Fear of Death/Love of Life

Fear of death has been thought the greatest fear.  Many variations of the theme exist like fear of dying, fear of pain, fear of powerlessness, fear of loss of control, humility, and much more.  

The classic psychiatric text was Denial of Death by Ernest Becker.  Denial is the most primitive of coping mechanism and used primarily when overwhelmed or perhaps negatively surprised.

The historic and traditional, microcosmic and microcosmic, approach to death is reproduction.  Children have been humans ,individually and collectively, response to fear of death and mortality.  Art and empire and monuments are all other ways of attempting to reach beyond the apparent limit of life.  Religion and all manner of thought systems further attempt to extend this life.  Not only is this the forward thinking approach but the study of history and archeology further advance the idea that life isn’t brief and perhaps sordid but rather long and noble.  

Love of life and imnortality go hand in hand. 

Vanity.

Children and family and genetically related individuals and groups are the building block of society.  

Yet coitus interruptis, the ‘withdrawal method’ was mentioned in Genesis.  L’Chaim , to life, but not if it’s to one’s dead’s brother’s progeny which was the requirement of Hebrew Law. If your brother died without an heir, you were required to i pregnate his wife.  Onan, much maligned for Onanism, or masturbation, rather failed to impregnate his dead brother’s wife and give her and him an heir. Instead he wanted to keep the land for himself and his progeny.

Land and land ownership and all that ties to that was of course part of the need for the construct of permanence and denial of death and change and fear of course of change and death.

The reformer is the enemy of anyone who benefits from the status quo but as change is frightening.

Faced with fear we ‘freeze’, ‘fight’ or ‘fight’.

“Freezing’ is very popular.  However what happens to an ostrich who puts its head in the sand. “It doesn’t know who kicks it”.

Birth and death.

We only have other’s word about our birth and the Big Bang theory, and we can’t tell anyone about our death.  Just one more of the great paradoxes of life.

The Book of Mormon was a sublime comedy and satire of all philosophies and religions.  The play was a challenge to all ‘people of the book’.  The major books are Bible, Bhagadvagita, Koran, Talmud, the Tripitaka, the Tao, Communist Manifesto, and the list goes on.  Each book has a protagonist,  Moses, Mohammed, Jesus, Paul, Buddha, Confuscious, Marx, etc.  There are a variety of these emotionally carthaced individuals with a mythology that surrounded their venerable lives.

The notion of God is ideas coming down from God, Intelligence and ideas going up to God , competing elevator ideas.

The oldest law of the world is the Chinese Law of the Fish, there are Big Fish and Little Fish, and little fish must be fast and numerous.

Having children made people bigger.  We protestants didn’t like to fight the catholics because we had a couple of brothers and sisters in general and the catholics had a lot.  Throughout history empires were made on children who provided the armies and the equivalent of slave labour.  Today children are pets. Then they were tools.

Feminist is a great myth. Women’s individualism was a product of contraception and the myth of overpopulation and the Industrial Age.

The Machine,

The Dark ages aren’t as dark as intellectuals would have you believe The advances in engineering are mind boggling.  Just the idea of the lever and the pyramids and stone henge are more monumental than space flight. 

The dark ages and Middle Ages were a time of physical advancement and not just paintings.  The renaissance was a recovery and advance of science.  

Science joins two with the ‘neutral term’ ‘associated with’.  Marxism and it’s little sister feminism joins two ‘events’ with the value laden term ‘oppresses’. Hence the hysteria of victimship and legal equivalent of side taking, and blame and shame.  Politicians advance with divide and conquer and ganging up. 

Individualism was never desired.  In face of threat humans congregated.  Being alone was for the lunatic and the religious.  Even monks were a community as Thomas Merton showed in his study of Buddhist and we knew of the Dessert father.

War is us against them.  It’s all fear based and paranoia.  Steal a little and they put you in jail , steal a lot and they make you king. The winner writes history.  Women are equally guilty.  Eva Brawn and Hitler’s Mother created Adolf.

Women have been second class only because of their unwillingness to accept accountability.  No praise without blame.  Today the various victim cults want license not freedom. The language is changed to validate whatever ideology suits , such as murder and abortion or Medically Assisted Suicide,

I turned 70. I am an individual.  I realized 28 days alone at see with only a dog and a cat.  

The only day we have is today. Carpe Diem. ODAAT. One day at a tine,  We live from sleep to sleep. 

Life is a manifestation of memory desire and today.  Buddha did say desire is the root of all suffering.  Kierkegaard said life is suffering unto death.

Freud said Eros and Thanatos.  Life wish and death wish.

Politicians promote their children today and say vote for me “I”m a parent’.

The division is ‘parents and single’s, ‘families versus individuals’,  With the machine we don’t need many more. A dog and a cat perhaps, a God, a friend.  

Sex was first for pleasure.   Later it was connected to child making.  Later it was known that the largest armies one.  

Gender is a product of the past.  

Humans are heard animals. Raising children or even monkeys alone created insaniety, death wish dominant.  Raising biologically disconnected children, adopted, kibbutz etc worked.  

Science takes groups and compares them and finds general trends and directions which can guide but don’t predict the future of the individuals.

Individuals and individualism is associated by farmiles and countries.  The paranoid sees the individual as oppressed by the group.  Certainly the Communist Committee Gangstrism continues to oppress individuals.

Others see all relationships as mutual ,versus parasitic,

I like my dog,  Dog and human have been a long history of mutuality.  

I remember family and being born but my father’s generation was born into the celebration of the ‘family unit’.  The Asian family unit vernerates the old.  Children are a mother’s old age pensio.  Mother’s collectively are cared for by children in old age while the world is full of disregarded old men.  Men die 10 years younger than women because they are uncared for .  The lie of feminism was that women were tougher, but when put in the same jobs they died as young. Feminists haven’t been creative but have raised children for themselves .  Today women have sons on leash. Men have dogs on leash.  

Men are becoming women and women are becoming men,  God doesn’t make mistakes.  The whole idea of that is fate versus choice.  I chose to dress as a woman and because of that I can be deemed wrong, bad, mad.  But the other who says God made a mistake. Is the latest in the victim motif.  I love the advances of science and women getting big breasts and women getting little breasts is called cosmetic surgery. I’d like breasts as a man for the sake of cosmetic surgery.  Not because of fate or free will.

However the great industry of law and psychology is to ‘advocate’ for the outside.  Today one of the wealthier groups is the new ‘drug pusher’ who is the ‘advocate’ of the ‘drug addict’ who can’t abstain but must have safe source.  The natives did the land claims game with native getting 1 million dollars while two lawyer groups got 10 million dollars each to gabfest.  The safe source debate is little different,

The same debate occurred with Sangster and birth control and abortion.  The pregnant girl could abstain or the rape could have been compensated as in tribal society superior and more sophisticated than today which is a lewd and obscene society.  Neither better or worse. Difference.

The idea of the Christian’s refusing to take the plank out of their own eyes while attacking on mass the mote in their neighbours.  The Christian who is obese slanders the Christian who murders.

Hierarchy of hate and shame and inside out sider is perpetuated in the law of the fittest.  Are we reducing the gene pools but helping the wounded

I don’t have children. I like wearing dresses. But I liked wearing cammo. I liked wearing the military imitation officer suits popular with lawyers and politicians. I liked wearing yachting gear and dancing wear and clinical lab coasts and college cordoroy.  Gender is not who I am.  

Yahweh - I am who I am.  

Namastes - the God in me salutes the god in you.

Alone I am never alone,   I am a Christian.  The Christian god is loving and always loving and not judgemental ,  Incluseive , not exclusive.  But then God is loving and judgemental and inclusive or exclusive.  God is all or nothing and All and nothing.

I loved the 60 tv show Prisoner.  A totalitarian dystopia whereas I’ve a libertarian dystopia.

As a Christian I’m top of the class as married man with good kids today.  As a politicians, the same.  Historically the Christians were individuals and disciples and groups and some were alone and some some were married.  We don’t hear much of the children of the disciples.

Cherry pickin Christians have rejected Paul on women and slaves but also cherry picked Jesus ‘. Thoughts on enmity and money.  

I loved the 60’s books, Be Here Now (a take off from Brother Lawrence, Pracrticing the Presence of God’ and Elkhart Toole, Power of Now.,  I also like the couple who wrote ‘what to do till the messiah comes’.  A Jewish couple who did’t believe Jesus was the messiah,  I heard an Anglican Priest say he didh’t believe the Bible.  Another Protestant Canadian female minister didn’t believe in God or Jesus but wanted the job and pension.  

The government doctor told me “Act like a doctor’, and he had the arrogance to think he did To me he was just another ‘suit’.  

