Serendipity

Monday, June 5th, 2023

A weekend with Henry, Shiloh and Ubah

A view back towards Henry’s shop, with one of the owners

I crossed into Canada over the Seaway International Bridge to Cornwall Island early on Saturday afternoon. As border crossings go, it was as uneventful as could be expected given that I was driving a big black van loaded with everything a human being could need, sans food, to spend three and a half months in the near arctic. After answering the necessary questions, doing a very thorough search of my van, and confiscating a knife that I had no idea was a restricted weapon in Canada they sent me on my way. Apparently, I had convinced the very professional Canadian border security agents that I was not, in fact, running from the law (or maybe an angry husband) on the US side of the border. The agent attached a Visitor Record that he assured me would make the passage back into Canada from Alaska significantly easier on my return trip. I immediately pulled into a grocery store and purchased a weeks worth of food since I had eaten nothing but a bowl of oatmeal smothered orange slices since I’d crawled out of bed six hours earlier.

I opened the iOverlander app on my phone and found a Crown Land camping spot about two and a half hours roughly west of the border crossing and hopped on 401 heading in that direction. I spent the next hour or so chatting on the phone with my best friend as I put the miles behind me and only ended the conversation as I left the highway and began the back road trip toward Camerons Lake. I took a left in Salem, ON and headed south on Devil Lake road which soon turned to dirt as I entered the lake country just north of the Frontenac Provincial Park. It turned out that all the camping spots in the area were full which wasn’t much of a surprise since it was Saturday afternoon. I continued down the road and soon had a red Ford van on my tail so I pulled over to let it pass. As the van pulled up I rolled the window down. There was a young lady in the passenger seat and an older gentleman behind the wheel. He seemed friendly and asked what I was looking for, assuming, since I was obviously in some sort of camper van that maybe I needed a place to sleep. When I told him, he gave me a street number and told me to follow him and that he had all sorts of room to park my van. I had that quick image of being lured to my doom flash through my mind but I quickly disregarded it as the fantasy product of a lifetime of watching American film. In truth, I was immediately taken with the friendliness of these Canadians. I’d been in Canada for all of about four hours and it seemed I was already being treated as a member of the family.

As I pulled into the circular driveway and opened the passenger window the driver yelled out “Park wherever you like!” so I pulled around and touched the button on my Garmin GPS to see just how level the van was. It was almost spot on and I was out of the way so I just parked right there next to the pear tree behind the greenhouse. I stepped out of the van and walked up to the man who was already out of his van and extended my hand while introducing myself. And that’s how I met Henry and his daughter Shiloh. Henry’s wife Ubah arrived about half an hour later and greeted me with a warm smile and the familiarity of someone who has finally returned home after a long journey. Even the dogs (and there are a bunch of them) greeted me as if they had been wondering where I’d gone and when I’d return.

The afternoon, evening and the rest of the weekend has been filled with relaxation, warm conversation and the kind of ease amongst strangers that I’ve never experienced before in my life. Truly, it’s as if known these people as family for my whole life. And yet, I’d never met any of them before. At least not in this lifetime.

Serendipity – The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident. It’s been the theme of the last three days. And indeed, much of my life when I stop for a moment to feel the gratitude of all that’s been gifted to me.

Until next time…

Musings from the road

Day One – June 3, 2023

Pollywog Pond – Santa Clara, NY

I packed up the van and left yesterday.

I spent the morning finishing up those tasks that one needs to do before hitting the road for what may possibly be the better part of a year. Most went well, i.e. flushing the gray water tank, packing up the essentials and making sure I wouldn’t have anything in the van that might raise an eyebrow when I cross the border into Canada.

But, as I was struggling with making screens for the doors I became frustrated. And turned the positive upbeat mood into one of negativity and lack. So I dropped the whole project and packed up the screen in the back. I’ll either deal with it later or (more likely) forget about it altogether. Still, it left a bitter taste in my mouth. And that flavor dogged me for most of the rest of the day.

