Thanks to everybody who read my last blog and went to my IG and Facebook pages. And shared my posts.
The viewer numbers have been incredible! Like, wow, big, big numbers.
This ‘making me famous to get my book(s) published’ thing seems to really be working. But we’re just getting started. I haven’t yet pitched my new book. Gotta build some more buzz first. I haven’t hit the stand-up stage again yet, either. Need to try out some more bits of my bit and get some feedback and some rhythm before I do that.
But it’s coming.
Thanks for the publisher advice many of you have shared. Thanks for the new networks most of you have opened up to me. It’s all so cool. Radical, even. Sorry about that, I was just at an 80s retro show and some of the gnarly sayings have stuck.
I’m putting the final touches on the pitch for my new book. I shared some of the details in one of my Reels, but I gotta be careful not to give away too much. There is a pretty cool fight between an angel and my hero. I mentioned the celestial romance, too, right? Some naughty bits there. But enough of that for now.
There’s more to come. In the days ahead you’ll see some new Reels. Please given ‘em a spin and share them. There will be more on my progress. More on the book. And the next bit of my stand up bit. It will include a fart joke. Farts are funny. They just are.
But I was thinking. I’ve got two other books out there. The stroke book seems to require me being famous to publish it, so I’ll put a pin on that for now. But if you happen to be a publisher looking for something that’s making the rounds right now and you don’t wanna miss out, consider Elephant Ropes.
I think I shared a bit of that earlier, but here’s the synopsis – straight from my pitch letter:
Elephant Ropes pits Lee Peters, a dinosaur of a newspaper reporter, against a homophobic, racist, misogynistic man enraged at the world. His fury is fueled by his ex-wife leaving him for a man of colour, being passed over for jobs by ‘the un-deserving’ and a new media that, among other sins, boots a weather forecast that sees him soaked at a classic rock concert.
To avenge these and many other perceived new world wrongs, the man kidnaps the weather ‘girl’ at the city’s top TV station. To go free, she must make five straight accurate weather forecasts just like the man believes old-time weather men used to do. Miss the mark and she’s dead. Feeling Peters is an old-school kindred spirit, the man gives the reporter first crack at telling the story ‘the right way.’ Peters uses this opportunity to attempt to play the man to rekindle his glory days but instead runs afoul of him, the police and his morals.
His troubles with the coppers begins when he breaks the hostage story without informing them – at the man’s insistence and to Peters’ pleasure. This opens up old wounds he’s had with the cops and sparks a battle with his rag’s sister paper. This begins multiple games of cat and mouse between Peters and the police, Peters and the man, and the cops and the man. As this plays out, Peters feels the old juice that comes from having a big story with international attention while the man begins to see himself as a folk hero for the oppressed men whose forefathers ‘made this country.’ And in the background of all of this, the books’ characters are forced to re-think the new face of the media, the death spiral of newspapers, and degrees of prejudice.
It’s pretty cool, I think.
Also bitch’n – there I go with that 80s talk again. Here are a couple of short stories I published.
Meanwhile, I gotta get to work on my new book pitch and practice my Reel. Gonna shoot that Friday and you’ll see it arrive on a device near you next week.
Well, hell, August is over and all of the ‘firsts’ following my bride’s passing have come and gone. And now I feel…I don’t know.
It’s very, very weird.
I thought a switch might go off. Anniversary, check. Birthday, check. Christmas – you get the picture But when the one-year anniversary (is that the right word?) of Patricia’s death hit on August 5th and was followed mid-month by the 365th day after her funeral, I was left still feeling numb.
Patricia in one of her favorite places vibing on the energy of the Rocky Mountains
Not sure what I was expecting. A switch to turn off? Or on? A locked door to swing open? “OK, pal, you’ve done your time. Move on.”
But nothing significant changed.
The sun set. Then rose again. Oh, the grass over her grave is thickening up. And there are a surprising number of new neighbors near Patricia’s spot. Younger, older. Various backgrounds. Death is very open minded, it seems. No prejudice or playing favorites.
When it comes to how I feel, though, or how the world feels without her in it, it’s pretty much the same. A little less raw, maybe. But raw enough to sting. I haven’t come up with any great insights on this. Other than I know the world would be a better place with Patricia in it. That’s a no-brainer. But I have to go back to what she said on this front in her final days: “I’m not going to ask why.”
She just wanted to focus on the joys she had in her life.
So do I.
And, in keeping with her advice, to keep embracing the joy in life today. I’ve had a lot of that over the past year. With my girls, my oldest friends, newer ones. Even strangers over drinks in pubs.
The numbness always finds its way back though. And I was dreading what impact it would have on me and my girls on Patricia’s death day.
August started as perfectly as it could have. Such a relief as I had been so anxious about how I would feel. And worse, how my girls would feel as D-day got closer, then hit. I’ve learned over the last year that I can be ready or not, but the emotions churn up the gut every time there is a milestone. Sometimes it feels like a machine agitating butter to make cream. Other times it’s like waves pounding to shore before a hurricane.
