Eric fixed the water leak yesterday so the camper is ready on the truck in town. A quicker get away without the need to stop except at the gun storage locker. I remembered to put out the SiOnyx to take night sky pictures. I’ll have my Nikon P1000 for birds. There was actually a time when I just hiked with a camera but then for decades I hunted and enjoyed wild cuisine. I’d love to have a freezer full of venison this year and make my fabulous spicy nutritious venison stews ,curries and chilli’s. It’s equally possible I’ll just enjoy drinking coffee and reading in the camper. That’s mostly what happened fishing. No fish but a great time was had by all.
I’d actually found cammo leggings and a light fall green hunting suit this summer. My hiking boots are still good. My other hunting gear I’ve had for a decade or more but those jackets and cammo pants have been too heavy for the usually sunny hot weather in early fall. I used to hunt moose in winter but I’ve generally stopped hunting by October because I’ve had a life time of snow and cold and sliding trucks. I’ve become much more cautious and careful these last few years. I just don’t care for any more major equipment costs or injuries. I have enough traumatic memories of adventures.
The best one was being washed down the raging river in the Broncho II and Shinto jumping through the window to swim to shore to save himself. I was thankful I got caught up in a fallen tree across the river. I was able to get ashore and use the winch to haul the sinking vehicle ashore. Shinto looked a bit guilty having left me to float down the river. So much for camping on an island only to have the river flooding and washing out the road the torrential night rains. I headed out to hunt predawn and in the dark didn’t see how much higher and faster the river had become. Another good reason to wait for the light to go hunting now. When I was young, thanks to the guidance of my old friend Bill Mewhort, I was up at 4 am and positioned in the woods before dawn. I’m lucky to be out at 8 or 9 now. Getting up early doesn’t seem to work for me. Too many years on call.
I’m always excited by the fall. Probably my favourite season. I loved winter when I cross country and downhill skied but I stopped doing that mostly a decade back. I haven’t even snowshoed in that long. I must have been another person when I made igloos and quinces and winter camped. Years of fly in doctoring year round in the north has sated my appetite for frozen engines, parka’s and cold. I really feel I’ve not had enough time in the tropics I often reflect fondly of the years of island living, the heat, the friendly people, and evening breezes.
I dreamed of sailing again. I’m often dreaming of sailing on the SV Giri. My nephews talk about it. Maybe next summer, after Covid. The camper and truck are my land boat. I do love them. Nothing beats being able to pull off the road and climb into a cabin on wheels. When I was on the sailboat there never was any ‘pulling over’. Anchoring was great but it could only occur in coastal waters. Offshore I always had to keep watch at sea.
I’m enjoying working from home. The video conferencing is better than phone alone. I find the medium exhausting. It’s okay for pharmaceutical medicine but there are too few cues for psychotherapy. It works with major listening and concentration but I do appreciate my colleague who says she’s considering retiring because it’s an awful way to practice medicine. I hate the ESL issues on the phone. I’m exhausted after a phone call trying to understand what a person is saying about the nuances of emotional and mental health with their lack of the language and translators who are often equally challenged. I remember when I started how selective and exclusive I was in choosing people for my psychotherapy practice with it’s limits and goals and weekly visits. Now I may see someone every three to six months. It is a supreme challenge.
I left my methadone practice only because of the greater risk, inability to see patients, the phone not working so well in an often duplicitous practice and the pharmacies and government issues with outdated triplicate prescriptions.
I’ve enjoyed adapting to whatever the situation is but know that any day we will have to be perfect again with the armies of critics demanding the impossible while they themselves stay as far from the front lines and real reality as humanly possible. I was already disappointed in the poverty of competence and intelligence in some of the leadership but Covid has really brought out the best in some and showed how sick others are. A real mixed bag response. It’s still so confusing. Thankfully UBC and BC with our NDP government hasn’t been as rotten as Canada has been by comparison. Ottawa is a cesspool of misinformation, corruption and conflicts of interests.
So many people out of work and the country being bankrupted by mismanagement or downright malice, I’m aware I am a ‘lucky’ one to have work but then I’ve always worked and this whole Covid matter has just meant more and harder work and so many others are rewarded whereas I’ve not seen any ‘reward’ in this matter. I have a go to place of envy and self pity after working so long and sharing as a physician in the stigmatization of my mentally ill patients. Working from home is better without the commute and I simply don’t feel safe indoors with others so I’m glad for that. But the work is harder in ways and people are a lot sicker. Again I’ve had to call the police to go to a patients house. So much domestic dispute and relapses and financial concerns and isolation. I’m so saddened to hear of the old dying and family not able to see them in the time before.
Gilbert’s walks continue to be a high spot. Prayer too. God within. God will come again. I would know you more surely Jesus. Holy Spirit come.
My church has reinstated outdoor mass with success and I expect I’ll one day go again though I’ve been disappointed in the overall church’s response collectively to this crisis. More social work and less spirituality. It was in the plague that Julien said “All shall be well”. Now I’ve not heard anything so spiritually true. Mostly platitudes and politics. But that may as well be my own selection bias. I’ve sought meaning in this time and the church has been mostly uncertain and afraid. Riots in the streets with the church joining abortionsists and Marxist aetheists So few of the church leaders have held true and not been swayed by the political fashion of the month. Poland has had some moments. But the lights have gone out in Hong Kong. Where is the C. S. Lewis that arose when the Nazi socialists over took Europe. The Pope is a disappointment and the child sex trade issue is not over. It’s tentacles reach throughout society though Hollywood is disturbingly silent as more are connected to Epstein.
I’m aware each day of my own deficits and need for more character. I am more feminized in ways but wonder if the highest isn’t transcendent. I enjoyed reading the gay priests book , the Spirituality of Coming Out, I’m reading other books about the personal stories of cross dressers and transsexuals but too often the development and focus is physical and emotional, with the occasional great intellectual piece but little focus on spirituality. Certainly some writers and those I know have lifted up their eyes.
I love the line in the Great Kahuna, ‘Jesus had nothing to say about women in business suits.’ He did say “Love god and love thy neighbour as yourself.” He had nothing to say about cross dressing or transgender. Indeed he loved children and women but had nothing much to say about sex. The church however has for hundreds of years been obsessed with sex.
I’ve been called in for the FIT test, my age, and a standard screening. I still was reminded of the Scottish Comedian Conolly talking about his colonoscopy. “You y get to an age over 50 when the doctors lose all interest in your genitals but develop an inordinate interest in your arse.”
Time to walk Gilbert. Best part of the day.
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