February 12, 2021

The bear wakes, it takes a few moments. He is disoriented. Hair (fur) is comically disheveled, though the bear is, himself, not intrinsically comical. He is a noble beast, as all beasts are. The comedy comes from circumstances like those of today. Something is stuck in bear fur that appears as a leftover piece of carelessly cast off, unfinished caramel bar. Once again, no firmly affixed neighbourhood garbage can lid and now, that’s gonna be murder to clean. It will be further hygiene work to suit procrastination well.

This bear is that, a putter-offer. He has been lazy, this last few months of intermittent, enforced dozing. I say enforced because of Covid-19. There has been an attempt to eradicate the new disease. Social movement and gatherings have been seriously restricted world-wide by roque governments who wish to destroy their economies and reduce tax collections, while insisting that citizens wear silly outfits. As so many of Earth’s creatures have done, with the lockdown, Msr. Ours left things go a bit. No one sees him below the waist (on screen) so he often combs only the upper front part of his fur day after day. It is a little game he plays called, ‘Stink, Stank, Stunk’, a useful game for learning states of being. The game works in any language, even Dog. (woof-wharf-waaf)

The bear yawns as if it were spring. He would probably rub his eyes if it weren’t for the substantive claws that have only grown longer while he dozed. To rub one’s eyes with such a claw can be accidentally quite injurious to sight. This bear is a cautious bear and would never overstep the good health and prosperous life guidelines. It is not spring, though the days have lengthened. He, the bear (sorry girls, I am in a patriarchal language mode and having a female U.S. Vice President should appease, at least a bit) is restless. He scratches himself, sniffing for a cleanish place to begin a lackadaizical, haphazard grooming. He frowns, but in contradiction to the way legend would have it, he is not angry, grogginess and hunger are most of what he feels. “Grog…mmmmm”, he thinks, being constantly hungry and thirsty as he is. This bear is not the only peckish or parched bear. There are so many suffering appetites in the deep woods, that the growling is often mistaken for angry roar. It isn’t anger. No. It is a perennially empty stomach that announces or commands spring’s arrival with such a sound.

This bear’s home hemisphere is the northern-ish one. I shouldn’t make that as definitive statement, which hemi of the sphere you are in is subjective. As example: if it were not for science designating a north star, folks in Australia would probably claim status as being of the north. They are such big-shot smarties. They have even taken English and re-twisted it to suit themselves. It is so bad that I have to use sub-titles to understand Australian films. Now that I am thinking of this and forgetting about the bear, I wonder if there is a fixed South star? I never heard of one, did you? Perhaps it is yet another systemic prejudice? I checked Google and found Sigma Octanis as the closest thing known by some as a South star but it is very dim. I am supposing, if folks in Australia wanted to, they could claim that Polaris (the North star) is actually the South star and gauge all direction from that point. In which case, we could worry less about the arctic ice melting, because it would be antarctic ice instead?

Today I woke, earlier than usual. The neighbour had not left for work, I checked. I felt grogged for a moment. I am the bear. I briefly understood symbolism. Hahahahaha. I have become bear-shape and those days when my back is out, I remember that I even walk in a similar fashion to the bear. My shape is bear-shape and not pear-shape, as some others may be. I have, however, eaten many pears during the pandemic. (It is easier to eat a pear than to counteract Covid by stuffing it any particular other where.) In fact, I learned a recipe for poached pears that is simply delicious! Still, I am not pear-shaped, exactly. I have a sort-of friend/acquaintance who is. If (this person) were to allow ils chevaux to grow out a bit, the pear-shape would be less obvious but I am off-topic already.

In my case (as bear, not pear) I am thick all the way across, not thin at the top and largely round at the bottom. The bottom is there, of course, and large, of course but everything else is large also. I am more a 200lb potato-sack shape. This fact is because I have been too long in the berry-patch and too long hibernating. (what with soft places to sit, affordable berry pies and berry toppings for ice cream) I also caught many salmon or availed myself of the pre-caught variety. It is too easy to do…the blasted grocery store contents fairly leap into my mouth of their own accord.

