New Year’s Eve, 2023 morning

I woke from nightmares back hurting and a lovely little dog jumping on my face.

I prayed. I dressed. I took Madigan outside.  Mild day with blue sky peeking through grey clouds. Walking painful.  All of my right side screaming.  I began giving thanks for the left side and the parts of my body that worked. I gave thanks for mobility. I gave thanks for my hands and feet.  The pain decreased.  I had to stop and breathe through the pain. Exercise improved things. Madigan had a wonderful time running off leash for a bit of the trail.  He had his poop.

I made it back to the hotel and stood in line to order breakfast for Laura and I : 2 cappuccino venti, 2 breakfast croissants, 2 fruit salads, an apple fritter for me and a cinnamon bun for her.  Walking back to the room with Madigan on heal and carrying a tray wouldn’t be so difficult except there’s a corner the dogs have collectively agreed to mark. It’s all I can do to stop Madigan marking the trail.

Laura thought today was Sunday.  I regained the day I thought I’d lost. Today is Saturday.

It’s been a good year.  Covid years were really down. I’m glad I’ve been able to work but now must pay back the loan businesses received.  I’ve the cost for the camper repair.  It seems all my money will be paying back and I’ll just get by.  Maybe there will be savings and yes I’ll ‘balance my budget’ again this year. I’ve been surviving well and managing . So many I know went into debt and had to use their savings to get buy.  Trudeau has demolished the west and the middle class.  

I’m spiritually trying to live in the day and more thinking about focusing on the local. What is true is what I know and can touch now.

This is a marvellous healing holiday. I’m going to read and nap and then make a trip to the hot springs after my food has digested.  

Thank you Jesus, 

Faith, Lust, Attachment, Addiction, Gluttony, Sloth

I was moved by faith.  Cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am.   It was heady stuff to be an intellectual as a young man, reading philosophers, debating, studying logic and rhetoric.  Later I’d study theology.

Patajali was the wisdom teacher of the east.  I liked Trungpa, the Buddhist leader best.  The idea of attachment to this world was central.  Buddha taught desire is the root of suffering.  The Christian theologian said life is suffering unto death.

I was interested in addiction and addiction medicine.  Emerson the great American pragmatist was less obscure and rarified than the European intellectuals who sometimes seemed caught up in words.  I appreciated studying Jung that the ideas he was proposing were so original it was difficult to find words to describe them. Later I’d know the ideas thanks to his crude mapping,  I felt more and more I could ‘skip the intro’

Buber described the sense of I and Thou following I and It. That I am not alone. God called himself ‘I am”.  I’ve studied the various origins of the names of Gods and people,  Most tribes simply call themselves ‘the people’.

I have a life long list of associations with attachments like family, friends, colleagues, dog,

Paramahansa called this world ‘maya’, ‘illusion’ , not real.  All that is changing is not God. God is one and permanent.

Communism is the religions of aetheism. It’s unscientific, nihilistic and doesn’t work.  Pagan religions have been adept at human sacrifice.  Jesus, the son of God sacrificed himself to end death. He rose from the dead.

I liked Pascal’s Wager,

Studying spirituality I had the epiphany I had studying chemistry.  I knew. I ‘grokked’.  I find God an experience,

The question today is how to be closer,

The idea of sin is the ‘miss the mark’.  Attachment to ‘senses’ and ‘worship’ of carnal. Addiction is like that.  A person would sacrifice a life for the ‘false high’ of opiates, cocaine, nicotine.  It’s like the garden of eden and eating the apple.  

The process addictions are more interesting to me today.

Avarice - love of money

Envy - comparison

Lust - sex addiction

Gluttony - food addiction

Sloth - in activity

I find myself asking if I’m meant to be a monk or merely to moderate my behaviour. Moderation is popular with physicians. If I exercised more and ate less I would feel better and be healthier. So much organ disease follows from poor diet, excess, or sugar addiction ,diabetes.

I am often told that I am depressed and didn’t get out of bed for weeks. 

In addiction work we would argue that the depression as much as precedes the behaviour as it follows the negative behaviour.  

The Irish say ‘you can’t get to there from here’.

In addiction medicine we say you must abstain so you gain right thinking,  Only abstinent does the ‘right thinking’ follow.  FMRI show abnormality in the brain processing and judgement for 3 months with addiction,

Some have argued a year abstinence.  The research says for sure 3 months.  90 meetings in 90 days was the observational data that came from watching new comers become cognizant of their descent and recovery.  

It was so apparent with cigarette addiction that 3 months people liked the improved breathing ,sense of smell and taste, I proved health.  The cravings are often gone in weeks though under stress the can return. Rat studies show that addicted rats abstinence for some considerable time will return to the ‘rat bar’ if their cage is shook,

Sex, gluttony and sloth are are more interesting to me as the society collectively is confused by these as evidenced by the media and societal leaders.  

Underlying all addiction is anxiety and fear coupled with resentment and self pity.  There’s isolation over participation and contrariness.  I’m learning.

Thank you God, higher power, other, the self I wish to be, the becoming one.  

