The Line of Fire

alas, not today's - but a reasonable facsimile

I always expect it to rise behind the clouds. A fog advisory is in place this morning, though no fog is in evidence. Ter dropped me in the village on her way to work so I could get my flânerie in early, and as I hiked back the way we’d come, it occurred to me that if I kept straight rather than winding my way through the little side streets, I might reach Dallas Road in time to see the sun come up.

The fog advisory, however, was not issued in vain. A solid bank of steel blue cloud lay thick atop the water, obscuring Port Angeles entirely and allowing the Olympics to play peek-a-boo with their snowy caps. Above the mountains, the sky was smattered with cotton ball clouds of pink, coral, and red. I walked toward the shifting light. The robust red brightened to shades of orange and gold. Though the sun would rise behind the fogbank, the sky above was open so I reckoned I’d actually see it once it hit altitude.

Sunlight, however, is like water. It finds cracks and chinks invisible to the human eye. As I reached Clover Point, the light had intensified enough to convince me that the sun was already up and I stood directly across from where it would peer over the fog. I stopped, faced the bank of cloud separating me from the rising sun, and waited.

Maybe a heartbeat later, a glittering gold spark popped between the ocean and the cloud. My eye dropped to it, my mind surprised into questioning, Is that it? A thin red line leaked outward on either side of the spark, bleeding red against the cloud as if the horizon had been cut. I’ve seen that spark a hundred times by now, yet I stood amazed as it blazed ever brighter then began to fade. I stared until it was swallowed by the fog, then I thanked the universe for the show and continued my walk home.

I kept looking over my shoulder, though, waiting for the topmost arc to breach the cloudbank’s surface, and when it did, the sky turned pure gold. It was gorgeous and miraculous and I am so glad that my wish to catch the sunrise was granted so willingly. Even when I doubted I would get my favourite moment, I got it anyway.

That’s a gift.

Golden Boys

Every year, my father asks me if I’ve been watching the World Junior Hockey tournament that runs over the Christmas holiday. My answer is usually, “No.” I watch so much hockey during the NHL season (or did, before Rogers took over the league), that the junior teams hold little interest. I am always aware of the tourney, however; especially of the outcome, especially if Canada wins gold.

Winning gold hasn’t been the case for a while. Last year, the Finns beat the Swedes in the gold medal game and Canada got nothin’. I don’t think we made the medal games at all. This year, Ter and I happened on the Canada/US match in the round robin and wound up watching most of the game. It was one of the best hockey games I’ve ever seen, period. It helped that Canada won, but the speed and skill of those junior league boys were mesmerizing. They made the pros look like the amateurs. From that point, we coordinated our lives around the broadcast schedule and stayed with TSN for the duration.

The quarter-final against Denmark was kind of a blowout, but it was a fun game to watch. The semi against Slovakia was less of a blowout, at least at first; if not for Denis Godla, the score would have run further away than it did and sooner than it did—even the crowd was behind the Slovakian goalie. Nobody could believe that he didn’t get the “player of the game” award. They all started chanting, “Goalie, goalie!” until the kid had to acknowledge them while his selected teammate bravely endured the photo op. They say the players choose the recipient on each team, but the crowd knew who truly deserved it that night.

And last night’s gold match between Canada and Russia was hair-raising. Didn’t start that way—our boys had them pulling their goalie 2.5 minutes into the first period and the bigger, huskier Russian players couldn’t keep up with the swarm. When the gap in the score widened early in the second, it looked like we had it. Then, in three minutes, the Ruskies scored thrice, two of them on power plays. Suddenly, the score was 5-4 and the entire third period was yet to be played. I’m thinking that they should have played for gold in Montreal, that the Air Canada Centre is cursed with Leafs’ luck. Ter is yelling for the kids to quit with the stupid penalties (the game was actually very well called). The sportscaster on Global news is reminding us that 6-5 is a recurring score when Russia plays Canada in a series and that’s all fine and dandy so long as Canada gets the 6 …

Well, we didn’t. But the Russians couldn’t get the 5, either. The game ended at 5-4, the country went nuts, and now I understand what Dad means when he says the hockey is better at the junior level. These kids play with hearts and guts and desperation. They’re not in it for the money (well, maybe they are, in the long run—most of them are already drafted to NHL teams). They’re in it for pride, for their parents, for their coaches, and for their country. This year’s Canadian team was unbeatable. They went 7-0 in the tournament, but that’s not what impressed me the most. The chemistry between the players was magical. All four lines were scoring. The defence corps were horses on the blue line. I don’t know if any of them will be stars in the big league, but they were a galaxy unto themselves in the world juniors this year.

