Did You See That?

 

When Ter and I were last at the mall, I noticed a car in the parking lot. It stood by itself in a space at the end of the row and was absolutely nothing to get excited about, except that it sported the name and website address of a business I’d not heard of before.

It was still there when we emerged with our purchases. As we passed it en route to the Tiguan, I glanced once more at the website address and remarked to Ter: “I wonder what the Metaphysical Academy is all about.”

“I was just wondering the same thing,” she replied.

“Then you saw it too?”

She nodded. “Yup.”

“That’s a relief,” I said. “That means the car is actually here, in this dimension.”

“Or we’re there, in that dimension,” she countered.

“As in we saw it but the space is empty to everyone else?”

“Sure,” she allowed, still walking. “If you think you see it, it’s there. If you don’t, it’s not.”

“Or,” I suggested, “it could be sitting in another dimension and we only saw it because we passed through the divide.”

She laughed. “And the light was coming from a certain direction.”

We kept walking, but neither of us glanced back. From that angle, there was no guarantee ...

Red Robin

Sometimes the best photo ops occur when I’m not expecting them.

I was on a flânerie during one of the first sunny days in March. I’d been out with the Canon, exploring the neighbourhood, following the bus route from the stop out front to the terminus at the top of the hill and back around to home again. My mission was primarily to take photos of the water from our new location, and one in particular to use with a blog post (see “View From Another Window”).

Mission accomplished, I’m walking toward the little church outside my building when I notice a lone robin hopping merrily around in the parking lot. At first it doesn’t register, but suddenly I decide the burnished red of its breast against the stone grey asphalt will make a good picture. So I stop. So does the robin. We eye each other for a second. I slowly reach for the camera and the robin, startled, hops away.

“Oh, no!” I exclaim in hushed alarm, “please, wait until I get a picture!”

Amazingly, the robin pauses. I raise the camera, hit the power button and take reckless aim, hoping the bird will be somewhere in the frame since I can always crop the photo later. Click! I lower the camera and the robin immediately bounces on its way.

Relieved, I offer a heartfelt thank you in its wake.

Only when I load the photos onto the computer do I realize the little guy did more for me than wait. He posed.

Did he hear my plea for him to linger?

You bet he did.

The Year of Being Human

Twelve months ago, Ter and I stood in our kitchen and proclaimed 2018 “the Year of Transition and Change”. She was on the cusp of committing to retire from the public service, my job had settled down after a major shift in program staff, my wee sis and I were planning to visit our brother on Prince Edward Island. There was some concern over a nodule in Mum’s forearm, but the experts were confident—as was she—that it would amount to naught. In all, the new year seemed full of promise and adventure, and we were ready to tackle all the good things we envisioned.

Perhaps we should have been more specific. Perhaps we should have proclaimed 2018 as a year of positive transition and change.

Ter’s intention to cruise into retirement went south when she was called to be shop steward in an ugly harassment case. I lost my office and was moved into a shared space when branch staff expanded beyond the eighth floor’s capacity. Though Mum’s radiation treatment appeared to be a success in February, after a couple of months of normal, she fell ill and died four weeks after Ter’s last day at work. Wee sis and I cancelled our trip to PEI—she had injured her back while helping Dad care for Mum, and quite frankly, the shock was so overwhelming that we reeled through the summer and well into the fall. That’s when our landlord let us know she was thinking to sell the suite. Ter tweaked a muscle in her neck at Thanksgiving and was laid up into November. The Tiguan went into the shop for an expensive overnight service—twice. The postal dispute threatened Christmas delivery of cards and parcels ... and I’m sure I’ve forgotten something in the continuous monsoon of WTF? we endured throughout 2018, but that’s the gist of our Year of Transition and Change.