Harrison Hot Springs, December 30 Friday 2022

We were here last year at New Years. Laura remembers.  I thought that was the year before. We’d worn masks.  It was so cold the doors were frozen. Laura’s sick again this year.  She checked that it wasn’t covid, just the ubiquitous flu going about.  

I just remember that in January and February I was as depressed as I suppose I get.  Hearing depression and anxiety all day and having little relief to give. The lack of resources was so sad.  Patients were desperate. I described the trip to Europe I’d planned for my birthday as ‘kedging’.  I found the disinformation and lockdowns all so political. So many patients were disturbed by the discouraging political scene in Canada.  I began to viscerally loathe Trudeau.  A week didn’t go by than I’d learn something from overseas news that CBC and other Trudeau media weren’t covering.  Poor distribution of Covid vaccines resulted in millions going past due.  The Chinese scientist theft of stage 4 lab pathogens continued to be covered up.  Ghislane’s list of Epstein’s pedophiles with Clinton, Trudeau and Gates island visits all in the background.

The Freedom Convoy with Trudeau demonizing them and freezing their bank assets while celebrating BLM riots and appearing on Drag Show tv. It all was confusing.I’d not be so concerned but the soft on crime and drug use was rampant. I was always wondering about whether I was past shelf life and yet like my work and patients. Mostly I limited myself to diagnosis and medication management because psychotherapy was limited by the site and setting.  It was still doing my bit but I couldn’t defend the ministry lockdowns. It wore on me and Laura was tired at work.

I had my bucket list.  Aberdeen and Delgatie Castle. I’d been communicating with the Hay Society since Mom became interested in my 20’s.  I’d had help from them getting the first anxiety kilt I had made and later the Royal Red.  I’d been to Glasgow and Edinburgh in my 20’s visiting with family. Now I introduced Laura to the Royal Mile and loved the memories being renewed. Lots of good memories. I’d been experiencing too many negatives and intrussive thoughts so it was good to be uplifted by travel. I loved the art galleries especially, saying they renewed my faith in my fellow man.  The invasion of Ukraine and Xi Jing Ping’s war mongering over Taiwan after invading Hong Kong all looked bad. Iran was continuing to imprison women over clothing while Ottawa cabinet ministers sounded more ill informed than anyone else.  

I enjoyed walking about Oxford again revisiting Magdalene.  I love the church service.  It was all rather mystical.  The train was a delight like the train we took in Ireland.  The London again and Picadilly, Book of Mormon, Royal Ballet, British Museum and British Art Gallery.  I loved seeing the impressionist as much as I’d loved the Art Gallery of Scotland and seeing the Scottish painters.  The high speed train under the Strait , an incredible engineering feat, was a wonder. Being in Paris, our West Bank room, the neighbourhood, croissants breakfast on the streets the Louvre abd Or de Say and more impressionists.  I was glad the Norte Dame survived the terrorist attack.  

I don’t much remember the summer.  The camper was being repaired. I remember some fine lawn chair time outside my place.  We stayed in Clinton at the Lodge and I loved swimming in the lake. That was end of summer. I actually camped by Princeton in hunting season and didn’t like the hard ground and morning chill. Madigan and I shot some grouse. He actually fetched them which was a miracle. I’d only thrown a ball and bit and never trained him to do this. What a trooper. I enjoyed the ATV.

My back was a bother in Europe. I’d actually slipped hiking up Arthur’s seat.  I cracked my ipad but it remained usable . My back was no better and no worse. Just a daily strain despite 800 mg ibuprofen most days.  All summer it was made better by seeing the chiropractor every few weeks. I replaced my chair and that helped. I still need to replace the couch and mattress. I’m on my second mattress in the last few years. I’d have replaced the couch but the cat and dog have used it as their scratching board. After George and Gilbert died I was glad to have Madigan but hoped to add a cat so didb’t want a new couch if I was going to do that.   My place is cluttered.  

I was so glad to spend November in Yuma. I’d developed severe Sciatica before the drive down and could hardly stagger to the rest stop toilets with poor Madigan who had little exercise on that trip. Driving was fine but standing and walking were a near impossibility.

I’ve been doing back exercises for years and added more in Yuma. After the second week I was walking again and so enjoyed the visits to Algodones.  I bought purses for all the girls for Christmas given the incredible prices for leather goods.  I really enjoyed working virtual so that I paid for my time off and didn’t return to pay off Visa. I’m hoping to do the same next year.  

Now I’ve been back in Burnaby for December. We had the worst snow storm with severe freezing.  My waterlines and holding tank froze so I was days trying to empty my toilet tank.  Thankfully we had this time booked here so I’ve had relief for my back and am hopping that all the enzymes I left in the tank and the warming weather will relieve my toilet. Thankfully I had  another. I was glad to get the water running so was little inconvenienced except that I didn’t do the work I’d planned.

Now we’re here.  I’m ready novels and taking trips to the Hotsprings and walking the dog, picking up food at the restaurant to eat watching tv.  Pretty basic.  