The truth is, travel isn’t my favorite thing. In fact, I really kinda dislike it. Or rather I should say, I dislike the preparation and planning. Once I’m on the road I get tuned into things, kinda like a musician on stage hitting exactly the right notes and bringing the audience to their feet. It’s a natural high but getting there is a long slog through the mud of emotions and grief. Leaving the ones I love and setting aside the ease and comfort of being “home”.

So, for the first hour or so on the road I tiptoed through a mental maze. Remembering the losses of the last half century. I often trip over the memories. Because there aren’t a lot of people I’ve let love me in my life. And most of them are gone now. I struggle still with letting the ones who are still here, and matter, in far enough to hurt me. I’ve got a stone wall around my heart that’s ten feet thick. But being on the road slowly erodes those rocks. At least enough so that I can start to see what needs to change.

I travel because something inside of me has come to the conclusion that it’s the only way I will face the things I need to face to figure out why I’m here.

So day one ended with a couple hour long chat with my best friend. Because every Friday night ends with a couple hour long chat with her. And sometimes, like last night, I spent most of the evening letting her be my therapist. I’m not quite sure how it evolved into what it has become but it’s the most naked and truth filled relationship I’ve had since my wife died almost fourteen years ago. Everyone needs someone to talk to who can understand the language they speak and we serve that function for each other. It’s love, but more and that’s really the only way we’ve ever been able to describe it.

I slept like a baby and that’s without a doubt the best way to end the first day of a new adventure.

Until next time…..

The Greatest Gift of All

May well take you years to accept

I had a girlfriend I was madly in love with years ago. Actually there were three. Each one came at a different stage of my life. The first left me. And broke my young heart. As first loves are wont to do, it took me some time but I moved on. And met the woman I would marry about three years later.

Decades later, after a long and brutal illness, she died. And left me with a shattered heart and broken dreams. In some ways I still struggle with that loss. But I’ve also grown into a completely different person. And I have moved on. Sort of. I like to pretend anyway. Enough to pass the gift on, regardless. To the third woman who would steal my heart.

I imagine she believes I bled all over her for a wound she didn’t inflict. But we danced around in our relationship for a number of years. And I did love her. But I just couldn’t figure out a way to fit my vision of this life into the puzzle that she brought to the table. So I let her go. Because not to would have been unkind to her and unfair to myself.

I’ve recently learned that she has launched the dream she always talked about. The one she didn’t seem quite willing to reach for while we were still a couple. And I can see now that the courage she needed to build that dream was the gift she gave herself after I broke her heart.

And therein resides the gift that is so damn hard to receive.

Freedom:

The greatest gift a human can give to one they love. And no, they may not want it. They may wail against it. And they may never embrace it. It’s far from free. True freedom comes with great loss. The loss of the love you wanted to have. The loss of the future you’ve envisioned. It may in fact, have been the love you dreamed of having all your life. But nothing on this earth lasts forever. And as the prophet Janice taught us all:

Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.

Losing one you love deeply, whether through death, divorce or just a parting of ways offers you the courage to know you can survive the end of what was once the most important thing in the world to you. Seize that knowledge and you can build a new world around yourself. It doesn’t mean there’s no longer pain, but what is a scar but new growth? Growth is what life is all about.

Loss is the most potent weapon you will ever face in life. But it’s also the most powerful tool you will ever have. Allow it to, and it will give you gifts of limitless value. It’s your choice to accept them or not.

Lest We Forget

This is no accident

Image for post — Photo by Seth Doyle on Unsplash

We are all here on a sacred spiritual journey. We didn’t come here to get rich, or to command armies, or to die with the most toys. We came here for a reason. The beauty of the adventure is that we don’t get to know why we chose this life. Not while we’re still here anyway.

