
                      Be patient with us a while
                      Seeing
                      What wrongs have been wrought,
                      Native ways seem not so wild.”
                       Rita Joe

Eskasoni Statue of Mother Mary

By the cross is a statue of compassionate Mary. All kinds of gifts were strewn at her feet. I left a pewter bear paw with her before I climbed down the mountain and returned to a world that is so different from the ways of the spirit.

                “When the stranger says: ‘What is the meaning of this city?
                  Do you huddle close together because you love each other?’
                  What will you answer? ‘We all dwell together
                  To make money from each other’? or ‘This is a community’?
                  And the Stranger will depart and return to the desert.
                  O my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger,
                  Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.”
                                                                    T.S. Eliot, Choruses from ‘The Rock’

Brook Racing from Uisgeban Falls after Many Days of Rain

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An Earth Memorial

29/11/2014

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Blog number thirty-one. Where does the time go?

            “I spoke a word
            And no one heard;
            I wrote a word,
            And no one cared
            Or seemed to heed;
            But after half a score of years
            It blossomed in a fragrant deed.”
                      John Oxenham, "We Never Know"

Well, I can hope that after a half a score of years, my writing will blossom in a fragrant deed, or at least a deed of some sort.

***

A few months ago we had a visitor. He wanted to inspect our river. Wanted to see if he could find a way to persuade the powers to be to come up with some anti-flooding action that would be legal for us to undertake. So we could stop the river from gnawing away at our land.

Anyway, as he was looking at the river, he said, “You’ve got a really nice salmon pool down there.”

That down there salmon pool he was talking about, was totally built by the river. There were no blueprints, schemes, or late night conferences, just the river doing her thing. In this instance her legacy was a salmon pool. Which had also become a haunt for the beavers. Life flows on and on.

However, this semi-blockade-salmon-pool place might be a little troublesome for us in the future. The pool has now become an area where large and small uprooted trees and branches loiter. That gathering of trees and branches has spread out since last week’s flood and is now blocking over half the river’s right of way.

Now, when it floods, it either roars over the blockage while pushing it further out into the river, veers to the left and roars over our hiking trail, (that’s a laugh, our "hiking trail"), or swings to the right and heads for the bridge. The force of the rushing water is awesome and I know this: the river doesn’t dilly dally.

Middle River Fury

***

You know, I think we might live smack dab in the centre of the Cape Breton Wizard of Oz climate-making factory. I got a hint of this last week. The river was once again rocking, roiling and rolling over her banks. So we did what we always do when caught in a flood emergency. We grabbed our cameras and headed for the rushing water. Focus, snap, click.

Anyway, we took some pictures and then returned to our little trailer in the woods. A few minutes later, I looked out the window. My gosh, the world over the river had filled in with a bank of fog while thicker blobs were still coming down the mountain when she comes.

Fog seen through our window

So, ?????????. Come on, you can guess. Correcto. I grabbed my camera and headed outside. And, oh man, such a chill wrung out my bones, but as I scurried down the short path to the river, (which is getting shorter), I was accosted by a sauna wave. Just like that. Boom! It was mid-summer.

That’s why I say we might be living in a special place where the invisible fairy weather-makers create the weather for the rest of the island. And I don’t have a big ego either.

***

Two Sundays ago, I climbed the steep mountain not too far from our place. The higher I ascended, the more snow there was on the ground.

Here, I was surprised to find the heights swarming with tiny brownish coloured moths. Now, these moths can also be sighted around our place, but not in such numbers.

The next Sunday, I hiked back up the same mountain. There was more snow on the ground this time but there weren’t nearly as many of these wee moths. However, I did find many lying still on the snow. I figured that they were dead or waiting to be dead.

moth on snow

What affected my poetic sense was a little moth who speedily fluttered past me. I wondered, where was he going in such a rush?

To find out, I increased my hiking speed, so I could keep up with the little fella. Well, he flew a little way further, then swerved off the trail and landed on a patch of snow. There he remained still.

I couldn’t help but think that the moth was hurrying to his dying place. And it seemed so natural and so not a big deal. Probably lived well as a moth and now he was resting in his dying place. Doing what comes naturally.

Of course this is only a conjecture because for all I know he might have been preparing for hibernation. A place where he would get a minimum of a good eight hours sleep. Whereby, sometime in the spring, he would awaken hungry, jump out of bed and begin nibbling away our forest.

Maybe, he’d even shape shift and switch into a caterpillar costume. Miraculous, really. There are lots of metaphors for death, resurrection and such which may have been floating around in my subconscious thinking when I watched the little moth lay down his head.

If anybody knows what kind of moth he is, feel free to let me know.

                   “Come with me
                    amongst the shadows
                    where inner wounds
                    can quietly heal
                    where anger melts like snowflakes
                    and love blossoms
                    like a warm embrace.”
                                                 John George Williams, "Come With Me"

                “I love to pick
                    the flowers
                    that grow
                    in splendid fields
                    for those flowers
                    that I pick
                    shall never die.”
                                                  John George Williams, "Immortal Flowers"

John George Williams is a Cape Breton poet. You can find more of his poems at:   www.voicesnet.org/allpoemsoneauthor.aspx?memberid=99549

***

Last week another poor little chickadee banged his noggin against one of our windows. This time we immediately got out a plastic container and lined the sides and bottom with a little towel. Then I picked the poor little fella up off the deck floor.

This bird didn’t make a peep. I think he was super stunned. He couldn’t even sit up straight but kept wobbling back and forth like a roly poly.

However, when I placed the bird in the container, he immediately hopped up on the side and soon had his posture sorted out.

With him perched on the plastic private room, I put the container and the bird on the deck railing, so he could keep an eye on his buds. I then went inside. From the kitchen window we could see the poor bird teetering on the edge, but only for a minute or two. It wasn’t long before he squirted up off the plastic container and was soaring off into the pasty gray sky.

Now, that’s two birds in a week I’ve picked up and then watched fly away into the sky. So I suggested something. It was only a suggestion.

I just said, “Why don’t we go to a discount store, buy up a whole whack of cheap headache pills, bring them home and mix a bunch of them in with the birdseed?”

Was that such a crazy idea?

***

One of the thoughts I can’t seem to shake loose from my brain, concerns the definitions I learned in school related to the meaning of the words finite and infinite. Because, you see, these two words seem so philosophically solid in their essences.