I’ve had quieter thoughts not such a barrage of past trauma.  I dreamed of a charging hear last night but couldn’t find my gun.  I actually was charged by a black beat and shot it 6 times it’s snout almost at my crouch before it veered right and climbed a tree,  I had emptied the Ruger 30:06 and had to reload to shoot the last 2 shots in the spine in he tree.  I’d hit both lungs and the heart and it still went up the tree where my shot severed the spine. Then there was the charging moose I felled only yards in front of me, watching two bullets bounce off the horns before I had the opening in the throat which felled it at my feet.  

I worry I’m not aging gracefully .  Anxiety.  Impotence issues.  ED .  The unreliability of one’s own penis.  Will he or will he not?   We used to talk of the penis having a mind of it’s own.  Today it does still.  

I continue to struggle with gender identity and addiction. Is the future better as a trans woman given the Trudeau Castration of white men and euthanasia of the mentally ill.  I could become the celibate monk, I’ve been voluntarily celibate for a year when I was training spiritually.  Do I want to leave sexuality behind and become the monk. Is it time. I’m already the mystic, Druid, celtic Christian, with spirituality and sychronicity.  

I’m happy enough with Laura and Madigan. It’s only when I’m alone that I de masculinity. It’s an avoidance tactic.  I’m alone then   No one cares. I’m invisible old.

My back hurts,  I fear young punks,  I fear the government.  Having my life threatened seriously the last couple of years and the authorities were worse than useless. They are the enemy with their preference for criminals .

I don’t feel ready for the New Year, glad it’s coming. Looking forward to it but still uncertain about what is coming and what I’m doing.  Writer, Physician, traveller. I’m looking forward to my camper and parking in the woods by a lake so madigan can be off the leash.  

Thank you Jesus.  I loved Handel’s Messiah and the Hallelujah Choir.  

Dec.30 2022,Harrison Hot Springs Resort

I dreamed I was in my camper on the side of the mountain where i hunt in my dreams.  A giant blond bear ran by and stopped with some mountain lions.  Laura had her rifle and said she could shoot the lion if she had to.  I was in the back of the truck looking for my rifle but so far only finding my broad sword.  Then a couple of black labs appear with a hunter.  I come along and point to where the bear and lions were.  Madigan was in the truck,  Now there’s people on the ridge pointing.  I’m without a gun and thinking I should look for mine some more but am happy to help another hunter.

I wake up, go to the washroom, note that there’s light coming through the blinds when I get back in bed,  It’s 745,  Madigan jumps up on the bed for a cuddle and rub. Laura is still sleeping. I like the warmth and comfort.  I decide to sleep in.

It’s 9 when I wake again.   This time I open the blinds.  I m getting dressed when Laura says “it’s raining. Supposed to rain all day’.  I wonder where Madigan’s jacket is and the yellow umbrella. I get the truck key and walk Madigan down the halls and outside.  At the truck I don’t find his jacket or the umbrella. The rain has lightened up.  We take the walk around the lagoon. 

My back is still in pain but I feel the hot springs are helping, the bed and Robaxin and ibuprofen.  I am thankful I am able to walk the distance.  

At the hotel I stopped for bacon egg sandwiches, cappuccino, orange juice, cinnamon bun and apple fritters .  Laura’s up but still in her peach nightie.  Madigan and I are happy to see her.  Breakfast is delightful.

I’ve been reading Twitter rather than Facebook and feeling better without the propaganda and adds.  I miss seeing some of my friends but realized it wasn’t good to have a low brow communist criticizing me.  I don’t need to be in his low class life.  Twitter has become a whole other level of intelligence and no advertising to speak of.  I’m enjoying the science sites a whole lot.  

Feeling that we’ll soon be climbing into 2023 as 2022 dissolves behind us.  

Hallelujah,  Gratitude and Prayer. 

Harrison Hot Springs Resort, Lake view, 2nd floor

I woke at 5 am,  I was having good dreams of old friends, camping, canoeing and fishing. We’d been hunting birds talking about big game hunting. A fellow’s son had shot a moose.  

“You know they’re trying to get rid of the private hunters. The money is in the big guiding businesses. It’s an industry easy to corrupt.  “ I said.

That’s when I woke. Thinking about ‘big’.  Hard for a corrupt politician to get a slice of a little bit of money but much easier and a better take if he can get a cut of a huge chunk.

Before going to sleep I’d read about another trillion dollar omnibus bill that congress just past. I was remembering the 32 billion missing in Canada since Trudeau ‘emergency’ spending bills.  

‘Steal a little and they put you in jail, steal a lot and they make you king.”

Kleptomania. Something rotten in the State of Canada, maybe the world.

Anxiety is a measure of your distance from God.  Do not be afraid, said Jesus.  The persisting fears of recovery include ‘fear of financial insecurity.” It comes and goes.  Surrender and the Lord takes the wheel but the minutes the old primal fears are triggered the anxiety spikes.  The anxiety runs in a gang with self pity and other fears.  Sometimes the day ends with me so weary of blocking my own fears and helping others with theirs.

Here I am in paradise.  Laura has slept in. She takes a day at least to unwind.  All the complaints and demands. I say I’m the complaints department for life.  No wonder the likes of Trudeau are offering euthanasia while his French wife Sofia shots, ‘let them eat cake’.