So. I awoke this morning as a bear might from a lighter hibernation. I yawned, I stretched, I put yesterday’s clothes on and had something more to eat. I heated up some old tea and growled a bit about politics/religion, then settled down for a nap. It is so busy here.

February 10, 2021

My hands are cold today, as I type this latest entry for my new book (which will become an old book or ‘my last book’ by the time the work is done and I have sauntered off like a pussycat to some other sunny project). I am comfortably inside the house, warming my fingers at the hearth of, by the exercise of imagination. It is immensely satisfying to be a Mr. imagining human being. I have imagination as a hearth to keep me warm, as a magic carpet to fly on.

I compare and consider, today, our friend and companion the pussycat and my opposite, the woman. I am, presently, drawing satisfaction from being curious if a pussycat imagines it is satisfying to be a pussycat? I wonder if Mrs. human being is satisfied by imaging such a thing? Is everyone satisfied by being what they are and imagining as they do? It also satisfies me by imagination that a cat can fly. Do women do that? Do they imagine cats flying? I hear that Erica Jong wrote a book about being afraid of flying and explained there is a different imagination for women and for men. Flying is a different sort of imaginary satisfaction between the two. I wonder does Mr. pussycat find satisfaction in imagining flying, if that’s a thing they do?

I most often use the prepositions ‘he’ and ‘his’ and consider a male pussycat’s possible point of view since I identify with/as the male and have not much ability to imagine the elusive female points of view, whether animal or vegetable. Minerals seem not to be sexed, though planets are — witness ‘mother’ earth. It might be said that Mother Earth conceives immaculately, hence the flora and fauna we are surrounded by. It may also be said, to complete the halves of circles we know everything to be, that we have a Mother Earth and a Father sun? a Father air? a Father water? That is the more likely thing, to have a Mother Earth and several Fathers. Sun, Air and Water can be witnessed to combine in a fairly noisy coitus with Mother Earth.

I have heard pussycats at ‘play’ and am now projecting the image/audio on the activity of Earth, Air, Sun and Water. Whether this mixing of elements is noisy might be proved by a summer’s afternoon thunderstorm? All of it wet and wild, with clouds flying. I am nearly sure of this logical-to-me stream but more imagining will have to occur. I enjoy the work of imagining. Imagining is a part of being human that can be very, very satisfying. Imagination can solve the same questions that imagination asks. I am a male human and I do this, I have trouble imagining that a cat (Mr. or Mrs.) or female human does not or does so differently.

By my witness, the pussycat’s tail is not imaginary and controls his balance. Both male and female pussycats (unless altered by misfortune) have this tail ability. The way I see it, It is important that the tail provide correction and counter-weight when imaginary flying. A misdirected twitch during flight can have bad consequences since the wings, themselves are imaginary. At a moment’s untimely realization and then over-twitch to correct trajectory mistake, in fear, the most carefully imagined wings would certainly puff away into nothing, providing no support. I have often witnessed a cat flight/leap go awry, be aborted myself. One time I keep in mind was a pussycat leap for a toilet seat that was unexpectedly open. Said pussycat lost attitude control when surprised by open space where he thought something solid should have been. He (again, male) over-twitched and landed with one arm in the wet of the toilet bowl. He was not pleased, that much was obvious. I didn’t need to imagine that, I could see it in his face, hear it in his surprised out-cry. I can suppose that a she-cat would have done the same, even though I didn’t actually see that happen.

I have had a sister, a mother and a brief marriage to a woman. None of those events enlightened or convinced me regarding the female point of view and whether or not there actually is one that is different. I don’t know, If we are imaginary flying what our tail might be. Perhaps I was absent on ‘learning day’. I was watching TV and couldn’t hear the loudly voiced opinion. I have to assume that because everything is perfect that somehow women and men and cats all have tails for balance, if we are imaginary flying.