I had a dream last night that my late wife and I had a baby. A little boy. Scrawny and dark with a complexion and face that held none of the features of either myself or my wife. At three months old he was standing in his crib and telling me who I was. He spoke clear sentences. He was mischievous, funny and full of love. As I changed his diaper he looked in my eyes and joked with me. As we walked down the street he greeted everyone and ran around playing hide and seek with me in wanton joy. He brought bright smiles to all the faces in the crowd.

This short dream triggered a vague sense of deja vu. As if I were being given a little hint of those memories I’d left behind me. In my headlong pursuit of “what I was supposed to do” I seem to have misplaced what I actually came here to do. For what does a tiny child know of life in this world? They know love, they know kindness, they know vulnerability. They know fun, and how to live a life as if tomorrow wasn’t something to dread. They don’t think about tomorrow at all. Today is all that exists to them. And today is enough.

There are big things that need doing in this world. And more reasons than one can imagine for dreading tomorrow. But if we all lived life as if we were little children, would that be so bad? Love everyone, be kind, show your vulnerable side. Bring smiles to the faces of everyone you meet. Make them laugh and pass along some joy.

I think we could heal the world. One lost soul at a time.

Rock On

A couple of reflections from a long ride

Two thousand miles is a damn long motorcycle ride! Thirty years ago it was an adventure in overcoming physical limits, both for me and for a motorcycle built to race on a dirt track, not fly down the super slab with the throttle pinned to the stops. The bike and I both made it. And the memories are etched in my DNA. Sadly, that bike went to flat track heaven almost twenty years ago. I’m not easy on equipment. Horse people would derisively say that I ride ’em hard and put ’em away wet. And they wouldn’t be wrong. Bikes are tools, not living beings. I use stuff, and love people. People who get that backwards make me uncomfortable and not a little sad. Unfortunately, like almost everyone, I’ve known way too many.

Anyway, to celebrate my fifty-fourth birthday (and my impending retirement) I made a similar trip. The route was different. The timetable was different. Most of the people I set out to visit this time around weren’t even even born the last time I rolled through. The limits I had to face were more mental than physical. The bike, although also a dirt tracker (I guess I have a “type” when it comes to bikes too, who knew?), is much bigger, much faster and benefits by virtue of thirty years of technological advancement. Unlike that old Honda, which wore out both a chain and a rear tire on that first trip, I’m still riding this Harley every day as if last summer’s trip was a quick run to the grocery store.

One of my favorite activities is riding motorcycles. But, I think, the most significant insight I gained from this trip had nothing to do with bikes. It didn’t have anything to do with travel either. It came to me on the second day of the trip, when my eldest daughter took me and my granddaughter out for my birthday dinner. There was a saxophone player in the restaurant bar and we could hear him clearly from our table. Every time he’d start a riff, my granddaughter would would start shaking her shoulders and dancing in her seat. I would join her and we’d both break out in huge grins just feeling the freedom of the moment expressed in that wailing sax.

Music is creation’s universal language of life and love. The whales in the ocean, the birds in the trees, children, even before they can talk, make music. Every culture expresses itself through music. We bind ourselves together with it and often choose “our” song when we commit to another person. It can make a one year old come to know this old man sitting next to her in a restaurant as someone who loves her. Even if she only sees him once or twice a year.

A couple days later I would attend a little outdoor concert with a new friend. Coincidentally, much of the music played at that concert was written and first performed right around the time of that first motorcycle adventure. Life coming full circle? I don’t know, we both grew up with those sounds and today they help to make me feel like I still belong to the same culture. Even if so much of the world has changed, generations are still listening to the music of my youth. There’s a certain comfort in that. That first bike is gone, but the music remains. Like love, you can’t grab a handful of music and trade it for some other object. It’s ethereal and yet timeless. Long after all the “stuff” is gone, music and love will remain.

Sing a song (or write a poem) to those grandchildren. Leave them with something much more valuable than things. And change the world we live in, one kid at a time.