It was chilly. I’d pushed off the upper thin blanket.  Madigan jumped up on the bed and I gave him the rub and scratch he deserved.  So often during the week I cut him short.  I felt good rolling about on the bed with the furry little cockapoo just so happy to have his belly rubbed and his back scratched.  

I prayed and tried to return to sleep but by 6 am I’d given up.  There are windows all around this corner room, a really big room with two queen beds. There’s a balcony too.  Large long washroom and toilet and bath.  I got up, brushed my teeth, gargled with listerine and shaved with my 4 bladed razor and shaving cream. Smooth.  

I pulled on jeans and my boots.  Put on the big sweater and parka, leashed Madigan, and filled my pockets with iPhone, wallet, hearing aids,  and hotel key card.  Madigan becomes ecstatic when I put his leash on him, jumping and twirling about. As I walk him down the hall I have to watch and counter his attempt to mark the way where other dogs have,

I lost faith in the universities and church, I said. It was the time they began to produce the ‘Bic Lighter’ diploma’s, charging the same price but saying they were only good for 5 or 10 years.  The price actually went up.  The idea was to gouge those people who believed in education, hit them up for not just annual renewal fees and continuing education fees but say their diploman’s depreciated like rotting meat.  It only followed that they’d bill for the certifications and re education and take kick backs from those studies they most wanted.  

I’m a continual learning machine, I’m reading whenever I can. I look up everything I can on any new patient, their other conditions , what’s latest in the field, Their presence occasions that. 

My colleague said, “you study more than any doctor I know, I graduated medicine and get my credits attending an hour of weekly rounds. That’s 50 hours CME.  The rest of my time I devote to real estate. I’m a multi millionaire. You’re a wage slave doctor.  You should give it up.  The authorities are the most self centred lazy greedy of all doctors interested solely in their own self aggrandizement.  They target you and don’t care about me.  

The system works that the best of doctors can be sidelines by the worst of patients, a political.  Mine was backed by the authorities. A lying drug addict who went about complaining against the good and subjecting these folk like me to years of lawyers and beurocrats, parasites, who suck the life out of the creative and hard working.  It’s a scam.  I’m relieved of idealism and nativity. I though there was justice once but I learned the hard way.  Everyone had nothing else to do but harass me and I was every day doing a full practice and adding the blood sucking leeches to my already stretched work load.  

Taxes took half the income Inflation took more. Housing costs went up with the money laundering corruption that dominated the Canadian housing market.  Criminals from around the world were invited to come to Canada to make a killing.

They all wanted the health care. I was the attraction.  I was the highest and best trained in the world, the most experienced, the safest, waitlists years in advance, referred to by they deans and leaders in the fields, celebrities, and the impoverished in my demanding practice.  

“He swore. He said the ‘f word”.  

I was expelled from high school for writing a song ‘Hey man what a fuck up’. I’d been asked to play it at the school.  

When she told me that doctors and professionals ‘can’t swear’,  I was shocked as I’d studied with the best of the best, those who got the Order of Canada and were world renown. We all swore.  

I’d always know that they’d find something anything.  That’s the way it works.  Evil sludge people find fault with the stars ‘ because they twinkle’.  

I’m always questioning my self serving rhetoric. I’d done years of analysis to be the best of doctors only to have the Drug Company Rep doctor say ,” doctor hay is crazy. he had to see a psychiatrist himself.”  It was years later that they caught him for having sex with girls .  

I’m prone to flashbacks. I pray all the time.  I meditate. I try exercise. I cry at night. I remember being held hostage. I remember the guns in my face, being shot at, stalked. I could handle that but these low life administrative doctors who wanted to avoid patients and hated medicine only wanting status and money , they loathe the clinicians and love being ‘police doctors’.  The police avoid the real criminals too and go for the innoscrnt like their love of gun laws.  All the criminals have guns and will hunt them down and kill their families if they bug them so they spend alll their time and tax payers money harrasssing hunters and collectors who are licensed and law abiding.  

I knew the killer doctors and how these same pompous assholes covered for them. 

Now I’ m in paradise. I wake early and walk the dog all the way around the lagoon. Only one other fellow is up so early. The air is sweet. I love the wind off the water. I take deep breaths as I walk.  I’ve let the little guy off the leash and we’re having a good time. I’ve been blessed so many times to come to Harrison and make this glorious walk. It’s the reason to come and the hot springs, I loved the hot springs last night despite the drunk woman shouting at her husband and left so she’d follow, taking the child out of the church With them gone the fairy tale hot springs went back to the quiet murmur of chatting friends and family. I enjoyed looking up at at mountain in the clouds.  Later I went inside to the even hotter indoor pool. There were so many bikini clad gorgeous young women there that it was hard to find a place to put one’s eyes.  Husbands and children were policing my gaze and yes I knew their loved one sparkled with beauty and yes I was in heaven if only because I could see from the sides of my eyes that I was among the finest.  

I closed my eyes and enjoyed the heat.

