Night Ride

A late summer's evening ride taken late because of the heat, tucked in the pocket of time between day and night. The road is quiet; flumes of worn silver where the car tires run, laid out next to the darker asphalt where the squirrels luck out, or not. The sun is gone – left bits of candy floss in the sky. The moon is a timid right parenthesis.


I stop and stand with my bike. The sound of my breathing is drowned out by such a choir of crickets. It is all I can do not to walk into the mown field and lie down and watch the night come. 

The Train

I remember hearing a documentary on CBC about two artists: One was Russell Braun, the baritone, and the other may have been Renee Fleming, the soprano. I have a love/tolerate relationship with opera but this documentary had my complete attention. It wasn't so much their voices, although the beauty of Fleming's voice has made me weep, but it was the support they had from their parents that held me. I was envious of the nurturing, creative environments that they grew up in...and angry as hell when I looked at my own. 

My parents, both of good hearts and intentions, were lousy role models and horrendous communicators to each other and to the three of us kids. My grandmother on my father's side started a train wreck with her overbearing, relentless analysis, like some dark and musty Dickens character. My father would pace, my mother would avoid him, and my grandmother would sit at the table and judge everyone. She was a lawyer. She was good at this. As the train gained speed, through my early teens, it started to become clear that this family was troubled. My mother began to drink and left me with tenuous attachment at exactly the wrong time in my emotional development. My father wanted to save the world, but his DNA, loaded with the propensity to depression, tripped him at every turn until he took his own life in 2004. My mother continued to drink until, well, here we are, 2015, and she has borderline dementia, no friends, and nothing to do. She smokes, follows baseball, and watches the dates change on the calendar. Frankly, I don't like her much. She brings little to the table. She's arrogant and prideful, but she's my mother. She is at a tipping point where, if she stays on the train, she will need some kind of care and I do not have the steam to put her in some facility. 

The trick is, to prolong her sanity and avoid the warehousing. How do you do that with someone you really don't like? Well, I have a plan: I've always found that cycling helps most things. I grew up on a bike and got serious in my teens though never competed until recently. So, I signed up for a big race and have taken mom on as trainer/data-keeper. We're going out to get bristol board and pens and she's going to make charts and keep track of my nutrition intake, and workout information every day. She is going to learn about carbs, protein, hydration, fueling, and recovery and everything involved in the effort. She is even going to time my post-ride cold baths. But I'm getting her a stopwatch and she's going to have to workout too. She will have to walk and chart her distance and time. She will record her heart rate. She will have to keep track of what she eats, how much water she drinks and, I specified, how many cigarettes she smokes. She agreed to this. Jesus. I agreed to this. 

I can't tell you how much I don't want to do this. She was never, ever there for me. Why should I show up at all for her? Why don't I just let her keep riding the train?  I don't really know. I guess I've learned a lot about myself in her neglect (and make no mistake, it was neglect. I have the hours of therapy to prove it.). I could have just crawled inside a bottle and been a victim, like her, really. Nothing has been easy. I have fought my way to the present. But I guess the real impetus for me is coming from somewhere deep: I do have this gnawing compassion for her at some level and am lead, somehow, to try to cap the end of her life with something meaningful, to try to tap her in to days of purpose and some level of excitement while it is still possible. It might not work, this plan. It might go off the rails in the first week. But I'm going to try.  She did have good intentions after all. She did. I have to believe that. It was just that bugger of a train...

Corvus

There are crows that hang around the west side of my building. There is a pair, I can't tell if it's always the same pair, that moves through the budding branches of the manitoba maples, the blue spruce and the cedars scattered on the far side of the pressure treated fence.  The fence, perhaps eighty feet out, runs the length of an apron of lawn that extends the length of the building. There is a string of lamp posts that runs down the centre of the lawn, the posts maybe eighty feet apart from each other. One lamp post sits just outside my window. During the night, it draws my attention. During the day, the crows.

When I move in to this apartment, the lamp post light is intrusive, sifting into my bedroom between the blinds and keeping me awake like it's trying to poke me and figure out who the hell I am. The next day, I stand looking at it, drinking my coffee and trying to get a feel for this place. There is snow on the lawn and I realize that this specific light is compelling for me because, there in the snow, it reminds me of the Narnia lamp post in C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe series. The light stops being just a light for me. It becomes a cue toward the idea of fictional access to a different paradigm. 

                                       

The crows are indifferent to the light but it makes me wonder. This morning I watch one choosing and breaking off thin little branches from the maple tree while his mate stands guard. They do that for each other, stand guard. I used to watch a pair outside of the high school where I would sit waiting for one of the boys after school. There was a man who lived in a little yellow house across from the school. He would come out, around the same time every day, and leave pizza or bread on the boulevard. Minutes later, a pair of crows would show up. One would stay up high on a telephone wire or the roof of the school and keep watch. The other crow would fly down and land near the food.  He would walk towards it awkwardly like some kind of bowlegged old man,  fast enough that nothing else would get it, but slow enough to be able to have a good look at it to make sure it was safe.  He would take as big a piece as he could handle and then fly up and off, joined in the air by his watchful mate. 'Same scenario here with the twigs: one crow chooses and then the two fly off together, if you are foolish you may assume, to build a nest. 

