“Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.”

Proverbs 4:25

In high school Art Class, I had a very good teacher. Mr Randy Marchinko. He challenged me. One assignment was to do a grid drawing in pencil. The picture up there is the result.

I took a not so random photo from magazines he had provided, in that I enjoyed cycling, and over top of it I drew grid lines. Then I took the larger paper, as per the assignment, and made a larger grid pattern on it, and transferred the contents of each little box on the photo to its corresponding box on the in the bigger one.

He encouraged us to do so gradually, never going too far in each box, that we would get too far ahead of the other boxes. If you bring it gradually to progress to completion, the whole picture takes shape in a balanced fashion. It was an amazing process, because I simply don’t draw that well. Maybe its because I’m too impatient, I don’t know. But I treasure this pencil media drawing, and have it carefully rolled up, stowed away somewhere.

I pondered my Bunnies post a little. Didn’t I write something about being tempted to be joyful a few days ago? Here it is…

So, the worry and anxiety submerges to reappear as dark humour a few days later. My life, my story, was not and is not a happily ever after story. That said, I am happy. I’ve learned through experience that this temporal bliss of life is fragile, and can shatter. That bunnies tumbling about on grassy hill tops are a joy to see, and are prey to Eagles that can swoop down, scoop them up in their talons, and take them home to their hungry young ones.

My son and I were standing at the end of a pier that jutted out into a large river. A peaceful scene. We suddenly heard the squawking of a duck, and looked to our right to see an eagle flying just above the water, rising fast, with a duckling in her talons, and the mother duck chasing and calling out, losing the race as the eagle rose up and out of sight.

I’ve looked at Eagles differently ever since. Eventually I forgave them for not being human. Forgave them for being wild. For needing to eat.

But then one day, something went wrong

The Bunnies were all gone

Let me explain

Daily, as I pulled into the stop at 10th and Vine, the bunnies would line the grassy slopes all ‘round

Quietly they munched on the dewy grasses there

My passenger would alight, I’d give one last glance at the peaceful multicoloured sight, that crowd of feasting long eared rodents, and off we’d all climb back to cruising speed

But today, they were all gone, but not he,

….he was there, with new bunny slippers on

~

The wife who went astray is standing at my door

standing in the rain

hair dishevelled

hanging down

hair that veiled her eyes

Those down cast eyes

dripping water on my carpet “I’m sorry”, she said, “I’m back!”, she said, then, shivering, fell to the floor, just inside my door

I tucked and rolled her neatly out that door, out onto the front porch, then closed and locked that door.

Oh, would I? Could I?

Or would I turn, and walk back in to sit by my fireside, and poke about to excite the flames from the dying embers there?

Moaning there she’d lay

Maybe I wouldn’t care…

I’d pull up a chair, right then and there watch her lay upon the cold hard marble floor

Or maybe I’d get down there beside her, just lying beside her, and I’d brush her hair from her eyes and listen to her mutter and moan, and to her softly say, “It’s ok, I’m here”

More on that…

My brother, Andrew, noted an unintentional allusion to T S Eliot

“Unreal City,

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,

I had not thought death had undone so many.

Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,

And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.

Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,”

T S Eliot, The Wasteland

A quiet sadness, faceless and without form follows me about, dragging its feet… and I await that sadness’ departure. Soon that sadness will join the distant dim sorrow where my mother and father lay. My Grandmas and my Grandpas, and all those things that are no more.

L D Brand, Its Not a Key

Sparrows

What do they mean?

What do they need?

Darting in bullet flash flight
To secretive nests
Under oriental rooftops

Wherein lies the family?

Nests?

Eternally grateful that I am alive
And demonstratively grasping
These such scenes of natural beauty

A. W. Brand

I saved a key from a precious place, never intending to ever go there again, but knowing that I could had been a comfort to me.

Today as I rummaged through all of my saved treasures, I realized that that house had been torn down, and the key was no longer a key to anything, anywhere, any time…

A quiet sadness, faceless and without form follows me about, dragging its feet… and I await that sadness’ departure.

Soon that sadness will join the distant dim sorrow where my mother and father lay. My Grandmas and my Grandpas, and all those things that are no more.

And the future Yawns open wide to swallow all, ‘til even I will be no more than a memory, with no key to reach me ‘er

I woke up this morning tempted to be joyful… I took a chance and drank it in, and Let Joy run free to Romp and Play! All the while Anxiety’s been shouting,

“…you’ll be sorry for singing like a naive wretch!”

But no surprise, Anxiety’s the liar she’s always been

And my heart keeps right on singing, come what may!

Van Morrison, “he’s weird!”

That phrase, it’s stuck in my mind all night long, and all morning, “he’s weird”

I was at a dinner party and my alarm went off on my iPhone. I knew what it was, I slipped my phone out of my pocket, cancelled the alarm, then stowed it away. Our host, my good friend Arthur, asked me who’d been calling me,

“No, no, that’s my alarm to remind me to take my medication.”

“That’s Van Morrison” came from the young man who has been seeing our host’s daughter, Emma. ❤️

Surprised I said, “yes!” And looked his way. Looking now again at my friend, Art, whose raised eye brows indicated he’d never heard of him, “have you ever heard of Van Morrison?” I queried. “I’ve heard of Van Morrison, just not that song”, he clarified.

It’s a noose and a healing balm. Like the shape of my face, and the hairs on my head. It does me no good to pretend “it’s not me” To pretend that I’m not weird.

So there I am! I am being exposed, Van Morrison is weird, and so am I.

But for whatever reason it took me by surprise. It stuck with me. And writing about it today, I broke through. Somehow I’d slunked into the slumped comfort of being normal.

There we are! Sliced! Diced! Packaged and Shelved!

We’re up here on this shelf, in a jar, beside all the other jars, our category is “weird”.

Pickled! Lifeless! Void.

No more to be seen!

The threat has been discovered!

The vaccine administered…

What’s so weird about Van Morrison you might wonder? Poets aren’t so well received by some.

It reminds me Pierre Berton’s reaction to Leonard Cohen. Check out that video link there, from minute 8:05 – 9:50

And then as I mused some more… I thought maybe this young man is needing a safe place to be weird?

Sameness and blending in… is… I really shouldn’t use a word that’s coming to mind right now. But it’s a fallacy.

I think that’s always been the fallacy. I’ve always thought I’ll just act normal for now, then after they like me, I can slowly but surely let them know I’m actually weird.