I was there for my back. It’s worse with age and yet when I think it’s the end I remember how often I’ve been here enjoying the hot springs and for a few days finding relief.  I survived a plane crash and car crash and motorcycle crash and ATV crash. My back wishes to remind me of what an idiot I have been.  

Today I’m weary.

I left my home where one toilet is plugged, frozen in the winter. I’m hoping it will be resolved with all the treatments supposedly clearing the sludge.  I ‘ve kept trying suggestions. OF course being a shaman mystic I see it as a metaphor. I’m full of shit. 

I come here and enjoy the indoor plumbing is someone else’s concern, I’m full of gratitude for this reprieve from my own world of concerns.

Time to get more coffee and then to head for the hot springs.  Tough schedule.  

Really thank you Jesus.  Hopefully in a  day or so I’ll let go of resentment and fear and self pity. I’ll focus on God instead.  I’ll clear the shit from my psyche.  I’m really blessed, It’s been a good year.  Aberdeen in the high lands, Edinburgh, Oxford London and Paris then summer and fall camping and a month in the desert doing a workation.  I’ve saved no money for old age this year , I’ve no pension, yet this year I’ve created no debt and continued to pay the taxes and mortgage.  I could clear all debt and have to retire comfortably for a while in an out of the way place.  But I’m okay doing what I’m doing, This healing break necessitates that. I’m wearing down in the complaints department of life.  Seeing how worn down Laura is by the constant rising demands and anger in the population waking to the criminality of their federal government is hard to understand. The rise of Lenin and Hitler followed the exact same pattern.

The betrayal of media and universities has hurt me most.  

Maybe that’s the necessary part of aging, Letting go and accepting so that the passage from here to there is worthy.  

I’m able to get another coffee now The shop has opened.  

Christmas morning, 2022

I woke up from a wonderful dream. I have them a lot, These numinous dreams of a sacred place where my sailboat, truck and dog and friends are.  I pray when I wake. I don’t know the time.  I just pray then Madigan somehow knows I’m awake and rests his head on the back of my neck. I’m loved.

The front toilet is still plugged but the back toilet works.

I pray some more sitting on the chair. I’ve avoided exercise. My back hurts. It’s 645 am.  

I remember as a child with mom and Dad and Ron in the front room, the yard full of snow, presents under the tree, childhood.  I didnt know Rockwell but he must have been there for so much of it.

This week I’ve been remembering the sledding and tobogganing on the slope to the Red River.  The adults walking us down to there. The dog knowing joy.  Later I loved the turkey dinners with Aunt Sally.  

Now I’m alone with Madigan.   My wrist vibrates with another Signal notice from the Nephews and Adell.  Last night’s storm has stopped and Graeme’s picture of Hay Bay is idyllic.  They’ve sent a beef and Edam cheese basket from Hickory farms.  The beef sausage came with the best mustard. I’m really enjoying it sharing it with Madigan. Last night I watched Violent Night, the Andrew suggestion,. It really was funny. I ate the last of the box of Lindz chocolate I was gifted,

I spent two days working on getting the frozen water line fixed and the frozen sewage dump line emptied.  I succeeded in all but getting the front toilet unplugged and think I’ll try a fishing pole later. I learned that I have to turn the water off to work on the toilet after it almost overflowed with my first foray.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem. I was there.  We all were. I walked across the blood stained path from the previous nights fighting. I felt guns of Israelis and Palestinians targeting me while I walked through No Man’s land.  In Bethlehem there was hardly anyone.  Someone began singing oh little town of Bethlehem as we waited to pass the sacred place where Jesus was born, where once there’d only been manger. We sang together in a half dozens languages as we moved slowly through, stopping for private prayer in that place of holy synchronicity. 

I remembered as a pre teen and early teen I organzed a half dozen friends to go house to house Carole singing in the winter, an excuse to get together and have fun, a charity an afterthought.  Later I’d do the same in the children’s hospital with medical students.  Even later there was cross country skiing and snow shoeing.  Even later there was winter sailing. I remembered having Christmas alone at sea the time I sailed solo through winter hurricane’s to Hawaii. I was past the half way mark, enjoying watching episodes of Friends late at night.  I was 25 days alone at sea and sad.  The older I became the sadder Christmas was.  The booze was gone decades ago.

With the death of Jesus by crucifixion by the authorities, State and Church, Herod, Rome and the Sanhedrin, the Holy Spirit permeated this day’s existence.  The servant god came into being and the human sacrifices of paganism and tribal religion, even the Druids ended with the sacrifice of God himself.  

Mother Mary.Joseph, Wisemen.  The story that created western civilization as we know it.  

Hallelujah. Thank you Jesus. 

Saturday, 2 days before Christmas. Winter

I’m up.  I had a really good sleep dreaming of the river confluence and fishing.  Madigan beside me. Warm. Grateful for the heat. Memories of struggles past winters staying warm, unfreezing water lines.   Today I’ll make a go at the waterline again, praying the heat tape has unfrozen it. 

I hear people saying they don’t have the Christmas feeling. I know what they mean but it’s more a presence to me.  I feel further away from Jesus. Yet so often this time of the year I become more aware.

