To thine own self be true

It’s pretty smooth sailing till I get to the halfway point. Three blocks worth of sidewalk thoroughly cracked. A long gash running like a chasm to forever. “Well, Nothing’s perfect, you know” and “It could be worse, I suppose.”

Sometimes smaller cracks meander like new rivers wanting to go their own way, breaking off from the main. It’s always that way. “One damn thing leads to another,” I mutter, and note the brown stains where people had futilely tried to seal the small initial breaks.

There are periodically intentional squares with construction names and years inside. 1978. Imagine that. The walk was once new, pristine and crackless in ’78. What did the neighborhood look like with new houses shooting up, mud all over the road from trucks and installed front yards? Who once walked her in ’78 who is no more? In ’78, we lived several blocks over in a condo, and dreamed of owning a bigger place. I was writing my first textbook and on my way to 20+ more. I still had parents; my wife hers. The kids went to the elementary school down the street. I still taught in my first city school.

I took my grandson for a walk here last year. Small dogs yapped from front windows, performed their territorial guardianship. He followed and walked on the big crack from beginning to end. It was a diversion, a delight for a three-year-old. He asked me a lot of How come’s as we went. I pointed out planes descending overhead for the airport, a mangy cat rolling in the road dust and stones, the gutters where he eventually dragged his boots, forgetting his original cracked route.

Today I remembered our dog and how she liked to do the circuit, sniffing the spring air, and barking back at those window yappers. I remember being 30 years younger, trying to recall if the sun felt any warmer, and all the many plans I once made.

The fantasy was enough to make the walk shorter today. I noticed there was smooth sidewalk once I hit the home stretch as there had always been and entered the crescent by natural instinct., automatic-pilot And I noticed three cracks that never used to be on my driveway, and how all this somehow pertained to who I was and how change had had its way with me and all that had once seemed so whole.

(foreshadowing on Sidney, B.C. street bench of plane encounter later?)

“And many are the dead men too silent to be real”–Gordon Lightfoot, “Canadian Railroad Trilogy”

Lightfoot speaks of the many nameless workers who gave their lives to forge the Canadian Dream of the 1870s and 1880s which united this country. Like any history, there is the recognition that we arise from the past, from the often-forgotten contributions and efforts of others–the many dead.

I was reminded of this truth, yet again, recently in Victoria. The significance and uniqueness of Emily Carr’s art, the long elegant past of the Empress Hotel, the myriad 1800s houses which are just back of the main drag, the centuries-old Chinese art on display at the art gallery there, the Spencer mansion nicely restored attached to the gallery, and all the ghosts evoked by these unique places.

The strangest things will likewise evoke similar thoughts. The Miniature World with its many scenes of human history; even the wax museum which exists to stir a connection with the dead via its own attempts at facsimiles and reproduction.

Returning home via plane continued the same line of thought. That portion of the trip started with no plane in its bay or in sight, no announcements regarding the delay, and tv screens announcing we were boarding. Curious and playful as ever, I wandered over to the departure desk and asked if we were “virtually boarding” to a puzzled hostess. I pointed beyond her to the screen which announced the same news. She looked and said, “I guess we are.”

Later, once we were really up in the air, with a third-full plane–some 30 passengers, and tv screens that didn’t work for the free satellite programming, I noticed the profile of the elderly woman sitting across from me and on the aisle one row ahead. She was in her early 70s, a spitting image of my mother, now seven years gone. Everything about her was the same. Every new gesture or movement proclaimed the uncanny likeness. She even fingered her rings the same way. She moved her hand to her mouth the same way. And so on and so forth.

She had the same frosted hair, the same sunken areas below the eyes, the same wistful expression, the same greyish eyes, the same size and body shape. She was even doing a newspaper crossword, much as my mother used to do the daily Jumble. She had on a flashy silver jacket, not unlike the fancy jackets my mother chose to wear. It was hard not to keep looking at her the rest of the flight.

My thoughts were many. Perhaps this was my last flight and she was an omen and escort to the land of the dead. I even thought of uttering her name aloud to see just how far the coincidence might go (but didn’t). Amazingly, she had gotten on at Victoria and was headed to the same destination–Edmonton–a city my mother did not like as much as her hometown of Winnipeg.

