Insights

The other evening, we had a guest speaker in my writers group. Her focus was on creating for children and she tried hard to inspire us.

Part of her presentation involved writing assignments to recall an early memory, then one from about age 8 to 10, and then something as a teenager. I don’t like to be ambushed by such spontaneous tasks, nonetheless, I struggled through the exercise, trying to stir up my creativity. Typically my muse doesn’t like to work on such short notice, and didn’t this time. I produced only mediocre work, which I didn’t feel comfortable to read to the group.

But the process I found interesting, to flashscan my memory and extract something halfway interesting. For the teenage segment, I came up with an embarrassing incident of an early date with an attractive girl who I took roller skating. Holding hands, we went around in endless circles in the rink; she used me as an anchor to accelerate around the curves. But I was nervous and sweated a lot and in a sharp turn she slipped out of my moist grasp and bounced off the boards. I don’t recall anything else about the event, she simply disappeared from my life.

What did that tell me? That painful and embarrassing events are like bookmarks in the archive of my memory, sort of waypoints on a near-forgotten landscape. Sometimes I can reconstruct happenings around them, and sometimes not.

We also talked about the process of writing, of how some writers plan everything before they start, whereas others have no clue where they will end up. I belong to the later group, and I’m fond of saying that my books were really written by the first sentence. The initial part is dedicated to finding my characters and they finish the book for me. There is considerable leap of faith involved, because the journey is a process of discovery: do I have a story or not? I have been lucky, my dream machine is good at conspiring with my protagonists to reach successful conclusion: 11 times now I could pen "The End" to close a book.

8...9...10 Launch!

I launched my second self-published book during my town’s summer fair. A gala event: traffic is diverted around the downtown core, and booths are set up in the freed-up streets. It gets overrun by neighbours and by people who all look familiar even if I don’t know them by name (The advantage of living in a small rural community).

Now don’t laugh, this annual event goes by the name "Carrotfest." The town abuts onto a fertile marshland that cultivates in a cornucopia of vegetables, namely, carrots, onions, celery and cabbage. Given that list I guess, the carrot is a natural choice. The town mascot is, what else, a big, orange Carrot. Anyway, the best names are taken already. A nearby town claims garlic, and north-west of us we have Potatofest. Beeton boasts of Beefest.

Anyway, with couple other indigenous authors we set up a table, arrange an attractive display of our works, and paste on smiles to make ourselves presentable or at least approachable. After all we (that is, our Writers’ Circle) comprise about 25 percent of the cultural wealth and resources of the community.

However, as the day progressed, the crowds came and went... mostly away from us toward more plebeian pleasures like face painting, battle of the bands, general street theatre (jugglers, fire-eaters, magicians), and ubiquitous jumping castles for kids... We watched as people streamed by and we cast lures into the flow, just likes fishing, getting the odd bite. We landed a few, talked seductively about our various opuses, sold and signed a few books, then bragged about the big one that got away.

I was lucky enough to have had an article published about me in the local paper the week before, and had people come up to me to congratulate me on my accomplishments. And we talked, which involved mostly me listening to them describe the book they always wanted to write but never got around to. Of course I was encouraging, patiently followed the twists and turns of the plot of the book that never was (but yet may be... who knows?). So I sold a few, not because my book was so great, but because theirs was or would have been... Go figure.

On the whole, I didn’t do badly. I reduced my inventory and recouped some of my initial investment. In two weeks I’m going to a regional literary festival where I have rented a table to do it all over again-- to challenge some stray soul to take a detour through my books (a life-changing experience, I assured them. Well not really, but it is entertaining.)

Between these rare interludes, I dream of success, and work on a marketing strategy. You will see me on streetcorners perhaps, peddling my stuff, face to face. Reading to writers’ groups, braving (and hopefully surviving) their criticism. Or putting on a lecture in libraries, about how I got to where I’ve gotten to other aspiring souls who yearn to put their imagination onto paper (sorry, into computer files) and breathe life into them.