To me, infinite means there is no end to something. For instance, if there were an infinite number of moose, then we would never have to worry about depleting the moose population. Of course there might be a moral aspect to the number of moose we could shoot or kill, but we would not have to worry about there not being any more moose.

Then there’s the word “finite”. Which may not apply to our universe, although Einstein might disagree, but it surely does apply to our earth. For me, the word means, there is only so much of something and then there is no more, if we use it all up.

So you see, I can’t get my noggin around the idea that we live in a finite world and yet the wizards out there spew out theories that treat finite as infinite. There is always getting more of this and that, or we always need more of this and that. Until the this and the that is depleted and then we won’t have any more of this or that. See what I mean? Oh where, oh where has the little boy gone who said, “But the emperor has no clothes.” Is he locked up somewhere?

Up here in Cape Breton we have much natural beauty. The tourists love it and come here to get away from the places they call home. Many of them live in communities where they can find all the conveniences they need close by. However, they love visiting places that are naturally beautiful and have been mainly untouched. Uninhabitable, some of the visitors say. But they love to visit.

Now, some of the more spectacular beauty around here can be found in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. An area that is a preserve for our finite (oops, there’s that word again) number of wild places and creatures.

To my mind, we have this wonderful preserve as a result of damn good luck as well as hard work. I’m so thankful that the people who created it and continue to maintain it had firmly implanted in their minds the meanings of finite and infinite.

However, there are, up here, some folks who plan to build in the Park a ten-storey high war memorial. Which they want to call, “Mother Canada”. This Disney World intrusion into a spectacular, mostly untouched part of the Cape Breton National Park coastline will come with tons and tons and tons of concrete, gift shops, parking lots and I don’t know what else.

I understand the need to remember those who fought to protect our freedom. I also have an idea that some day we may have to build a gigantic memorial to remember the wild places that were lost through decisions that seemed more important at the time.

You can read a thoughtful and well written open letter by Susan Zettel, if you want to see a balanced approach to this project: http://susanzettell.blogspot.ca/2014/11/never-forgotten-national-memorial-open.html I, meanwhile, have nothing more to say about this project except to repeat my mantra. Finite, infinite. Finite, infinite.

***

“A light had gone out from his vanquished eyes;
His head was cupped within the hunch of his shoulders;
His feathers were dull and bedraggled; the tips
Of his wings sprawled down to the edge of his tail.
He was old, yet it was not his age
Which made him roost on the crags
Like a rain drenched raven
On the branch of an oak in November.
Nor was it the night, for there was an hour
To go before sunset. An iron had entered
His soul which bereft him of pride and of realm,
Had struck him today; for up to noon
The crag had been his throne.
Space was his empire, bounded only
By forest and sky and the flowing horizons.”
E. J. Pratt, The Dying Eagle

***

       “The last wolf hurried toward me
       through the ruined city
       and I heard his baying echoes———--

       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 as he trotted across the floor

       he laid his long gray muzzle
       on the spare white spread
       and his eyes burned yellow
       his small dotted eyebrows quivered

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

***

Moss-covered Stump on Moth Mountain

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Fish Stories

13/11/2014

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No matter how hard we try to make our windows look like windows and not entrances to a more exciting and fantastic forest, we always have birds crashing into them. Most of the birds survive but unfortunately a few don’t.

Like last summer. We found a Northern Parula Warbler lying on our little side porch. She was a beautiful little bluish coloured bird with a yellow throat and breast and two white bars on her wings. We looked her up and discovered that our area is definitely part of her breeding range. I also read that they like to nest in moist woodsy areas. BINGO. That’s our woods to a tree. Moist and mossy.

Last weekend we opened the door and found a stunned chickadee lying on our deck floor. He was alive, but looked like he was down for the count. I picked him up and let him sit in my warm cupped hand. The little rascal chirped at me when I picked him up but then settled down and just sat there.

Sue brought out a box with a cloth inside. She thought it might be like a nest to the little feller. It wasn’t. To the bird it was a jail or a superbug-infested hospital room and when I tried to gently place her into the box, she fluttered away and landed on the edge of our porch railing. Then she just sat there and sat there and sat there. Perched precariously on the edge, looking around and, as I said, sitting there.

That got us into a caucus meeting. Should we go and try the box out again? We deliberated and discussed and watched the little fella through our window, just sitting there and not doing much of anything. A motion was passed, which we put into a birdie omnibus bill, which said that we should, once again, retrieve the box and put clean water in the nest along with a bowl of black oil sunflower seeds.

It was also passed that we place the hospital room/King Cole Tea box into the woodshed where we figured the poor little bird would be comforted by Skippy the squirrel. Who we’re sure has now finished building her condo in the back of our firewood pile.

We also passed 100 other motions that had no relation to birds, so if anyone votes against our omnibus bill, we can accuse them of voting against the welfare of our birds. Democracy is alive and well in Cape Breton.

But guess what? All the plans of men and mice were for naught. The tiny chickadee looked through our window at us, with what looked like a thank you in his eyes, and then he looked up into the sky and whoosh! He was soaring off towards the trees.

Thinking it over, I would have to say that the chickadee had been down for the ten count. We should have put the little bird in the corner, given her a shot of water from a water bottle, dried her off with a towel and given her a pep talk. “You go out there, keep your left up and punch with your right.”

***

There’s a wonderfully informative column in The Victoria Standard, our local weekly paper. It’s called ‘Strictly For the Birds’ and it’s written by a knowledgeable birder by the name of Bethsheila Kent.

I phoned Ms. Kent one afternoon and told her about some of the birds we’d seen at our feeders. Two exciting sightings were a brightly coloured Baltimore Oriole and a Red Bellied Woodpecker.

The Red Bellied Woodpecker and the Baltimore Oriole are outside their ranges. The Oriole not so far outside but I believe the Red Bellied Woodpeckers are supposed to be found south of the Great Lakes, a long way from Cape Breton. But with the climate warming thing going on, these sightings are probably just going to become more common, as long as these critters can survive our rush for lower taxes, greater wealth and higher productivity. For some fascinating information about red-bellied woodpeckers, look here: http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/red-bellied_woodpecker/lifehistory

Red Bellied Woodpecker at our suet feeder

We’re happy that we have these birds to entertain us. I’m also grateful for being able to help so many birds make it through our rough winters when the snow and ice lie thick on the ground.