Mysteriously, she vanished ahead of me when we deplaned. There was no sign of her in the terminal or at the baggage pick-up. I concluded that the coincidence was a favorable sign of her continuing presence, perhaps in other people and in other contexts. In any case, she looked like her old self and was much as she always was and had been. Overall, a positive, possible ‘visitation’.

I had not thought of my mother for a while, on or just before this trip. There is much of her still in me and around me, by way of photos and artifacts and humorous remembered one-of-a-kind anecdotes. In the midst of life, we are…

Yes, I am also reminded of this each day when I open the delivered newspaper and read of a mother killed by her husband, murders by co-workers who lose it, babies’ obituaries, and so forth. In the midst of life…

In my study, I look around me this morning at the many books written mostly by numerous dead authors. I think about the long-dead great actors and actresses, the deceased giants of art and architecture with whom I share a vicarious affinity–those many geniuses who continue to influence some of us today. I look out the window and see a cat hanging around the bird feeder, and imagine the very real poodle that used to walk around the yard. In the midst of….And I think, too, of those I once knew, loved, and enjoyed who are no more except in whatever remaining personal memories.

And yet I do not find any of this particularly troubling or fear–as many do–for their own demise. This is just the way it is and has always been as part of the nature of process and life. Instead, I find a strange comfort and familiarity as much as a palpable confirmation. Death–a mysterious fact–is simply at the core of our daily lives in various forms and manifestations. It is there for anyone to imagine and explore for whatever meanings and answers one might turn up.

Most of us are hip to change and the eternal ephemeralness of life experience. But there is this much larger perspective that surrounds us and informs us at the same time. The coincidences are there. The mysteries are there. They ‘speak’ to us. And the dead, as always, continue to offer their gifts of self from their own lives and distant once-present pasts.

Listen. Reflect. It only takes acceptance, openness, and receptivity to experience the fuller consciousness, understanding, and appreciation the former three may ultimately have to offer us.

(re-edited from May 6, 2014 entry)

It’s all just information no matter how you regard or interpret it.

Dreaming last night of being with my wife in Mexico at a park with a beach beyond it.
Seeing a park attendant with a hoodie working about 20 yards beyond us across the grass.Somehow I could see enough of his face to recognize an uncanny similarity between his face and my first, closest childhood friend. “That guy sure looks like Hugh,” I said to my wife.

I got up and walked over to the attendant and he stepped forward to meet me, guessing I wanted to talk to him. He peeled back his hood and revealed his face in full. Though he was darker-featured, he was still a dead ringer for Hugh. I told the man why I had wanted to see and talk to him. He acted surprised, but seemed somewhat interested in knowing about my friend so I went on to describe Hugh’s particulars and lifestyle. The man seemed pleased by the differences.

My wife, by now, had come up to confirm the resemblance. I asked him if I could take a his picture, but he refused, though acting still friendly. I asked if he could send me a picture of himself and that seemed to meet with his approval. I hastily wrote out my mailing address and gave him some money for mailing.

The three of us then sat down on a bench facing the beach beyond the trees around us, to continue talking about coincidence and doubles. He was in no hurry to go back to work. Finally, he said “It’s ok, take our picture,” meaning him and me. I got his mailing address and promised to send him a copy. He seemed delighted at the prospect of one day receiving a memento of our odd episode during his otherwise typical working day. And, myself, I made a note to send Hugh a copy of the photo, strangely linking me, him, and this Mexican from three geographically separate places.

Doubles, I thought. How often in a crowd of faces I have seen people who resembled others, sometimes even famous or well-known people. When I was working part-time my first year in university, there was a girl about the same age who has having nose surgery, who told me I had an exact double on her side of town.

When I was teaching, I remember meeting a hippie-like father who resembled Don Franks, the Canadian actor who had appeared in the Finian’s Rainbow movie, sung in a Toronto jazz trio with the legendary Winnipeg guitarist Lenny Breau, and who had ‘gone native’, dropping out of public performance machine, and had gone to live on a reserve. The parent was fascinated by all this info and did recall Franks, agreeing there might be something to it. He seemed very ok, even pleased with this info out-of-the-blue at his son’s function.

