Boy Blue Valentine

Ian and I met as thumbnails in the summer of 2012 through a random Facebook encounter. My profile picture at the time was a vintage shot of me holding my ex-husband's telecaster. Ian's only comment was "nice tele" to which I replied, "Thanks, it doesn't live here anymore." We met in person six months later at a comedy venue, another chance encounter, and Ian's first words then were, "You're not that short." Real time Ian was a lot less scary than virtual Ian, and back then, a lot less hairy too.

I don't believe things happen for a reason. When relationships end, when dreams die, we are left reeling. We feel pain and we grieve. We carry the people we used to be and the people we used to love with us like layers of clothing. They are part of us like chapters in a story. I wish I could say that love has nice neat borders but it doesn't. It overlaps. Its fuzzy lines bleed from endings to beginnings and back again. Taking responsibility for this doesn't help so much as acknowledging that what once worked is no longer working and that some things in life cannot be fixed.

I met Ian at a time when my pain was easing but his was only beginning. Recognizing this made me very cautious. Zero to sixty is a great song title but in practice, can make one's stomach lurch and one's head spin.

Thank goodness for friends who knew better.

Soon after we met, Ian recorded an original song called Be Myself which he sent to me via a YouTube link. It wasn't so much a love song as it was an I'm okay, you're okay, you wear your crocs, I'll wear Birkenstocks, thank you for being a friend tribute. Bemused, I showed it to my friend Leslie who watched it with tears in her eyes and said, "Sharon, this is it. This is it."

Several months later, while visiting Ottawa for a few days, I received a note from our friend Richard writing on Ian's behalf.

3/5/13
Dear Sharon. Ian has come over for dinner. We've had a great time and a bit too much alcohol. Just want to let you know that Ian is one of the most authentic and honest people on the planet and he adores you. He's sleeping here tonight so don't worry about him driving home.

Ian also wrote to me that night. Here is his wine and limoncello-inspired poetry:

3/5, 11:14pm
Forlorn. Rich is playing guitar for me and I am forlorn. ****, Sharon. Forlorn. You know what that means !!!!!!?!?!?!!

3/5, 11:24pm
Take me home you silly girl. Take me home you silly girl. Take me home you silly girl. Take me home you silly girl.
'Cause I'm still in love with you!

3/6, 1:25am
i am on the couch. stupid and silly. we played galway girl 30 times. i am a bit bent, as you can imagine. i feel. i feel. i can feel what you do to me. you, you glorious altruistic beauty. you shrugging godess! my love for you astounds. knows no bounds.

Seduction by lemon liqueur. How could I possibly resist? But I did hold off a little longer even when friends told me they'd never seen me happier. It felt too good to be true and I told Ian as much In response, he wrote this poem, my favourite to this day.

The Other Shoe

The other shoe
doesn't have to drop
I placed both shoes
next to yours
Quietly when we met.
So as not to disturb
The perfect peace
Of being with you.

In the book "Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life", by Karen Armstrong, there is a chapter called, How Little We Know, and in it the author refers to the French Philosopher, Simone Weil, who used to say that love was the sudden realization that somebody else absolutely exists. I like this notion because it is so much more forgiving then other definitions we tend to use. Less like an arrow through the heart and more like the dawn rising or a fog lifting, making everything that was once dark, perfectly outlined.

The great thing about milestone birthdays is the opportunity we get to take stock of our lives. I'm not considering twenty or thirty to be milestone birthdays because usually at that age, a life lived is far ahead of us. Beyond forty however invites reflection and brings with it an acute awareness that the sands of time are running out. With that awareness comes less ambition and more mindful living. If we haven't already arrived at this point, we are at least closer on our journey to getting there. And the realization that we aren't going to live another forty, fifty, sixty years begs the question: how do we spend the precious time we have left?

What I call living an authentic life, Ian refers to as truth and beauty. Choosing an authentic life doesn't mean opting for an easier one. It tests our integrity in the face of expectations. It risks disappointing the people we love. It sometimes feels like stepping off a cliff, hurtling towards the unknown. It is both frightening and liberating. Hey, in my experience, plan A almost never works out so might we well get familiar with the rest of the alphabet.

So here's what I know about Ian so far, apart from the fact that he's the real dude and he rocks long hair and we should all abide.

Ian's gift is his capacity for deep and meaningful connections with people. His openness and vulnerability to share and to receive what is heartfelt is what makes him a loyal and supportive friend. His ability to hone passion for music in the absence of traditional talent is what makes him a great teacher, and as a result, there are many birds singing (in harmony) in the woods. On a personal note, it has encouraged me to play music again after a long hiatus, and sing out (egad), without fear of judgement. 