There’s no stopping it or dodging it.
That’s why I was thrilled that Anna and Kristina wanted to go on a trip together to mark the day. And I was blown away when they suggested Oregon, home to one of our great family vacations when my girls actually were girls. Patricia planned that early adventure to a tee. She booked a cabin on Cannon Beach. And once in Oregon, we did loads of day trips including one to Portland.
But much of the adventure was getting there from Edmonton. Patricia plotted out a roadie using one of those old school AMA Trip Ticks where we had to actually unfurl real maps. Night one was in Spokane, Washington. Then we spent some time in Seattle before meandering down the coast, making loads of pit stops on the way. She made sure to plan one stop in Astoria, Oregon- the town where they filmed The Goonies. If you haven’t seen that flick, I don’t know what’s wrong with you 😊.
This time around, Kristina, Anna and I flew. The ladies and I stayed at the Woodlark Hotel in the heart of Portland. I arrived about mid-day, Anna and Kristina didn’t get there until early evening. So I spent my time walking around, reacquainting myself with the city.
I love it.
It’s a city of grit, art and soul. In many ways like Edmonton vibe-wise.
Oh, and heart. There are people struggling post – Covid and they are visible. And there are loads of folks lending a hand and welcoming you, keen to fuel whatever interests, whatever you need. There are also loads of places to get a coffee or a beer where people are eager to chat.
But my best conversation came on day one at the Woodlark. After exploring and just ahead of the girl’s arrival, I sat down at the lobby bar. The fella running it was a great conversationalist as many in his trade are. He was something special, though. In the convo he asked what brought me there. I explained Patricia’s death and the reason for the trip. Blurted it out, really. I do that sometimes. It often meets with awkward responses.
Understandable.
Not with my new friend, though. We carried on chin wagging until Anna and Kristina arrived. More talk followed over the coming days. Same thing with everybody else there. A real welcoming bunch. They are in the hospitality biz, so I suppose that makes sense. On the night before we checked out, however, there was a postcard in our room from the team. It explained that they heard why we were there and wished us much love and healing. They peppered that with three ‘Someone in Portland loves you’ fridge magnets.
That choked me up.
The trip was so amazing.
Fantastic dinners, a scotch bar, a ghost tour of an 1800s hotel. On August 5th we hired an Uber driver to bomb us around some wineries and just see the sites. At one, we sat in the sun overlooking a classic vineyard. At Remy Wines, we plunked down on a deck and heard amazing stories from our host over several glasses including their Three Wives rosé. Turns out that this place not only makes grapes but works to promote diversity and inclusion by holding workshops among other things.
Patricia would have strongly approved.
That night we toasted my bride, the girls’ mom, at the Woodlark’s restaurant.
The next day we rented a car and went on a mother of a roadie. First stop, Multnomah Falls. So striking. We climbed past the main viewing area. And on, and on. Up and up. Eventually we were mostly on our own. So gorgeous. Such beautiful air to breathe.
On from there to Cannon Beach.
Not an Interstate Highway drive. Views of the Columbia River, a mountain climb, then that most inviting town we spent so much time in and around – Cannon Beach. We hunted for parking then went for a bite and a beer at the Wayfarer Restaurant right on the beach. A table magically opened up for us with a view of the iconic Haystack Rock.
We walked off the meal on the beach. It was busy but had cooled off a bit so not crazy. We just kinda took it all in. Memories hitting each of us in waves. But these were gentle waves. Healing ones. We spent a lot of time walking, stopping and just drinking it in. People were flying kites, making sandcastles, stuff we might have been doing all of those years ago.
With Patricia.
I’m not going to say she touched my shoulder from the next life, or spoke to me through the breeze. But I sure felt my bride there.
The drive back to Portland was satisfying.
Fittingly, perhaps, we did the ghost tour that evening at what is now Old Town Pizza but was an early bar and hotel. I was open to a tap from Patricia there, too, but, alas, none came. The tour was less about specters and more about Portland’s history and the way some folks in the 1800s were tricked into setting sail to work on board ships. We capped off the evening on a rooftop patio in the Old Town, Tope.
The haunted hotel above and a look at Portland from Tope’s roof-top patio below.
We also managed to fit in a trip to the magnificent Portland Japanese Garden, a tour of an early city founder’s home (the Pittock Mansion) and, of course, time in the massive and wonderful Powell’s City of Books (been there twice now, got the t-shirt).
Then it was all over. Back to Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto the next day. But filled up to full with the memories.
I realized how my bride lives on through Kristina and Anna. It’s not just a cliche . And I see how they are becoming stronger. Both for themselves, for me, and each other. I remember what it was like when my mom died at 58. I was a year older than Anna was, two years younger than Kristina. I worry about them, knowing how hard it was, but then I see how much stronger they are than me at that age. How well-equipped Patricia made them for everything.