Thank you for reading.

Empty

When nothing means everything

There’s a certain kind of power granted to one when they realize that they have no control over the future. We are minuscule little deflections in the matrix. Very little of what we do here matters, in the grand scheme of things. Does that mean we should just throw up our hands and concede defeat? Not at all. In fact;

It’s all terribly important. But none of it really matters.

In the end, nothing much of what we do here will be remembered. But, to those we love, it can make all the difference. And sometimes, it means everything to someone we’ve never even met. Every single one of us has the power to change lives. One at a time. That irrelevant seeming little post you make on social media means nothing to 99.9999999% of the population but there’s always the possibility that what you say reaches deep into the consciousness of that one person and gives them the hope they need today. Maybe you only save their life today. But tomorrow their whole world changes. Would you deny them that? If all you had to do was show up and be present?

We all wonder what our purpose here is. What if it’s as simple as telling someone they matter to you? In the darkest of hours, that can feel like someone just threw you a lifeline. We never know the circumstances of the lives we touch. Does that mean we should stop reaching out? I think it means we should extend our hands. Even if they are repeatedly slapped away. The ones who need that help will find us there to help them up. It’s the way of the universe. Ask, and you may receive. Whenever it’s in our power, we should be the ones who are there.

When no one else would hear my pain, I found you, with a hand open and willing to help.

If You Were Still Here

I wouldn’t be half the man I’ve become

Today is our 30th wedding anniversary.

It seems a bit strange to write that, since you’ve been dead for over ten years. But, just because death separates us, doesn’t mean I’m not married anymore. Or not still deeply in love with you.
Yeah sure, I’ve tried to move on. I’ve even fallen in love a couple times and skipped down the path towards something new and potentially wonderful. But I keep tripping on the rocks and ruts of my history. Of what we had.

No, it wasn’t perfect. But neither is a favorite sweater, or the gloves that fit like a second skin. It’s not perfection that builds a successful relationship. It’s the way you stretch and shape into each other. The ability to grow as a team while still maintaining full autonomy and security as two separate individuals. Truly, a great relationship brings a whole that is so much larger than the sum of its parts.

That’s what we had. Something more than either of us could ever have been as individuals. The reason I know this is because of the holes I’ve had to fill since you went home.
I’ve had to become the mom, as well as dad. To pick up the mantle of bad cop, as well as that of the good cop. Four kids need four different kinds of parents. Even two would be barely enough. And yet I had to try to be all of them. I failed, in myriad ways that I’ll probably never even begin to understand. I could never fill the emptiness but somehow we kept ourselves from falling into the abyss created by your death. Together, the five of us found a way to draw the strength and resources from each other to get to this place and time. You left some really, really big empty shoes. And it took all of us to fill them just enough to keep taking forward steps.

The truth is, I would never have made it this far if it weren’t for the kids. Parenting these humans to adulthood is the only thing that kept me here. When you died the foundation of my world crumbled away leaving only those four pillars to hold me up while I slowly and methodically built a life without you.

I’ve also learned how to care about people that aren’t family members. It wasn’t until long after you were gone that I found out there was an empath buried deep inside of me. Yeah, funny eh? The stoic man you married has trouble keeping dry eyes when a sad song plays or he reads a post about immigrant children in cages on our southern border. As the world I live in has grown harder and colder, I’ve become softer and more emotional.

And just look at this! I write blog posts and share them with the world. I even get responses to some of my posts. I’ve been told that I offer hope for a better tomorrow. I don’t know if it’s true or not. I do it because I feel like I was called to it. I’ve become a sensitive man. Or maybe that’s what losing you has done, broken me open and let out what was in there all the time. Culturally conditioned and socially inept, I showed the world a cold, stoic, seemingly heartless man. Until you died and my heart and soul were cast into the hellfire of grief and loss. I’ve since learned how to express that in my own unique way. If it helps other people find a way out of the darkness, I’m more than happy to light the candle.