I was never married to a cat and never went to catch one and bring it home. They have been around me a lot but, again, I never learned what their imagination or opinions are, whether they are different than mine. I never found reason to believe that the female human has a point of view that is separate and distinct from the male point of view. My lack of understanding of the pussycat view is similar. Folks have sworn there are differences, that it is so but I cannot see it, in my mind’s eye. I know (outside of imagination) only that we all eat, sleep and poop. Who knows if all creatures imagine flying or going to London and visiting the queen? I prefer to believe we do.

The obvious difference between my imagination and the pussycat’s is that he actually leaps into the air. I do not, I keep it cool and imagine safely. One difference between my imaging that the pussycat is flying and a female human imaging it is that our breasts (if we still have them) are of dissimilar sizes. That’s what I see. The pussycat leaps, the female noticing the flight, like me, does not leap but is a different shape than me when I notice the flight. Still, the imagination is the same thing for all three of us.

Right now, I have this creepy imaginary feeling there is a Mrs. Pussycat typing away, seated on a cushion next to a register. She is wondering if humans, male or female ever imagine they are flying. Then, watching what appears to be clumsy staggering and ungraceful ‘flying’ as one of the humans walks by with only two legs to accomplish the task, “Are they always drunk?” she asks.

February 9, 2021

To every thing there is a season… and a time to every purpose under heaven…

and, at Ecclesiastes 3.9?

‘What profit has he that works in that
wherein he labours?’

(These quotes from the most convoluted and opaque collection of misinterpreted writing that I have ever seen, The Bible.)

The particular phrase ‘..what profit..’, is more than just one question, I take it to also mean: ‘What joy is there for a man who views his labour to be work/drudgery’. I say so because at 3.12 comes the statement – ‘I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life’, that sentence is modified by 3.13 -‘..and also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.’

Ultimately, Ecclesiastes 3. tells the truth – that life is perfect, it remains only that we see life as perfect. There is a time (the right time) for everything… We have sorrow, we have joy, we have life, we have death. It is a perfect circle. Also, we have clever writing and we have an old, fat guy who types and stares out the window thinking about things that more astute folk already know…Haha.
Yeah.

I have been considering what I do to be labour lately. I am working. I am writing. I am engaged, I am finding joy (in one small sense, not the JOY that everyone seems to think we are supposed to have or to seek). I am finding completion. The completion comes from completing something. It is the same sense of completion that a pussycat feels by climbing up to the windowsill and edging into the sunny spot. So far, the financial value in what I am doing is exactly zero. That zero is modestly modified with the fact that I earned .34cents by monetizing my Youtube channel.

There exists value, there exists good in what I am doing. The good is here for me and, maybe, good in what I do can be found by others. At the very least, I am not simply existing but passing the time of living without spending it on total purposelessness. Ha. Don’t like that constructed word? Neither do I. It’s a useful word, though. Just existing is, as well, useful. Yeah. We don’t owe life anything and life doesn’t owe us anything. That is okay. We can do better, probably should but it’s okay if we don’t.

In the matter of useful, the labour I do now is better, there is more good in it, than the labour I did and was paid for. Let’s also say that I am doing something, not just lying about using up the air. I find value in what I am doing. I am using the parts that I have, they are not rusting totally. My fingers are moving, my mind is thinking, I am not exactly idle. Good enough, that, too is okay. Wiggle or don’t…whatever.

The career that I spent 40 plus years in was never an aim, a goal, a prized labour. I was very well paid for it but most often felt it had no other value. It was never a thing I wanted to spend my time doing, it was always just a job. There were some moments I enjoyed my labour. There were some moments that engaged and interested me. There were times, I did not ‘work’ in my job. There were times, I moved with the rhythm of a workday and turned toward the sun but… I was mostly a whore, a wage slave. I did what I had to do and did it for the money. I mostly smiled, turned my face to the wall, thought of payday. That was not a healthy thing to do. I suffered emotionally and spiritually, I sent those vibrations into the world around me. The little pebble disruptions spread, as waves of any kind do. I contributed to a wave of ‘more and more money, no matter the cost’. I was equally guilty as any other fool, as any other prodigal child. I spent my resources (my soul) recklessly.