The weeks since then have been wonderful, horrible, exciting and frightening. It’s interesting, if infuriating, how fast the switch can flip. Me and Dobby (our mutt) have been on some great walks, including to Elk Island and Banff (joined by Anna) National Parks.
More healing, and fall walks are planned. And Calgary trips. And Toronto. And???
And writing. Another book is pouring out and I continue to hunt publishers for the first two.
I guess I’ll just keep my feed moving, drink in the joy, learn from the pain and share the stories.
Something surprising struck me as the impending one-year mark of my bride’s death pressed down on my chest with the pressure of a beached Blue Whale.
I have no regrets.
Which seems weird as I mourn the essence of Patricia no longer a part of my day-to-day life. The feel of her hand in mine, mine in hers. The different sound of her voice through a range of moods and emotions. The lushness of her hair as I would run my hand through it, exactly as it was the first time I had the courage to touch it during an early kiss.
Me and my ladies — Patricia, Anna and Kristina. Everything.
The sound of her voice. They say this is the first thing you lose after somebody dies. But I purposely haven’t played a recording of my bride – not sure I can take that yet – and still I hear her perfectly in all of her inflections.
OK, this last piece is no longer true. It was when I began writing this, but then a friend of Patricia sent me a video. In it, Patricia records Anna in her then-new apartment in Calgary. Anna had just moved in a few weeks before we rushed my bride to the Royal Alexandra Hospital. In the recording, Patricia pans the lens to show the entire suite while she describes it from top to bottom. You never see Patricia in the video. But her voice is a gem, nuanced, playful, matter-of-fact and clear. And somehow sexy, even as she describes cabinets and lighting fixtures.
The voice is exactly what’s been in my head these last 11 months. I stopped the recording, played it one more time then sat, speechless for maybe a minute. Then I cried harder than I ever remember weeping.
I can’t roll on to her side of the bed. Her night table stands unchanged from the morning she last awoke in our home, a pair of glasses in a holder I bought her for her last Mother’s Day, some jewelry, a photo of the two of us in Mexico.
Yet I can’t muster up regret.
As I miss her, mourn her and deal with fits of rage over her death, regret remains absent. I’m angry that our time together is over so soon. I wish I hadn’t done some things, that I had done others. Regret, though? No. It feels like regret would be counter to the great life that we had together.
Since August 5 of last year at 5:23 pm I’ve spoken to a lot of people whose partner died. Some really do have regret. Those aren’t my stories to share, and I’m so thankful I’m not wearing that on top of everything else.
It’s not me.
Our life was filled with passion, which has many forms. Sometimes it’s messy, often it comes with heart-pounding joy. It’s never boring. And it’s so simple despite seeming so complicated. I don’t regret a moment of it. Life needs spice and some spices can make your eyes water and your skin sting. But it balances out with the sweeter spices to leave a great taste when all is said and done. And when all was said and done with Patricia and me, there were no more words that needed to be said. We were holding hands and I was stroking that luscious hair as she breathed her last breath.
I have no idea how I got so lucky to be that sad. Sad seems like a sad word to describe the end of a long, beautiful marriage and the knowledge that your amazing daughters are being just as broken in different ways. But every other word for sadness that I can think of just doesn’t do the trick. Whatever the word, to feel as horrible as I did – as I do – is a fantastic gift.
Weird, I know.
But it’s like the end of a great book, or trip. It’s over, but, damn, what a ride!
I’ve had a lot of conversations with friends and acquaintances going through divorce. We connect on the grief of loss, but it’s so different when all of the other elements come into play. When something broke apart rather than being ripped away.
To feel is to live. To feel so much pain of so much loss is to have lived incredibly. I’ll take that.
Life is funny in a sometimes-sad way. But it’s still funny. And I’ve turned to humor in a big way to heal.
First of all, I’m not embarrassed to say I’ve been seeing a shrink. One with a sense of humor and who doesn’t mind me calling her a shrink. It’s great to have a pro talk me through the mental bruises and breaks. A session isn’t complete without at least a few tears chased by a laugh or two.
Second, I took some stand-up comedy classes and will do my first show later in the summer. All the best comedians are broken, right? Even if it’s a bomb show, who can hurt me now?
And finally, I’ve turned to the wisdom of comedians to heal. No offense to the great spiritual gurus out there, but I’ve found the words of fellas like Canadian funny man Jim Carrey is just what the doctor ordered.
He talks about faith in ways a lot of Sunday morning preachers could learn a few things from. There is some cool stuff out there on the web with Carrey speaking to a graduating class about life happening for you, not to you. About having faith, asking for and believing in what you want in life and working toward it without worrying about the how. No talk about hunting down converts or any particular kind of religion.
Just taking a chance on faith.
It sounds a lot more like what I’ve read that’s been attributed to Christ and other spiritual gurus than the stuff I’ve heard booming down from pulpits.
