Life in progress

Tag Archives: life


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Victoria Day

Here in Canada, we celebrate the birthday of Queen Victoria (May 24th) on the Monday before it. Today would be that day this year.

When I was growing up I knew the holiday as firecracker day. My parents and their best friends would buy fireworks and set them off in the back yard, always ending with the burning school house. Secretly, this was my favourite.

Ours was the size of the first one they lit.

As I moved into adulthood, however, the holiday became better known as the May 2-4 weekend. This meant the first long weekend of camping, cases of 24 beers, and if we were smart, a few packages of hot dogs came on the trip along with a few bottles of Jack Daniels.

My first experience of the kind would have been about 1988. We piled into half a dozen cars and headed to Sauble Beach, to a campground run by bikers. There were guard geese there – my first encounter with those particularly vicious animals was luckily not a close one.

Much booze and a few cold weiners (it was too rainy to light a fire) into the weekend… let’s just say I was longing for the burning schoolhouse – or burning anything by the time Monday morning rolled around.

But such is the experience of life. Ah, youth. Now I’m just trying to get through a day off school for the kids.

Are you a Canadian with a great remembrance of Victoria Day? A favourite camping trip, perhaps?


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A Day… I Mean Night in the Life

01:00 – The thirteen year old comes to my room to say he needs to be covered up again. I get up because he won’t leave me alone until I do, and the more he fusses, the more he wakes up.

02:01 – Cell phone rings. Squint at the number. Don’t recognize it. Decline call.

02:02 – Roll over to go back to sleep. Get cramp in left foot. Writhe until cramp goes away.

02:03 – Get comfortable again. Notice light in my eyes. Open them to be blinded by rays of moonlight like laser beams coming through window. Roll over.

02:04 – Am awake, wondering if the phone call was from eldest son, lost, alone on the side of the highway, with a phone he plucked from the cold dead body of the guy he’d just seen run over. (Okay, the body wouldn’t be cold yet, but you get the picture.)

02:25 – Thinks about getting up to write this post.

02:30-02:54 – Drifts back off to sleep.

02:55 – Cell phone rings. Answers it. Loud talking in the background and then a voice says, “Wrong number,” and hangs up.

02:56 – Cell phone rings again. Answers it. Person hangs up.

02:57 – Cell phone rings … again. Answers it. Lots of noise: voice says, “Still wrong number.” Well DUH!! Am clearly dealing with a rocket scientist.

02:57 – Cell phone rings. Picks up and listens. Voice says, “I think the number’s 0215…” Resists temptation to say, “YES! Try that!” They hang up.

03:00 – (While failing to get back to sleep.) Imagines how it might be possible to replicate fax machine noise for next phone call.

03:27 – Considers getting up to write post which will include phone number of non-rocket scientist so that people all over the world can phone said doo-doo at 2 and 3 every morning for the next week.

03:41 – Tries to figure out how to say 999,999 in Japanese.

03:50 (or so) – Drifts off to sleep.

06:25 – Thirteen year old wakes me up to let me know he’s going downstairs and that he’s going to let me sleep for another half an hour. Goes downstairs and proceeds to scream at TV for half an hour.

06:55 – Phone rings … cousin in England has forgotten yet again how many hours difference there are…

It’s going to be a long two weeks until I’m able to sleep again.

 


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Random Novel News and a Photo

I (finally) had a weekend off and I managed to get loads of editing done. In doing so, even after reading it for what must be the twentieth time, I’ve discovered I like my story! so at least if no one else ever reads it, I can enjoy it over and over again. But having said that, I’m going to do my damnedest to get it published–fates willing–this year.

I began seriously thinking about the sequel to The Great Dagmaru and I got as far as writing a page of it. I’m extremely tempted to switch to the first person, past tense for the second book. The first is written in third person omniscient. I’m afraid of limiting myself too much by changing. If I remember correctly, it’s what Anne Rice did with “The Vampire Lestat” after having written “Interview With A Vampire,” so the concept isn’t without precedent.

Apart from that I didn’t do much worth writing about over the weekend. I did take this picture though:

colours of spring 2

Somehow the white in this photo is much more palatable than the white of snow, don’t you think?

 

 


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Stream of Consciousness Saturday – Senses

It’s been thirty-four years since I had a discussion in a class in high school – I don’t even remember what the class was, only that the teacher could easily be led astray by an interesting conversation and we wouldn’t have to do any work if we could catch her attention with something.

The discussion was based on two things. First – everyone, at some point in their lives, has six months left to live. If you could know without a shadow of a doubt that you had that much time left, would you want to?

The second of the two subjects that day has more to do with today’s prompt. And I swear, I wasn’t thinking of this when I came up with the prompt. (not sure if I should put that in there or not, but I can’t take it out now, right?)

Anyway, the second of the two subjects we talked about that day was, if you had a choice between losing your sight or your hearing, but you had to choose one, which would you pick?