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

***

I read somewhere, in some book, at some time in the last six years, that the universe has a strange and unique way of looking after those of us who, how do I put it, have our heads in highly charged fog and aren’t quite so logical and good at rational planning as others. It compensates. Puts events and opportunities and solutions in front of us, so we can at least give them a good eyeball.

And if we’re perceptive, we’ll take a good look at these universal gems and see them as important messengers for our pilgrimage through this earthly gift of life. Maybe clearing out some of the stifling socialization defaults we’ve been hobbled with.

               “The world has room to make a bear feel free;
                        The universe seems cramped to you and me.
                        Man acts more like the poor bear in a cage
                        That all day fights a nervous inward rage,
                        His mood rejecting all his mind suggests.”
                                                           Robert Frost, The Bear

And is it possible that more of us would be aware of these connections and, dare I call them, messages from the other side, if we were more connected to nature and less influenced by the hypnotic attractions of culture, education, conventionality and unnaturalness, by which our citified population is so controlled?

As a writer, I deal in connections, happenstance, and surprise. And much like love, these things are not easy to codify. Thank God for that.

Because, if you too closely observe them through your logical microscope, there’s a good chance your desperate need to rationalize them into a neat bundle will get your brain all fired up and sweaty. Your brain warmth might then heat up and melt away these communications until they become only troublesome storm clouds lurking in the back of your subconscious.

That’s why I call my efforts at marketing, “soft marketing”. It’s loosely based on this happenstance theory. Because I know if I start too intensely pushing and jawing away about my writing, and if I start putting its source under rational scrutiny, then it’s bye-bye gut thoughts.

So, as with my marketing approach, it’s my responsibility to look at these surprises and connections and try to understand them, but it behooves me to approach them with child-like wonder and humility.

My Grandsons Tackling their Pumpkins

***

So let’s talk about our river, happenstance and surprise. As you know, it is prone to boiling over its banks and taking short cuts across our property. She even takes some of our property with her and carries it out to the ocean. Five acres and counting down. Four point nine, four point eight…

We haven’t really tried too hard to get something done about the flooding. We have even been told that we aren’t doing enough about the flooding. I call this soft flood marketing.
However, one day, the universe threw out a line of opportunity. Nudge, nudge, Larry, pay attention kind of thing.

This particular day I was hiking towards the trail that leads up the mountain. A man in a red pick-up passed me by. He parked in a field. Jumped out of the truck with a fishing rod.
We got talking. During the conversation I offered him the opportunity to salmon fish in our salmon pool, which the river had so kindly created, without a yes or a no from us.

At one point, the man pulled a cigar out of his pocket and reached for his lighter. “Damn it,” he said. “I forgot my lighter.”

I took off my knapsack, opened it up, pulled out a lighter and gave him the cigar starter.

Anyway, that’s when the fella told me he was a fishery enforcement officer. Then he told me that he would drop around sometime and look at our river and see how the river was treating our property. He said that after he made his visit, he would send out an official who would make suggestions as to what we could do about the flooding.

Of course, I now need to follow up. Phone him and remind him of the conversation. I mean I don’t just let the ocean roll over me without my helping it along.

Now, here comes the coincidence and surprise and being synched-in stuff I was talking about. Although this encounter was already a happenstance kind of thing.

At one point, the fisher person, (did I say that correctly?), told me that every year he wraps a salmon tag around a birch tree, at a certain place along the Middle River. It sounded like a ceremony of sorts. Maybe keeping a connection to a place he loved.

Have you followed the connections so far? How connections and happenstance and circumstance can create a story? A real story which can’t be imagined?

A few days later, we looked out of our living room window and saw two aliens walking around in the river. They looked like two salmon, who had undergone a pop-in-the-microwave-evolutionary burst and grown two feet and two arms and a head like ours. However, after careful observation, we realized they were two skin divers. Probably looking for relics and interesting things tossed into the river.

See what’s happening? Are you watching the connections here?

Skin Divers in our River

Later on that day, while I was hiking towards the Wilderness Area, I saw a Fishery and Oceans truck parked at the end of our road. I thought it was the fella I’d been talking to earlier, who was doing some fishing in the wilderness area.

Anyway, I hiked to my meditation place along the Middle River. There I sat on my tiny hiking chair and listened, smelled, observed and thought about unbelievably deep things. Ha.

Suddenly, I heard voices. I turned around and there were the two evolutionary-salmon guys walking towards me. Wearing the full skin diver outfit. It was un-nerving seeing these fellas pop out of the bush.

Do you know what they were planning on doing after they plunged into the water and let the river float them away? Their heads underwater and their feet thrashing from time to time? They were counting salmon.

Do you know who they worked for? The Fisheries and Oceans.

You see what I mean? It’s like the universe throws these themes out and you don’t have to be too far above dense, or below it for that matter, to know that there are these connections going on.

Guess what else I saw?

Wrapped around a thin birch tree, in the Middle River Wilderness Area, was a blue salmon fishing tag. Are you counting the odds here?

                         “The current of life runs ever away
                          To the bosom of God’s great ocean.
                          Don’t set your force ‘gainst the river’s course
                          And think to alter its motion.
                          Don’t waste a curse on the universe--
                          Remember it lived before you.
                          Don’t butt at the storm with your puny form,
                          But bend and let it go o’er you.”
                 Ella Wheeler Wilcox, As You Go Through Life

                                       “Your fish stories hang together
                                         when they’re just a pack of lies:
                                         you ought to have a leather medal:
                                        you ought to have a statue
                                        carved of butter: you deserve
                                        a large bouquet of turnips.”

                                       “There were no Christians among the early Gauls;
                             they were mostly lawyers.”

                                                          From ‘The People, Yes’, Carl Sandburg

***

Here's a challenge for you. Can you find the moose in this picture?

Find the moose!

Brave Tree on Aspy Trail

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Missing Out

19/9/2014

2 Comments

I’ve spent years hiking, mostly by myself. Because I love being alone in the forest. Sitting on a rock, a log, or any piece of natural furniture is more comfortable for me than reclining on expensive furniture in places where I have to be careful about what I say, how I say it, or what I might knock over or spill. However, some couches are more pleasant than others as butt resters.

And lately, the folks up here have decided, and have spread the word around, that I’m a trail guide. Even though I’m not as familiar with this area as I could be. And I’ve met some interesting people on the rugged Cape Breton trails.