I’ve had some folks over these last 11 months suggest that dying ‘before your time’ doesn’t jibe with their brand of faith.
“Didn’t you pray hard enough?” they imply. “Didn’t you believe strongly enough? Don’t you believe in miracles?”
I do. I believe in the miracle that creation gave the world Patricia, and I feel blessed to have had her in my life as long as I did.
Life isn’t measured in hours, it’s measured in quality. That I’m sure of. And Patricia packed in a high measure of quality in her years. That was clear to all who knew her but it was also clear in how she lived her last days: with grace, satisfaction and gratitude.
Zero regret.
Would she have happily taken more time? Of course.
But there was no regret in the life she lived, and she refused to ask “why is this happening to me?”. My love told me this explicitly from her hospital bed at the Royal Alex not long before she left this life. With tubes inserted into her to do the job her body was no longer able to do and not physically strong enough to get up on her own, she said: “I won’t ask why. I’ve loved my life.”
How the hell can I have any regret? I loved – love – my life with her. I have no regret, only gratitude for every millisecond I spent with her on this planet and having her now and forever implanted in my heart.
So, even gone from this earth, Patricia is impacting the way I live here. Because I now realize I don’t regret the things in my life I was sure I regretted. I don’t love everything that’s happened, but I can’t regret them. They’ve shaped me. And can continue to shape me if I just let them.
I just have to listen to my bride. And Jim Carrey.
After submitting my last blog 15 months ago, my brain cramped. It might have been Covid overkill, I don’t know.
But I hit a wall.
Again.
Then I decided to dust off what got me started at the key board way back when. Writing old fashioned stories in a new fashioned way.
First, I polished up my stroke book, found a great editor and am about to pound the pavement looking for a publisher for it. I had some very positive rejections a while back. With the editor’s touch and some advice on better-targeted publishers, I’m optimistic about Where Are My Shoes seeing the light of day at a books store/on-line store near you soon.
Then, I wrote a novel. A pretty good one, too, I think. It’s about a disenchanted old -school newspaper reporter, a TV weather scientist and a racist/misogynist wack job. It’s with that great editor now. When she’s done with it, I’ll have it in front of an agent and then – knock-on-wood — to a publisher.
Finally, I went back to my early days and put together a couple of short stories. The first of these, Whatever Happened to American Standard, is out now in Litbreak Magazine. You can find it hear: https://litbreak.com/
I hope you like it. I’ll let you know when the next one comes out and where to find it. Ditto on any progress with the books. I’m off and running on a second novel, as well.
What’s all of this have to do with Brain Food?
I’m glad you asked.
Recently, through work, I saw a presentation given by a wheel chair-bound stroke survivor who now works to improve accessibility to staff at her government ministry across the board. Ready tools, physical accessibility – everything is fair came. Then I listened to a presentation by librarians around improving access to the reading impaired. Their aim is to make it possible to read anything whether you’re blind and trying to get through a document at work, or have a reading disability and want to check out a book at the library.
After being both inspired and humbled by these presentations, I’ve decided to re re-focus my blogging on reading. Whether that’s being able to read or having access to reading. Because, you know, you can’t taste Brain Food unless you can have access to it in the first place.
The rest of my writing will be focussed on putting out more short stories and books. I’ll share info and updates on this writing here, as well.
So, my next two blogs will be a deeper dive into the interesting work noted above. Hopefully I’ll have some more info to share on my other writing by then, too.
I’m supposed to be smarter than a rodent. Even considering my brain buzz.
But if that’s true, why do I spend so much time on the hampster wheel? Why don’t I spend more time — most of my time — on things that make me scream Awesome! Yes!?
I don’t know.
You’d think that after some of the crap I’ve been through I’d be like one of these guys you see in the movies. You know, life changing experince leads to a new lease on life. No more wasted time, not a minute spent on stuff that doesnt REALLY MATTER. 24-7 on what’s awsome and makes a fella scream ‘yes!’
But then life kicks in. Routine. Responsibility. A few days pass without tapping out a blog or working on the book. Days turn to weeks, Weeks turn to months. Ground hog day. Time is spent doing necessary things, but more time is wasted doing unnecessary stuff. The stuff that keeps a guy busy doing everything but the things he’s supposed to do.
Time passes, frustration turns to passive acceptance that the writing isn’t practical. Energy turns into frustration before it fades to the most evil thing of all — benign content.
Feels a little cliched as I write this. But I’m living this cliche, I guess that’s how cliches become cliches. So I’ll go on,
I took in a seminar the other day where some cliches hit me like a mike Tyson body shot.
They talked about things like, if a fella doesn’t spend regulars time working on one’s self, a fella can’t get off his hamster wheel. He can’t really take the time to develop his own special, true gifts to their fullest potential.
And that’s a disservice to him. But it’s also cheating one’s community.
That doesn’t mean you can’t be successful without developing your passion, your real gifts. I think you can be really successful doing the wrong things.