Now, that time is done and I am not filled with regret. In a way, I sinned but don’t dwell on that. Have I forgiven the sin? Odd. I am in the shady part of life/living and I have no regret for the wasted part. I have no regret that I did not spend my peak working years in the sun. I made a mistake. Oooops. I can accept that now, I learned a little bit. I now understand that even in mistake we are perfect: To everything, etc. It is, as they say, all good – all a part of the whole. Now, I am able to labour and find the joy in it. I am able to set aside the measuring tools and be in the moment, each stroke of the key another breath of living, each wacky thought that spills out another wave of freedom. I am not a slave anymore, I am a willing accomplice. I am not whore any longer, I am just a slut. Hahahahahahahah

February 8, 2021

‘Relax, each hustling breath has worth’ I said in my latest finished poem. Yeah. I feel odd lately, friends. I feel that I am something I wanted to be for so long, do you? It’s a nice, crisp cold today and I have the furnace set on 68f…to save money, the environment and prove that it is fine – I don’t need more. I have enough, even if I do put four or five layers on and drink my coffee fast (so that it doesn’t freeze in the cup). Haha.

‘…each hustling breath has worth’. Yeah. Every one of them, no matter the condition they are in. The commonplace is where we really live. In… out… we live in the places we don’t see and aren’t aware of. It seems trite to say but I have to remind myself at times. THIS moment is the best of times and the worst of times and THIS moment will change…in a moment. Notice each breath. Count them. Now, I think I sound like Yoko Ono…haha.

Something that lockdown has brought me is to the realization that I always was a writer. I was already there when I first imagined doing it and began to type or scrawl. Being a good writer or a poor writer has no bearing on whether I am a writer or not. Whether being a writer makes me more or less than any other person has no meaning. The goal was not to be well respected or famous, the goal was to be a writer. I used to think that famous and well respected and published by a major house was the goal…it wasn’t. Those things are chimerical and have more to do with shifting fashion than to do with skill or inventive creativity. After all, correct language is only that language used by the majority of upper crusters. That’s how it gets decided. If the king says, “ain’t”, then ‘ain’t’ becomes correct. If I write to rhythm and step on the rules…It is just as much writing as anything Ms. Proulx or Ezra Pound would do. We are more alike than dissimilar.

To address quality in art is to be subjective. What the majority decides has value makes the rule but there are always exceptions, based on whim. Of course, accomplishment in your endeavor counts for something. It’s nice when an artist has control of his or her chosen medium but we can’t rule out those who may not be as well traditionally accomplished. I know one muscian who is not very good on guitar and doesn’t really play more than an occasional chord on piano. This friend has a musician’s soul and I love listening to the songs that are made. The songs are not pop-radio and I think most folks would be put off maybe at the rough edges. I am not, not at all. I could listen for hours, it’s an easy sound for the ear. I also know other musicians who are not trained but play and sing extraordinarily well – to any ear. I can listen to them, too. My English rock and pop star friend and his sister are pure brilliance and in all the technical aspects as well. They haven’t found a way out into the star category yet but that is a thing found more in chance than in skill sometimes.

So, yeah. We are what we want to be, what interests us…whether or not the Mayor and Council name a park after us. There is always someone who can see you as what you feel to be. I know artists who have unique approaches to visual art and have been visual artists their whole lives but never had a gallery show. I know musicians who have done all the right things, learned and become accomplished on their chosen instruments and never found a mass audience. They are still artists and musicians, they are still real.

You are real, I am real and it is real cold out. haha. Yeah, well, see. The problem is equating being an artist as producing something of financial value, something that will pay the heat bill and buy groceries. I think folks tend to dismiss their creative side when faced with the day-to-day real system of living. If it doesn’t pay the bills, it hasn’t value. Um.. no, in fact. That idea comes from a false sense of value. That idea comes from the other idea that the mundane and necessary is the prime goal. I guess, now that I am locked away from the world, that I have changed my opinion. Yeah. We need to eat but what good is eating if all you do is stay alive? We need art more and each of us who don’t do some kind of art have lost a part of being alive that really fulfills.