Also, I’ve never stopped being amazed at how helpful and friendly the folks up here are. They accept us for who we are and last Sunday we even received an email from a fella who said that Cape Breton was a better place because Sue and I had made it our home. Well, that nearly knocked my socks off. Both of them.

As many of you know, Sue struggles with some chronic diseases, one of which can impede her ability to walk far. But, she gave it the old college try and actually joined our group on a hike to the Uisgeban Falls. It’s a magical place and she didn’t think she would be able to make it all the way. But she did and that’s a feather in her emotional cap. The big surprise was that her post-hike pain was no different than it was before she hiked the trail. I’m sure many of you are happy to hear that.

Sue's Favourite Tree on Uisgeban Falls Trail

Which brings me to the mentioning of a new book that was recently published: the second edition of “Guide to Cape Breton Highlands National Park”. The author is Clarence Barrett, a retired Highland Park warden. His first edition was very popular. To write this updated edition, he once again hiked all 26 official park trails and then rewrote his descriptions.

If you’re travelling to Cape Breton this is certainly a book to add to your library. Here’s a link to Parks Canada’s information about the book: http://www.capebretonpost.com/News/Local/2014-08-24/article-3845394/New-park-guide-edition-being-launched-this-week/1

My old Mac

I got a new computer for my birthday. Happy birthday to me… and that’s one of the reasons that this blog is late. Excuses, excuses, excuses. But, I have been tearing my ^*%&^%$ hair out trying to get up to speed so I can just plain sit down on my asteroid and write this blog and other things that I tap out on a computer keyboard.

However, I do try to get a blog out every two weeks or so. I know folks who have a blog out almost every day. Which I’ve heard is an excellent way to keep your readership up. It might also be an excellent way to empty your idea coffers, or at least mine.

One thing I try to do is respond to comments made on my blog. If you don’t get one from me then it’s because my comments didn’t get through or my website machine wouldn’t let me. You see, I’m relatively new to the blog world and sometimes I try to respond but I can’t get it to work. I think it’s because I don’t have all the blog ins and outs down pat. So, I apologize now for any comments I haven’t been able to respond to. I tried. Really.

Oh, and if you write a response please make sure you add your email address if you think I don’t have it. It’s supposed to come to me through the website, but doesn’t always seem to make it.

Anyway, back to the new computer. Cripes, I got so used to my old Mac. It’s twenty years plus old. It’s been everywhere, man. Had lots of sticky fingers tapping and thunking on its keyboard. Had plenty of little kids playing computer games on it and it has been dropped once or twice.

My New Mac

Oh woe is me, though. It’s not easy trying to master this new computer and I will give you an example.

I am, if you haven’t already suspected, a person who uses more of the creative side of my brain than my not creative side. Surprise, surprise.

Now as you might have read in an earlier blog, I bought myself a new camera. Only a little over a month ago, I think. It’s digital with all the funny-pictures-on the-screen stuff and with knobs, buttons or cranks spotted all over its smooth, black body.

And I have, as mentioned earlier, become known as a trail guide. So this means that I get to guide hikers into the forest. And, during the hike, I take pictures so that the fella who runs the recreational activities in Victoria County, (that’s the county I live in), gets to see pictures of the hikers and the beautiful places we walk in. He often posts them or pins them to his ‘wall of shame’.

So, I go home after a hike and hook my camera up to my new computer. Sue used to do this but now this technologic fledgling, who is me, has jumped off the tree and has ever since been wildly flapping his wings, bouncing off pixels and leafy start buttons and repeatedly crash-landing into digital bushes. Over and over again.

(*&^@%#$%&!!!! I mean, Sue used to be able to take my articles from my twenty-something-year-old computer and put them into her computer and her computer would translate the ones and zeros into an understandable language and then send it out over the internet or print it out for me. Now her computer looks at my new computer’s efforts, shrugs its shoulders and spits out these nasty, impossible to understand, bits and pieces of bits.

Yesterday Sue, whose computer acumen and expertise I trust, looked at one of my attempts and its pathetic appearance on her computer screen and said, “This is scary.”

Does one have to be a mind reader to understand some of the computer jargon?

I’ll give you a specific example.

To get the pics to my computer I have to hook my new K50 camera up to Mac. I use a thin black cord called a USB cable. The next thing I do is turn on my camera. Why do I turn on my camera now instead of before? I don’t know. Because it’s says in the Bible somewhere?

Then there’s a little box that pops up on my computer which I have to click on to IMPORT my photos. I was told this was the button I had to click on using my mouse. And that’s another story. The mouse, that is.

The pix are then supposed to slide along the inside of the cord and pour into some empty picture station where a tiny zit gets them to line up and stand at attention in order of entry .

This IMPORT box did not make sense to me. So I asked Sue where the EXPORT box was.

You must use your imagination to see a vision of the expression on Sue’s face when I asked this question. But come on. I took economics in high school. I was taught that if you live in Canada and you ship products to other countries you are exporting them. If you are receiving products from other countries then you are importing them. Do you understand?

You see, my photographs are coming from my camera. My camera was here first. I figured that I was therefore from the Camera Country. Oh Camerada, we stand on guard for thee, and I was sending out pictures to the strange place called MacBook Pro. So therefore, am I not exporting pictures?

So, how the hell am I supposed to know which place is my country and which place is not my country? How can I sort out import and export if I don’t know this? For poop sake, I’m dyslexic and this doesn’t even begin to make sense to me.

Oh god, I have so much to learn about the camera, let alone the computer. Have you noticed a change in mood in this blog? A little more hesitation in the sentence structure? Words that don’t sound so appropriate?

Where the hell is the thesaurus in this new computer? Maybe it dropped out when I took Mac out of the box. I mean when I buy a hammer, I don’t want to have to spend a long time learning how to use it before I can bang nails into wood. I just want to bang nails into wood.

Then there is my stacked-to-the-throat-with-new-gizmos camera. I’ll tell you how much I have to learn about this wonderful toy.

A friend from Australia was visiting. She has a good quality tiny camera. A quick shot thing which you can carry in your pocket like a pet Chihuahua. Anyway, we were talking about our individual cameras. I think we got to talking about the flash. This is where I pulled out the manual for my camera. It’s thick.

She asked me, “How many different languages is your manual written in?”

I said, “One *&^% LANGUAGE. English.”

It’s a friggen Stephen King novel full of Cujo mumbo jumbo. Like import, export, four way controller, JPEG, RAW, Button Customization.

I have been told that I should take up writing manuals for people like me. Ha.