My life as a community psychiatrist was always “attraction’.  The world of ‘prevention’ is even more attraction.  The ‘police doctor’ the ‘licensing doctors remind me of the time when I was in charge of the asylum. If you wanted out you needed to do as I say.  There’s a world of coercion in medical politics,

In the healing profession the person is dying and you can delay the process and relief suffering.

All medicine is palliative care in face death,

I and my family go to heaven. You and your family go to hell. Your mother wears army boots.  Amazing what we can’t learn from what children discern. You’re in or out.  King Lear at the end speaking to his daughter.  Shakespeare calls it ‘court things’.

90% of cross dressing men are heterosexual .  The whole feminist movement of today is the woman wearing pants. Chanel to Hillary Clinton. The argument that post modernism is just a pretty name for the Super rationalism that denies the feminine and denounce the mother, the holy mother, the sacred mother.  Women in communism the religion of aetheism were denied children. Abortion and hysterectomy . Vasectomy is not a communist thing,  The primitive tribal woman says we count a man by the number of his children.  

The number of children and number of wives

Anthropologists define the west as ‘serial monogamy’. In my childhood 50 year marriages were normal with divorce rare and families in tact to some degree mostly. Today the urban divorce rate is 50 % and 5 year marriages are the norm.  Based on individualism and science perhaps the 50 % marriages that persist are the bad marriage.

My friend who left high school and became a millionaire called me a slow learner because I spent another 12 years in institutional learning and even went not to teach at a couple of universities.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  Women act more like men than their mothers,  Marx and Engles wanted to destroy families as a threat to the almighty god of the State.  Communists call mothers ‘Breeders’.  

It’s fun getting to know women more.  I also see gays and other minority groups in a non child centered fear of death way.  

An early female Judge found 320 consecutive family cases against the man.  

The woman registrar at the College of Physicians and Surgeons said “Women don’t lie about sex”.  I have to date never been compensated for all the sexual harassment I have experienced in the work place, the rape, the caning in school, being hit in the head by a teacher’s wooden mallet, the individual list of ‘wrong’s’ and manure of self pity that power the ‘pay me’.  The story of the fisherman and the beggar is lost to history.   

I don’t like being among strangers.  I have worked in the jails and the asylums and I have been in government offices.   I am good at my work.  I’m like a motor parts guy, a spiritual fixit.  I know the products available and have a lot of answers to all manner of questions most of which people are afraid to share with others.  

Live and let live.

Jesus taught Love God and Love thy neighbour as yourself.  If any passage in the Bible veers from this then that’s what needs to be discussed not whether a trucker wears diapers.  

To thine own self be true.

God is all and I am a part of God.  

My identity is not my self’.  C.S.Lewis’s said thoughts are ‘creatures’.  St. John of the Cross, Nada.  The spiritual path.  The long dark night of the soul.  

I am a lone but not alone,. 

 

Horse Lake, Thursday, Gilbert’s Heart Disease

The sun is out big time. Hardly a cloud in the sky.  Yesterday overcast rainy with mosquitoes. Morning working in the camper. Laura puts on earplugs and listened to music.  Gilbert sleeps on the bed with her.  She’s reading. I’m working. It’s not a bad gig for a rainy day in paradise.

In the afternoon I rode my motorcycle down backroads slipping and sliding in the muck. My arms and shoulders are telling me this morning I got my share of exercise. I had the camera along and took some pictures of the area I was in.  Firs, muskeg, pine. 

I rode up a side trail and parked the bike. I took the Chiappa Double Badger folding rifle and targets to a clearing I found a short walk beyond.  I shot off 5O rounds with the 22’ single shot barrel. I was grouping within 5 inches only  slightly left and high of centre but it was not good enough to hit the head of a grouse. I’d hit the body of a rabbit but that’s not good enough. I think I might add a little scope. I’ve needed a scope in recent years partly because of my aging eyes and partly because of my precision shooting.  A grouse head is about the size of a quarter coin.  

The 20 guage single shot barrel was amazing. I tried the 6 shot and the slugs.  The slugs were a bulls eye.  I walked back to about 20 yards where I normally shoot grouse from and while I’d had trouble with the 22, I would get the grouse every time with the 20 guage.  I will have to work on reloading quickly. My mentor Bill Mewhort years back chose a single shot moose rifle for the accuracy of the longer barrel he was able to get without the regular action. He could load three shots almost as fast as I could with the bolt action.  

What’s nice about the Chiappa is I have the perfect bird gun.  It’s actually fits in my pack folded. Further if I carry a slug I have the potential in a crazy situation to be armed to defend against a bear attack if I’m not surprised.  I’m usually pretty alert in the woods the possibilities in the wild are always there.  I remember the times I’ve come across  bears and badgers and I’ve be fortunate they opted to leave me alone. I’d definitely been undergunned sometimes at the time of those encounters.  

Gilbert was sick last night, coughing and having problems breathing. He’d gone on for an hour unable to settle. I’d wake and go back to sleep only to wake again.  I brought him up on the bed and with Laura and I massaging him and some more of one of his medicines he finally settled.  I think he has trouble breathing with his congestive heart failure and he panics.  Dyspnea is a side effect of one of his meds but this was what we took him to the vet for. He coughs until he spits up clear fluid so it’s pretty certain that’s the congestive heart failure , so called ‘water on the lungs’. His X-ray showed that. He’s on two diuretics and yet he continues to have this problem. On rainy days it’s worst. Once he settled and stretched right out he slept straight through for 5 hours. Now we’re up at 9.  He’s just fine this morning.  He was barking at the ducks whose sound of landing as a group outside the door, surprised him.  He’s not coughing. I had trouble having him take his medication, it’s wrapped in roast beef. He wouldn’t take it so I walked him a bit to pee and again tried and with a lot of fuss he took it.  I was pretty exasperated.

I’m finding myself re thinking euthanasia.  Individually I’ve know that I’d like to go and have always held that if things became so wrong I’d suicide. MAiD is the euphemism today.  I found myself thinking Gilbert was going to die and then I was selfishly thinking maybe it was time to have him ‘put down’.  Poor guy.

The problem though is the same I see with the death penality.  I believe it’s right. There are limits to rehabilitation despite what some would argue. I know that ‘God’ works miracles but there are countless examples where a community can’t ensure a person who offends won’t reoffend. It’s the same issue that soldiers face with the inability to take prisoners where the prisoners could give away their positions behind enemy lines , the result being that the platoon is killed for not.  Historically communities banished those who were re offenders.  It’s the reoffenders that are the real challenge. 

If we think about the worst crime of murder then perhaps there can be extenuating circumstances and a guy killed his ex wife or mother in law.  I’m just suggesting these as example.  Someone else might think of murdering the boss. I’m not speaking to the idea of deterring others. No one would have thought about murdering my ex wife or mother in law.  They might think of murdering their boss so historically the whole idea of murder was a costly issue.  In the village you had to pay the cost of the loss of that person to the family or tribe. Like with a lot of things and the law, the rich could get away with murder easier than the poor. But the murderer might alternatively become the slave to the family.  

The whole idea of the jail industry, with people kept at huge cost to society is a type of evil that is driven by greed and the ability to tax people with little accountability.  Historically law was mostly about recompense, not this weird ‘punishment’ idea.  My principle problem with the death penalty is the State. The State is so intrinsically flawed and biased with a long history of mass murder that it should not have the power to kill individuals ‘legally’ given it’s history of errors. Even in a democracy total idiots get elected and these people and the media can influence judges and innoscent men and women can be killed for profit.  I believe in the death penalty but don’t know who should do the killing. Hence the historical value of banishment.  I think branding people with the Scarlet Letter or a big M for murderer or T for Thief ,  might be an alternative. I’ve not really thought it through but know that the STATE should not have the right to kill and that the whole ‘Life’ sentence issue would only make sense if it were cheap. What we really need is for Australia to become a prison colony again. Ultimately  the moon or mars will suffice. Space exploration if only for the sake of penal colonies for workers is a grand idea. 

Now what about MAiD. Again the State is the problem. I’ve always held that I have the right to end my life. I admire my Christian and Catholic friends who believe suicide would lead to hell but I’ve always maintained that I personally have the right and a loving God would not condemn me. At most I’d be a teenager who crashed the family car and the loving father would be miffed but still love me.  I don’t ‘own’ this body. It’s a vehicle I inherited. I have too known so many individuals who use ‘suicide’ as a weapon of threat and extortion. Then there are those who want attention and the others who would suicide if they broke their fingernail. I love that the Buddhists and Hindus to a large extent like I , consider it a personal choice, that they discourage. I certainly don’t admire the STATE and it’s Jihad Suicide bombers. I”ve always felt leaders should be willing to do whatever they ask their men and women to do so know that Jihad is invariably left to the grunts. The guys with the virgins here on earth aren’t about to blow themselves up for a speculative proposition.  All propaganda.