Keeping the faith was pretty darned challenging during the past twelve months. It’s easy to believe in a loving friendly and generous Universe when all is going smoothly. The tricky part is seeing the light in darkness. The majority of 2018 was, for me, a battle against a pervading sense of loss. Every night, I struggled to maintain my belief in being loved by a higher power, to trust that things happen for a reason, when they are meant to happen, and to know the rest of my life will not be spent gaping into a black hole. The gauge on my power of positivity has hovered perilously close to empty at times. I have cried more in the past months than I have in past years. I have raged at the heavens and thrown up my hands. I have stormed and begged and dug deep to get through the past turbulent, tumultuous, unexpectedly tragic fifty-two weeks.

And yet I have seen miracles. Small ones, to be sure, but miracles nonetheless. I will always remember the preternatural brilliance of the day after my mother died; how sharply defined and brilliantly hued the world appeared through the Ocean Room window. I will cherish forever the kindness and support I was shown by my friends and co-workers, people who rarely see me vulnerable yet rose to the occasion when I could not help myself. Christmas presents appeared from nowhere at the last minute, as did emails from loved ones after long silences. And others, too numerous to name. Feeling my mother’s presence in the room. Ter’s parking karma. Being able to pay cash for Tiggy’s repairs. Having a beautiful place to call home. Laughing with my office roomie, then going for tea with her because we like each other enough to be more than workmates. Hugging my little sister. The list goes on.

Though I almost lost it more than once, I managed to keep my grip on the thread that binds me to divinity. I still believe in something greater than myself, that all-encompassing presence that some call God. In truth, I’m no longer sure what to call it. I just know it’s there, that I am part of it and it is part of me—and of everyone else who is, who was, and who will be. For me, 2018 was all about the human experience and it truly sucked ... but I survived. I’m not through it yet, of course. The calendar doesn’t control time, it merely marks it. By all counts, I am only halfway through the process of reconciling myself to the tectonic changes that occurred in the past twelve months, so the drama ain’t over yet. I am relieved to say, however, that the light is more evident now than it was even three months ago.

It occurred to me on Christmas Eve, the most magical night of the year, that miracles are like stars strewn across a midnight sky:

The longer you spend staring up at them, the more begin to appear, and soon the entire night is bright with light.

Isn’t that wonderful?

Happy New Year.

With love,

Parking Karma

The dumbest place to be midday is at a shopping mall the week after Black Friday. Four weeks before Christmas and you’ll be lucky to escape with your life, let alone score a parking space. There was even a cautionary blurb on the news one night, stating stats around parking lot crashes at this time of year. There is no good will toward anyone when parking is at a premium. I do most of my shopping on weekday breaks; fortunately, I work downtown. I don’t have to go anywhere near a mall to get it done in December.

So why was I sitting in the Tiguan at noon on the last Friday in November? Going to the mall, of course. Aside from the annual holiday hubbub, Ter and I have December birthdays to contend with, which makes errant trips at inconvenient times something of a necessity.

Ter, who was at the wheel, rubbed her hands together and murmured, “Parking karma, parking karma,” beneath her breath. The traffic light turned green. We had to wait while four other cars turned ahead of us, but we cleared the intersection as the light changed to amber. We landed in another turn lane, this one leading onto the rooftop parking at the mall. I observed that people were leaving (good sign) and people were streaming in (bad sign). “No problem,” Ter said, undaunted.

Having surrendered any sort of control over my life the day before—but that’s another story—I took her at her word.

We almost always park on the roof of Toys R Us, but this time that was likely to be impossible. Glancing over the sea of shimmering cartops as we drove into the fray, there seemed little point in going the other way, though I reckoned our chances were better in that direction. Still, Ter followed her usual course, pausing at the end of one aisle to watch a silver Chevy slowly reversing from a space. My burgeoning astonishment at this unforeseen opening was abruptly dashed when Ter serenely drove on. Perhaps she’d spied the grille of a gargantuan SUV aiming for the same space from the far end of the aisle, or maybe imagined the space too tricky to navigate, else she would have gone for it.

She turned down the next aisle instead—a route we never take, incidentally; I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve driven along that short stretch. I looked to the left at a solid line of bumpers. Not much hope here, I thought.