***

         Let’s stop and think; Let’s know and feel

         That things like these are truly real,

         Yes, think how very rich are we

          When all the best of things are free.

                                            John Martin, “These Things Are Free”

***

Texting

I do think the virtual world is amazing, but sometimes I think it’s too enchanting and addictive. For example, there have been many times when I’ve been sitting outside on the patio of a local coffee shop. I’ve sat and watched the tourists and the locals bustling about or sitting at the little metal tables, drinking their drinks and eating their treats. Many of them, and I mean many of them, (sometimes even including me), are staring at their little prissy machines. Using their fingers to punch or rub commands into the magical virtual world that is hypnotizing so many of us.

Sometimes I’ve seen young couples at tables under romantic lighting, texting. And I’m sure they’re sometimes texting to each other. Whatever happened to the touching of hands? Leaning over for a little kiss? Rubbing your footsie up your lover’s leg? Now it’s being done with pixels.

“Oh honey, ooxx.”

“Yes, baby, XXXXXOO.”

“More, more.”

“XOXOXOXOXOXOIIIIIooooxx”

And while this human interaction in all its forms are going on, I’ve watched the crows, sitting on the power lines above the street, or on the post office roof or the steeple on the church, cawing their asses off. I can tell there’s some form of drama going on up nearer the sky.

They’re making different sounds or are buzzing each other and generally making a racket. I then take a look around at the flocks of pristine viewers and non-pristine viewers and nary a one is paying any attention. Not one. All caught up in their people or virtual world. Maybe some are even looking at the crows through their virtuals or are gazing at pixel crows on Google.

Which makes me think. Gets me wondering what would happen if this natural world, to which we don’t pay much attention, just vanished? How lonely this world would be if everyone was totally focused on the virtual world and on the human world and paid no mind to the real time world of wild others.

And what would happen if it got to the point where everybody was almost exclusively hooked up? Got to the point where we would all, for example, be checking the weather on our machines or on something imbedded inside our eye balls. Swirling our fingers down the little doo-dad screens, or poking ourselves in the eyeballs to find out whether we are going to get snow today, while outside our window there is a hell of a snow storm dumping all over our yards.

Just wondering.

“What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to man. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the children of the earth.”

Chief Seattle

Sunset on the Skyway Trail

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The Path in the Sky

30/8/2014

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I’m back and hoping that you’ve all had a great last few weeks and are getting pumped up for the fall. Which you know as well as I do, is the precursor to winter.

I’ve just finished reading a wonderful poetry book written by David Woods. He’s a black author and the book is titled “Native Song”. This was his first collection of poetry.   It is an intense and passionate collection that reveals his determined and unrelenting fervour to right the wrongs that were done to the Blacks.

David Woods has also written plays and is an accomplished artist. Here are a few samples of his poems.

“It is never good to agree
to hands choking you to death.”

        David Woods, ARTIFACT (For Rose)

“Each fragment lying outside
The structure of love
Turns to monster in the late night,

Each society that discards people
Sharpens hands for killing.”

      David Woods, MACHUKIO (The Terror)

***

A few months ago I was asked to be one of the judges for a writing competition. And whew, the more I thought about this judging task, the more serious I felt about the whole venture. Me, having the audacity to tell people that their stories are better or worse than somebody else's!

You see, I’ve submitted a few short stories to a competition or two. And, I’m proud to say, I’ve never won any. Yeah, blow the horns and bang the drums.

However, I’ve come close. One story got an honourable mention and one made it to the long list on a CBC short story competition.

The thing is, I labour over the stories I submit. Rewrite and rewrite. Change the plot. Discard the plot. Start a new story. Totally change that plot. Get out my notes and check the story against lists of short story musts and maybes. On and on and on and then one day I mail the story out. Usually on the deadline day.

Once it’s in the mailbox I try to forget about it. Put it out of my mind, but still, there’s always a tiny flitting bug memory that buzzes around in the back of my consciousness. Which periodically bites me on the brain stem and makes me think, “I wonder how I’ll do in the competition?” “When will I hear from those short story writing gods?”

I also wonder who is judging my story. Is the judge a woman or a man? How old is the judge? Are they watching television and eating a peanut butter sandwich while they are reading my precious baby? Are they drinking? Oh god, no. While they were looking at my story? My story!!

Is he or she in a bad mood? What kind of life philosophy do they have? Will my story yank their chain the wrong way? Are they sophisticated, snobby readers?

So, when I was reading the stories that I was supposed to judge, I kept all those thoughts in my head. I really, really tried to read the stories carefully. And I didn’t eat anything while I was carefully reading them. Although, I did drink a cup of hot tea. And I only had quiet music on while I sat in my office with my door shut as tight as a honey jar.

Not only that, but Sue also had a read of the stories and made her own notes. Oh yes, we made notes, but I didn’t read her notes until I finished reading the stories. I didn’t want to be pre-prejudiced. (Is that a word?) Neither did she read mine.

She was as serious about the job as I was and then afterwards we sat over a cup of tea and talked about the stories and argued a bit and then came to a conclusion.

Of course, it was a subjective exercise and in the overall picture that is probably a good thing. Because writing and art are subjective by nature. As are so many of the dictates we are exposed to which tell us how to behave or not to behave, eat or talk. Much subjectivity must rule if our lives are to expand, and if we and our race are to venture out into the creative unknowns.

Writing Tips I've Gleaned over the Years

Here are a few points to remember if you are writing a short story for a contest.

1: Begin with a bang.

2: Try to introduce an element of uncertainty or suspense at the beginning.

3: Make your characters alive and real.

4: Make your story different.

5: If you have no length restrictions then try to keep your story reasonably short. Say between 1,500 and 3,000 words.

6: Have an ending that is positive, meaning one with a different turn to it. It doesn’t have to be a happy ending. It can be sad, but it should say something important.

7: Make sure you have one clear central theme or plot running through the story.

8: Try for a story that goes against the grain. Don’t always stick to the politically correct issues of the day.

9: Follow the contest rules.

10: Watch out for errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. No matter how many times you reread your work, you will miss some errors. Most writers ask at least one other person to proofread their stories.

***

I’m going to try to tie a thin thread between our time at the cottage and my thoughts on subjectivity, rules, freedom and creativity. Here goes.

We recently spent a week at a cottage. It was a large cottage. It had to be because ten of us were going to be rattling around inside its walls. And it was a beautiful cottage. Alas, it did have some problems.