But if I was Gilbert and couldn’t get my breath and faced that terror alone I would be glad for a ‘magic pill’. Bring on the cyanide.  In the spring for the first time in my life I was ‘unable to get my breath’.  That’s when I believe I may have had SARS. I was coughing like Gilbert, crying and praying and more desperate than I can recall for two days. I’d have these ‘spells’ when I simply could not take air in and my body, normally a twin, to my self became one with myself and together we felt utter abandonment. I understood then in that instant the cry of Jesus on the cross. “Eli, Eli, lama sabaqtani!”  My God, my god , why hasn’t thou forsaken me!

Last night I thought Gilbert would die and I felt that again there was nothing I could do but pray. I have cried by bedsides too many times to remember. I have pleaded with God to save patients and been rewarded by hard work and miracles but in my own life I’ve not had success. Wife’s have gone on to be ex wife’s, family members have remained sick. Loved ones have died. Dogs and cats have died.  I’ve known terrible pain.

But pain is bearable.  Breathlessness is not.  The greatest torture known isn’t being eaten alive by ants or staked through ass by Count Vlad. It’s water boarding.  Obviously I can’t speak from experience. I’ve not had my face eaten by ants though this weekend the mosquitoes tried my patience and I have had a hemorrhoid that drove me to distraction. None were like that experience this spring of not being able to breath.  Asphyxiation is intimately tied to panic.  Panic attacks are experiences of inability to breathe.  Covid 19 is all about that breathlessness.  I can’t imagine a worse death. But all death is breathlessness and eventually it passes and you die.

I thought Gilbert might die last night. His enlarged heart might give out or he’d just choke and seizure. He lived.  

This morning I thought of suicide. I was angry at Gilbert for yet another night disrupting my sleep. It’s been weeks, this being the worst, but I’ve risen with his coughing for months . What’s changed is that he doesn’t settle. It used to be I just held him and he stopped coughing.  Then I could take him for a pee and a short walk and he’d settle and sleep through the night. But now I’ve been taking him out every few hours and he settles and then it repeats. I’m so thankful we’re on holidays. 

Which brings me to the point. If I had to work and was raising a family without support of my village eventually I’d want to kill the person I was caring for. If I was the person unable to care for myself I’d want to die. My mother told me she was ready to go when she was bed ridden. “It was okay when I could sit up in a chair, Bill, but now all I have is a ceiling.I’m not going to get any better.”  I’d rescuscitated her twice. I only resuscitated my father once. I’ve resuscitated countless people. It’s a skill and a ‘gift’. I’ve watched spirits rise from bodies and called them back. Not alone.  The trouble is that it’s only temporary.  It’s a wrestle with death. Death is inevitable.  

Gilbert is an inconvenience. I was annoyed with him this morning when he wouldn’t take his medication and I felt like slapping him.  I was crying too.  I remember others caring for their parents, the people I know caring for disabled people. My brother put up with my ornery father’s cricitisms and moods right to the end. My brother is a better man than me.  My mother cared for my grandmother till I found her cold one morning in the sun room. I have a disabled friend who is really demanding at times but we all humor him. He is in the most severe chronic pain and disability known and yet our society , the STATE, has no heart dealing with him. Indeed girls are taking advantage of him because he is frail and they are the psychopaths of the world. I witnessed caregivers hurting him myself.  Now the STATE and the COURTS are punishing him for his weakness.

I felt like killing Gilbert ‘for his own good’ because he ‘was suffering’. He was suffering but I was kidding myself. I’m a contemptible selfish jerk whose sleep has been disrupted and this is my best friend and loved one and I’m thinking murder. The fact is he’s loving his life when he’s not coughing. Yesterday he was cuddling with the love of his life Laura for hours. She’s giving him treats and sitting with him on the lawn listening to the ducklings that are walking by each day. I’ve been playing ball with him which he loves despite being blind. He loves going for walks. I remember my mom loving being pushed around in her wheelchair outside by my father. She lived for those hours until she was permanently bed ridden and stared at the ceiling bored to death.  

I’m not going to die well. I’m a coward. I love a loving God but I’m the first to tell him what I need and it’s really hard to accept ‘thy will be done not my will’. I’m not a masochist. I don’t enjoy pain or risk or discomfort.  I’m not very impressive to myself. Others seem to see me well but within myself I’m rarely measuring up,. How can I be a lover and think of killing my little love because he can’t breathe and is suffering and I don’t want to be bothered by it any more.

The fact remains that is what I learn from so many.It’s not the thoughts or the words but the actions. I didn’t kill Gilbert or myself yesterday and he’s now sleeping at my foot and I’m just so sad.  Aging now is a matter of loss. But I’ve been blessed beyond what anyone deserves to know this little guy.  Better to have loved and lost then never to have loved. 

Thank you God for another day. When I was at sea in hurricanes and storms and it was night and I was near despair it would always be better in the light. The sun is wonderful this morning. St. John’s latest ‘long dark night of the soul’ has passed. I’ve another day to learn to be more loving like my dog who trusts and loves unconditionally.  Gilbert has another day of play. Thank you Jesus. 

,

Gratitude Jan.15 , 2020

Thank you God for light.  Thank you God for breath.  Thank you God for warmth. Thank you for morning.  Thank you for the night’s sleep. Thank you for the dreams that touched me with otherworlds and mystery. Thank you for the mind. Thank you for Gilbert in bed beside me. Thank you for indoor plumbing, running water, hot water, flushing toilets.  Thank you for coffee.  Thank you for grinders and electricity and intricate machines that make the morning brew. Thank you for my rugs. Thank you for the heater. Thank you for this clothing. Thank you for my positive memories.  Those things that spark the mind looking forward. I thought of old friends and little children and knew I was blessed. I reviewed my fears and felt that I didn’t want to live in a fortress of walls and moats. I’m so terribly vulnerable and I live in a dystopia but I continue to trust. Each day I go out on the battlefield and bring back the wounded.  I rally the dying.  I’m in this insane world but I’m doing my bit. Each day.  I pay my way. I guess I do thy will.  I’m bitching and complaining and self pitying and moaning and groaning and whining but I get up and help the next person in the line. Two malaria’s and and a cholera.

There are the elite. These men and women so far above the world with guards and limousines and servants and nannies.  I’m wrong to compare myself with them without comparing myself with the cripple.  Acceptance is the answer but I keep slipping. I struggle with my thoughts. I’m beating on your chest God asking for protection and support and guidance. I want to be safe in an unsafe world, rich in a planet of poverty. I want to be joyful in the malaise and depression of existence. Life is suffering unto death.  Desire is the root of all suffering. My back hurts. My shoulder hurts. My knees hurts. I’m always in pain. The plane crash, the car crash. All these attacks on my being. I was doing nothing wrong and paying attention. Shit happens. Ive been living but Ive not been able to evade the arrogant narcissist going through the red light oblivious to others or the troubles he causes. Now years later the trauma greets me.  Ive got to get through the pain. 

The life long desire to be in the south in winter. I want to run from the snow. I’m reminded of the terrrible cold.  Lost in blizzards. Making fires in woods, waiting out the night, blue.  So many negative memories. I can pull them out like a speed dial.  Dial up despair.

Yet here I am with you.  I’ve meditated sitting cross legged on the floor, listening to my breath, distracted by every sound and every undone thing but there I am making a space for you. Listening on the radio pointed to the inside.  God’s within.  I am the bubble make me the sea. I’m talking to the architect not the wall. Be with me today. Guide me.  

I’m supposed to act with dignity today.  Dignity the new standard that has been thrown at us.  The latest demand for perfection by aa group of hookers, thieves and murderers.  They have the guns and the lies and own the courts and rig the election and propagandize to the children.  Fear mongering.

I’m afraid.  Jesus said Do not be afraid.  I’m always afraid. A perpetual coward, faking it till I make it.  I dont’ want to go to Ninevah. I ve been on the icy roads with every poor driver who hit me out of control. The memories of the 360 degree flying through the air , the idiot speeding on black ice losing control in the passing lane and hitting me. I never knew a car could pitch pole and the driver still live. My divorce wasn’t long after. I’d had another near death experience and couldnt believe I was alive.  The car rolling sideways and righting itself. The self centred drunk and stoned in the morning party animals. I couldn’t get to the clinic that day. The police man took me to the emergency and I was so thankful my friend was on. I was desperately falling apart, my back seizing like its done forever. The incompetent young lawyer. The deceitful insurance company.  I was a week in bed.  I bought an encyclopedia britannica and began to read it.  Drinking scotch and popping T3, every move excruciating.