We have a tendency to measure our accomplishments using numerical values: productivity, material accumulation, items crossed off a to-do list, number of likes on a Facebook post, number of albums sold, etc, and in the process forget that what really counts when living an authentic life is not so much what we have or what we do, but rather, who we are.

Truth and beauty reflects truth and beauty. It attracts truth and beauty. It brings out the best in all of us and provides us with a safe place to just be. Be ourselves. The only thing that really matters in this life is the difference we make in other people's lives and the our contribution to the village around us. What we pass on when it's time to leave this world is our one true legacy. It's what's truly earned while the rest is simply inheritance.

I look around the room and see Ian's community and feel privileged to be a part of it. So many new and dear friends. It is a community of teachers and artists and supporters of artists and contributors and brilliant people who shine on.

I know Ian is feeling the pressure of turning sixty, the need to increase his output, get all his songs out there à la Willie Nelson. But let me share what I observed in the making of his last cd. It was like exhaling after holding his breath for so long. That the best moments in the making of the album were the little things. The laughs with George, the thrill of working with awesome local musicians, editing with Danny, the blast we all had in the making of Don't: both song and video, and feeling profoundly moved by feedback received from the listeners who connected with the songs on a really intimate level or as Ian would say: they just get it. Let Willie Nelson continue to inspire you with his great volume of music but know that you have already arrived and anything you produce from this point on will be enough.

Ian, our younger selves would never have hooked up. We would have looked right past one another. Our fifties showed us the way and we have lived a lifetime of love in a few short years. My Boy Blue Valentine, sixty is simple. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. 

<3

House Arrest

My sister-in-law visited my mother in hospital this evening and found her tied in a wheelchair. Chantal described it as a gentle restraint, "a padded, open-faced underwear that goes over your clothes". My mother's version was that she had been arrested for doing something wrong but she didn't understand what it was.

According to her nurse, the reason for the house arrest was that she was forgetting to use the walker that had been plonked in front of her and therefore was at risk of falls. I say plonked because up until now, eight days into her hospitalization, nobody with the necessary expertise has come to asses her gait and balance, never mind her cognitive status. Whoever said that forgetting to use a walker was a crime anyway?

One could argue that I have the necessary expertise to assess this, at least the physical part, and that may be true. But she's my mother and all I can think of right now is there are worse things in life than falling.

Curried

Here is a list of things that will guarantee you a spot in my bad books:

1. Insist I must be pregnant when I tell you I'm not. 
2. Ask me to guess your age immediately after you mistake my muffin top for the third trimester of pregnancy in an effort to distract me.
3. Ask me where I'm from then proceed to tell me how much you hate curry.
4. Complain about your East Indian neighbours stinking up the neighbourhood with their cooking smells.
5. Practice your fake East Indian accent on me and think it is in any way charming.
6. Tell me how much you hate curries using a fake East Indian accent.
7. Refer to all East Indians as "Hindus" because you don't know any better.
8. Tell me I'm lucky I don't look Indian.

The only way to get back into my good books is to tell me how sorry you are over a plate of curry while doing the Indian head nod. Click on the link for directions.

The Long Goodbye

My father came home this week after spending six out of the past eight weeks hospitalized. The good news is his heart, after one hell of a tune-up, has the potential to recondition itself, to a fixed frequency of 80 beats per minute, thanks to a new pacemaker.

Some things though, will never be the same. Feet swollen to a point of no return, the flattened soles/(soul) of a failing heart, are now clad in medical-gauge, velcro slippers, worn indoors and out, that make him trudge with the weight of them rather than roll heel-toe.

Then there's the peripheral neuropathy that burns through the night. There's no cure for that kind of nerve damage and little to no relief from the meds. He's had it longer than the heart failure and about a year ago, I suggested he ask his doctor if he could try pot. Dad was keen but the doc was not, at least for now. You see, long ago in Pakistan, a prankster offered my father a hashish-stuffed pakora and what he remembers the most is that he felt no pain when his mother slapped him hard across the cheek for doing drugs.

Since early April, my father's looming death has felt like a long and painful goodbye. I lived on bagels, neglected my son and distracted myself by reading best-selling thrillers instead of the usual "book club" fare.

I rehearsed the words I wanted to say to him over and over in my head. The kind of speech you hear in the movies, when somebody is dying. But the night before his surgery, he couldn't breathe and his heart rate was dipping below 35 and my mother was too distraught. So I said nothing except, "See you on the other side, Dad." And as it turns out, I did.