Love God and Love your neighbour as yourself.  I imagine I’ll get water here today.  I had a trickle yesterday when I connected another hose.. I can bypass but it’d work. I do believe the pump is sound too.

I’m obsessed with comfort.

I’m alone here. 

Winter Storm

I awoke at 4 am this morning.  I got up to pee.  There was no water when I flushed the toilet.  I checked the taps. No water. I went out in the cold in my pyjamas in clogs still wet from yesterday. I checked the plug for the water hose heat tape.  I believe it was well secured.

I prayed. I hoped.  I couldn’t sleep.  There is no scarcity.

Yesterday I used my last propane tank,  Delivery isn’t till Friday.  I am anxious about the propane and heat,  I do have the barbecue small propane,

I’ve been using the electric heaters to reduce the propane since yesterday.  

It seems drafty in my home.  I’ve put on underwear and tights under my night shirt.  My flannel pyjamas are in the storage locker along with my fur hat.  I have warm comfortable slippers but should find socks. I have hiking boots that would help.  

I woke from some bad dream. I read yesterday that trauma was infectious, an article on ptsd. I’ve had enough of my own trauma and I’m reliving the trauma of vets and victims.  

I remember the winters on the sailboat, the hose on the dock freezing, depending on the water in my tank, rationing, no showers.  Showering at work. I’d ride my motorcycle in the slush and sleet. I’d smell of diesel and not realizing sitting in the luxury of my comfortable appealing office,  I was thankful when Tom brought me a large tank we filled with water during the day and it lasted the cold spell. I ran a hose to the tanks and managed for those weeks of terrible cold, the dock iced and the dogs and cats sliding despite their claws as we struggled to make it up to the car in the parking lot.

Yesterday the roads were closed.  There’s a few feet of snow on my Ford Truck and Mini Cooper.  When Mack with the grater cleared the road I walked out to see my vehicles.  I’d not gone into work at the clinic.  The news said that the roads were dangerous. I have an F350 with winter tires and chains but Vancouver drivers don’t know how to drive in Canadian winter. They have electric cars with summer tires.  A film of an Aston Martin fish tailing all over the road went viral. It confirmed my suspicion. I was glad to work from home.  

I’m barely managing. My back hurts and I feel fragile.  Aging isn’t for the young. I do all the exercises, swam last night and used the hot tub.  The inversion table I ordered through Amazon, came and I have it in the garage still in the packing. It needs to be assembled. I don’t seem to find time. Yet I can watch the new Halo Sci Fi alien series on Paramount plus for 3 hours in the evening.  My sidewalk needs shovelling but I can’t find my shovel. It’s may be under the snow. I could borrow one but then I’m hesitant to subject my back to the strain.

I’m in defensive mode against the universe. I know the best defence is offence.  Go face them and fight them be savage again says Rudyard Kipling in my brain. Younger I was made of sterner stuff.   

I installed my new Starlink satellite and it was going well but then it wasn’t so I unplugged it and started all again It might well have been a temporary outages but I thought it was overheated only to find once I ‘d disconnected it that it was normally warm. So I put it all back together and forgot the password. I didn’t watch tv those evenings, After a 9 hour day of work I spent 4 hours a couple of nights dealing with tech issues.  I have the Mac equipment all working and have continued work with ipad and MacBook, newer, but the older PC isn’t working and I think it’s a PW thing.  I couldn’’t get the security cameras back on line either except the Blink . I want them all working before I go away after Christmas for a few days.  The Blink is fine but my mind says I need a full array. 

In Arizona last month I watched the cat and a raccoon pass through the yard at night.

I have a full array of fears and 2 years of constant fear bombardment by the government I’m worn down. I had a sore throat on Monday and it’s gone. Belinda said the staff had been having these come and go. My powerful psychosomatic defences responded to that little reassurance. I was in a struggle to the death internally fighting off images of dying in ICU’s unable to breathe.  I was crying for my friend who died. There’s never been enough time to grieve.  Every day and every year there are more sick and the party of clowns continues non stop in the capital cities.

I would wallow in self pity but I realize women are being killed weekly in Iran and Chinese are locked and immobilized by storm troop police. All over the world there are riots against the NWO regime and it’s lies of dire climate change and hysterical control measures to viruses.  The war continues in Ukraine and China now has 400 intercontinental nuclear warheads aimed at me, here, us.  I remember growing up in Winnipeg on the flight path to the Russian nuclear missiles targeting the American silos just south of us,  

I know safety is an illusion and perception,

I’m chilly today despite the electric heaters and propane furnace warm clothing and my second cup of coffee. I was so glad that the water reservoir was full from last night. I know that if I take action each of these challenges and fears is reduced. It’s the curling up in the fetal position that makes things worse. I could bring in the frozen 5 gallon container and it would be thawed out by the time I needed it , if I needed it

The water may not be frozen just in my hose but may be at the pump. A few years back this whole sector lost it’s water when the main froze,  I remember my friend coming from Winnipeg and enjoying the shower because he was still running a hose from the neighbours to shower after the suburb lost it’s water to a deep frozen main beneath the streets  It was weeks or months before they could solve the problem. Water needed to be trucked in.

