Meditations on the threshold of 53

So, here I am, on the cusp of 53. Fifty was kinda weird, like entering some alien territory: it had me dunking my big toe into the tepid waters first. This current state-of-affairs is one part “same old, same old,” the other slightly terrifying. Let’s just say I have had better times.

I have the luxury of looking back on my life: I say “luxury” because I can still do it. Lots of people I know (or know of) have died by now, which is mind-boggling at a time when the medical field seems to be regressing while proclaiming how many advances are being made. Yeah, they cracked the genome, so what? How many people do YOU know who have died of cancer already? I know several, many of whom died way, waaay too young.

My dear mother, may she rest in peace, died in 1984 (at a young 68) from CNS Vasculitis, brought on by an allergic reaction to Septra-class antibiotics. The reaction caused the blood vessels in her brain to atrophy and become all squiggly instead of straight, resulting in a lack of proper blood flow to her brain. This presented as sudden senility and in just five weeks she progressed from someone suffering slight dementia, to blind and not knowing who I was, to comatose.
Let’s just say that, for me, I could not write as nightmarish a horror story with all my creative senses on full steam. It was really awful. Even that is not as awful, however, as losing a friend in the prime of their young life, like Laine Coxford. Or Ellen Cohen. Or any of the individuals I know in name only who die tragically, far before their time.

If you get to this age, there is a lot of obscenity to consider when you ponder life. It’s cruel. The happy moments narrow proportionately to age, as everything becomes more challenging with every passing year and the sheer stupidity of those we rely on to lessen our loads – read government bureaucrats here – increases. Yet I would not trade a moment of life, not yet, anyways, for the alternative. Death MAY mean eternal bliss, who knows? I’m not so sure about the 78 virgins in heaven part, mind you... but then again, which guy in his right mind would WANT 78 virgins, anyhow, even with an eternity before him during which to keep them happy? Talk about daunting!

I remember hearing a doctor in a hospital telling the family of a sick, elderly individual that they would do everything possible to keep this person happy. And one family member commented: “Happiness is overrated, anyhow. What’s happy?” It made me think then... and I am thinking about this again: happiness is within you and that’s about it. No ONE can make you happy, because it is far too transient an emotion. It is an oasis in your pool of neurons... it does not last.

You get a gift, it makes you smile momentarily and now and then it might make you smile again. But no amount of gifts, money, food, success, power – none of these things – can make you truly HAPPY, or shield you from all the sorrow, pain, doubt or mishaps that are part of the human condition. People will betray you. Your body will weaken and get sick. All those moments of which we are proud or gleeful will fade with time.

If you allow that knowledge to prepare you for whatever is coming, good or bad, and you live life with no expectations at all, just doing your best to get by, you will survive as well as you possibly can. Be GOOD to people. Pet a dog. Smell a flower. Meditate and remember to breathe properly: I think Buddhism has it down right.

So, on the lip of 53, I can admit that I am surviving and I have made it here, through good times and bad. I have been lucky, very lucky, to have struggled this far despite some challenges, although the road ahead seems steep to me at times. Yet I have known great love, the pleasure and luxury of having some very good and loyal friends, some careers, experiences and voyages that I will never forget. In truth, I think I am more fortunate than many people I know. If it were to end tomorrow, I would smile in the knowledge of all those things.

Thinking about all of that, I actually feel happy... and that’s a pretty grand thing.

Like career change, never too late for a good confession

This blog entry has been awaiting birth for about 43 years now. Let’s call it a revelation, or, possibly, a confession I make to the world and seek absolution for. If I had a priest, I think you will agree he’d be mighty proud of me.

The story begins about 48 years ago, when my cousin and I, both under five at the time and six months apart in age, he being the elder, started hanging out. He – let’s call him Sam (a pseudonym) – lived in Chomedy, just off the island of Montreal in the municipality of Laval and I adored him.

Chomedy wasn’t as developed then as it is today. The fields near Sam’s house were devoid of human life and there were actually cattle skulls and skeletons there, which makes me wonder today what actually went on there. Was it land upon which the beasts were slaughtered, their remains later disposed of there as well? But I digress.

Because Sam’s place wasn’t so close (Montreal’s below-ground expressway hadn’t been built yet, so getting there took longer), seeing Sam was a big deal for me. The drive, right past the historic, now-defunct Parc Belmont amusement park in my father’s powder blue 1961 Comet, was a seemingly-endless adventure for me. And spending time with Sam, which I liked to do weekends when the opportunity arose, was like magic. He was the brother I never had and I loved him like one.

During the summer, Sam’s mom (my mother’s sister and a second mother to me until several years ago, when she died at 94), Sam, my mom and I were driven by my dad to Old Orchard Beach, Maine, some six hours away and a favourite destination of Quebecers since the 1800s, when direct train service linked Montreal and Maine. He dropped us off and we spent a month there, while he returned several times on weekends, when he did not work. Sam and I had the time of our young lives, our days spent on the pristine seven-mile long beach and our nights in the town’s most famous attraction, Palace Playland, an amusement park featuring a massive pinball arcade – it was the era before video games, after all – where you could pose as a pinball wizard and tilt the night away, or Ski-Ball dozens of times in order to win tickets you could later exchange for the tackiest prizes. The park still exists to this very day, as does a section of the famous Pier that dates back to the 1800s.

Old Orchard wasn’t the only spot we vacationed every summer.... and herein lies the crux of my tale. The Laurentian mountain cottage community of Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts is just 45 minutes away from Montreal by car and we would spend a week or two there, as well. We would stay at Lodge Lac des Sables, built right on the lake and owned by the Weinrich family. And here, our days were spent fishing off the small pier owned by the Lodge, shooting targets with our BB rifles next door at the municipal beach and walking the short distance to town to buy treats at Dairy Queen, take a ride on the Alouette site-seeing boat or see movies in the Alahambra and Roxy theatres, musky, cool, cob-webbed places that offered perfect refuge on a hot summer’s day.

We would also visit the small Canadian Tire store in town and here is where my confession comes in. Despite the fact I grew up to become anything BUT a criminal, please remember that Sam could do no wrong in my eyes. So, when he suggested we steal Rappala Minnow lures, too pricy for 10-12 year old boys to afford, I jumped at the chance. This was my chance to prove to Sam that I was as cool as he was... and I didn’t let him down. There were no closed circuit cameras then and, really, your chances of getting caught were quite low, unless you were a bumbling thief. I’m not sure how many lures we stole that one summer in particular, but it was quite a few and all I recall is that they worked like a charm on the doomed bass, sunfish and trout of Lac des Sables.

I haven’t been in touch with Sam for about 25 years. He ditched my aunt (the woman who raised this asthmatic boy from the day she married my uncle, when his son Sam was three) and when my motel owner uncle died, leaving what I heard was more than a million dollars to Sam and his now ex-wife, they moved to the Bahamas. I am not sure if he has any regrets today about stealing those fishing lures and for all I know he did far worse than that during his lifetime. I am not even sure whether Sam is still alive. But I certainly am and, on behalf of both of us, I offer apologies to Canadian Tire. I see you have done well as a corporation despite the loss of that particular revenue, but it was wrong of us in any event. Children, do NOT try this at home...

So, padre, how was my first-ever confession? Thank you for listening.