You can make money or praise without doing the things that you’re meant to do. And I think that gnaws at your gut.
Jimmy Hendrix might have had great skills as a carpenter — but I’m sure glad he focused on playing the guitar. The world’s a better place and will be as long as his recordings electrify the planet.
My session also talked about spending time every day on visioning the day and reflecting on it’s successes and misses. Giving deep thought to learning and adapting from what’s gone on with an aim to getting better the next time out.
It also makes me think of world class athletes. They visualize making even the smallest corrections to get just a step faster, a bit stronger, doing the small things that add up to being number one. In team sports, focussing on making themselves better makes the steam that much closer to being great.
It always feels to me like it’s selfish to spend time focussing on myself. But it’s not if that focus makes me better at servicing those I was put on this planet to serve.
The session also talked about thinking about gratitude. It turns out that gratitude isn’t just nice, I’m told that science shows that it actually can make you more successful. If you’re grateful for what you have each day — truely grateful and you reflect on this — you are more successful. The trick is, you can’t fake this stuff. You really have to be grateful. I was pretty sure that gratitude was a good thing. I just didn’t know that it was it was also a powerful thing.
Things that make you go ‘hmmm.’
So, i’m going to take a real shot at being really grateful for what i’ve been given and what even the shitty things have provided me. I tend to think of gratitude at dramatic times, intense times. I want to think about it all the time now.
And I’m going to dedicate time to every day to self reflection. I’ve been doing this for a little while now. Nothing fancy. Just real reflection, opening my noggin to what’s out there. Thinking through what I’ve done each day, thinking about what I should be doing, what I could do.
I’m hopeful this will clear my mind to write what I need to write. If it doesn’t, I’ll be satisfied with whatever clarity shows me.
I vowed that I wouldn’t blog again until I’d finished my book.
Well, I haven’t quite finished that humdinger yet, so it seems the fact that you’re reading this is pretty clear evidence that I’m breaking that vow.
For new readers or those who’ve forgotten what I’m on about, I’m penning the story of the stroke that sizzled my brain’s ability to read and write, made a sieve of my memory and took my average-ish math skills to a new low. That’s among other important, life altering things. Generally speaking, I was not capable of doing meaningful work or meaningful just about anything.
But I battled back and — despite some pretty deep scars — I’ve made quite a remarkable recovery. Even if I do say so myself.
What gnaws at me, though, is I promised myself if I ever got my words back, I wouldn’t let them go to waste. I’d write the books that I’d been putting off all my life, either too afraid of failure or too lazy pre-stroke to complete.
But even for an ex newspaper reporter well accustomed to pumping out copy every day, writing a book is quite a grind. Especially, it seems, when virtually every page conjures up painful memories. I’ve had to put together a process that works for me and my turtle slow, technology aided reading style. And that’s taken some time to figure out and try to perfect.
At the same time, I’ve had to learn to deal with the gut ripping pain that reliving the memories of my brain battle conjures up. Hemmingway, I believe, said that writing is easy – just sit down at the type writer and bleed. OK. But sometimes I need a tourniquet when I’m penning this brain battle stuff. It’s good not to forget, but it’s also hell to remember.
Sadly, what I’ve noticed is that dealing with the hurt sometimes – often, actually – has led me down the path of avoidance. Back to that old nemesis of wasted time.
There are loads of powerful quotes that drive home the importance of spending one’s time well. Stuff like:
Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can’t afford to lose. ~Thomas Edison.
An ounce of gold will not buy an inch of time. ~Chinese Proverb.
Until you value yourself, you will not value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it. ~M. Scott Peck.
Those quotes have a sting to ‘em for me. Especially that last one. But what really stings is that I’ve been battling this wasted time demon going way back to high school. That’s when my amazing English teacher John Rollins gave me a graduation present in the form of a short letter. The gist of his epistle was that hours turn to days, days to weeks and weeks to years in the blink of an eye. He warned that I wouldn’t want to blink too many times and find that my aspirations were untried with the last few minutes on the clock of life ticking away.
It struck me as I’ve been working on the book in recent days that time can be pretty cruel, even when it’s not wasted. Things – life itself – can end pretty abruptly. Even with my best efforts I may never get to see my book completed or published whether or not it finds its way to bookshelves and e-readers.
I’m not meaning to be a downer, but it’s true.
Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy novels are worldwide best sellers that have been turned into movies. One was a Hollywood block buster. But he died of a heart attack at age 50 before seeing the success that was coming for his stories.
Pondering some recent events, it struck me that I’ve been wasting the gift of blogging. Its instant nature means that no matter what, I can get at least some of my story out there every week. If all goes well, a book, maybe books and who know what else will follow. But nothing can stop the blog. Nothing can stop it but me, that is.
So Brain Food is back, not instead of my book and not as a drain on the process of writing it. It’s back as a piece of the pie. And if I lose my way again?