Anyway, you won’t see me on shelves in bookstores, not in Chapters, nor in Indigo, or among Barnes and Noble offerings. To find me, you’d have to dig deep into the underbelly of the Internet, overcome near insurmountable odds to find me or my books. My vision is, if I can’t be the best of the bestsellers than I’m going to be among the rarest books of my generation. That’s what I wanted to say.

Racoons in the Attick, tick... tick...

Damn! There are raccoons in the attic yet again.

I don’t know, but I have sprinkled my urine in the corners that is supposed to warn them off that the territory is already claimed, but these creatures pay no attention to the signal. This means that either they can’t smell (i.e., handicapped) or they had not bothered to read their own DNA-manual (mentally retarded)..

Now where had I put the live trap? I’m sure it’s in the barn someplace. I’m reminded that I don’t have a perfect record using this implement (certified 100% humane). I have repeatedly caught my cat, and the last time, a fully functioning skunk who let it be known it wasn’t amused. I had some difficulty letting the creature go without getting contaminated for a tomato juice bath. In the end I had to use a large plastic sheet, cover the entire cage and deftly employing a long stick spring the mechanism that is hard to manhandle in the best of circumstances. After considerable trial and error, I did manage, before the creature could sign the lease. For a month, the memento of that encounter lingered on the front yard.
But this is a new batch of raccoons. Strange, they usually come before winter and move out during the late spring. But this time, they chose a transitional period, not quite this but not quite that either.

2 years ago, I drove 6 raccoons (one at a time) to release into a forest about 15 k’s north. My friend warned me, to make sure to have a river between my location and the release site, so they won’t find their way back. No river, so had to settle for four lanes of the 400, as it is well known that raccoons are notoriously bad at crossing highways. If one makes it, then it deserves to make it.

But what am I worried about, this clutch(?) of raccoons are mentally challenged or handicapped, they can’t smell their way home, or use the GPS that the street wise urban raccoons can. In any case, I’ll let you know how I made out.

Call to Celebrate

After a gruelling 12 months through an accelerated paramedic program, my oldest graduated first in his class.

Here he is, giving the valedictorian address.



And again, more relaxed with his lovely girlfriend.


Behind the camera are two very proud parents.

Of course, now we no longer have medical opinions to speak of...

The Spider and the Fly.

Naively I thought it would be so easy. Build a website from scratch, just the way I want, how I want.

Although, I’m not of the "text-now" generation, I know a few things. Hell, I still remember programming in machine language (1000110010100001...) so I thought, well how hard can it be?

So I started. OK, I can learn HTML. At the end of which, I found out that I had to also learn CSS, and after that XHTML (Extensible what??!), followed by JavaScript. To a smaller and larger degree, I did all that. But was is Joomla?

And I did put together a website that worked on my computer. So then, I rented myself space, loaded it, and there I was--on my own WEB.

"Come in. Come in," said the spider to the fly, who was just surfing by, "Look at my attractive web. Careful, you don’t want to get stuck. But look around at all my treasures, my guilty pleasures..."

And there I’m, day in, day out, hoping someone will drop in.

Trouble Parking

I wheeled a hard right into paid-parking serving the bus depot. I had to take the bus to Waterloo, and I was in big trouble. I had plenty of time, the schedule had said not till 8:45, so that wasn’t the problem. What was though, was that I had to go in the worst way, and had just three seconds to reach a bathroom before my bladder would explode. I pulled up to the kiosk to get my time-stamp, but the attendant was busy on the exit side, where an outbound patron was paying for his stay. They made a social time of it, chitchatting, while I was in the last stages of pain.

I had to do something... NOW! I jumped out of the car, just leaving it in the entrance lane, strode across to the bus depot, took a tight turn toward the washrooms in the back. I was within reach when I ... when I woke up, out of a dream, home in bed.

But the urgency was real, very real.

I scrambled out of bed, and staggered into the bathroom. Having reached the refuge of the bowl, about to be relieved, I nonetheless hesitated. The mind did tricky things when it did not want to wake up when nature called, and "dreamed up" a bathroom for convenience, not caring about the repercussions. In agony I did a quick reality test to find that I was indeed in my bathroom and it was safe to proceed--which then I did. I can hardly describe the relief and rush of well-being that followed.