If you find release, the door to another kingdom by doing paint-by-number…there you are. You are an artist. If you plough an accurate row and that satisfies you, fills your time…you are a farmer/artist. If you don’t plough an accurate row but it satisifies you, engages you, opens the door to the kingdom…then you are that which you wish to be. There is plenty of room for wobbly cornfields.

(February the 6th, 2021)

On the way to somewhere,
having left the place
I’d been,
I met a guy who needed a ride,
inside,
out of the wind

so I stopped,
opened the door,
said,
“Where you goin’
friend?”

My carriage wasn’t pretty,
couldn’t get the radio
to work
and you had to sit quite
careful
at risk of getting hurt

so I spoke,
in chagrin,
said,
“…that’s a rusted through
part”.

He said,
“don’t be embarrassed,
man,
it’s not much breeze

and
at least your engine
starts.”

I am holed up in the house with a fresh batch of home-made bagels. That could be a dangerous thing. With such bitter wind and the snow, I don’t have motivation to do more than stare out the window and eat. I suppose I could on-line shop but that sounds expensive. I have piano to do and I worked on a fairly silly poem that feels fun to write, it is called Elizabeth and the Witness. Some parts are funny, some saccharine but it seems to be wrapping up as a serious statement of some kind. I will have to see where it goes over the next few days. A bit of the poem is actually purposeful writing, adding a rhythmic texture deliberately to make a line whimsical. Not that I have skills, really, just a little bit of finetuning the things I do. This is winter boredom at it’s very best…haha. Maybe, I could paint the living room? Nah…take a nap or read someone else’s work…there ya go!

It is payday. Social Security gets deposited to my account and I will have resources again! I had bad dreams but woke to a small Covid cheque, a warm place, a little breakfast, a nice Facetime chat with a friend and a sunny day. You and I have survived the night. Maybe that is why I am in a good mood? Or, maybe the tea is a bit heavily caffeinated today.

I am excited and hopeful about things for some peculiar reason. I am expectant. So are the folks next door. My neighbour’s lady friend(wife?) is quite pregnant. She is the one who had to clean snow off the big truck that one time and never again. Looks like a spring baby for them. Nice. What they do and how they do it is none of my beeswax but it is interesting to speculate. They went for a pleasant walk last evening and were holding hands. I saw the whole thing because I am being lazy and just sitting at my kitchen window these days. It can be much better than television and a lot more enlightening.

I think those youngsters must keep their home quite warm because Mr. Nude-as-is-legal never wears a shirt. I see him through the kitchen window and it makes me shiver just to snoop. I have a feeling he has little on for pants either but I can’t see down that low so do not know for a fact. After the baby comes and gets a little older he will have to be more modest. He isn’t really all that sexy, just young and fairly thin with a nice little man-beard. She is skinny! Whew! I think she must share one tomato and a slice of bread with her little baby each day. Maybe, I should take some pie over there? Yeah, that’s what I should do. If I take some pie over I might be able to find out what project he is working on. He parks a trailer by the window and throws lots of debris out every little once in a while.

The mayor has returned. Her hair is growing back so maybe the bitterness has receded? Nah. I think it’s just that her chemo is done. The bitterness hasn’t subsided and her hair probably learned how to live in an acid environment. She actually acknowledged my presence a few days ago. I inquired about her health. I said, “How are you doing?” She answered, “Oh…I am doing…” So things are warming up between us. Maybe I should take her some pie as well? My guess is she would have it checked for possible poisons by the authorities. How interesting. Somebody comes to shovel her drive when there is snow and I am glad. That means I don’t have to swallow my pride and do it for her, I can still be a benignly difficult neighbour. I do mow the grass but that is by default, sort of…she doesn’t and waits for me to do it. Out of a sense of community, I stopped playing piano at three a.m. so there you go. I am Mr. Good Bob now.