Ter suddenly blurted, “Is that a parking space?”

I was still looking to the left, where a set of hash marks along the food court’s skylight could maybe sorta kinda have been considered a parking space if we didn’t get caught, and was about to say, “I don’t think so,” when I realized Ter was looking past me to the right. There, next to a mall service entrance and practically bathed in celestial sunbeams, was a space big enough to hold a Hummer. And it was empty.

I couldn’t even speak. I just sat with my jaw hanging loose as she nosed the Tiguan into place and cut the engine. “How do you do that?” I finally demanded.

She grinned at me. “Someone just said to me, ‘turn right down here’, so I did.”

“Praise your guy Jesus!” I exclaimed.

This is an exceptional example, but in truth, parking spots happen to Ter all the time. She simply accepts that she’ll find one where and when she needs it—and I rather suspect when she can’t find one, it’s because I’m with her.

Honestly, for someone who steadfastly believes in magic, I’m perennially surprised when it occurs in front of me. Yet miracles happen everywhere and every day; they exist whether or not we see them. We naturally expect to see them more at this time of year than at any other, however, and this one was most definitely a Christmas miracle. The first of many, I hope.

Season’s greetings,

Better Times Ahead

Life is pretty good. My problems are all First World. This isn’t a negation of their existence, it’s just a recognition that problems of any ilk are relative.

Relative, not relatives.

Change continues. How I feel about some things has shifted, and that shift has resulted in an uncomfortable dissatisfaction and the prevailing sense that it’s time for Ter and me to move on.

I rounded the corner from Clover Point after work one day and was amazed to see the beauty in the above photo sitting a stone’s throw off the breakwater, so close to shore that I initially feared she’d run aground. In truth, I have no idea how deep the water is, though the Swiftsure yacht race starts from here every year, so it must be deep enough. In any event, the appearance of this one was so rare as to inspire as much concern as wonder. As I watched, however, she floated gently in a circle, presenting me with her profile and her dinky dinghy trailing aft. Ah, I thought, she’s dropped anchor … but why? There was no one on deck, no activity in the surrounding water. She was like a ghost ship, appearing from nowhere for no discernible reason, destined to depart in silence.

Twilight fell. Closing up the Ocean Room at bedtime, I saw that the ship was still in the bay, her dual masts now floodlit and the cabin sparkling with lamps set in the windows. She was the most beautiful thing I had seen in that patch of water, ever. So calm, so serene. The ocean itself was uncommonly tranquil, seemingly respective of her placid majesty. The sky darkened and she glowed more brightly, as suffused with mystery as she was with light. I was mesmerized. I was also certain that she’d be gone the next morning.

I got up in the middle of the night to check. By then the sky was so black she stood out as a constellation, a series of jewels strung in sequence to suggest the shape of a sailboat, but she was still there. She was still there at six a.m., backlit by the dawn, as stunning in silhouette as she had been awash in spotlight. I couldn’t figure it out. I had still seen no people, and the dinghy still bobbed about on its tether.

It was my day off, fortunately. I sent Ter to work and started my routine—dusting and yoga, to be followed by meditation in advance of being a writer. Sometimes I practice the meditation on my yoga disk. More often of late, I practice a mediation that Ter downloaded some months ago, but it’s on the computer so I have to set up in the Ocean Room. Just past nine o’clock, I walked into the OR and there she was, our mysterious maiden, cruising nonchalantly away from the shore on her way to … where?

Neither her presence nor its effect on me made any sense. I only know that it struck a profound chord at the time … and today I see a symbolism that could apply to our time in this locale.

She came from nowhere, she created something wondrous, then she sailed for her next port of call.

Okay, Universe. Bring me that horizon.