Well, again, information–visually, factually, comparing notes, recalling images and other information from past experience. Is there necessarily any meaning to these sightings and sharings about other doubles people blissfully didn’t know existed?

If I go online I will find hundreds of other Richard Davies from other places, many of them far away. Some of them may even have taught or write poetry. Some may even look the same or there may be other people out there with different names, possibly hundreds more who have some resemblance to me and vice-versa. Again, is there any meaning to this information that is there, potentially there, which can be verified when the stars line up? Any significant symbolism? Analogically, is it possible that two different “snowflakes” can look or live the same?

I don’t know as I head off for breakfast. So much of life is just plain mystery–odd, puzzling, and yet delightful. But the information is there, both in the lands of waking and dreaming. There to be imagined, intuited, experienced, shared, and always wondered at.

There’s a lot
to be said
for clarity

especially at
2. 3 &
4 a.m.

In order to in-
crease perspective
u need

many people asleep
Mental dis-
engagement

& openness to
suggestion
don’t hurt either

So what can
u see or
figure out?

The future
past & present
for starters

Overall
u must be
ready to learn

to love silence
& whatever u ken
invent in the air

not blowing your
infrequent chance
to be

immaculate
on paper
& so u wait

wait for the
first words
to come on paper

each one of
them
pure
simple & true

……………………

Written around 4 a.m., when I was very ill with asthma (which I later ’outgrew’) back in the early ’80s. The poem wrote itself, as the best work usually does.

(previously published here Jan. 11, 2015)

The grumpy queue shortened.
‘No fat,’ decreed the matron
in front of me.
‘No whip,’ cried her friend.

‘Next,’ and a barrista`s
what`s-your-pleasure look.
‘Latte,’ I asked
and settled for a tall.

(Oh the way she pulled
the nozzle down
and wiped it clean
left no doubt she knew
how to handle a customer,
brisk and business-like.)

‘Do you want foam?’
she whispered, pumping
as I pondered her performance
and Sigmund Freud–
Would he have had his grandé?

‘How come men don`t serve?`
I naughtily ventured.
She smirked and shot back
‘They don`t keep things clean.’
‘Ah,’ I said, suppressing a grin
and stirred my poem to go.

……………………………………………………….

Another context poem in which the Freudian contextful language and actions overwhelm the least imaginative wordsmith. Something of a study of the sexes and their respective psychologies and bents. This familiar context and the language exchanges of this particular visit were obviously too much of a writing window to resist.

(previously published here Sept. 2, 2012)

left: Vancouver moment that inspired poem on right.

I first joined the Stroll 25 years ago, being a member most of that time, rejoining after an invitation from Anne Marshall after the passing of Dean McKenzie. It is a top-notch writing organization and always showcases strong Edmonton readers and writers. If anyone is writing poetry and wants to read for an appropriate audience, the Stroll is the organization to join. Great camaraderie!

Flying a kite with him and his Dad. The kite had not been out for about 35 years, the last time my son flew it. A beautiful Hawaiian kite with Mauna Loa and the sun on the head part with about 10 different color bars on the long trailing tail. We all took turns handling the spool and running with the kite to get it up. Nice windy day as it turned out. Afterward, I bestowed the gift originally from my Dad to the two of them. There is a second grandson who’ll eventually enjoy it, too.

Funny lines after supper at my son’s–grandson suddenly says straightforwardly to me and my wife, “Go home now.” His mother corrects him saying “That’s not very polite.” So he says “Go home now please.” Quite funny. He was probably thinking he didn’t have much playtime left; they put him to bed early so he always has to make hay to get in his last playing after sup. A variation of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” from a babe’s mouth. The things young ‘uns say which adults might like to, but can’t because of social politeness.

“The Hollows”. A poetically-just ending with Justice achieved and a Poirot choice re. any further necessary justice for multiple aiders and abettors.

occurs when one is no longer perpetually restless inside and when one no longer feels the deep inner lifelong aloneness anymore.

(Despite the decline of greeting cards in society due to e-media obsession, one family tradition that carries on from our dead parents through our kids and grandkids is the sending and receiving of actual special occasion cards and birthday cards. Everybody likes to send or receive a mailed or delivered card and to have a laugh or reconnection in the process.)