For example, the well went dry. Which meant the toilets didn’t work for a time. Therefore a gigantic truck had to squeeze down the cottage road and pump thirty thousand litres of water into the parched well.

However, we still didn’t have the downstairs toilet or washing machine operating because there was a pain-in-the-ass leak down there. So the plumber had to shut the water off to the downstairs washroom until it was fixed.

This problem affected the family members who had to sleep in the basement or, to use a more genteel label, the downstairs. The downstairs was damp and probably not so comfortable for those family members and some nights the pump was running almost continuously.

There were other problems too. One family had a sick cat which had to go to the hospital and another family had a child who was bitten by a tick and she had to go to the hospital.

So you might think that I would think the week at the cottage was near to being a disaster. But in my mind it wasn’t even close. And it also proved that having lived a life that was a bit or a lot off the grid can be an advantage.

You see, even though there wasn’t plumbing for a day, there was an outhouse. And that’s what I used anyway. Even before the plumbing went up shit creek. Because I was used to using a shit-house or, if you want to be more genteel about describing it, a privy.

I remember when Sue and I moved to our trailer with the indoor toilet that we missed the outhouse. Missed sitting inside, with the door open, looking at the ants, listening to the wind, watching the clouds, smelling the flowers, feeling the snowflakes tickle our face, listening to the ice on the lake speak. Those kinds of natural earth- bound events.

So, when the two dumpers shut down, it was no big deal for us. And when the plastic toilet bowl pail in the outhouse was full, again there was no big problem. Sue and I simply went outside and dumped it in the designated place so the various family members would have a tidy place to attend to their personal needs and requirements. And she and her daughter hauled buckets of water from the ocean for washing purposes.

The privy had a Dutch door so we could sit in there, secure from onlookers, while admiring the ocean and watching the blue heron who spent time on the beach.

Antigonish Harbour

What were the other positives? The beautiful ocean. The trip to PEI. The chance for the family to better understand each other and to spend undistracted time together. Time to read and drink beer or wine or rum and coke or ginger ale or cola, etc. And the weather was good for the most part, so we all played in various ways outside. The meals created by Sue’s son and son-in-law were wonderful. We got to meet an interesting fella who helped us all realize that the world doesn’t whirl the same way for everyone. Or maybe I should say, revealed to us that the sun shines on everybody. Subjectivity. Subjectivity.

I found a hiking trail; we played games with each other; I met up with a dog named “Luka” who was kind enough to jump up on me and show me his teeth.

Luka

My new camera captured some beautiful pictures; I kayaked for the first and second time. Oh, I could go on and I’m sure that everybody else has lots of good memories too.

Of course, we all went into the cottage with a bunch of expectations. And, the cottage was reasonably expensive, so of course we wanted everything to work out. But instead there were the problems. Things broke, didn’t work the way we wanted them to and it rained one day, just like life. Lots and lots of things happen in life. And, in my mind, it’s the things in life that surprise us and disrupt our plans, or don’t follow the rules as laid down by those who have the power to lay them down, that play a large part in what moves the human world forward in a creative Wabi Sabi way. (Wabi Sabi is the Japanese art of appreciating the beauty in the naturally imperfect world.)

View of Antigonish Harbour from Cottage

***

By the way, I painted our trailer a different shade of green. We like it better.

One interesting thing, though. If you look at the picture it looks like one section had one less coat of paint applied to it. However, it didn’t. They all received the same amount. Maybe it was the rain that caused one section to look more faded. Maybe I mixed one batch better than another. Who knows, but DOESN'T IT LOOK CREATIVE?

Our newly painted home

***

             “For every evil under the sun
              There is a remedy, or there’s none;
          If there is one, try and find it;
          If there is none, never mind it.”
                               A Proverb

          “The woods were dark, and the night was black,
          And only an owl could see the track;
          But the cheery driver made his way
          Through the great pine woods as if it were day.

          I asked him, ‘How do you manage to see?
          The road and the forest are one to me.’
          ‘To me as well,’ he replied, ‘And I
          Can only drive by the path in the sky.’

                                                  Amos R. Wells, The Path in the Sky

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Thirty-nine Different Pieces of I.D.

23/4/2014

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We still don’t have the Middle River figured out. However, last week’s warmer temperatures and heavy rain gave us a pretty good idea something was coming down.

But how would the river react? Well, first it went into a temper. That’s a constant. It always throws a fit. But this time it spread out more. Sent a massively wide flow of water at us. Which roared by our little mobile home like a Panzer Division. One group heading for the Cabot Trail bridge. The other section veering to the left. Pouring over, not only our walking trail, but an area many times wider than our hiking path.

Middle River Flooding our Land...Again!

However, the snow wall kept the river away from our home. This barrier was created by the winter rains, which later froze when the temperatures dipped. Which turned the snow banks into an icy hard dam, so the water couldn’t get onto our property, at least, not in the part near our home.

Thank you, winter rain.

***

Did you know, and really, how would you, that I’ve climbed or partially climbed two mountains since I submitted my last blog entry? And, if I’d sent it out one day later, I would’ve been able to brag that I’d climbed three.

snowshoes

You see, a few weeks ago, I bought a pair of snowshoes in North Sydney. The first time I put them on, I thought, “Where have you been all my life?”

For years I’ve been trying to cross country ski into the back country. The problem is I’m not a very good ski turner. So, I have a great deal of difficulty negotiating corners and steep hills and when I’m skiing in the woods, with its constant twists, declines, ascents and turns, it’s rough going. My life and limbs are in constant danger.

Then I bought the snowshoes and now the snow world is my oyster. Let the band play!

A great feature of snowshoeing is that it’s hard to get lost. Because all I have to do is follow my snowshoe tracks back to where I began. When I’m hiking at any of the non-snowy times of the year, it’s easy to get lost. Because I can’t see my tracks unless I stay on a well-marked trail. In the highlands, there are many old trails, but they are overgrown. Sometimes it is almost impossible to figure out if I’m still on a trail or wandering off into cyber wild. That’s why I carry bright green trail marker tape.

Snowshoeing also forces me to use different muscles. So, if you haven’t done it before, taking it easy is a good thing. Especially if you’re getting long in the molars.

***

Moose Droppings

Yesterday, which was a beautiful sunny day, I climbed Eighty Degree Mountain. I gave it this name because it is very steep. Parts of the climb are well beyond an easy climbing angle.