It is folly to assume with crows. Crows are smarter than most other animals. They figure things out. They can use found objects as tools(check out youtube), so perhaps my pair is using the twigs to break into someone's mailbox or remove the annoying clasp on a bird feeder. Maybe they are trying to short circuit a stop light so they can get to a juicy bit of road kill without being interrupted by traffic.  Any of this is possible.

What blows me away about crows is that they are, apparently, capable of communicating news of situations or events that occur in different times or locations(displacement). I take this to mean that the crows understand time but since time is relative, does this mean that crows have a sense of self? The man leaves the pizza and then they come and get it. They are part of the event. Are they conscious of this? Are they aware of their "crow-ness?" They know about cars: I have never seen a dead crow on the side of the road, yet they are all over the carrion of the other dopier animals that can't seem to figure it out. Evolution? Absolutely, but I think with more going on than we know.

And crows can play. This is where the lamp post comes in:

If crows understand time and location and are intelligent enough to use tools to carry out useful tasks, AND are intelligent enough to play, they must have some sense of self. If they have sense of self, they must be aware of others because part of  self involves having a relationship with another. Since another may die, crows must have an idea of existence. They live anywhere from around twenty to, believe it or not, almost 60.  Do they realize that they exist? And if so, do they have any inkling of different paradigms? Does the pizza appearing out of the house represent, to them, a different paradigm? Like we imagine Edmund or Susan traveling to see Aslan through the back of the wardrobe(If you haven't read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, for God's sake, drop what you're doing and smarten up. Read it.). Do they simply appear? Do the crows imagine? If they play, then they must be able to imagine because in order to play you must come up with false parameters with regards to the reality of whatever your game is: a simple task(get the stick into a hole) or magical realism(someone/something appears or disappears).

The crows are nowhere to be seen as I finish composing this. I assume they are somewhere doing their taxes or downloading avian porn.  I know I have made a few cavernous philosophical leaps but as I am, at this point, enduring a profound existential crisis, I have to believe that we don't have much figured out. Being human is ridiculous. We are the authors of our own demise and we're getting near the end of the book. But maybe since we're just near the end and not at it, we could change the writing style and lighten up a little. We might be able to see more than we've been allowing ourselves to. Maybe I'm not seeing the crows right now because they have used the lamp post as a portal to Narnia? I'll keep an eye on the standard for the rest of the day and I'll let you know. If I go down there and find pizza I might simply explode. If Mr Tumnus is serving it, I will pixilate and blow away. 

Ridiculous.

In the middle of all of this; in the seat of life's chariot careening through curtains of sky dark, billowing cumulous clouds of self doubt and ground level acres of existentialist fog, up pops an offer: my talented friend is going to the Adirondacks to close up her cabin and do I want to come?  Like there is any possible answer other then, "Yesssssmaaammm!"

 I drive the route feeling odd all the way. 'Terrified because it's easier to stay home, but my cells have some kind of agenda. It is as if they know that this trip will be good for me. I drive to Ganonoque and grocery shop. I feel like everyone is staring at me. I buy some of the right things, but forego others simply because I don't want to walk down the soup aisle for a third time. I make my way over the border, ours and theirs, and navigate down through Fort Drum. I keep track of the road signs while catching glimpses of the soldiers in fatigues driving to or from work, the tanks parked next to each other, and the helicopters hovering at 1000 feet like can openers with compound eyes. I drive through a few small towns until I finally find the cabin's driveway, my friend waiting at the gate.

The cabin is remote, the Adirondacks are beautiful, but I don't get it until the next morning. My friend has wood that needs to be split, so I offer. She is happy that I can do this and I am giddy to have the chance. I head out to the front of the cabin and set up the splitting stump. I can hear the stream bubbling down the rocks towards the pond. I start spitting wood then find myself laughing. My friend is an accomplished violinist. She is playing Bach inside the cabin and I can hear every note. And I love every note. I adore Bach. I adore the violin. This is a treat; lost on others perhaps but so perfect for me.

Here, in the middle of nowhere, near the army base, with the stream, and the log, and such beautiful, perfect notes, I manage to fill into my body. This is what my cells knew. I am so present that it's ridiculous. The trick is to hold onto the feeling.

 If nothing else, I am grateful.

 My Secret Dealer

I am walking home. I pass a house and hear music. I back up. Stop. Someone is playing violin; someone with skill. I stand, listen, and my heart fills up. It's like I have found my very own dealer. My fix costs nothing but a few moments. I am hopelessly hooked.

Finally

I stand in mid-yard under a clear night sky,

'Head tilted back like a child at the window of an ice cream truck,

After all these years,

After so much worry - I get it.

I do.

The stars are right.

They were always right.

They will always be there: my calm and plumb,

So why all the fuss?

Why all of the painful grating and roiling?

Just do the thing.

Have the fucking experience for crying out loud.

... ask for chocolate dip and tuck in!