The neighbours on the other side are quite friendly. The dad one knows my name for some reason. They probably received a misdirected letter or looked me up on Facebook, too. They are funny. Last summer, they cleaned all of the junk out of the back yard and took it into the front yard. That’s where it stayed for a while, huge piles. I thought at first that they were building a garden because I could hear a roto-tiller running for a long time. They have a sheet plastic and pvc pipe greenhouse out back where they sit and drink something with friends. They talk loud. When I was on the roof of my new shed, I could see they had only planted a new lawn by the greenhouse. They aren’t mowing the new lawn now, either. Their son is Mr. Sneaky Guy and he slinks in every once in a while. He is living in the garage and orders pizza but not from Pizza Hut. I should have been warned by that and not ordered Pizza Hut stuff. The son wears a perma-toque. It might be a tattoo of a toque because it is always there. He has a little man-beard too.

Oh well. Time to mind my own business and practice piano. Maybe I will magically be able to play the Rachmaninoff? I have much bigger hands than Donald Trump but I still doubt it.

Oh, my goodness! I have wasted a good portion of the day getting only Facebook scrolling done… I have a really good idea for a poem that I am dragging my feet on writing…so many more interesting things to not do. I should not be so concerned…only St. Peter is keeping score and assembling the report card for the big guy/gal/apparition to evaluate. In fact, I think about those folks who struggled through two great wars and a monster depression only to die anyway. Maybe they would have enjoyed having the chance to be sloth-like? Maybe it’s up to me to fulfill their lives.

More and more these days, I am thinking our purpose on earth IS, indeed to have as good a time and as much relaxation as we can. Foolishly, or fortunately we also have a bit of a problem with overzealous progenation. Some folks worry about that. Some folks worry about how it should be done and who is doing it with whom. Does the cat? Does the squirrel? Does the goose overhead? Not to worry about the dangly bits, kids…no stress. Laying about, eating grapes and bringing more folk into the world? Yeah, that’s cool as it gets…

Perhaps we are currently on sabbatical? and it isn’t so much we are going to go to hell as we are going to have to go BACK when the buzzer rings. I discovered there is no Santa Claus when I was younger and I have a feeling there is no North Pole and no heaven. In fact, there is probably no better heaven than here and now, no matter your circumstances. Put your feet up. We are there, for the moment. Rest yourself, no worries.

I was resting myself and looking around this morning when I bought a tea and a bagel, went to the marina and enjoyed my lunch. There were maybe a thousand geese overhead who assembled on the open water a few feet from shore. They were talking and laughing, just like there was no social distancing requirement at all. I was amazed at their unconcern.. they weren’t worried about food or love or having the hydro shut off. They weren’t even worried that the critics won’t think their poetry is any good. It’s been that way for them at least a thousand or ten years. (Maybe they get bored, just doing what they do, flying where they fly? Don’t think so.)

Many, many times I am able to just be astounded at the perfection, the miracle all around and within us. The sun, the stars, the birds, the trees, the sky — the fact that the water looks flat but is actually following the arc of earth. You can almost see it when staring at the lake where it meets the horizon. You don’t have to believe it or trust science or anything. It’s just there to see or not see and it’s okay.

We are all, individually okay. We have some crap to pick through on our journeys but each one of us is an example of great art in our very own way. Except me, but that is another matter. I can’t see the art of me, even when I look hard into the mirror. I usually only see: fat, old, gay, broke, lazy..That’s a silly waste of precious break time. None of those things are totally true (except the gay part…that’s totally true) and break time will be over before I know. Who knows what the boss/es have/has planned for the afternoon shift? Maybe this time, I will get to drive the shit wagon but more likely, it’ll be my job to load it again. Good thing I have boots!

You get the odd twisty person barking orders, like D. Trump or Karen, who try to suck up all the oxygen but they are still in the minority even at %40 of the crowd. Maybe those type folks just cannot relax? Maybe, like Adolph, they are too concerned about only having one testicle? I mean, that’s what we heard about Herr Fuhrer when we were in grade school. Maybe Karen can’t climax? Maybe Donald really does have an embarassing small one? It is an urban-ish legend that a fulfilling sex-life settles a person down. Well, yeah, I suppose. It’s more likely that a person settles down when they realize that there really isn’t such a thing as ‘better’..’more’..’richer’…’poorer’..there is only is and not is anymore. If you don’t want to be fat, don’t eat so much…if you can’t stop eating so much, don’t worry about being fat. Is, not is. Simple. If the tire goes flat or Grandma takes a last snooze…that’s the way it is. Cry a little bit or a lot, do whatever seems the best thing. Yeah, that’s it. Be quick about it though, break time is almost over.