I have never recovered. Flashback pains in cold weather, the icy roads a reminder. The stoned Prime Minister wanting everyone to be stoned along with him so he can make factories and money and have more jets and nannies. I’m trying to stop them drinking. Trying to stop them drugging. Then yesterday I was asked if I wanted to be a euthanasia doctor.  If thinking about suicide isn’t enough. The government wants me to kill. I surrender we say.  Let me be captain of the artillery. I’ve read a book about mortar’s and gain a whole new respect for tubes. Meanwhile low testosterone is at epidemic proportions in Canada and no ones cares. I’m writing viagra prescriptions and talking to women who are blaming themselves for the mans noodle. The men are crying.  I’m sitting with crying me. The transsexuals are no more happy.

I’m talking to friends who stay as far away from sorrow and fear as they can. They live in little gated communities of the mind and heart and think they are Jesus. 

I write gratitude lists. I send people to anger management. I get asked to talk about anger and struggle to forgive. Forgiveness is not for them as much as it is for me. It’s also we’re all connected. I’m angry at my toe for stubbing itself.  I’m so unenlightened. I’m so dark. I’m carrying the light each day, trying to reduce the pain, trying to cut away as little good flesh. Taking out the old and weak.  I miss the easy days of surgery. I miss delivering babies. I miss the days when my skills with my hands were sought out. I did cut downs in hospital, always go the lumbar punctures and inserted needles in to hearts, swan gauzes and chest tubes and pacemakers. It was all glorious. Now I muck in the mediocre.  

The pain is real. It is all in your head.

“You saying its all in my head.” 

‘If I cut off your head you’d feel more pain?”

Why is the brain and mind and soul so little validated but the body is all the rage.  They want money and more money and more money.  Everyone is poor.  Validate the pain. Blame the world for my pain. But accountability brings power. I am my nemesis.  I can change me but not you. The serenity prayer.  

I drove to work 2 hours commuting.  Duty.  Wanting a pay check.  I had such silly expectations of what it would be like to grow old. Retirement. The promise of all those years of sacrifice. Now they circle like mosquitoes outside the screen. The vampires are coming in the chimney.

I’m grateful.  I need only look at a flower and see the wonder.  I have to focus on the positive and let go of the negative. Ive got to walk on the right side of the street and then I won’t be hit by the cars, mostly.

Ive so many blessing. I have these glorious times walking in the forest by the river with my dog who is happy, blind and old and so content not to be alone .Thank you Lord that I’m not alone. Not in solitary. Not locked in quiet room by the instrument of my rape and terror.  Not injected with anti psychotic medications for telling the truth and shouting ‘j’accuse’.  I’m vindicated. The enemy dies.  Arjuna talks with Krishna. The war goes on.

I buy a little statue of St. Michael as I look back my back trail and see the karma of all who hurt me and wonder why I am afraid.  Why must I get wounded for the squad to come up. I’m walking point and always afraid.  But someone else is walking point right now. I’m here in the warmth and have a royally expensive tank of propane to replace this one that got me through the night. It’s so cold outside. I miss Mexico and the beach.  I miss the glory days. I wallow in grief, suck on the tit of despair. I grieve so much but then I look back and today is the glory day.  Today is now. Now is where god is. If I get into the future I get into fear and if I dwell in the past I gather resentments. Expectation is a preformed resentment.  I’m searching for God, playing hide and seek, minute by minute. Here in the mystery in the game. I’m looking for love in all the wrong place and all the right places.  Life is a poem and I’m a poet. Life is a song and I’m the singer. 

Thank you for the laughter. Especially the laughter at myself.  This too will pass. The end is a grave. All else is vanity.  

Thank you God for the coffee.  Thank you for this body.  10 fingers 10 toes.  Help me make the time for seeing friends.  Help me face my fears and go out on the road.  Help me face my fears and get out of bed. Thank you for my waking today. Thank you for the prospect of a hot shower.  Thank you for the coming of the light. Thank you that we know the sun is returning and we dont have to sacrifice any virgins. We dont have many virgins left Lord so thank you for science and the knowledge of astronomy.  

Thank you for all your blessings. Help me to know you more deeply feel you more fully trust you more truly.  Thank you Lord for this life and this day. May I make the best of it, serve you and my fellow man and woman. May I be a better man today than I was yesterday.  Thank you Lord. 

Sad that George Has Passed

Laura reminded me that George had a good life.  She saw him in a cage at Pet Smart.  She likes the blond male cats.  George reminded her of her Jarvis who had died.  He wasn’t there when we returned but we hunted him down at a basement cat shelter.

A lovely women kept all these poor rejected boys and girls. The whole basement was a refugee camp for cats.  George was there in the corner, a real scaredy cat.  Terrified of everyone and everything, including his shadow.  

Laura loved him.

I prefer female cats and cats without the schizophrenic unloved wild dangerous look.  Laura and her love of bad boys.

She brought him home and he was mean. Jesse James all guns blazing,afraid and angry. Not going to take this any more. last stand.

He shit and pissed everywhere.  

It was a nightmare.  Laura was changing her bed every night after long days of work and by the weekend exhausted.

« I just can’t see keeping him. He’s too wild and dangerous. »

George after shitting and pissing everywhere hid under the bed and hissed.

Poor George.

He was in heaven with this crazy cat lady all set to love him but he was unable to get his head into the present and out of his awful past.  

I got under the bed, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, rubbed his nose in the poop and put him in the clean litter box full of sand.  held him there till he stopped trying to bite and claw me.

I know, CBC, Huffington Post and countless SPCA associated activists were lodging million dollar law suits against me. I was a bully. They’d rather neglect. Especially where they can be virtue signalling critics, their only solution euthanasia. It was a ‘last ditch’ effort. Do or die. George had no more chances. 

I’d left utopian academic  classrooms and Monday quarter back scenarios decades ago when I stopped wearing short pants and got a pair of jeans.  George was at  that ‘wake up and shape up’ or ‘die’ Place. Laura, his only hope, was crying. She couldn’t cope.  

He had some sort of chronic feline disease too, like Cat Aids, we were told. Not a particularly attractive guy in the marketting world.  

« That’s why we had him alone on display at Petsmart. It was kind of a last ditch effort to find him a home. No one cared for him. When he wasn’t hissing he was hiding.’

George and I talked. I told him the pissing and shitting on the furniture and bed had to go. I knew he knew about litter boxes. He’d not had the problem in the basement. This was dominance, territory stuff.  He was making Laura his bitch and Laura was way too sweet for her own good.  While I held him I talked. He stopped hissing and snarling.

George stopped shitting and pissing on the furniture after our frank discussion. Thee ancient nose shit and then show the proper place, only to be used as a very last resort, worked. There are far greater easier ways and superior ways to train a normal animal with proper time. 

Laura was fine then.  I didn’t know how. She couldn’t be doing laundry every night. Once that had stopped and George was no longer in attack cat mode,  she put up with this ass of a cat. He slowly came out and ate the food and drank the water when she was home then returned to his cat cave.  This went on then for months. I’d come over and drag him out and see he was okay. He was getting fat with Laura’s feeding. He didn’t have brain disease. He was a very smart cat.  

When nothing bad happened, Laura said, ‘I’d just talked to him when I came home. Eventually he started coming out. Then he would sit on my lap. But if I moved he’d bare his claws and snarl. I’d let him go then.  He’d come back. He liked my petting him on my lap and talking to him. »

I’d come by and see this.  The crazy wild scaredy cat, all big guy and roughness, now just a mewling little sweetheart when Laura was around. I’d come and he’d leave. He’d taken to sitting in the cupboard about the refridgerator , his perch. He watched me, jealous now. He was curious about Gilbert though. 

He came to Laura. He tolerated me.  Gilbert and he began to play. Gilbert loves cat. He was raised by his cat mother Angel.  He doesn’t know that cat’s aren’t dog’s best of friends.  George swatted him a few times.  I was concerned for Gilbert. We’d not been able to cut George’s claws.  I worried he’d hurt Gilbert who is fearless and foolish. They worked it out.  Friends but not best friends for then.

Laura loved her cat.  I’d hear about George all the time thereafter. George did this. George did that. George slept with her. George woke her up. George liked his tummy rubbed. George and she played.

Years of this girl and her cat shit.  Meanwhile when we visitted the dog and cat hung out together.  Laura and I would even leave them alone pretty sure that they’d survive. We’d go for dinner and come back and all was well.

Then Laura had the rent eviction. She was able to find the last apartment in all of the Lower Mainland, closets go for a few millions daily rent, gangs fight over the money laundered homes, bankers and lawyers are homeless, millionaires line up for shelters unable to afford Vancouver rents.  Laura wasn’t rocking the boat.  She was allowed in but no cats.  Small dogs maybe eventually but no cats. It looked like George would have to go again. 

I took George. He wasn’t happy with me.  He sure liked Gilbert. Gilbert and he shared the place. Laura brought over the scratching post he liked to sit at the top on.  I had a litter box and separate food and water. It didn’t matter. George ate Gilbert’s food and Gilbert ate George’s food.  They both thought this was a good deal. They really began to like each other.