Interpretation

I wish my eyes were bigger. Or, better yet, I wish I had compound eyes like a bug. Right now, the two eyes I have are insufficient: I can't seem to see enough. I'm missing out on something. How is it that people relax? How are they managing their lives? How on earth are they tapped in to contentment? I want to know. I need to know. Someone let me in on the joke.

When I was a kid, I didn't understand anything.  My aunt was schizophrenic, but we never discussed it. My parents would, individually, shake their heads and mutter as they paced their own puzzled routes through the house while my aunt zipped into the pond for an attempted Virginia Woolf swim. She would travel on buses, or hitchhike, and show up gaunt with wild hair, posing child-like questions about what she should do. I had no idea. I was trying to be five, or eight or whatever. She was terrifying. 

When I was nine, my father made his first attempt at suicide. I remember because my mother told me that she had called an ambulance after failing to wake my father up from his pharmaceutically induced slumber. We didn't discuss. We didn't hug. I got on the bus to school like any other day, except that I noticed when the ambulance passed in the opposite direction. I was expected to get on with my day: math, english, gym, geography. I remember waving to him a day or two later, while he waved back out of his third floor hospital window. He was still recovering and I wasn't allowed to go up to see him. Hospital rules then. I've taken enough psychology to know that I may misremember parts of my past, but I'm pretty sure that we never discussed this event as a family. 

I spent the rest of my formative years navigating my mother's alcoholism, my father's continued frustration, and the tediousness of Quaker meeting and all that that entailed for me. (Don't get me wrong. I like Quakerism. I like the idea that there is a light in everyone so- Don't be a dick. Help out. Share your chips.) There were few other kids in our meeting so I ended up, more often than not, having to sit with the adults for the hour instead of having Sunday school. 'Hard when you're little. The meeting house was dark, sparse, and had dripping, sagging antique glass in the windows, distorting the view to the outside. It would be a beautiful sunny day outside, but the view from the inside pews was like some abstract art. Melting clocks come to mind. Or maybe The Scream. The problem was that there was no balance. My father wanted to save the world. And that's all he wanted to do. I wanted to run outside and play baseball. And my mother had no tools to bridge these differences, and no plan to get any.

My life between this and raising kids, was more of an intermission. I was still trying to figure out what my role was. I couldn't see where I fit and still, no one would tell me. I would do work on stage but could never get clear direction or comment on how I was doing. I did stand up. Same thing. My kids came along and something clicked. I realized just how ungrounded I was. I wanted to fix this for them, my boys. I wanted to see.  Nap time, and I would run out and mix up a bag of cement to parge part of a wall. Bed time, and I would go outside and pile up snow to make an enormous Narnia sled, or a fort. There were halloween installations, Christmas installations of giant size, then, when the kids were older, a large stone wall along the side garden complete with pond and fish. Plumbing. I had the boys help me make one of those swinging porch seats. We painted it red and rigged it under an apple tree. I took flying lessons, nailed all of the technical requirements, but the effort was a financial drain so it ended. I took kick-boxing. I learned welding. I became a ski patroller. I considered a massage therapy course. Then considered hotel management. Trying. I was sending up flares as fast as I could, desperate to see where I could fit. I would take the dogs for long walks. Searching. I would snowshoe for hours creating enormous spirals in nearby fields that I'm sure were visible from planes descending to Pearson. And I would cycle. Lots of cycling. As fast as I could go. Asking for clarity. 'Trying to see…

My husband, when the kids were young, was diagnosed with colin cancer. We hunkered down and focused. He made it. He pulled through, and just as he did, 2004, my father tried again to take his own life, this time succeeding. Like Hemingway. 

Life was now more intense. I started working harder. My beautiful boys. My husband and I went to marriage counseling once, then it seemed up to me. I went to therapy to try to deal with everything. Made hard choices. 'Still couldn't see. Still cycling. I took a whack of psychology courses. I studied the stars and followed the space station, the Kepler, and the Hubble telescope. This planet. This universe. I got updates from NASA. But I still couldn't see. I still felt I was missing something. I felt like the odd kid out in a game of musical chairs. I always felt like the odd kid.  

…then Robin Williams…

His death, for me, seemed close and painful, like he was in the same game of musical chairs. The news dropped me, and I still feel, as I'm writing this, as if I have no inside. I am nothing more than a misguided interpretation of the passing of time. My desires mean nothing. And I can't get over what is happening in the world: all of the horrors and wars that are all completely unnecessary. Each struggle based on constructs and arbitrary repressions that illustrate nothing more than bullying and lunacy. Stone age ideas? Judgements? Greed? And I'm supposed to fit somewhere into an economy based, it seems to me, on one person fooling another. An economy where we have something like Walmart and that's okay, even though we know where this is all going.  

I still can't see. At least, I can't see any clues to navigating an easy route through all of this. I keep learning and trying, terrified to let things slip. What if, while I'm relaxing, I miss the answer? What if this book I am reading has in it the sentence that draws everything together? What if that course offered becomes the background for my epiphany? Keep doing. Always make the effort. Always. This is exhausting. I really wish someone would give me a clue. I want to be able to see.  I want to get the joke.  Someone let me see.