Inspired by our recent cat madness and the sundry bugs, ants and beatles circling Left Overs. Image by Alfra Martini; compare it to the real Let It Be cover here.
Image by Angelika Betzold. Inspired by Noah Was Not a Cat Person.
Inspired by Tomorrow, I guess (which slightly appalled Nancy). Drawing by Nancy.
I vacillate on the edge of a dream
of you and me cradled in a warm ocean.
I unwrap in increments —
unravel; dissolve; disappear. I feel
you and me cradled in a warm ocean,
but we had to cancel, like so many of our plans —
left behind to unravel, dissolve, disappear. I feel
the cold slap as my feet hit the floorboards
And so I remain unwilling to move forward,
but unable to stand still.
Heading home, one of the guys from the construction crew offered me twenty bucks for my English-to-Spanish phrasebook, specifically because he wanted to write a letter in Spanish to let down the girl he’d picked up in Buenos Aires the Friday before.
Image of Hurricane Lenny over the Caribbean from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with data superimposed by CooperScience.
But here’s a short list of who he was; a marvellous combination that made up this precious man:
Winter navel-gazing has led me to wonder if, at the tender age of 60, my best days are behind me. Have I used up all the good times allotted to me leaving only diminishing returns of mildly-amusing events until the day I cark it? My mood has spread to everyone else in the house, in osmosisy-patches, like whiffs of burning hope. Rich’s stomach hurts. Dan hasn’t picked up his guitar since October. Nim mopes. But this Tuesday we started adoption proceedings for a new pup to take up Siko’s Mantle of Happiness. That was the day the sun came out.
The rented house my mother moved us into after the divorce had been empty of humans for years. In this absence others had laid claim to it—scurrying feet and squeaks inside the walls and above our heads in the attic; tiny beetles up through the drains in the bathroom—sharp black against the chipped white porcelain; and in the kitchen sink among the dirty dishes, left there sometimes for hours until my sister and I finished arguing about whose turn it was to wash them, a hoard of minuscule ants feasting on crumbs, living on left overs like us.
Graham’s Christmas letters were always neatly typed and funny enough that, even as a kid, I looked forward to reading them. Back in Canada, he had hoped one day to be a playwright, but ended up living illegally in New York, taking on a series of editing contracts that even he found too dull to describe in any detail. He was my godfather, although I doubt he remembered. He took on the responsibility only after my mother promised she’d never hold him to it, and skipped the ceremony, concerned that he wouldn’t be able to get back across the border.
One minute after Tante Annemarie arrived on our porch dressed in Santa drag, I had my doubts. These were confirmed later in the evening when I snuck downstairs to see the back of Fake Santa, a Benson and Hedges wedged between red manicured fingers, drawing a pull from a stubby and watching the game. From what I was led to believe from television and Kresge’s, Santa smoked pipes. He didn’t drink beer, he didn’t wear a cheap-ass wig and he didn’t smell like Rive Gauche. Yet a glimmer of hope survived: I knew Santa, like dad, was a Habs fan.
“Santa comes in the night, so don’t get up till it’s light out,” Mum said, standing. “Sleep well.” Seven-year old me tingled. I knew I wouldn’t be going to ssssszzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZ . . .
For a while there, Tom was the veteran of Tech Support, hired by Rambunctious Software back when it was just two developers, three telephone lines, and 435 customers starving for his attention.
My political career began and ended in Grade Four with a bid for class president. My contenders were Suzanne—the monied vote; Suzy—the affable Donny Osmond fangirl; and Anne. Precociously large and favouring yellow pantsuits, Anne was a fellow trailer park kid. While Suzanne and Suzy huckstered, Anne and I forged a pact to vote for one another.
Yesterday we said goodbye to another wonderful human. I listened to the eulogy, engaged in trying to subtle-cry, my tears indulgent and my sorrow insignificant and showy compared to that of his young family.
I finally got to talking with one of the other fathers waiting in the schoolyard, and it turned out we’d both attended the same school. We talked about the things we remembered, the teachers we’d shared, and figured that we couldn’t have been more than one year apart.