One of the most marvelous things about the people I know as friends is that they know things. Little bits of information about interesting topics makes for great conversations. Everyone I know is fun to talk to, I always learn something. This extends to my Facebook family of friends. It is extremely rare that our conversation is base and gossipy — almost never. No one wastes time on the exploits of the rich and famous or the alcoholic uncles or overbearing aunts. My folks are deeper than surface. As I mature? (haha), I discover that I like to laugh and I like to chat, those are probably my favourite things. When I look back on my past self, I see that it was always true…I was trouble for the rule of order in a school classroom, usually making a joke. I teased in church. I have been told by the unamused (mostly ex-spouses) that I am trying to capture the spotlight. Well, yeah, I guess, a little bit? Ha ha. Sadly, the conversation is covid-limited to what electronic devices are capable of. We are separated from each other physically but still try to keep our connections with the cyber-world.

As long as we can chat and make fun, then we are ok…no matter how much food there is or isn’t, how dangerous the political world is or isn’t or how grand our accomodations (though I do like good food and grand accomodation). Trouble with meaningful chatting is, in cyber-space it is difficult to do well. Talking to a moving picture on a back-lit screen is not the same as pouring a cuppa for someone and having their prescence in the room, their realness. In a sense it is the same as the difference between anything analog and it’s digital representation. Digitizing what is analog changes it. To convert a wave of laughter to bits and bytes, then re-create it loses it’s liveliness. The eye and the ear can tell when a thing is re-created, there is the soul of it gone no matter how carefully our machines replicate. Perhaps, when computers add the other elements of conversation, the sensation of being next to someone, their smell, their squeaks, the noises and the colours, the depth perception, it will be different.

Until the little chips in our phones are faster, better, realer, being isolated to Facetime or telephone conversation is a deadly dull thing for me. Of course, without it I am even in worse trouble. I, and the other 7 billion of us, suffer. We need to have what is analog be analog. We can’t ‘sense’ another person from their image on an Ipad screen. The camera catches a lot but the eye is not fooled. I am always left wanting that certain something with each Facetime or telephone conversation. Texting is more trouble yet, with the problems of interpretation when body language is not part of it. Handwritten, cursive letters are also difficult to interpret correctly, although the scent of a perfumed paper does tell something and the lack of uniformity in the shapes of the characters, the flow of penmanship tells even more. They add up to something more real than a crisp Times New Roman could ever be.

Today, this snowy morning, I am hungry. Hungry for a dinner out with friends, hungry to have them sitting on my sofa and telling me stories that make me laugh. I am hungry to sing. I am hungry to disrupt the orderly conduct of a concert with my asides. I miss ‘Pere Steve’ and Norm and Willie and Victoria and Kari and Connie and Dora and Michael and Matthew and Jeremy and Roger and Blanche and having them laugh at wicked things I say. I miss hearing their clever conversations and the things they know that I don’t. I am hungry for that. That hunger is part of my being peckish all the time and I know it. The sensation of warm apple pie and a nice coffee is at least real and is close to the same thing as laying into ‘Ode to Joy’ with full heart. True, that. I am gaining weight just because the refrigerator is not digital. It is analog and filled with the things I can buy at the essential businesses…sausage, cheese, cherry pie, mayonnaise…homemade pickles, et-cet-era. I am ready now, to get dressed, clean off the car and chat through the service window with my lovely friends at Starbucks! Mmmmm.

Nearly at January’s end…the days are spinning quickly by. It hardly seems a moment ago that I was sanding drywall and already here we are again, avoiding the doing. There is little visible progress toward the goals I have set myself and time is fleeting. What seems to work for me is to set aside the weekend for home renovation and the week for writing. What is actually happening is that, during the week, I am spending far too many hours in front of the television set and far too few singing, playing, writing. It bothers me that I drift away from my creative goals so easily but I am slowly coming to the realization that the creative stuff is stifled by stress. I try and I manage a bit. I end up constantly telling myself that I have not done enough but I am doing what is possible, little enough as it is. There are a host of reasons so little is possible, that self-control is difficult. Our world is still upside down, this year into the pandemic. Is it as though a war was on? A financial meltdown? A famine? A plague of locusts? No. And yet, yes.