Even as I sit here today marveling at all the ways I’ve grown and how different my life has become I still struggle with questions of why. What kind of karma am I working off that I should spend a fifth of my life in mourning? And even now, after I’ve clawed my way through hell and come out on the other side into a sunny and warm existence, I think I’d still give it all up for just one more day with you.

The Greatest Gift

Is one we give to ourselves

I was chatting with an old friend today. A comrade in arms, so to speak, on the long road to widowhood I made over ten years ago. That trip was a painful, soul searing life tragedy I’m sure I’ll never completely reconcile emotionally. We shared the process because her husband was dying of the same disease at almost the same time as my wife.

The conversation led down some paths of reflection that I hadn’t sat with in a long time. Those days were difficult. A million things to do. But what I most remembered was the overwhelming sense of abandonment I experienced. I hadn’t examined those feelings because I let them all go a long time ago.

People fail us, when we most need them. Friends don’t show up to help when their presence would lift worlds from our shoulders. Family members just go on living their lives as if nothing is wrong.
We have expectations of the people in our lives. Expectations that they will be there when we need them. That they will love us as we love them. That they will hear us when we call out in the darkness. And yet they fail us. Over and over again.

But guess what? We fail them too. Because the things we need from other people are tied to our own perceptions. Even when we give what we most think someone needs, we often fail.

The measure of a person isn’t if they’re there when needed. Sometimes you will be and sometimes you won’t. You’ll often fail to provide that which is most needed in the moment even when you think you’re giving your all. Unless you’re just an asshole, you’re likely to try to help those you love as often as you can. But you’re still going to fail. Often.

The measure of a person is displayed in their ability to forgive. When others fail them. And when they fail others. To be able to accept the imperfections of all the people in our lives. To overlook the perceived slights and misunderstandings. To accept that we’re all weak in some ways and unable to give even when the demand is great.

Some things you don’t so much get over as you just sort of move beyond. The death of a loved one. The ending of what you thought was going to be forever. Life will never be quite the same. Hanging on to the failures you experience in life, whether those of a loved one, or your own, is a zero sum game. No one benefits and everyone stands to lose that most precious of all possessions — love. We’re here for a remarkably short ride and you never really know what pain other people are bearing. Give them the benefit of the doubt.

Forgiveness. We may forgive other people but the release is ours to celebrate.

Empath

If only you could feel
the overwhelming love
of the mother for her newborn

If only you could feel
the disappointment of the child
when they hear “not right now”

If only you could feel
the kiss of the sun
on newly emerged spring leaves

If only you could feel
the agony of the chainsaw
as it tears through the bark

If only you could feel
the weight of the shoe
as it crushes the spider

If only you could feel
the joy of prancing through the fields
as a newborn fawn

If only you could feel
the heat of the bullet
as it tears through the lungs

If only you could feel
the gentle lift of the thermals
as the eagle soars high above

If only you could feel
the sting of the hook
as it pierces the lip

If only you could feel
the kiss of a snowflake
on the nose of the walrus

If only you could feel
the intensity of the flame
as it races through the forest

If only you could feel
the caress of the water
as it flows over the stone

If only you could feel
the burn of the chemicals
as they fill the waterways

If only you could feel
the power of the wave
as is crashes against the cliff

If only you could feel
the agony of suffocation
as pollution fills the atmosphere

If only you could feel
the ripple in space-time
as a new star is born

If only you could feel
the helplessness of the oppressed
when no one listens

If only you could feel
the triumph of the runner
as she finishes her first marathon

If only you could feel
the shame of the homeless person
as they beg for help

If only you could feel
the outrage of the privileged
when they are called out

If only you could feel
the withering sadness of the nurse
as another one slips away

If only you could feel
the release of the tether
as the soul crosses the veil

If only you could feel
all of eternity
dissolving into nothingness

Maybe then you would understand
how all things
are tied together