Well, if I start feeling lazy, there is Simon Fitzmaurice to think about. If he can’t inspire effort and dogged determination, there is no hope of inspiration. In 2008 the multi award winning writer and film director was diagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, as it is also known.
He was just 34 with a young family.
The determined Irishman had two more children following his diagnosis and kept on writing. He uses a wheelchair and is attached to a ventilator that enables him to breath. He can’t speak and he’s immobile. But he continues to write and communicate using his eyes via an eye-gaze computer.
I can’t imagine how tough that must be. It seems that it would be furiously frustrating and that it would be simple – understandable, even – to give up. But Simon doesn’t seem to think that way. In fact, he wrote and directed his first feature length film, My Name is Emily. And it wasn’t just good for a guy with disabilities. It won a wack of awards last year.
I had a great time the last two weeks in Toronto and Montreal.
I was 100 per cent out of work mode. I was enjoying two great cities. And best of all, I was hanging out with Kristina and Patricia. I also managed to find time to meet up with a couple of buddies I hadn’t seen in far too long.
One convo with one of those pals got me to thinking. And the result of that brain work is this — it’s time to shift gears with the blog thing.
Over a pint, my buddy and I talked about the ways we’ve worked together in the past to help folks draw out the best thinking of people facing difficult problems and challenges. Over a second pint, we talked about using this blog to do that again.
So for the coming months at least, Brainfood is going to get more focused. I’m going to use it to tap into my network, and with your help, readers’ communities to use our collective minds to solve challenges and tackle problems of the mind.
My buddy is going to help.
You see, I’ve learned in past lives and through recovering from the stroke thing that the answers to many of the problems and questions that befuddle us are out there, well understood by other folks sometimes in other places. Sometimes it’s straight forward. Sometimes there are context issues. Other times some creativity is required.
But we don’t know what we don’t know. And what we don’t know can’t help us.
A story or two…
Back when I was at the stage in my stroke recovery that saw my comprehension improve to normal levels I was still suffering with speed. I could only read at 50 words per minute. Average readers fly along at about 200.
I had a program to deal with this problem on my computer. But when it came to books, newspapers and magazines, I was out of luck. One fix was to go to the library and pick up a book and then look for another copy on tape. Then I’d listen to some actor read the words as I followed along with the book. It was clunky.
It was tough to read for pleasure or learning using the thespian aided method.
Then while doing some research, I connected with a speech language pathologist from Chicago. At the end of our interview, I kibitzed about my book reading problem.
She asked: “Don’t you have Amazon Kindle in Canada?”
“Indeed we do,” I said.
“Then get yourself one. It has a text to speech program.”
Indeed it does. Who knew? Lots of people, just not – until that day – anybody that I knew.
I’ve been reading books, magazines and newspapers with my Kindle ever since.
I’d also been frustrated that I’d never been able to talk to anybody else facing my kind of brain buzz from a stroke. None of the strokies I’d met had lost their ability to read and write, so none had had to relearn their ABCs. Then one day I had the TV on to BBC while I was doing some work and a Toronto writer named Howard Engel was featured. He’d had a stroke. While it wasn’t like mine, it had caused him to lose his words, too. And he’d battled back and kept writing.
Even though our issues were different, it was inspiring to hear about a guy like this who I could relate to.
I looked Mr. Engel up in the phone book and was able to chat with him a few times. He was a real gentleman to me. And a great inspiration.
It would be fantastic if more of these kinds of connections and the fixes to problems and inspiration they bring could happen by design rather than by chance. That’s what I’d like to help spark with this blog.
That’s what I’m going to do, that is. With your help.
We’re going to identify some of the problems that are driving us crazy. And we’re going to use some techniques and this blog to find the answers. We’ll spark conversations that will help us act as one big brain to fix problems. Small problems. Complex ones. Frustrating conundrums. Whatever.
We’ll pick them off a few at a time.
But, like I said, I’ll need your help.
Shortly I’ll post a blog that will flesh out more details. But basically, I need you to come forward with some initial problems. Then I need you to help draw in your networks – docs, therapists, patients, families and friends, support works of all kinds, researchers – folks with any interest and experience with the brain work that’s going on out there.
Smart as I am, when the signs on the stores we passed on our VIA Rail train were no longer written in English, I figured out they were in French. And that meant that we’d crossed the border between Ontario and Quebec.
Seeing Quebec roll by from the ground for the first time was tres bien. And entering Montreal on the train route was a complete different experience than driving in from Pierre Trudeau airport. Very cool.
We walk out of the VIA station, roller suitcase in tow just after noon. We found a patio on Phillips Square — Le Grand Comptoir — and fortified ourselves for the afternoon. We had a great, simple lunch under perfect patio weather, just shy of 30 C. The square out front and the slow traffic creeping past us provided perfect views for taking in the city. The only downside were the Canadian, German and Brit business dudes sitting next to us. They were all trying to impress each other with their biz smarts and used F bombs as verbs, nouns, adjectives and just about everything else. I’m not against a good Fbomb. I just appreciate variety and creativity in cursing. And I try to avoid the nastiest words in all-age public settings.