We got into the Safeway chicken nights. Gilbert and I had these where I ate some and he ate some and now George joined it. A bonding session every week or two. Laura came every weekend or so and hung out with George and Gilbert.  I was the room mate then.  Gilbert and George would drape themselves over Laura who loved ‘her boys’.  

A year or two passed with George being loved by Laura and Gilbert and liked well enough by me. But then Gilbert developed a hereditary glaucoma. He  had to have his eyes removed. He became so depressed. I was beside myself, unable to do anything to comfort him. He was so afraid when the second eye was removed. But there was George. George became his constant companion. He never left Gilbert’s side when we were at home. Constantly being his eyes and constantly lying up against him. It took weeks but Gilbert, thanks to George, to calm right down. Eventually after all George’s nursing, and  after running again on beaches, Gilbert began enjoy good life after being blind.  What he’d gained was George. They’d been friends before but now they were the best of buddies. On their Facebook account the called each othe BFF. 

I’d wake in the morning to George waiting for Gilbert to get up so the two of them could roll around together. I’d have George walking over my face as a feline alarm clock if I tried to sleep in. He’d get Gilbert to join him and next thing I’d have a wet cockapoo licking tongue alarm clock coupled with cat paws on my face.  The two of them were ever together. I fed them in the morning then my usefulness was over and George would play with Gilbert.

Time passed and George got sick. It began with coughing. He became frail and isolated but he was drinking and eating. I thought it was just a ‘cold’ but after a week he’d stopped coughing but also stopped eating. I took him to Dr. Panel  Biernacki  at North Road Animal Hospital, great Vet.  Gilbert and George had both visitted him for their shots and really liked him and his team.  Dr. Biernacki sent him home with antibiotics and fluids to be given subcutaneous.  

Laura spent the next week coming over and nursing him. Being a doctor I could do all these things but Laura wanted to and kind of suggested that I wasn’t ‘gentle’ and ‘caring’ enough for ‘her George.’  She’s one of those protective wild grizzly bear type mothers.  Not even a doctor was good enough for her George. So she was doing the fluids and feeding him the antibiotics.  I was watching.

George rallied. I got him this really good special expensive urgent care prescription diet from Hills.  George ate it up.  He put on weight again. He and Gilbert were rolling around on the living room rug.  Laura had a cat in her lap and Gilbert draped beside her jealous.  They let her read sometimes but both nudged her to keep petting and stroking them.  She did.  I was the room mate of this little love group.

A couple of months later,  George slowed right down again. MostlyI noticed he didn’t get up to greet Gilbert first thing in the morning. He wasn’t waiting for us to wake. It wasn’t until I was having a cup of coffee before he’d join us.  Moving slowly. Weak. 

I talked to Laura. I talked to the vet assistant.  I took him in. 

Dr. Douglas was on an did a thorough exam of George, very kind and thorough. He  said he was anemic and felt his kidneys were the problem. Good young guy, reminded me of me, hundreds of years ago. Offered to refer him to the hospital. Said he didn’t think he’d make it through the night, « He’s really sick, » he assured me. 

I figured he’d make it through the night. I’d take him home and talk with Laura and talk to Dr. Biernacki the next day.  Dr. Douglas had drawn blood and the results would back by the morning. 

George was still around in the morning. He came out to rub nose with Gilbert and take a drink of water while I was drinking my coffee.

I phoned Dr. Bienecki. He answered in his soft sure voice. 

« I’m afraid your cat is dying. » he told me, «  He’s anemic and would need blood transfusions. There’s tests and hospitalization but I can’t guarantee he’d last much longer even with that. »

I had a clinic booked all day.  Laura was in her clinic with her doctor.  I called her. Told her what Dr. Biernacki had said. 

 She took the afternoon off , spent the day with George.

« He sat on my lap. We talked. He walked over and had some water. Then he’d come back and sit on my lap. I sang to him all the songs I knew from childhood. I even sang the Frank Sinatra songs my mother sang to me. » She said. 

I’d came home with Gilbert late afternoon.  Gilbert and George lay down together. 

 ‘My boys’, said Laura, tearing up.  

« I’ll take him now » she said. « if you can get him in the carrier. » She left  off to get her little red Smart Car. 

I gently picked up George for the last time. He let me put him in the carrier. 

He knew. Gilbert knew.  

When Laura returned she took the carrier from me and put him in the seat beside her . I watched her drive off with George. I’d offered to go but she wanted to be alone with George.

I shared some dinner with Gilbert. We were sad.  The euthanasia was planned for 7 pm. Dr. Biernacki had kindly offered to stay late for Laura and George.

I called her after 8 pm. 

« Dr. Biernacki let me hold him while he  gave him the needle. I held George on my lap, praying. We sat for awhile. It was very peaceful.  George was  such a good boy. »

Winter Christian in Summertime

I’m feeling a tad guilty.  Sunday morning really is Church going time for me. It’s a good habit of quality living. A lot of my life I’ve enjoyed attending a church, first with my family, later alone, and later with friends. The music really appeals to me. I like the thought provoking sermons about matters we’re actually told not to talk about, God, death, morality, ethics.

Yet here I am with dog, Gilbert, and cat George, and I just woke late. I watched the movie Majestic Seven with Denzil Washington, Ethan Hawks, Chris Pratt,and Haley Bennet.  An evil outlaw baron kills farmers in their town and church to take over the valley for his slave mining operation.  Haley Bennet plays Emma Cullen and recruits the magnificent seven, a group of bad ass men of varying character but retaining a shred of humanity and willing to come to the town’s aid.  Matt Bomer plays Mathew Cullen who has been gunned down by the Bartholomew, the evil industrialists,  villainously played by Peter Sasgaard.  Mathew Cullen had been verbally defending the town pastor who Bartholomew had dragged from the church and was having  being beaten to death by his gang.  Obviously the church plays centrally in this movie, burnt by Bartholomew and later as the steeple sniper tower for Ethan Hawks and Lee Byung-hun. I’d seen the movie , this one and the even earlier version.  Despite Hollywood’s  cultural Marxism propaganda, it’s ignorance of Christianity and it’s twisted Jewish revenge motif it’s actually a very good pagan proto Christian movie. Besides all western’s are Godly along with space movies which are really glorified westerns.  Actually any movie with horses is good and even better if there’s a dog.  It ran past midnight.  I like movies where there are guns and things that blow up. 

I slept in.  Gilbert even joined me on the bed using his dog ramp and lying down beside my face to lick it and let me know what time we get up usually during the week. He really needs to learn days of the week.

He’s just bored.  The cat puts him up to it too because I feed them both when I get up. Gilbert wants to play ball but the cat really wants to ensure he’s got his food for the day. Once I’m up they go back to sleep

I start my day, after the toilet, where I read the inspiration for the day as well as do the “other”, unnamed,like politics and religions , which could well be construed as number one and two, simplify the teaching of children.  

Then I meditate. I’m not very good at it. I began doing it in adolescence and have trained with the greatest and practiced ever since but really it doesn’t come naturally.  I come and go with it too. I was doing it sitting in chairs for a long time, back straight.  But then I got back to cross legged which hurt my knees to get down there but now is working out pretty good. I feel good about myself physically.  My mind still wanders but I figure it’s a clear invitation for God, Holy Spirt, peace, higher power, Jesus, Holy of Holy, to come in. Look no thoughts, come Holy Spirit come!
Meditation is listening to God. Prayer is talking to God. So I do the mindfulness meditation focus on breathing, sometimes the mantra meditation ,Herbert Benson MD,  focus on a word or phrase, sometimes both, and observe the monkey mind. “Creatures of thought and thinking’ that aren’t ‘myself’ but ‘constructs’ and relax and wait.  It’s waiting for Godot and today I was mostly interested in the fan in the refrigerator.

Gilbert, my sensei, realized I was useless at this and much more useful playing with him. So my meditation session stopped when he climbed in front of me and put both paws on my shoulders and licked my face.  Hard to ignore. The cat had been behind me rubbing his back against my back.  

I played with them both, scratching George’s back, and rolling Gilbert over to scratch his belly. We’ve played ball some, pretty good for a blind dog, and I’ve had my coffee.

If making and drinking coffee were a sacrament I’d be holy.  I’m really an adept at making coffee, stove top espresso machine, honey and milk , nice blend and a favourite heavy solid mug.  I may well get to heaven and find that God was coffee or manna from heaven in the OT was coffee.  More likely God is chocolate or ice cream.  Skip the comparisons of the Song of Songs,  food analogies work better for me than sex analogies.  