O, Canada!

Oceans of Words

Nicole sent me this print for Christmas, seeing in it the nature of our relationship maintained over time and distance by an endless conversation in writing. At one time, we wrote letters, lengthy missives begun in tidy script and trailing into a scrawl once cramp had set in. These days the letters are less frequent, replaced by card tag and spontaneous emails in the middle of a workday, but there is always a heart leap when I see her name in my inbox or her handwriting in the daily post.

I have, on occasion, heard her voice. She recorded A Charlie Brown Christmas for Ter and me a couple of years ago, so I need only open the book to hear her east coast drawl. I don’t hear it in her writing, though; as with all things subjective, I hear her via my innate universal translator, which sounds suspiciously like me. And, when you account for local vernacular, sounds hilariously discordant at times.

Nope, for the most part, our friendship is a written one, and while I would dearly love to close down a teahouse with her (she might prefer a bar with beer and a rockin’ house band), the value of her friendship is not one whit diminished by the vast space between us.

Is she a soul mate? Maybe. A soul sister, certainly, and likely someone I have known in another time and another place. For whatever reason, we have been separated this time out, yet we managed to find each other despite our differing paths, and perhaps we benefit more from our present circumstance than we would if we resided in the same town. We are each spared proximity to the other’s drama, for one thing, which enables clarity when offering support. And that support comes in writing, to be read and reread as required, wisdom saved for a rainy day or anecdotes to amuse when nothing else is funny.

Matted and framed, this print hangs above my writing desk, a tangible connection to my most perceptive soul sister and a reminder of the conversation begun all those years ago. I’ll sign this one off as Nic herself is wont to sign …

In propinquity,

“You Spoke to Me in Poetry”

Your spoke to me in poetry

And I did the unthinkable

I swooned

Straight into your arms

Heedless of the peril in your pretty words

Strung like stars on a silken line

Destined to delight and be my end

You spoke to me in poetry

And I did the unforgivable

I forgave

Lulled by a lyric

Called to curb my waking temper

And cloud my clearing vision

Destined to reveal and be your end

You spoke to me in poetry

And I did the inevitable

I trembled

Fearing loneliness yet

Witnessing within the words you wove

The oblique lies and angled truth

Destined to destroy and be our end

These Boots Are Made for Walkin’

My wee sister IM’d me at work one morning:

“Hey, sissy, are you free for lunch?”

“Sure,” I wrote back. “What do you feel like?”

“Shoes!” she replied.

Uh oh, I thought. The wee ’un’s on a bender.

My sister buys her shoes at the store directly downstairs from my office. She’s partial to Kubos and has acquired something like six pairs in everything from green to black to “aubergine”. Granted, the store regularly puts them on sale, so she gets them practically two-for-one, and on this day a sale was also in progress: buy a pair at regular price and get a second “on sale” pair at fifty percent off the sale price. Boy Sister had gone ahead and found a pair for himself; we were to meet him there and one of us could score the second pair in the deal for cheap.

BS hadn’t arrived when we did, so the Greig sisters were on the loose without our handler. I said, “I need boots”, so we started looking. And commenting. And cracking ourselves up with inside jokes and stupid remarks. I do enjoy shopping with my little sister. She’s a veritable hoot.

I really wanted/needed tall boots in which I could walk comfortably. Apparently, I was also in the market for some form of red leather. Crimson? Too dark. Candy apple patent? Too flashy (though they’d totally work under my boot-cut jeans). Scarlet? Too high in the heel. Plain black? Too boring. Then my eye caught a low-heeled black boot with burgundy accents and I promptly zoomed in for a closeup.

It met all my criteria. Black and red with low heels, made of buttery leather, and sporting a filigree button that kinda sorta matches my silver Lannister pendant (a bonus, not a criterion). Then I looked at the brand name: Dorking.

My wee sister looked dubious. “Do you want to buy a boot with the word dork in its name?”

Uhhhh … I bought it anyway. And I proved the greater dork because it wasn’t on sale, so when Boy Sister finally arrived, the deal didn’t work to plan. Not to mention that one pair of boots cost almost as much as a pair of tires for the Tiguan, but here’s the thing:

They are so comfy that I wore them all day every day for three solid weeks and my feet think they’re in heaven. I’m wearing them right now, in fact, so not only are they made for walking, they are made for looking cool while sitting still.

