Entire worlds that opened up to me beginning with top 40 radio via a 2 transistor radio, watching CBC Saturday night hockey games on our new B & W tv set, reading Classics Illustrated comics, following The Beatles, going to university to take courses I chose, reading classic books, marrying the love of my life at 21, teaching where I wanted, playing music live for others, writing many textbooks on areas I chose, travelling twice in the fall to New England to visit favorite American writer haunts, becoming a poet full-time, while co-creating/facilitating an interesting, civilized family.
Does it get any better than that? Born at the right time. Made the best of my opportunities. Followed my bliss all the way so far.
These pandemic days, I return daily to the myriad worlds of my large book, music, movie, and art collections. Never a dull moment. And great ongoing emotional, mental, and spiritual nourishment. The Palace of Art I consciously built for myself more than satisfies my inner needs in an otherwise limited/limiting, diminished time.
(first ’90s New England trip to Frost Farm, Derry, Vermont; allusions to a local farm custom and his poem “Mending Wall”)
“Let all your thinks be thanks.” –W.H. Auden