Most people if I remember correctly, said their hearing. After all, being able to see makes getting around a lot easier. But I was torn. I love music. I love to be able to hear the birds sing. I can’t imagine not being able to hear the beauty of a great guitar riff, or the voice of a singer I adore. I just… can’t.

With so many years of hindsight, and having a Deaf child, I am really now torn. I see him enjoying life without sound – he can still feel the beat of music, and he’s able to communicate for the most part with just about anyone through gestures and body language. Still, he’s never been able to hear music, and so he doesn’t understand what he’s missing.

I don’t know how I would cope without my sight either. Gone would be my camera, and all but the fragrance of flowers. And I walk into things as it is…

It’s a question that will probably stay with me for another thirty-four years, if not more. I hope I never have to choose.

 

This post is part of SoCS: https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/05/16/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-1714/

Post one of your own!

Captain America Waits for the School Bus

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Captain America waits


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Connections

My best friend John was talking to me today about a man he works with named Mike. Last night Mike didn’t show up for work; apparently he just found out he has cancer.

Mike is 32 years old, just got married, his wife just had a baby and they just bought a house. The cancer spread from his testicles and is now in his stomach. Nine weeks of chemo await him.

Yesterday, I took a picture of a tree.

in bloom

I feel lucky to have what I believe is a bunch of open-minded people following my blog. So I ask you, please try to see the connection.

In life, there is so much beauty. While I’m sure Mike is worried as hell for himself and his new family, and it might be impossible at the moment for him to see what he has gained in light of what he has potentially lost, this is what I would advise him, if I knew him: focus on the beauty in every single day.

It’s so much easier for we who are not suffering to see the positive in things. The very last thing I mean to do is be glib. But each and every one of us is dying. Every thing that lives, will die. This is what connects us.

Please, send some positive thoughts out for Mike, and for all who suffer. And don’t forget to look for beauty, everywhere you go.


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One-Liner Wednesday – …If It Wasn’t Screwed On

My mother, talking to me on her cellphone: I’ll make sure I keep my phone with me tomorrow, in case you call – I just have to find where I put the bloody thing now.


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Everybody’s Different

Diversity is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? Well, not always.

If you’re at all sociable: whether you go out of the house, or stay in and spend your days on the internet, you’re bound to meet someone who gets on your nerves. I remember when my ex and I started dating. Everything was flowers and wine and laughter… and then I found out he was a morning person. I, on the other hand, am not one for more than a grunt if you’re lucky before my first coffee, so the singing coming from the direction of the shower was enough to set my teeth on edge.

While that wasn’t actually painful, I do now at times feel physical discomfort when I come across someone whose nature is completely different to mine. Take, for instance, people who live in a constant state of drama. I have enough real life problems to even consider worrying about who has pissed off whom and how they’re going to badmouth them until everyone else hates them. And it happens everywhere! Social media, high schools, offices and even old-age homes.

What I don’t understand is, why do people do this to themselves? Why can’t people just live and let live? So what if so-and-so is pissing you off? Ignore them. Don’t let them pull you into their world of misery. I certainly didn’t let my ex get the best of me with his early morning glee, and since he was still serenading the shower head when we broke up, I sure didn’t do anything to stifle him. Then again, maybe by that time he was doing it just to get on my nerves.

I know I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again: life is too short. I think if we can all accept that not everyone is the same as us, that we all have our quirks, our opinions, and our preferences in life, we could all be so much happier.

Stop trying to change people. Embrace their differences. Just not necessarily in the shower.


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A Sure Sign the Ice Is Gone

may 13 14

It was so nice to find these this morning, whilst walking around the block on my paper route.

I do love this time of year.


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Don’t Let It End!

You know that feeling you get when you’re reading a book that’s so good–you’re enjoying the world and love the characters so much–that you don’t want it to end? You approach the last few chapters and you’re divided – do you hurry up and read it because it’s so exciting? Or do you savour it slowly like a fine glass of Chardonnay? It’s a dilemma I think we all deal with at least once or, if we’re lucky, many times.

I’m currently reading a book like that. The book is catskinner’s book by Misha Burnett. If you’re not already following his blog and/or haven’t started reading his novels, you should. You can find them here: http://www.amazon.com/Misha-Burnett/e/B008MQ8W4K I’ll be writing a review as soon as I’m finished.

But this is only half the reason for this post.

When I finished writing my novel, The Great Dagmaru, I was miserable. Like that feeling when I’ve finished reading a novel I enjoyed, times ten. It was like my children had left home and didn’t need me anymore. I walked around with a dark cloud over my head for a week. It was so dark, in fact, I think I heard thunder. I wonder if this is part of the reason it’s taking me so long to edit it… I don’t want it to end.

So in my own insane way of undertaking more than I can really handle, I’m seriously entertaining the notion of beginning the sequel. I was going to write one anyway; I wasn’t going to start it until NaNoWriMo in November. In some convoluted way, maybe adding more to my workload will increase my productivity.

I need a way to get past this psychological block, however I do it.

Do you have a book you never wanted to put down? Recommend it in the comments. And don’t forget to check out Misha’s blog and his novels!