These boys were more amusing than disturbing though.
After eating, we headed towards Patricia and Kristina’s friend, Francois’s place. It was a great stroll, even with the bag in tow. He lives near Ste Catherines’. Which we strolled along much of the way. We also had a coffee on Ste Denis. It was great to sit there and restore my memories of Montreal.
We met Francois after he was done work and went for dinner at Le Steak House Du Village — a great choice for us Albertans. After a long meal on the patio combined with great people watching and conversation, I now count Francois as a friend.
We had a fabulous time in Montreal — great dinners, amazing walks, incredible sites. The pictures attached tell the story best. Old Montreal, Crescent Street, up and down Ste. Catherine’s street. Wow.
We took the train back to Toronto on Saturday. Dinner in Leslieville and then Saturday afternoon we watched the Blue Jays beat Minnesota, staying on top of the American League East pennant race. We watched the sun go down at Yonge and Dundas square.
Monday we paid a visit to BMV books and then strolled over to China Town and Kensington. I still can’t visit Kensington Market without humming the King of Kensington theme song to myself.
All of this brain food from TO and Montreal is nicely feeding my writing. I’m making good progress on the fiction stuff.
Years before I started making a few shekels as an ink stained wretch, writing paid off for me.
Starting in Grade 5 I figured out that my language arts and English teacher’s dug what I put to pen. It got me through all the way to graduation and balanced off my failings in math.
Almost.
This has nothing to do with the blog. But i thought it was pretty cool. Clouds in downtown Edmonton shot from the 18th floor of Commerce Place.
Short stories, essays, reviews – I seemed to always hit the mark. I was also able to write my way through social studies. It was just a shame about math. And the sciences.
Anyway, I always took the writing thing for granted until…well, regular readers of this blog know all about my putting off the book writing thing until a stroke buzzed my brain’s ability to read and write, the struggle to relearn my abcs and all that jazz.
I’ve pumped out some good stuff since getting my writing groove back. But I’ve also struggled. When I was a news paper reporter I pounded out the stories of the day. In writing a feature on my stroke recovery, it was pretty easy to connect the dots. But I’ve done some flailing away on the edits to the book I’ve been working on about my stroke. And I’ve struggled with keeping my focus on the blog.
There’s just been something. Something wrong. I haven’t been able to put my finger on it.
Then my bride asked me if I’d like to go to the K97 classic rock show Friday night in Edmonton’s Hawrelak Park. I try not to live in the past, but David Wilcox was playing. Non Canadian readers may not know this blast from my past’s work. If not, you should look him up and give him a spin.
Back in the 80s I quit a job to go see him play at a Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (I think they now call my Calgary alma mater SAIT Polytechnic) cabaret. When I asked for the night off to see David play, my boss asked me what was more important, the concert or my part time job doing grunt work at his crappy little motel.
“Thank’s for the clarity, boss,” I like to remember myself saying to him. “I’ve unplugged my last toilet for one of your guests.”
David Wilcox
It was off to hook up with Joe, Jack and Brad, then off to see David and his band play.
Later, when I was entertainment editor of the campus newspaper I got to interview Wilcox before a show. Just me and him. No rush.
I asked him a question he told me nobody had ever asked him before. That was cool. As I recall, I asked about the way his eyes seem to bug out as he plays a solo. Also as I recall, he speculated that it may be because when he started out and he’d get into a riff, he stair off into the crowd, lost in his guitar. The thing is, the beautiful young woman dancing with her insecure and bulky boyfriend would think David was gazing into her eyes. And the trouble would begin with beefy boy and David. So, as a peace loving man, Mr. Wilcox said he just stated staring safely into the sky when he made his Telecaster sing. And that, he said, may be the cause of the eye thing.
That’s how I remember the convo, anyway.
Friday night David’s show was just as tight as it was back in the mid 80s. And he looked to be having just as much fun. It was awesome. Wilcox was followed on stage by Randy Backman of Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive fame.
He put on one hell of a show.
I don’t have the emotional connection to Backman that I do with Wilcox, but I was blown away by how great he sounded. And by how much fantastic music he’s pumped out. But better still, the passion he had in playing and in telling the stories behind the songs blew me away.
Backman shared intimate details of where he was when he wrote one classic. He explained nuances in the music and the work to get the stuff from his brain to his guitar to the radio.
What a great night.
But it wasn’t until the Saturday night over a few beers at a bbq my wife and I through for the neighbors that I connected a few dots.
According to Google – and is Google ever wrong? – Randy Backman is 72 year old. Another Google search put David Wilcox at 67. Backman is a gazillionare world wide selling artist and will likely make more in royalties in the time you take to read this blog than I’ll ever make. Wilcox is a journeyman musician doing just fine but on a smaller scale.