Covid, in all it’s elements is bringing out the worst in us. First, it was unfair and ill-considered rolling, amorphous lockdowns. Should we wear masks or no? Should the big-box stores be able to sell as usual, leaving the small guys to suffer? Then came rebellion against the relatively simple requests and rules. Now that a vaccine or two are available, the fighting begins about when and where we get our dose, who is first. So far, money and politics are playing key roles in the distribution of vaccine. When will humans get their act together and learn to be patient, learn to share, learn to trust. Our leaders are letting us down. Where are the calm but firm and honest voices? Where are the governments willing to act and act responsibly for the good of all?

It’s tempting to blame the modern conservatives but the liberals are equal in culpability. Yeah, Trump and his cohorts are desperate totalitarians but Pilosi and Schumer are schemers, too. In Canada, we are driven between the rock of Trudeau’s naivety/idealism/silver-spoon privilege and the hard place of O’toole’s base and agressive ambitions. Europe is eroding slowly, with only the odd leader here and there willing to stand for what’s right over what will get them elected. Putin is an evil and ambitious tyrant. China remains as controlling, as opaque as it ever was. There are no truly honest men or women, I fear.

Down here on the farm, I am getting rapidly older. To myself, I deny this but it’s true, it’s real. My arthritis is a serious problem that I do my best to ignore, I grow less and less mobile (though that is gradual yet). I am losing my good eyesight and hearing. The eyesight is going quicker but YOUWILLHAVETOSPEAKUP if you want me to hear you. I am also sliding into a resistance of sorts. I resist getting out of bed. I resist slowing down on the noshing. I resist exercise, I resist piano practice, I resist… Nossir…I just don’t want to anymore. Sigh. It has been a long series of reasons why the reticence developed. Partly, I am bored with the doing…I have been doing long enough. Partly, I am frustrated with the slow pace of accumulation (piano skills, writing skills, emotional health skills). Partly, I am angry at the decay, the being fat, the loss of clear sight, the mumbling singers on the radio. Partly, the divorce and upending of what was a pleasant life creates stress. Partly, the deaths and estrangements of people I cared about weighs on me. …and, partly, I mourn the loss of excitement in living. There is more to dread than to eagerly anticipate.

Sigh. Setting aside the negatives and polishing up the positives is a real chore. It has to be done and I know that. To think and believe otherwise is to succumb. Here we go: Starting with politics and covid and world. Biden did win the election, that means that cooler heads are out there somewhere. Trudeau has not been forced into an election, cooler heads again. The European Union is still a union, still attempting to work together, cooler heads. The Israelis are heading into yet another election, cooler heads? There are real Russians marching in the street, in spite of Putin’s hard-ball tactics. Hong Kong has not given up the fight against The Party Central, yet. Vaccines are real and moderately imminent. The sun came brilliant this morning (little cloudy now) and I woke in a warm bed, comfortable. Starbucks is open for window service and the tea was delicious, the bagel toasty, the server cheerful to a fault. I saw a hot looking fellow walking down the street, sharing his beauty with all who could see it. (maybe I should have pulled over, rolled down the window and expressed my appreciation? maybe not) I have a thousand friends, some of them in far away places. I communicate via electronics with someone, every day. I can still see through the blur, I can still hear Jimi Hendrix (My neighbours can hear him better every day). I continue to write silly little poems and bang at the piano. Though I am consuming too much pie, it is still tasting delicious. Yeah. I guess it is the best of times and the worst of times. The joy is that even while lying on our deathbeds, there is still time. I choose to think pleasant thoughts…as in the advice given to new brides once upon a time. It’s a good idea. I will, “close my eyes and think of England,” letting what will happen, happen.