Christmas Eve 2015

I drove a friend home after tea on Christmas Eve. It was just after five o’clock, fully dark and sprinkling a bit. Some, but not much traffic. One of the local radio stations had gone all-holiday hits for the week preceding Christmas, so Tig’s radio was set to that channel for the duration. The volume was low with company in the car, but after I dropped Treena at her place, I turned it up to catch a Christmas song on my drive home. It’s only ten minutes, through a winding, tree-lined neighbourhood removed from the main artery to/from downtown. Plenty long enough for one, maybe two tunes. Simon and Garfunkel’s “Silent Night” would be lovely in the burgeoning stillness.

I turn left at the four-way stop. The commercial set ends and lo, “Mele Kalikimaka” starts up. Sigh … but hey, it’s a Christmas song and it’s not as if I don’t know the words.

“Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say on a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day …”

I’m singing with der Bingle. Tig is cruising down the hill, wipers occasionally clearing Christmas-coloured raindrops from the windshield. Fairy lights glow in gardens and on gabled rooftops. I am warm and, for the first time in a few days, alone. I reach the one traffic light on my route. A single set of headlights beams at me from across the intersection. Red turns green, we each roll forward in opposite directions, then I have the street to myself. The song (mercifully) ends. With luck, I won’t be looping it for the rest of the evening, and there’s still time for another.

What I get is an update from NORAD. The base in North Bay is monitoring communications and confirms that Santa has left the North Pole. As soon as he reaches Canadian airspace, jets will be scrambled to provide a military escort … and for some oddball reason, a tingle of excitement runs up my spine. For a singular moment, I feel the magic of Christmas Eve in a way I haven’t felt since I was little. Santa is coming; he’s on his way …

I’m glad to be alone when it happens, even though it’s the first thing I blurt to Ter when I come through the door.

It was nice to discover that I’m not as immune, as grown up, as I believe I am.

Butterflies

I dreamed of butterflies, last weekend. My room was full of them, in all colours and sizes, on every surface with more coming through the window, and though my mind was squealing that “they’re bugs!”, I let them land where they wanted. Eventually, I was surrounded.

The next morning, I asked Ter what butterflies mean in spirit lore. Off the cuff, they represent transformation, transmutation, joy and beauty. Deeper research revealed that they herald change, purport lightness of being, living in the moment, freedom in general, that sort of thing. All good things, really.

While Ter was hunting the info online, I came in and read her the Zen calendar blurb for the day: “The butterfly counts not days but moments, and has time enough.”

Chills ensued. See, I’ve been struggling (no surprise) with the novel. It has moments of brilliance, but overall, it’s not working and I cannot figure out what the effing hell is wrong. It’s just not fun right now. In fact, it’s become painful to the point that Ter accused me of being weighed down by it. “You’re grim,” she said. “Let it go, will you?”

Well, I’ve committed to finishing it, so letting go is a nice idea, but once committed, I have real trouble admitting defeat. So during my bedtime meditation, I told the universe that I’m setting it aside and getting out of my own way, hoping to clear the path for another story to be told. Then the butterfly dream happened. Then the butterfly quote appeared. Seems kinda obvious to me … now.

After our morning tea discussion, I asked Ter, “Why didn’t I see this before?”

“Because you’re a Virgo!” she yelled.

Miracles From Beyond

I dare you to convince me that people who move on to the next realm have no influence on what happens here after they’ve gone. Take the Billboard Awards on Sunday night. I didn’t see the show because Thrones was on, but I heard about it later. A hologram of our dearly departed Michael Jackson performed a song from his newly-released album live on stage with a dance troupe that blew-my-mind when I saw it on Youtube the next morning. I’m still astonished by the brilliance of it all, of the idea, the technology, and the endless hours of painstaking work that surely went into producing those four magical moments.

Because it is magic. And because it’s magic, you must know that MJ himself would have been all over it—he loved mystery and illusion as much as music, and he used it all to support his genius. He was always pushing the envelope in life, and while it could be argued that he pushed it a tad too far on the budgetary scale, heck, it’s not like he didn’t have the funds to pay for the product. The man knew how to put on a show. And I am utterly convinced that he had a hand in Sunday’s astounding success. He loved to dance, he loved to sing, he loved to perform—there’s nothing creepy about a CGI MJ, not when he would have loved it as much as his audience did. It’s entertainment, and entertaining is what he did best. I just know he was involved from beyond this realm.