I remember with tears my elderly neice living in the freezing cold of the old family house with no one knowing that the furnace had broken and she didn’t have any money for repair.  My brother said you could see your breath inside,  She never wanted to bother anyone and just didh’t know what to do.

I know what to do. I’ve been doing it all my life. I’m very handy and was raised by an engineer father who was constantly maintaining the house and cars while we took it all for granted.  

I’m a survivalist. I have all these skills. I have most of the equipment to thrive though my chain saw and pumps are in the storage locker.  I imagine later today I’ll get the broom out and sweep off the truck, hope it starts, so many times I’ve charged or changed batteries, with frozen fingers and ears.  

I just got back from Arizona and Mexico missing the November gloom and rain so that winter hasn’t seemed so never ending as yet.  Since Covid I’ve felt in Vancouver like I did in Winnipeg when spring seeemed never to come and the SAD lite didn’t bring the happiness promised. I don’t like darkness in morning and early night.  The short days were in Arizona too but the sun was bright and warm in the day.

Not like the wan sun in the sub arctic where I worked for years,  I don’t know many who can recall the bush pilot having to use a blow torch to warm the oil pan so he could start the plane and get us out of the reserve where we landed .I remember that and the fear I had taking off uncertain, The same holds true for being in the DC3 when the runway was black ice so we had barely hit the tarmac before we were bouncing into the ditch. The plane flipped onto the wing which crushed with a god awful noise but we were stopped and the pilot and stewardess helped me out of the side exit which was now on top.  

It’s my mind that’s the problem. No one better to know that than me. I need to have gratitude. An attitude of gratitude will always dispell fear and sorrow,  But I don’t want another. AFGE - another ducking growth experience,  I prayed, I sat in meditation but I wassn’t at peace,  I feel I have to cancel some of my day, to make a trip to Canadian tire for a scraper and shovel and more propane,  I hadn’t counted on one of my tanks being ‘expired’,  The fellow wouldn’t fill it,  It’s hard to keep up with all the tasks and binge watch tv at night when I am so exhausted that seems all I can do though when I swim and I’ve done that 2-3 nights a week I feel i have more stamina. I walk the dog at least an hour a day in spurts buth during the week it’s hard to get a half hour in morning and a half hour at lunch and a half hour in the evening. I’ve been short changing him. I’m always short of perfection .  I try to pace myself but the problems don’t seem to slow. The printer is down because the satelite was down and I’m uncertain of the password,  I was so thankful I could deposit the cheque at the bank because Nova Scotia on line banking is such a bitch to re install with their silly password security questions that only an accountant could solve and yet for now reason the cheque photograph function has failed I’m afraid to re install it because last tine it took a week and 2 bank managers and hours of my time going to the bank and on the phone to get it restarted.

I couldn’t stand for the pain and thought I should go to hospital and call an ambulance lying on the floor but waited because I didn’t to spend days on the floor in hospital waiting . I’d done that with my father.  The pain passed, I know it’s grief but a physical doctor would say it’s something else.  I have pain. I’m aging.  It’s all in my mind. My mind is in God’s mind and all is well. Fear will kill me faster than anything else,

I used to be stoic.  I used to laugh more. I think of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and this government as so like the Adam’s government intent on building a space highway through the earth and insisting they beurocrats had given fair notice by posting it at the nearest planet to earth . I like that the old gods of Dick Gentleys Holistic Detective Agencies have taking up residency in nursing homes because they get clean sheets and tea is brought to them.  

I worry I’ll be homeless though I lost faith in homes with the last divorce,  The mausoleum and insaniety . 

It’s now 7 and still no light. When I was sailing off shore and it was night I knew I just had to hold it together till dawn because everything was better in the light even if the 40 foot seas were horrifying to see, it was all so much better than my imagination of how much worse it was than it felt in the washing machine boat bucking and straining and threatening to pitch pole.  

So many near death experiences come to mind when I open that door but I don’t dwell instead on the recovery.  There have been so many. The sun always rises. When I die i will awake in another dimension, hopefully a paradise like Mark Twain’s Captain Stormfields Visit to Heaven

I don’t want to dig about in the snow to follow the lines and check the source if there’s problem at the main, Kelvin went over my water system last month to ensure it was skookum,  It’s just these are the coldest days.  

I haven’t down the laundry for fear there is some freezing along the outlet and I’d hate to have a water spill.

I just remembered the year it got so bad living in winter on the SV Giri that I moved ashore for the weekend taking a suite in the Bayshore and loving thee luxury, hot showers and room service. I might order a pizza tonight, I have a meeting and hope to go though right now my being is still pretzelled in a fetal position,  I’ve had coffee. Incrementally things have improved. I’m feeling the need for a bowel movement and considering what I ‘ll use to flush but I have liquid toilet cleaner and wet ones.  I’ll feel better.  It’s going forward.

The alarm went off and the Creed played, Inspirational.