I’m in a long t shirt. I picked it up in San Francisco knowing it was kind of sexy girlish and yet it was a ‘night shirt’ in the old medieval sleep wear manly sort of thing. I’m ambivalent about my bisexuality.  I’ve enjoyed men and women sexually and admitted it to get out of the victim role. Indeed I’ve been working on a spiritual exercise of embracing all that has occurred in my past believing that God is good and all that has occurred in my life is God.  It’s all that caterpillar butterfly thing.  Even loving the ex wives and sometimes forgiving the government but rarely getting that far. At best I pray for the forgiveness to forgive this government. 

I’m old now. I can honestly recommend that young people aim for the straight and narrow. Mainstream is tried and true.  I ended up off in the rough looking for my golf balls a whole lot of times on my course of life.

But it’s not a race and I don’t really believe in a loving God and heaven and hell in that ‘concrete’ piagetian developmental delayed way. I’ve studied Hebrew enough to know the mistranslations of phrase and time. If we do the best recommendations of good parents and a good society then we will be mainly in the ‘church tradition’, not the ‘letter of the law’ but the essence of James in the New Testament.

I love that the 12 step programs grew out of the reading and interpretation and life of the Oxford movement. There’s so much hope and inspiration there.  I’m abstract.  I”m a scientist. I love the Celtic Christian understanding of the truth of nature with it’s DNA and fractals and all that good stuff whicheaetheists rejects. I love God of the Big Bang. I like the Dance of Love, the Dancing David and the Jesus who likes little babies and his fishermen friends.  

Over the years I’ve cross dressed.  In theatre, in dance, in kilts, with long hair and earrings and even attending annual balls where the girls wore tuxes and the guys wore gowns. I loved wearing a klush gown and  having my hair and nails done. I miss the theatre.

I’ll forever remember the day I bought my first ‘stretchy material’ blue jeans.  As a kid I read science fiction novels where the men and women had unisex spac suits which fit their bodies adjusting naturally to hot and cold and were protected from the elements in every way. I’ve been ‘functional’. I wear ‘suits’ to work and that whole ‘masculine leader’ role is a burden.  I have open toed sandals and close toed sandals and feel better at work with the latter. Yet when I come home I’m down to men’s shorts and a tshirt. When I sailed in the tropics I lived in my shorts.  Clothing is functional in my books and for comfort these days. I don’t even like the constraint of waistbands and in the tropics was satisfied with the wrap.  I don’t think any of that has to do with masculine or feminist.  There is a part of me that envies the women their obvious clothing for sexuality which of course the perverted lying feminists deny.  So much of female garb is relational and art whereas men’s wear is functional and work.  

So a lot of my staying at home is unwillingness to get dressed. To go to church I would have had to walk the dog, and showered and shaved and then I’d be obliged to dress like I do for work.  Shirt and slacks. It’s not at all demanding like the 19th ventury and even the 50’s. I do miss the tie. I liked having all these groovy ties and could make a statement “I’ve dressed up for this occasion’ simply by the choice of tie. I wore jeans and plain shirts and added the accessory tie and that was good. I love jeans , mostly for motorcycles and falling down and using wrenches and grease and stuff and black shirts. I love black shirts.

I see white pants and white shorts and white shirts as distinctly feminine.  I can’t have a Burger or a hotdog without mustard jumping on tto my shirt.  So every once in a while I do the zen like awareness of my body and clothing and focus on my space and environment like dance but I could never do this and get any of the things done that society associates truly with manliness and work. Those these days all the girls are doing the manly things and getting praise and downplaying the achievements of men unless done by women and I sew and cook and do all the traditional female things but with no support from a society reveling in the destructiveness of Marxist chauvinism and cultural communism.  A man is praised for pushing the baby cart while the woman is praised not for using a wrench but for her ‘superiority’ , the whole feminist thing is only about control and power.
I enjoyed using a wrench yesterday with all the importance of the tool manipulating monkey and loved the movements muscles and the activity and held it like a violinist holds a violin bow.  Men appreciated their ‘crafts’ and celebrated the ‘craft’ and once women did too.  But feminists are heartless aberrations of humans totally caught up in dominance control and power.  So seeing a man pushing a baby cart isn’t about shared parenthood but rather about freeing the woman for the board room. Because that’s where the feminist wants to be and would never understand the billions of men who love their ‘work’. Narcissus and Goldmund the great tale of the 30’s is beyond the feminist mind.

I want to carry less burden, fight less and stop having to push back when bullies of all sorts especially those in administration burn down the church and throw their weight around. I want to do my ‘craft’ and my ‘purpose’ and my ‘calling’ and my ‘duty’ and I could do it nude if it weren’t for the bullies who have me wearing jeans so I’m always ready to get down dirty with those fuckers. Because they play war in the board room and wear white shirts and grow their fingernails long to show they don’t have to work.  But I like my hands knowing work.

If I was in church I’d be hearing about peace and turning over my cares to Jesus.  I’d leave my burden and confess and together pray for a good week.  I’d have to get dressed though.

I’m here whining and moaning and reflecting on not writing the great Canadian novel and how I could get up and walk the dog and go to the hot tub. I’ve  aches and pains and lay in bed enjoying the freedom from bodily awareness.  Cycling yesterday did it.  Exercise leaves me the next morning hurting. I don’t know if it’s good pain or not.  When I was young all pain fo exercise was good pain.  Now I can’t tell the difference between pain and strain.  

God is this creation ,this dream this holograph and existence I’m in. It’s all the culmination of the ‘collective consciousness’.  Owen Barfield one of the C.S. Lewis crowd wrote of this and how God was the ground. The potter and the clay. The individual as co creator. I’m responsible for my life and the blend of fear and love that coexist day to day. I see the church as a safe place. I may make the 4 pm service or compline later today.  I’ve missed the first call to church but it doesn’t mean I can’t make a later one.

I feel better if I get out. I will shower now. Cleanliness is next to godliness.  Shaving is good. I’ve been more conscientious regarding shaving since my beard became grey and white.  Neither Bruce Willis or I unshaven today look like the young guys with their sexy stubble. 

I often wonder if the desire for a sex change is just a desire for youth again. I don’t think any one except youthful idiots wants to be old, to have the problems of geriatrics.  Oh dear, let’s have sex change to an old lady and worry about pissing yourself when you sneeze.  That’s not the marketing ploy that the gender surgeons use. Neither is the idea of getting prostate disease and incontinence or erectile failure what motivates women to be men.  So much of the attraction for those older is the idea of ‘youth’.  To be a young and fit anything is appealing to the over 50 and over 60 crowd.  I think the Hindus with the hope of reincarnation have a more positive outlook.  I’m likely coming back as a dog and that’s okay.  I’ve watch my blind dog adapt to blindness whereas I’m still bitching about my knee.

I see the Hollywood movies promoting the young men and young women sexually.  50 years for the women and there’s  the movie REDS with the old ladies and old men of spy days and they’re sexy but still we’d want candlelight and incense especially for the bald guys.  Thirty year olds have a fairly universal appeal. And the 40’s are delightful but 50 is the over the hill on the sexy scale for men and women functionally or just to look at. Generally stripped naked men and women stop looking great older. If we can add character with an expression as a photographer might the 60 year old nude has appeal. But not in a police mug shot lighting of the whole body. A 25 year old yes, she or he can look sexy in that flat lighting we associated with the morgue. But not old people with worn out parts and wrinkled skin and stretches and spots.

I love the old. I can see the beauty ‘in’ the old but not the superficial way that Hollywood does.  So a 60 year old offered a ‘sex change’ or a ‘youth change’ might well take the latter rather than the change of genitalia.

Such considerations are like religion and politics not to be discussed. 1 or 2. I did know several bisexuals who thought that they’d be more ‘popular’ if they expressed their sexuality in the other way only to find that regardless of their orientation they were not liked.  I was interested that in therapy they found a way out of their ‘unlikeableness’ and a specific ‘line of development’ and this had a specific ‘efffect’ on their sexual orientation.  There are those hard wired heterosexuals and hardwired homosexuals though the latter would argue all homosexuals are hard wired and the hardwired heterosexuals would too but it’s in nature as spectrum and in cultural history often opportunistic.  Right now there is a ‘halo’ effect around certain ‘choices’ or ‘alternatives’ and without that ‘halo’ effect the distributions would change.  Just as the threat of aids turned many off to gay experimentation and use of needles. Multiple factors affect behaviour despite the propaganda.  In science we are always learning in comparison to politics where there are those who insist they know it all.

I think I’ll go get showered.  I’ve got to find clean clothes. I don’t know where the ‘fat shorts’ are, probably in the laundry’.  I find it easy to get into the fat shorts a t shirt and the open toed keens sandals and walk the dog. He likes that.  That’s a plan.  I did have toast and jam so don’t need food. I don’t know what I’ll do after that. I like the freedom of a Sunday like this without plans, my weeks and work are highly regimented, whereas church would galvanize me and I’d have a more productive day but really what’s productive at my age.