I was up there by myself and during my snowshoe cruise I saw super large moose tracks along with mega large doo-doo piles.

And I was alone. Which made me think the number of members in my hiking party was going to make it terribly easy for said moose to make a decision about whom he or she was going to charge.

And don’t think I wasn’t a little bit aware of other possibilities. It’s spring. Even though the snow is still up to my chest and beyond in places. And, because it’s spring, the bears are probably out scouting around. Hankering for a little nourishment, other than what they’re able to suck from their paws. Apparently that’s what they do during their long hibernation. Suck toes. I don’t want my toes tasted.

Eastern Coyote

Also, the Eastern coyotes found here in Cape Breton are almost twice the size of the common coyotes found in Ontario. They are believed to be a cross between wolves and coyotes. I would think they’re a bit famished, as it’s been a very long and heavy winter.

However, I don’t think too hard about these things. If you love doing something enough, you will do it in spite of the fear.

                            “---I wasn’t going to tell you and I mustn’t.
                            The best way is to come up hill with me
                            And have our fire and laugh and be afraid.”

                                                             Robert Frost’s Bonfire

                                                                            ***

I named another small mountain, ‘Fallen Spruce Mountain’. There is a fallen spruce on the way to the top. It’s the tree I sit on. From it I can see a considerable distance, and it’s on this tree where I write in my journal, or read something from my Robert Frost book, or the hard copy of my New Testament. Which I think I rescued from a city dumpster. Something about the words, ‘from a city dumpster’ gives me a poetic nudge. I’ll have to think about it some more.

It was on this tree that I thought about a Robert Frost poem I have been in the process of memorizing. It’s called, ‘The Vantage Point’. I recited a bit to myself as I looked out over the highlands, the fields and the few houses dotted here and there.

                                       “If tired of trees I seek again mankind,
                                       Well I know where to hie me-in the dawn,
                                        To a slope where the cattle keep the lawn.
                                        There amid lolling juniper reclined,
                                        Myself unseen, I see in white defined
                                        Far off the homes of men, and farther still,
                                        The graves of men on an opposing hill-----”

                                                                           ***

Blue Toe Mountain has that name because I got two bruised toes after hiking up and down its bulk. I was wearing a new pair of hiking boots.

“Do they fit you okay, sir?” the sales clerk had asked.

I’d said, after I stomped around the flat store floor, that I thought they fit perfectly.

On flat land. On flat land, they fit perfectly. However, when walking down the side of the mountain, they didn’t fit perfectly. They fit snugly. They fit tightly and painfully, because the decline forced my toes into the front of the boots. Which, after a few miles of descent, caused those toes to be very sore. Later on, the nails of my big toes turned blue and one is still an ugly colour.

Wild Honey

As I mentioned in blog sixteen, I am not a book reviewer. However, I think I can be a book talk-abouter. So I want to mention another poetry book that I enjoyed recently. The book is called, ‘Wild Honey’ and its author is Aaron Schneider. The book was published by Breton Books. Aaron Schneider lives in Cape Breton.

I savoured his poems. They are elemental. Connected to the earth, sky and sea.

“Life at Sea” is one poem in his book which reminded me of our experience this winter, as our little green mobile home was battered by the winter storms.

     “Today we are again at sea
            the house sails
    into the white storm
        stoves blazing. Trees
              bend like stripped masts
              and the white earth rolls.”

                    ***

Scavenging squirrel

I have always liked the smell of firewood. Any wood, for that matter. But the last few loads of wood I have taken into the house have had a peculiar smell. Like Pine-Sol mixed with piss. And the sad reason for this odour is that I am now dismantling the actual condo living space of the poor squirrel.

Now, I have to say that I gave him every chance to vacate before I threatened to send in the sheriff. I purposely bought him time by taking wood from the far side of the pile instead of directly over or near his nest.

And I’d loudly bang the door before I entered the shed. I’d shout, “You’re going to have to move because I’ll have to be dismantling your house soon. You have to be out before this happens. Because I don’t want you jumping out while I’m grabbing a piece of fourteen-inch firewood and scaring the crap out of me. Sue doesn’t need the extra laundry work.”

The poor squirrel did vacate. I think his present address is 216 Slab Wood Pile. Located next to the woodshed. Good for him. I’m glad he’s resilient and street smart enough to be able to start a new life, while the cold winter winds were still blowing.

Do you think he will be able to find, out of the thirty-nine pieces of ID allowed, one that will prove where he lives and one with a picture of his furry mug? Because he’ll need it to be able to vote for the naughty nuts he wants in office.

This squirrel still gives me the occasional lip. Even though I allow him to hang around in the woodshed when it’s not in use.

Like last week. Nuttsie said, “It’s so damn cold. How can you be so heartless?”

“Because it’s cold. That’s why we need the wood. That’s why we put it there.” My logic, as usual, was rock solid.

Peeping Tom

He wouldn’t let up. Danced his little squirrely jig, so I said, “Next year, I promise we’ll buy three-and-a-half full cords. That should give you an uninterrupted living space all winter.”

This whole conversation was watched and listened in on by the draining-sink-voiced raven. Who probably knows everything we do. I don’t want to think too hard about that.

I think I’ll call him, "Peeping Tom".

View from 80-Degree Mountain

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Literary Angst at the Bird Feeders

6/4/2014

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I, Larry A. Gibbons, hereby declare that as of Sunday, April 6th, I have received more than enough rain, freezing rain, ice pellets and snow.

I, Larry A. Gibbons, also hereby declare that my snow blower is useless. Unless I can hire a team of moose to pull it through the above mentioned precipitation. Snow blowers detest ice pellets underneath their wheels. Confound them!

Larry's Daily Occupation

I, Larry A. Gibbons, also hereby declare that after clearing off the snow plough’s many big dumps, along with the sky’s larger dumps uponst all the sundry acres of paradise for which I am responsible, that I have, as of now, fired myself from snow removal. I will continue to be available for minor wood splitting and spooning of sugar into my piping hot tea.

I, Larry A. Gibbons, also further hereby declare, that I was not friggen impressed by the April Fool’s joke of another snowstorm. Ha, ha, and who else is laughing?

Finally, I, Larry A. Gibbons, hereby and finally declare, that this is my last hereby declaration. Which I hereby declare to be declared.