I’ve been alone so long.  My father and brother had women who helped them and were assets, I reflect too quickly on the women in my life who tried to destroy me and how I picked them like that, damaged by some earlier relationships or insane drunken parents.  I have always been too willing to bite off my leg to get out of a trap.  

I’m blessed though. In the tarot deck there is the fool stepping off a cliff .  Everyone has called me lucky but I’ve just concluded that’s God acting anonymously, good karma or even sense but not something to disparage a person about. I was so brow beat in marriage. I began giving as good as I received but eventually found solace in silence. I was always blamed and shamed and wrong. Certainly never good enough.  Certainly not perfect,  Mostly poor despite constant work and providing for others.  

See the quick slide to self pity.  I haven’t drunk wine in 25 years but still am so which to whine,   The winos really worse such whiners in their cups,  

Today I’m struggling to be positive and hopeful even without water immediately. There’s no concern in the present. My anxiety is for hours or days away and my struggle with cancelling work I keep hoping the heat tape just went off and that when I fiddled with the plug it came back on and all shall be well. Though now I’m tired having been sup since 4 am.  

Silly Billy.

Thank you God for all your blessings, Thank you for the Hound of Heaven poem and the poem of foot prints in the sand,  

I’m so afraid and frozen in 

The Nutcracker, Goh Ballet, Queen Elizabeth Theatre

I did walk on parts for the Winnipeg Ballet fifty years ago,  I’ve seen my share of ballet.  This spring I took Laura to the Royal Ballet Covent Gardens production of Swan Lake in London.  We’ve had annual tickets to Ballet BC but have been missing the classical ballet .  I didn’t realize that Goh Ballet was such a senior company,.  When I first came to Vancouver decades ago they were the leading ballet ‘school’ but frankly this was their first production I attended. 

I do believe this is my all time favourite Nutcracker.  I’ve seen a half dozen or more.  I’ve also been blessed to see and meet Baryshnikov and Karen Cain so I’ve a fairly high standard of appreciation. 

This troupe though excelled in dancing by all means.  The  Guest artists, principal dancers, Ashley Boulder of the New York City Ballet, Stirling Baca of the Philadelphia Ballet, Cecilia’s Iliesiu, of the Pacific Northwest Ballet, First Soloist, Damien Cruz-Garrida and guest artist Adonis Daukaev were all consumate professionals of the highest order.  Their dancing was a joy to behold. 

What captured me most though was the brilliant choreography by Anna- Marie Holmes.  This truly made this my favourite Nutcracker, That and the delightful dancing by the whole cast of young and younger.  Really fine dancing.  I’ve seen a Nutcracker where the children’s dancing was obviously an add on. Not the Goh.  The youngest was dancing and they were appeared as the finest of ensembles.

The set was incredible too.  A regular Hollywood extravaganza more reminiscent of a Broadway Musical like CATS than a Canadian Ballet production.   Decades back  all dance companies were strapped for cash. Bare floors with limited assist was the norm.  Not with this intricate engaging and surprising sets,  Same with the fabulous costumes. Too ingenious

The audience was families and the children were entranced by the magical nature of this production. The standing ovations roared, conductor Leslie Dala joined the troop.  Bouquets of roses appeared and the final curtain fell.  Then all you could hear were the voices of gleeful children, so many of the girls dressed in sparkling gowns, their parents as entertained but not nearly as vocal.  We all left happy.   

Well done Goh ballet!!!  Truly one of Canada’s great ballet production companies. Obviously a magnificent school.  

Vancouver Symphony Orchestra - A Traditional Christmas - Orpheum

Laura and I thoroughly enjoyed the VSO Traditional Christmas this year.  What a treat to hear this great symphony playsuch Christmas classics as O Holy Night then Sleigh Ride. The stories told by Christopher Gaze were delightful, shorts from Scrooge and poets of  Christmas yore interspersed with the song and symphony. 

Rachel Buttress . Soprano, was so simply heavenly that I was levitated by her Holy Night and captivated by her Messiah Rejoice.  What a truly incredible  voice that filled the Orpheum packed with families of all ages.  

I’d just heard Nat King Cole on the car radio driving in and there was Odyn Mulder sounding like a flawless continuation the master.  I’ll never again hear ‘Chestnuts Roasting on an Open fire’ without remembering the depth, reach and richness of his Bass-Baritone voice.  

I’d not seen David Bui, the RBC Assistant Conductor but loved his presence and attunement with the symphony.  He’s young but then we noticed that there were some very young members of the VSO we didn’t remember from before Covid. God forbid that we are aging. 

We so enjoyed this concert and remembered it last at Christ Church Cathedral.  Time passes but it’s made best with these ageless moments. 

And yes, we enjoyed singing Silent Night and Hark the Herald Angels with the audience of the Orpheum accompanied by the VSO, Buttress and Mulder.  Laura was right, the Christmas spirit we were missing in the hustle of work and winter storms was indeed sparked by this gift of music joy. 

Both of us were lighter leaving the Orpheum feeling a touch of love and peace despite the appalling politics and media of this year.  Our hearts and souls were opened and we smiled at others as we went out into the night

Thank you VSO.

Hallelujah!