I’m in God’s waiting room. I’m waiting for death in some ways. So many I know have died ‘relatively naturally’.  I could be growing death right now. I would not be too greatly mourned. Yes I ‘d like another 20 years but it’s not like when a 30 year old dies.  I’ve lived a good life. I don’t have to ‘hustle’ .  I can get a sex change anytime. I don’t have to write the great Canadian novel to day. I don’t have to sign up for foreign missionary service.

I could pray and meditate more but I don’t think it’s going to ‘speed’ anything up.  It’s coming for me. I’m old enough to slow down and accept both the hound of heaven and the grim reaper.  

Richard Cho, friend

Dr. Stan Jung first told me about Dr. Richard Cho nearly 20 years ago.  I’d seen Stan as a Chiropracter and fellow Christian, knowing him from his work in Pain Clinics  I had since youth had a gymnastics injury which responded to a simple manipulation but otherwise could cause me irritating upper back pain.  It would eventually go but with an adjustment I'd be relieved instantly of weeks of annoyance.
 I’d learned basic manipulation in my days as a general practitioner studying the works of English surgeons.  In Canada both physiotherapists and chiropractors do musculoskeletal manipulation for pain relief  but my own experience was that Canadian trained chiropractors were the best.
What I liked was the Stan and Richard got together with a couple of other chiropractors regularly and had an ongoing continual journal discussions and hands on mutual support training.  This was seriously advanced. In my field of medicine this is fairly standard in the form of rounds and ongoing journal clubs and continuing medical education.  I was just so impressed to learn that these colleagues took their practice as seriously even though they weren't required to do so.
Stan has a rehabilitation phd as well.  I liked that Richard like him was interested in the scientific studies in his field. I’d later learn that Richard’s mother was a  reknowned medical specialist and researcher in her own right.  The apple didn’t fall far from the tree in that family.
When Stan, who I’d seen every year or so, became more involved in his medical legal practice as an expert witness, he recommended I see Richard.  I met Richard and liked him immensely right from the beginning. His beautiful wife, Reese,  was his receptionist in the Fairmont Willow building where I myself once had an office.  She made me feel instantly welcome.  Years later when I came with my cockapoo, Gilbert, he'd enjoy her caring companionship while I was visiting Richard.
That first time , I filled out a extensive health form then was ushered into Richard’s examination room. I took off my shirt and let him do a simple medical examination.  Then I lay on his table and he proceeded to do the manipulation that would provide me ongoing relief.
He was a good looking young man, more than a decade younger than me.  Shorter and stockier, broad shouldered and very powerfully built. I sit at a desk  writing mostly while Richard all day used his whole body to manage, move and manipulate small to often very big people. One of his areas of specialty was athletes whose muscles would cease up and require deep massage and strong manipulation. He saw lots of the local professional team athletes as well as body builders. I was thankful he was gentle with me.
While he worked he chatted.  He professionally explained what he was doing but he also took an interest in my interests.  That’s how he learned I hunted and I learned that he hunted too but could rarely get away from his work on weekends because of the practice demands.  He was more a competition shooter and loved to talk of attending meets and stationary target practice.  He was accomplished with rifle and pistol.  Having done my share of target shooting I knew well the mental training and even meditation associated with willing a bullet to leave the end of a gun and travel to the bullseye of a target far away.
Richard was a very spiritual man and I shared with him my love of the book, Zen and the Art of Archery, by French philosopher,  Eugen Herrigel.  He knew it and as well knew the more famous Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig.
Motorcycling remains one of my fondest memories of Richard.  I’d crashed a Norton in my youth, swearing off motorcycles well into my 50’s.  Then I bought a Buell Blast at Trev Deeley. Buell had upgraded the design on the traditional Harley motors but was known as well for his more sporty chain of motorcycles, cafe racers and such. Richard had a bigger Buell himself. Hearing the concern I had about riding despite recently acquiring my bike and license, he offered to spend a day riding with me to give me safety advise and check out my technique.
He brought along a biking friend, Ed, from the movie industry.  Ed had ridden dozens of times back and forth across North America on his old Harley chopper and told story after story of riding all kinds of bikes. So there I was a novice with these two accomplished guides leading me off for a day of riding in the beautiful Frazer Valley.
It was a truly glorious day riding with these great guys up these serpentine roads into the mountains and down through the valleys.  Then at high speeds following all the signs we'd blast along the freeway before heading off again cross country.  Overall at stops they'd shared they thought  handled a bike well.  Still they had terrific advice about watching for gravel on country roads and leaning more into the sharper turns.  Richard had a marvellous way of correcting my posture even for riding and doing it in such a way that I didn't feel at all defensive.  I will be forever grateful that Richard cared for me enough to take the time to teach me lessons which have saved my life on the many years of riding I've done since.
Yet that’s exactly what I learned Richard did with everything.  When I told Stan about Richard doing that, Stan confirmed. “That’s just like Richard, always helping the new guy."
I was truly honoured to be invited along with my friend Laura to share dinner with him and his wife Reese at their lovely uptown apartment.  It was a fabulous meal with the best of conversation and one of the most memorable nights of discussions of books and culture I’ve ever known.
Having paid my way through medical school as a professional dancer and doing stunt work for theatre I invited Reese and Richard to join Laura and me at Ballet BC. I don’t think Richard had ever been to the Ballet but he was keen to go and amazed at the power of the dancers.
“The men are like body builders who make it look so easy,” he said in intermission.  He’d been impressed at how elegantly they lifted the ladies. He was astutely impressed by the magnificent agility of their  jumps whose athletic prowess might be well missed by the regular arts crowd.  By comparison Richard was seeing the muscles and joints through the eyes of an athlete and chiropractor. While Richard and I talked about muscles,  Reese and Laura were discussing the costumes and elegance of the dancers.  We laughed at our different perspectives. It was a night to remember.
When Richard’s retired  mother was ill I got to see another side of Richard, the deeply compassionate son who loved his mother deeply and was so concerned for her health and well being. He admired her mind and achievements but mostly he simply loved her.  When she recovered quickly from a minor set back he was again relaxed confident and full of life.  Family and friendship meant so very much to Richard.
It was a shock to learn from Stan that Richard had died.  As a lifelong hunter and gun owner and shooter, getting my bronze shooting award at 12 years old, I knew Richard’s incredible respect for safety and concern for procedure and proper gun handling.  Hearing that he’d accidentally died by shooting himself in a competition meet was as extraordinary as if I’d heard that Canada’s hockey legend, Wayne Gretzky had died tripping over his skates.  It was that inconceivable and bizarre. A truly freak and tragic accident.
Unfortunately a very great loss.  Only 50 years old, Richard was a young man. Known for his good humor,  he was also wise beyond his years.  I will miss him. I know others will too.  He was such a great man and good friend.  I am blessed to have  known him.  Maybe it’s true, “only the good die young’.
Losing Richard I feel we have all seen one of the very best of character and service depart.
I believe in heaven and hope one day to see Richard again, with that great all embracing smile of his. Once again I’d love to hear his laughter. I wouldn’t put it past him either if I arrived and found that St. Peter and all the other apostles were lined up waiting to be blessed by Richard’s healing touch.  No doubt he’d also be telling the buddha he would benefit from losing weight,   recommending  exercises and dietary tips to help him through eternity.
In the words of my Canadian rancher grandfather, Richard was truly a ‘straight shooter’.  He was just that kind of good man.