Have you read “Cape Breton Christ”, written by Denise Aucoin and published by Breton Books? I have, and although I’m not much for writing a technically proper book review, I can say that I enjoyed this book. It was a comforting and uplifting read. The thing about this book is that it’s a short novel written in the form of a poem. And I loved the ending. I won’t give it away, but I’m reasonably sure that if Christ were going to pick a place to live, he might very well decide to settle down in Cape Breton. It’s an island with a big heart. Here’s a quote from Denise’s book:

“not for one second am i about to suggest
that our baby Christ came to be born
in the middle of mabou
or bridgeport
or any other such community on cape breton island
what i am announcing is that
in the sacred and incredible act of creation
our beautiful island was immensely blessed
by the heart and hand of god
over five hundred and seventy million years ago.”

I’m not a person who has settled into many new places. So I don’t have the skills down pat on how to burrow into a new environment, while keeping the connections back in the last place piping hot and fresh. And, being reasonably sensitive, according to some observers, I worry about keeping the old emotional ties strong back in Ontario, while working on building new emotional bonds in Cape Breton.

One niggling worry is that my associations in Ontario are feeling the strain on the psychological threads of friendship that were nurtured over so many years.

So, hello to all my friends in Ontario, Alberta and Michigan.

C’est la vie, mes amis. May we someday enjoy a Gamay together at our favourite aunt’s place.

Rona Lightfoot-Celtic Piper

Life is a koan. Don’t you think? One of the biggest koans might be the viewpoints held by non-Aboriginals versus those of the Aboriginals. Whew, a tough one, and the puzzle is quite apparent up here in Cape Breton, where different colonial cultures live side by side with the Aboriginal population.
On Saturday, I was talking to an Aboriginal friend who lives off the reserve. This offers him a different set of problems from
those who live on the reserve.

So he deals from his unique perspective with the intrinsic views of the non-Aboriginals and with those of his culture who live on the reserve. If that isn’t a rock to the noggin, problem-solving puzzle, I don’t know what is. His attempts to fit the pieces together must have his synapses firing fast enough to burn down a meth lab.

I was thinking, what if this fella was a writer? He’d have lots of emotional material to put into words. Because, as you know, I believe writers need at least some chaos and uncertainty in their lives for them to have the material to incorporate into their blood and guts creations.

However, it may be difficult to write about a crisis such as a relationship breakdown, if you are in the midst of one. But once you’ve put it behind you and are trucking on down the road, well, the pen will, at some point, be ready to burn, baby, burn.

Many writers, like myself, get discouraged. Sometimes I’ll read a short story or a novel and I’ll think, “Shit, I can’t write like that. Hell, I don’t even think like that”.

Take many of the literary magazines. So many of their stories have been diced, spliced and sautéed into an urban gruel. They’re the ones that seem to grab the publishers’ attention. Put a character in a bar, a bedroom, a downtown apartment, a subdivision, a jail or a whore house on Yonge Street and your odds of being published rise. Of course, I know this is not always true, but these thoughts do occasionally bounce around inside my skull.

And hell, we live in a forty-five-foot mini home in the forest. My main conversations are with crows, squirrels and Ben, the dog down the road. Now, I’ve seen birds and squirrels getting amorous. And I’ve seen a crow eating a dead squirrel while the squirrel’s family members run up and down the branch trying to get a look at who it was that was killed and is being devoured. We suspect the perpetrator was the black cat who creeps up to our house in the early morning and waits for breakfast by our bird feeders.

Squirrel peeking through our window

And the chatter on the street is there’s a new crow in town. What is the inner angst of this rogue crow? Why does Ben choose to poop on our laneway and not on his own? Look out, literary magazines. Here comes an award winner.

But, really, there are so many good writers out there. Urban or rural. Which leads me to a point about my marketing savvy. By the way, don’t spend too much time trying to find my marketing savvy, because I don’t have a lot. And, I don’t know if I will ever get myself worked up into a marketing frenzy. Which, I think, is a problem for many writers. Because the various forms of social media, with their unlimited potential, are so powerful that writers feel they have to be involved in it all the time. If not, they worry they are going to be left behind by a massive herd of social media-savvy key-tappers. Which must have some deleterious effects on their energy to create.

Here’s an example of my marketing enthusiasm. When I was a kid and thought as a kid and didn’t look at myself in the mirror very often, I used to have a paper route. The newspaper would hold subscription drives. I hated the door-knocking, the persuading and the rah-rah sessions. I did, however, win a raincoat at one rally, but they had to draw twenty times and there were only about twenty-five carriers in the room. Plus it was a dry summer. Ha.

***

I’m also humble about my vocabulary. Which isn’t gigantic, although it’s growing. People generally use the words they heard when they were growing up. So, if you hear a lot of words when you are a child, you will most likely use them when you’re older, along with the dialect you heard.

Note, that doesn’t make a person with a larger vocabulary more intelligent, but it will open up more opportunities for them. My warning to those with a big vocabulary is to not resent having to drop your vocabulary by a thousand words so you can communicate with the likes of me. Because isn’t it the luck of the draw as to what family you have or don’t have? Just buck up and enjoy your view.

Stephen King has pointed out that a person shouldn’t wait to write until after they have acquired a greater number of words. The words will come with the writing and the reading. However, you must read.

***
Finally, what amazes me about writing, is that the creative activity involved in this pen to paper thing, opens us up to universal bits and pieces. Maybe because a writer is someone who keeps an eye out for these messages and surprises. Most writers are always on the job. Therefore they recognize more clues and bits of unusual info.

Like last week. I was travelling down Disheartened Highway 104. I was questioning my vision and my style and indulging in other downer thoughts, when I stumbled upon a Walter Whitman poem. It’s called, “Quicksand Years”. (I do this stumbling thing all the time.) Here’s the poem:

“Quicksand years that whirl me I know not whither,

Your schemes, politics, fail, lines give way, substances mock and elude me,

Only the theme I sing, the great and strong-possesse’d soul, eludes not,

One’s-self must never give way-that is the final substance-that out of all is sure,

Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life, what at last finally remains?

When shows break up what but One’s Self is sure?

Does this poem say a lot about what your own soul has to express? Have you stumbled on any creative aids?

Have a great week!

Cabin across the road from us

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The Miracles of Spring

Maritime Mac

Does Wily Have a Microwave?

The Trail to Friendship

An Earth Memorial

Fish Stories

Missing Out

The Path in the Sky

Thirty-nine Different Pieces of I.D.

Literary Angst at the Bird Feeders

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