And there they both were, on stage looking in love with what they were doing after all of these years. I’m sure there are lots of reasons. But a couple came to my mind over beers in my back yard 24 hours after the show, my ears still ringing from what poured out of their Marshall amps.
These guys has the courage, the passion the whatever to do what they were meant to do. No matter what. It worked out on different levels. But it worked out. They didn’t do this music thing half assed. They did it full assed.
And that’s where Fat Man comes in.
Back in grade 5 I thought I was a pretty good story teller. And for a class early in the year I started working on a short story. My first effort was some kind of gumshoe crime fighter. Then I took a stab at a cowboy bit. Both were boring and un inspiring.
It was then that a sketch I did for art class caught my eye. I’d created and un-hero called Fat Man. He looked kinda funny in a loveablish way. I decided to call my short story The Adventures of Fat Man and I managed to put together a yarn that had all of the teachers at Chris Ackerman Elementary School in North East Calgary laughing.
The trick, I realized back then, wasn’t a trick at all. Being a writer is one thing. But to be a good or even great story teller means being true to who you are and telling those stories in the way they need to be told. Don’t try to be a great classical violinist if you’re a blue grass fiddler.
I’d like to be a jazz bassist. But I may be a punk rock guitar player. Gotta live with that and make it work.
Oh, by the way, my first born has a new blog. It’s westmeetseast.wordpress.com. The kid has game.
Oh again…if you have an Amazon Kindle, you may want to take a look at my short story, The Gunman Who forgot Who to shoot.
Some things grab you by the throat and just won’t let go.
You fight for every trickle of breath you can coax in and you punch, scratch and kick with every scrap of fight remaining to loosen the grip of the thing, swearing that if you ever break free you’ll never ever get within a mile of its grip again.
It’s been a year since my oldest and I drove from Edmonton, AB, to Toronto, ON where she’s now living. This shot is in Colonsay, SK. Time keeps ticking.
Sometimes the thing is a monster – like the bitch of a stroke that wreaked havoc on me six years ago.
But sometimes the vice grip is more subtle. Like time.
My youngest turned 20 in April. I’ve been in a tail spin ever since. I now have two daughters in their twenties.
It’s not a vanity-aging thing.
It’s just a brutal reminder that the clock keeps ticking. And with every second, minute and hour I keep realizing that there’s so much that I haven’t done. Stuff I feel I’m meant to do.
So why don’t I do it?
Tick tock, tick took.
My old English teacher – John Rollins – keeps coming back to mind. His farewell note to me at the end of grade 12 was a dagger about the sin of wasted time. It seems too benign to be a sin. But I think it may be the greatest one of them all. Is there anything worse than not doing something – wasting talent, wasting opportunity, missing the chance to help somebody, letting down your friends and family? All this by not doing something.
I’ve heard it told that as fond as the Devil is of history’s greatest villains, his best work over time is done by folks just sitting back. More evil is done by what’s left undone. It just sort of slowly happens, like rot.
I kept Mr. Rollins’ note for a long time. I eventually took it to heart on almost every level. Accept when it came to writing. That all changed after I stroked out, dealt with the pain of losing my words and then scratched back to the point where I could read and write again, albeit with the aid of technology. I published some stuff, started blogging and then…
Here I am – after getting a second chance — wasting time again. I’ve only taken my rekindled writing so far. I’ve either been too lazy or afraid of failure to take it all the way. A book sits waiting for loads of edits. Stories sit locked in my brain. I’m going weeks and months between blogs.
By contrast, in the weeks since my last blog, Anna – my youngest — went off on a trek around Europe with two friends. Kristina – my 23 year old — took off to start a new adventure in Toronto almost exactly a year ago. No fear with these kids, at least not enough to hamstring them.
They don’t seem hung up on what’s practical versus what’s possible.
I believe this, too. I just don’t act on it. Why?
I recently spoke at a conference for speech language pathologists. If you looked at me six years ago, this would have seemed impossible. But there I was, putting together words that made sense despite having had my brain fried by the stroke and my words taken away.
If I can do that, maybe I can be more like my girls?
Step one was publishing a short story on Amazon Kindle yesterday. The Gunman who forgot who to shoot, under the name T.J. Seefeldt. It’s a very short yarn about a stroked out 1800s western hit man. More shorts are coming soon.
I’ve always been a fan of short stories and novellas. I still re-read Hemmingway’s and Steinbeck’s all the time. And Elmore Leonard’s. I only discovered his short stuff after years of reading his novels. The great movie 3:10 to Yuma is based on the short story of the same name. The Hernando Tellez short, Just Lather, That’s All is amazing in how much it says with such economy of words.
I pumped out quite a few short stories myself years ago. But I couldn’t find any place for them. I got discouraged. This seems to have changed these days with Kindle Singles. We’ll see.
brain food cafe 