My business done, I stumbled back into the bed room, eased down on my bed, and in two winks of the eye was back in my dream. So then, I walked out of the depot into the parking lot, noticing for the first time what a beautiful sunny day it was. I crossed over to the kiosk, only to find my van gone. During the three minutes I had been away, my car had been towed. The attendant was still busy with a new customer, so I pushed into the adjoining office to inquire about my car. A man with a bushy hair looked up from his desk, the very picture of an owner of such an enterprise.

"Yeah?" he demanded gruffly, directing all his attention on me.

"Excuse me, but my car has been moved..."

He frowned hard, and set to berate me for blocking his business access, costing him tons of money.

"I had no choice... my bladder was going to explode... had only couple of seconds..." I stumbled through my excuse.

The owner turned to his partner and said in a smug voice, "See, just like I told you, Jake. There is always a story someplace. Even in a straight forward business like ours." He looked back at me with a sharp look, calculating. He had me: he could legally charge me a hundred bucks for a tow and in his mind he was already spending the fine he was set to extort from me. But I had him dead to rights too; we both knew we were in a dream, and I could just say screw it and walk away scot free. In the end we settled for $6.00, the regular charge for half-day parking.

With a sense of triumph I walked into the bus depot, bought my ticket and climbed on the Waterloo bus. The glow was still with me as I eased into the seat. Now, if I only knew why I was going to Waterloo, everything would be fine. But between the start and the end of the dream I had forgotten, but I was going anyway. Perhaps on the way I would remember...

The Flame

With the goal still half a continent away, the torch passed through my small town over a month ago with a windy cold, driving snow into our faces. We lined the road like penguins, huddled together for warmth and shelter, four, five deep on either side. The street was blocked, police cruisers patroling up and down trying to keep the road open.

On the side feeder streets buses were disgorging more school kids, coming from 50 miles away; mothers were pushing strollers through the crowd, trying to get a glimpse of the route. Stores emptied; businesses closed shop; people wrapped in their warmest, were waiting, stomping feelings into their feet. Everywhere you looked, people were still coming. Then it got so crowded, you couldn't see anything.

Lights flashing, a procession of fire trucks rumbled by, giving us a burst of horns. It was cold and our breath smoked. Beside me shivering, were grade niners, holding onto each other. Some had flags to wave, so they waved them. Others had cell phones out, taking pictures of each other, red noses and all.

The runner was late, way behind schedule, and we had been standing there for an hour, jostling each other. The line was solid to the east and solid to the west as far as thr eye could see. More cars passed; the sponsoring Coke truck blaring music moved by' more police and emergency vehicles, lights ablaze, flashing, tried to keep the road open. The anticipation was there but where was the runner?

By now I could see nothing beyond the press of people. Eventually a shivers passed through the crowd, full sirens approached, and a phalanx of police cars squeezed through the constricted road. The cops inside, for once, were smiling and waving to the throng. I was up front, holding hands, forming a chain, to keep the tide of people back. We had overflowed curbside, and half-choked off the way. I recognized the police chief in his SUV, so the runner had to be near. Hold tight, I warned the adjoining links, and we held as the crowd surged again and pushed us onto the road some more.

Then the crowd roared and applauded, and in a flash, a young girl, with a bright smile, proudly holding the flame, bounded by. Who was she? What had she done to deserve the honour? In 12 seconds she was gone, swallowed by the crowd. Someone hit me on the head with the flag he was waving so enthusiastically.

What had just happened? That was it. The fruit of all the waiting? No more? In minutes the crowd cleared, rushing for warmth. It took longer to clear the choked-up parking that grew around the passing of the flame. A line of yellow school buses tried to weave through the congestion.

On a cold, blustery winter day, the sun had shone for 12 seconds, warmed the air with enthusiasm, then passed on. Hundreds of elementary graders, no doubt, had to write about the chain of runners who brought the flame all the way from Greece, onto our shore, heading for Vancouver.

So, last night, I saw the flame arrive. Then the lighting of the rings. In spite of my innate cynicism over such a tribal ritual, I was touched, remembering that for 12 seconds I was also a part of it.