Two Moons

I was reading through some unfinished blog entries and decided to group them by subject in an effort to salvage something worth posting. 

The supermoon was November 14th, 2016. Sometimes it's better to experience life in real time than get the shot. 

After googling "how  to photograph the supermoon", I stepped out the back door and took aim at the moon with the recommended iOS, but the clouds got there first, and the focus would not lock through the bare branches of the maple trees on my lot. Not wanting to look foolish, I took some shots of November trees instead, in the dark, and in doing so, completely missed the supermoon.


Haiku

this menopause fog
found cheese in the butter dish
the moon in the man.

Three Bird Encounters

I had three significant bird encounters today, apart from the usual morning flurry around the backyard feeder. The first was a trio of goslings crossing Sources Boulevard near the Rideau Memorial funeral home as I headed South. Their parents were gathered around the adjacent, obligatory cemetery pond, oblivious to the great escape that was underway. They waddled across safely but I worried about them making their way back to the pond once their neighbourhood adventure was over. Were they even old enough to fly over?

The second sighting was coming back from a home visit on l'Ile Bizard. A male Cardinal darted out from some trees and shot like an arrow in front of my car, at exactly eye level. As it flew, it followed a straight line that was directly perpendicular to the road I was on and I was struck by the geometric perfection of its path. There is nothing more lively than a splash of red, albeit fleeting, on a drab stretch of pavement.

The third sighting was the best, an unexpected bucket list item: a peregrine falcon perched high on a branch, in regal contemplation, as we walked the dogs through the woods earlier. Apparently there are two adults and three babies sharing a nest, their high-pitched screeches to one another almost sounding like cats mewling. If it hadn't been for the mosquitos feasting upon us, the dogs panting from the oppressive heat, and life's preoccupations at home, I would have suspended that magical moment forever, or at least until the sun dropped from the sky, perhaps through the night as well. It is impossible to be anything other than wholly present when such a wondrous gift appears, a reminder of nature's incredible power to strike awe and its ability to make us forget about, at least for a while, the incessant need to update our plugged-in devices at home.

Namasté 👏

Maze

When you reach middle-age, you think about death a little more. Having lived more than half the average life span, the pressure is on to live more fully. We tick off our bucket list items and attempt to declutter both our physical space and spiritual space.

Internally, our authentic self, still in its chrysalis stage, simmers beneath the surface. Unlike the butterfly, however, there is no guarantee that metamorphosis will occur in us because let's face it, it's hard to change who we are on the inside, even as our shell wrinkles and softens.

When my maternal grandmother died, my mother, having already lost two siblings tragically, shed few tears in front of us. I was fourteen at the time and inconsolable. I remember being surprised by her stoicism and asking her about it. Her explanation was that life makes you hard, and though I believed her then, I'm not so sure I do any more.

In my twenties and thirties, I read a lot about death and grief, attended palliative care conferences, and learned through trial and error how to comfort others. Admittedly, it was easier to manage grief back then, being further removed from death as imminent. I lost grandparents overseas, far away aunts and uncles, beloved pets and coped. Later on, I survived lost loves, and the end of a marriage, mainly because I managed to keep those who are dear to me in my life. My inner circle remains intact.

I find middle-age to be a paradox. So many aspects are liberating, yet it is also a slow and painful letting go. We say goodbye to parts of us we have lost and the way we used to be, to dreams we may have abandoned. There is an acute awareness of our own mortality and the fact that some of the people we love dearly are closer to dying than we are.

Is there still time to save the world?

Ian hates it when I say, "One person always leaves first.", but I want to be prepared for the inevitable farewell. I want to face it head on.

Today he was looking through some files and came across a poem that his mother had written on her birthday, the first without her beloved husband, David. He read out loud to me and its beauty, the longing and wistfulness of it, made me weep.

Ian gave me permission to post it here. It was written by Jean Hanchet on August 27th, 2002. (Ian's dad had died earlier that year on March 17th.) The picture features Ian and not his dad. Apparently his mum often mistook him for his dad as her Alzheimer's progressed. Until she noticed the long hair that is.

My Birthday Poem

Maze

Down the long labyrinth

  of days I search

      the winding path

Dew drenched green grass

   we trod, so long together

        where are you now?

While I am lost, alone

    I long to see your face 

      around some bend

To hold you in my arms

  to share your place

      but where?

Illusion grows, tears flow

   when in a dream’s deep sleep

        a corner turns

I see you there, your jacket’s old

   but somehow new,

      sun drenched and real.

You live, alive and well

     all joy receive.

-- Jean Hanchet (August 27th, 2002)