Today is New Year’s Eve. Looks like I’m walking into 2015 with style.

My Human

Ter coined a dandy the other day. She passed an unkind judgment on someone—hardly a criminal offense, but definitely out of sync with the higher level vibe we’re striving to maintain—and promptly smacked her own hand. “I’m sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “My human.”

Bwahahahahahaha!

To be human is to be influenced by the five sense reality, the egocentric identity, the left brain, the intellect, the bane of pure source energy. The human experience is why we’re here, but it’s terribly restrictive when learning lessons of love, acceptance and forgiveness within that experience. It also provides a physical contrast to things of the spirit. We need it, but we also need to be aware of it. Only then can we move past it.

It’s okay to be human. It’s okay to be small, occasionally, especially in defense of someone we love (thank you, Ter). It is oddly gratifying to think savage thoughts toward someone who has caused us or our own some form of angst, but we must not let those thoughts consume us. Have the thought, get your jollies from it, then forgive everyone involved and let it go.

Easier said than done? Yup. Being human makes it so. Forgiveness, however, does not mean to say that an injury/insult is justified or acceptable. It simply means that we as individuals can control our response to the slight. Yes, the comment was unfair. Yes, the insult may have been unintended, but it also reveals something about the person who made it, and that is not ours to own unless we choose to own it. (And, really, do you have room in your life to wear someone else’s issues?)

Ultimately, you can only live your life. You can only control your feelings and your actions. You put out the intention based on where you are in your journey. How I perceive it is determined by where I am in mine. Sometimes we’ll meet in the middle and sometimes we won’t. That is when opportunities for forgiveness occur.

If, however, an intention is initially misread, then … “Oops. My human.”

Not Your Average Joe

the coveted Christmas prezzie

He’s on my radar once more—Aerosmith’s inimitable lead guitarist, known predominantly throughout the rock world as “Mister Joe Perry.” After 15 years of radio silence, I saw his autobiography on a shelf at the bookstore and stopped so abruptly that, had I been on the highway, I’d have caused a multi-vehicle pileup.

My heart did that crazy swoopy thing that hearts do when something too deep to reach is touched.

I dropped a five-ton hint on Ter, and if the book wasn’t beneath the tree on Christmas morning, I’d have gone out on Boxing Day to get it myself. (Sneaky Ter—she fooled my nosy fingers with a copy of Prince Lestat and disguised Rocks as a big square something wrapped in Nutcracker-themed paper. She knows.)

There was a time when I owned an extensive collection of Aerosmith albums. I even persuaded Ter to accompany me to a live show during the Get a Grip tour—the scariest crowd I’ve ever been a part of, but seeing the man himself made the risk worthwhile. He was in his prime at the time, when I believed that a man is at his best in his mid-to-late-30s. Mr. Perry was actually in his early 40s, challenging my parameters with flowing black hair and those long, smooth muscles. And he has aged in typically uncompromising style: he turned 64 on September 10 and still commands a third look.

So, what gives? I no longer have my Aerosmith albums, nor did I hang onto the band bio I devoured in the 1990s. I thought that he and I were done, that the affair was over. Gods are irreplaceable, of course, but even the vampire he sired has lain silent for almost two decades.

At one time, I considered him a strictly hormonal crush. Now I am unsure. Now I suspect a connection on some other level, a memory from another life in another world. It’s possible. It’s actually probable, given what I’m learning about how souls are but satellites of the mothership. I suppose it could be as simple as biological hardwiring, but if the appeal was purely physical, I doubt I’d care to do anything more than mate with him. This is not so. Not purely, anyway.

Rocks has jumped the queue to next in line after I finish my annual holiday wallow in The Night Circus. I am certain that it will be a fascinating read and reveal no common ground between him and me (except that we’re both Virgos). I am unlikely to buy any more Aerosmith albums, and when he played Victoria with his spinoff band a couple of years ago, I wasn’t the least bit tempted to get tickets … though I did get some cool pics of the tour bus.

What mystifies me is the crazy swoopy heart thing caused by someone I have not and will not meet. I may not know him, but I recognize him. Was he a lord in a previous life? Definitely. Was he my lord? I doubt it. All I can say is that he was on my radar before radar existed and he’s come around again.

It’s a deliciously, creatively compelling mystery, one that has borne fruit in the past and may signal something that I, as a writer, have been avoiding for more than a year. If Joe Perry is back, then Marcel de Chauvigny is sure to follow … and his is a story I don’t want to write.