Big Bar Lake, British Columbia

“I want to go canoeing. I’ve not even used the Honda 2.3 hp motor I got 2 years ago.” I told Laura after shipping my AB hard bottomed inflatable with 30 hp Honda 4 stroke motor down to Hay Bay family in Ontario.
After I’d put up pictures on FB of that boat being loaded for transport, my friend Kirk texted me,
“You are on the westcoast boatless now?”
He is ever enjoying his canvas ocean kayak. We’ve sailed in my SV GIRI together on the Strait of Georgia. We’d actually begun canoeing together on Minaki Lake as children. Boating is in the Laidlaw and Hay blood. The Scottish islander genes or some such thing. Maybe a touch of the Viking.
“I’ve still got the Kevlar canoe.” I texted him back.
I’d bought the Clipper Canoe from Western Canoe Store in Abbotsford several years ago. I specifically got that design because it was deep and sturdy enough to carry a moose if I used the canoe for hunting. Reminiscing Laura and I figured I’ve only used it three or four times since I bought it. When I was in Manitoba and Ontario I had a Grummond Aluminum canoe and loved white water and lake canoing.
With the SV Giri on land, I wanted to get the canoe out of the storage locker and give it a go.
I’d had a Friday off because a Supreme Court case I was due to be an expert witness in was settled. Rather than rebook I felt the need for a long weekend.
Thursday I had been at my dear friend, George’s celebration of life at the Gleneagle Golf Club. With false accusations and death threats at work and a greedy landlady renting me an office without proper zoning I’d really not felt I’d had time to even grieve my brother’s loss in late fall. I’d been in survival mode ever since. Then Richard died this last week in a freak accident. A competition shooter and gun safety instructor, he’d accidentally shot himself fatally in a competition meet. I figured I could use an extra day off and Laura was glad to take a day off herself.
It was time for a break. If only for a day.
Gilbert has glaucoma and is scheduled to have his left eye removed next Tuesday.
“We need to give him a dog’s weekend ,” Laura said. She’s his momma. He begins howling in the car when we’re dozens of blocks from her apartment. When he sees her he can’t contain himself.
I was delighted to use the BC Provincial Campground on line booking service. We love Clinton. Bill Mewhort my dear departed hunting guide friend had introduced me to the region 30 years ago. Staying at Circle H ranch with him I’d shot my first moose. It’s the most incredible mixture of terrain, woods and meadows and high cattle country.
I’d never stayed at Big Bar Lake. I’d stopped there and seen how beautiful the pine and spruce circled rocky lake is. A perfect place for canoeing and fishing.
George’s Celelbration of Life was Thursday. Seeing all the friends we shared in common, so many he’d introduced me to and some I’d known before was emotionally troubling. I’d cried on the way home. There’s a loneliness that comes when the greats I’ve known pass.
The skies opened and a deluge of rain fell as if even the sky was crying his loss. Heaven is so much richer now. I long to see these men again there. Along with parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. I often dream of the departed.
Laura arrived Friday morning in her little red Smart Car.
“The traffic was horrible,” she said.
Driving to the storage locker we got caught in the tail end of the mess an accident on Iron Workers Bridge had caused. I was in my new white Ford 350 truck enjoying the music I’d uploaded to my phone blue tooth linked to the truck’s system. Beatles. Amy Grant, Gordon Lightfoot, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Third Day. It made the traffic jam more palatable.
At the storage locker I had to back out the Honda 500 Pioneer to get at the canoe. My storage locker is half files and half recreational gear. I keep thinking of getting rid of the scuba gear thinking I’m unlikely to be doing northern scuba diving any time soon. South seas yes but cold water no.
Coleman camp stove, truck tent, air mattresses, lanterns, gas and water tanks, sleeping bags and canoe. It was an hour sorting and loading but then we were on our way.
I stopped to pick up a hunting license and a rifle as it still is bear season and Laura is afraid of bears. I don’t particularly want to shoot a bear but if one were bothering our camp I’d be glad to eat it. My friend says the bear he shot is incredibly tasty. I do like the ham. But this weekend I’m fishing.
At Cabelas I made a stop and couldn’t resist another tent. This one a North Face 4 man Murin. The two man tent I have is great for Laura and I motorcycling but just a little too cramped for hanging out. The truck tent is great but this weekend I didn’t have “Charles”, the Honda PIoneer so could see myself wanting to drive the truck. Any excuse for another tent.
I’d just given my new 6 man tent to the god kids. Tom and I used it once and it was more a family affair. I just couldn’t see taking the time to set it up unless I was camping for a week whereas it really would be perfect for the god kids camping especially if they’re doing a road trip across Canada. It was the kind of tent our family had with the screened in porch where Mom served meals.
I got Laura a ‘Bear Banger” . The bear banger is an inexpensive pen like noise maker and tiny flare launcher. I’d picked up my Ruger rifle with 223 shells, not a bear gun by any means but fun for target practice and would if needed bag a bear.. I always remember Grandad shot bear with a 22 Rifle.
At Western Canoe in Abbotsford I picked up another paddle. I also had lost a foam support that allowed me to carry the canoe on the roof safely. I replaced my jury rig with the right pad.
With those stops done we had a beautiful drive up the old number #1, along the Thompson River. I love that route. It’s just grand seeing the incredible rapids and rising out of the valley rain forest to the high sage country.
“I love watching the train going through the tunnels on the other side of the river, “ said Laura.
We stopped to let Gilbert sniff and pee at some rest stops. He really did enjoy the ride.
At Cache creek we stopped at the Market for groceries. It was surprisingly already 6 pm. I’d planned to get up here around 3 pm. But it was so much better than our last camping trip when I’d put up the truck tent at 3 am near Lillouet.
In Clinton the grocery store was still open so I filled up with gas and got some frozen pork chops in addition to what we already had..
Laura pointed ou the Catholic church we’d attended once while we were here. We’d stayed in Cariboo Lodge then. Another time I’d brought up the RV and stayed in the townsite RV park.
We spotted a deer as we headed into the back roads. Gilbert was sitting in the middle of the front seat looking seriously in hunting mode. When we came on a herd of cattle with all the young ones he almost jumped out of the window to join them. He loves cows.
“When he was a puppy he saw his first cow and ran like a bullet to plunge beneath the hot stream of poo the cow was producing. Fearing the cow would back up and step on him I raced after him to retrieve this stinking gooey dog from dog heaven. I make a point of keeping him away from cows ever since,” I told Laura.
“I can see why”.
We drove by Circle H Ranch and the Big Bar Dude Ranch. The horses they have there are really beautiful.
At Big Bar Provincial camp we drove in and immediately met the lovely attendant who sold us three bundles of wood.
It was beginning to rain. Laura was not impressed with putting up a new tent in the rain. Thankfully it only spit and rather quickly we had this stupendous North Face Murin up . I love it. I blew up air mattresses and Laura set up our tent with Gilbert helping her at every turn.
She wasn’t a happy camper at that point.
I boiled up some hot dogs and put them in buns with mustard in front of her. She began to come around. I started a fire with the help of gasoline encouragement. She liked that. It was chilly and she and Gilbert went into the tent to bed.
She was thinking about bears. Gilbert and I were too but more as predators than victims.
I got the Coleman lantern going so was able to stay up late reading my novel and murder mystery set in Toronto in the 1830’s , “Vital Secrets”, by Dong Gutteridge.
After I put out the lantern and doused the last of the fire with water, I crawled into the tent to find Gilbert cuddled up against Laura leaving no room for me. He accepted that I could come in and left an edge of the air mattress for me. He lay between Laura and me in dog heaven.
It was 4 am when Gilbert decided we should get up. Dawn light was coming through the tent. He began licking my face. When i turend over he licked my ears. So I got up.
I took him for a walk in the back woods before returning to sit meditating as the sun rose.
With the help of a neighbour, we were the only two up, we carried the canoe down to the shore. I loaded it up with lifejackets, fishing gear and the Honda motor.
Back in camp, nn the Coleman I made a couple of expresso coffee and just enjoyed the morning for a bit. Before I left in the canoe with Gilbert I set up a coffee for Laura. I told her we were going and left the truck keys with her.
Gilbert and I got out in the canoe. First it was paddling. I wasn’t able to start the motor. Later after a whole lot of tugging, I figured I had the gas valve turned to the off position. I fished with the Shakespeare Rod for a bit casting but eventually had the fun of trolling with the motor going. Gilbert kept jumping from side to side threatening to tip us as I was twisting about running the motor with one hand and trolling with the other. It eventually got the rod holder working by cutting off the heel of the rod which hadn’t fit in the holder. After that I had more hands and the risk of tipping reduced immediately despite Gilbert’s running from side to side.
It really was fun. Beautiful morning. I was the second boat out but when I finally came back in a half dozen others were fishing. I learned others were catching fish but I was just thankful not to have tipped the boat . I had the fun of paddling and using the Honda 2.3 hp. Gilbert was most interested in another dog on another boat.
Back at the base camp Laura was up having made up the coffee I left for her.
I made bacon and scrambled eggs for breakfast. Laura likes the bacon burnt. I loved the scrambled eggs with Mrs. Dash for seasoning. Gilbert loved licking the plates clean.
Since then I’ve gone swimming once, just enough to get the soap off.The water is still pretty cold. Laura and I have been reading books and dozing. It’s a pretty heavy schedule. A chip monk keeps running by. A red headed wood pecker came by too. We saw some bald headed eages and great hawks on the way in last night. I’ve taken Gilbert for more shorter walks in the back woods. He’s been quite content to nap along with us. The neighbours have some dogs and they’ve done the meet and greet and sniff genitals. Everyone gets along. Our neighbours are really nice people. No body doing drugs or drinking or listening to loud rap music and shouting kill the white guy.
I love my Lariat edition Ford F350. Everything goes in it and it’s a great companion.
“When I was a kid we went to a secluded cabin on a beach. You went camping with your parents. I tell my friends that we’re going out in the dirt and outdoors where there isn’t running water or showers and we have to use outhouses. They think I’m crazy. It takes a bit to get used to. I know Gilbert loves it and I’m so glad he’s having such a good time before his surgery.” Laura said.
Right now she’s back in the magnificent North Face tent enjoying the air mattress. It’s amazing how it’s stayed up this weekend since I learned how to close the valve.