This may seem unrelated, but then there’s Marty’s mother. Over in the hockey world, Martin St. Louis of the NY Rangers had to deal with the shock of his mother’s unexpected passing as the Rangers’ series against Pittsburgh went to game 7. NY won the game, the series, and has moved on to play the Montreal Canadiens in the eastern conference semi-final. (For the uninitiated, the winner of this series goes to the Stanley Cup final against the western conference champs.) Between beating the Pens and winning game one against the Habs, Marty and his teammates attended Mme. St. Louis’s funeral, and the emotional outcome of her loss has galvanized the team around her son. No joke, I’m pretty sure that’s why they won the conference semi; not that she pulled any strings from beyond, but because her son suddenly had greater cause to overcome and his buddies rallied to help him. He’s known for his stubborn perseverance anyway; fire the little bugger up and he’ll move mountains.

The primary reason why Montreal remains in the hunt is their goalie—BC’s own Carey Price, who won hockey gold in Sochi and has looked absolutely unflappable so far in the playoffs. With him in the net, the Canadiens beat Boston in their conference series. Boston, the biggest, ugliest, meanest gang of thugs in the league, was beaten by a bunch of speedy sneaky gnats mostly because Price consistently kept the puck from crossing the goal line, sometimes by the thinnest of miraculous margins.

Alas, Price was injured in the first game against the Rangers, who kicked the Habs’ collective butts by an outrageous score of 7-2. And now he’s done for … the … series. I’m sorry, but the conference is suddenly New York’s to lose. With absolutely no disrespect intended, I believe that Marty’s mother is working magic from above. He’ll probably win that Cup ring this year, a bittersweet trophy for sure, and part of me kind of hopes he makes it because in some mysterious manner, he’ll know sa mere was watching and maybe even manipulating the stars a little in his favour. And I’m okay with that, because I’ll know it, too.

So, if you’re looking for evidence of otherworldly influence in our reality, you need look no further than Marty’s mother and Michael Jackson. Though I do wonder why Ter’s dad has been unable to work a similar miracle for the Maple Leafs …

Bibliography (Part 1)

 

“The Night Circus” – Erin Morgenstern



I wrote nothing, yesterday. I had just finished revisiting The Night Circus, and trying to produce anything in the aftermath seemed futile. It’s one of those stories so brilliantly told that I am at once inspired and intimidated. All I really wanted to do after closing the cover was burst into tears and gush about how wonderful it is. Magical. Alluring. Poignant. Misty. Melancholy. Beautiful. Dreamy. Colourful. Dazzling. Romantic. Tragic. Sweet. Stark. Fragile. Masterful. Gorgeous. The adjectives are innumerable. I rarely happen on a novel that I want to read more than once. This one, I suspect, will become an annual event. It deserves to be read over and over and over again.

My first run last winter left me breathless and in awe. This time, though I knew what was to come, I was able to comprehend it better and that made for a richer experience. It’s like a glass box full of jewels, glistening and intensely-hued, so mesmerizing that you can’t look away. You want to lift the lid and inspect every facet, to see how the light plays off the surface and reflects on your skin while you hold it. She writes with an elegant simplicity that sets you right in the scene. Her description of a dining room where the candlelight is “deep and warm and bubbling” just sends me. There’s a poetry, an artistry, in being able to write like that, to paint so richly with language and yet not overwhelm the reader with pretentious stodge.

And the story itself? Where did she come up with this thing??? A challenge between magician instructors where their students are ignorant and the circus is the venue. Only one can win, but what happens when the opponents fall in love? And what happens to the circus when they do? So there’s a morality tale as well as magic and romance; mysteries abound until pretty well the last scene – a conversation between one of the challenge instructors and a boy who can read the past. They speak of magic in terms I completely understand, so … does it exist or doesn’t it?

If The Night Circus is any indication, it most certainly does.