The Day I Saw The Dalai Lama

When I got off the bus today I remembered to thank the driver.  I was exiting through the third door and wasn't sure that he heard me and I didn't want to shout too loud for fear of drawing attention to myself.  I always thank the driver when I get off, like many people in Vancouver.  This has become a local habit, or should I say custom.  I would even go so far as to say that this has become a cultural peculiarity in my city.  Well, I just asked Uncle Google and he (she? maybe I should say Aunt Google) has confirmed to me that this is, not necessarily a uniquely Vancouver phenomenon, but pretty darn close.  I love this tradition.  It does create an atmosphere of gratitude and good will, regardless of what some cynics, naysayers and other miserable folk might say.

It has been my day off today.  My quiet day.  My nothing day.  I slept about two hours later than usual and it was already almost eight when I dragged myself out of bed.  I celebrated my normal morning routine: brushed my teeth, shaved, trimmed my hair, made my bed, weighed myself, showered, cleaned the apartment, poured a glass of orange juice, completed my morning devotions and readings, made coffee (decaf today), had breakfast, went online, read a bit and listened to interesting news items on the radio.  There is for me a certain poetic rhythm to this morning routine and for me there is something sustaining and nourishing about it.  I dragged myself outside just before eleven, waited fifteen minutes for the bus and instead of complaining about having to wait in the cold air (nothing like the sub-zero temperatures that are the norm in the rest of the country), I smiled and bade the driver good morning.  He smiled back.

This is Saturday, my day of contemplation and stillness, my day of walking, thinking, praying, of sitting inside a nice café for an hour or two to work on a drawing, perhaps chat with the staff or a friendly patron, then more walking and perhaps a bit of shopping.  It is like a day of vacation and retreat.  A day of rest and reflection.  A day of restoration.

On one of these Saturday outings I saw the Dalai Lama.  I know it was him because he was in town at that time to speak at a youth conference.  He was standing in the driveway, having just got out of a car, with other monks, all wearing the signature robes.  The house was nothing outstanding and certainly bore none at all of the elegance typical of the beautiful mansions in this neighbourhood.  Try to imagine a Vancouver Special http://www.vancouverspecial.com/, but on steroids and you'll get the idea.  There must have been a hundred Buddhist prayer flags fluttering in the wind.  I knew him right away though I didn't quite see his face.  I wondered if I should say something but surely he had other things to do as did I, so I simply thought, wow, is that all there is to a Dalai Lama?

Thirteen Crucifixions, 85

Her child was getting heavy, almost too heavy to carry, though she wasn’t yet three.  How fast she was growing, as was her yet unborn sibling growing inside of her mother.  They had passed through customs smoothly.  Now she had only to find Mr. and Mrs. Bertholdt, who had offered to sponsor her.  Thank God she had money.   She could never imagine what it would be like going without money.  The thought was inconceivable to her.  She had never done without.  The weight of her pregnancy made her back ache.  They didn’t know that she was pregnant.  Neither had she known.  Richard’s parting gift, if it was indeed Richard’s and not Jose’s who had always taken precautions.  Now she was twice widowed.  Hating the Sandinistas as much as she did, he had joined the Contra rebels.  Richard would have been appalled.  He was garrotted in a small village near Managua, during a dawn raid.  She was the daughter of a Samosa diplomat.  No one could vouchsafe for her or for her children’s safety.  In Canada she would find refuge, a new husband, and a future for her children.  Her eyes strained to find two people who would resemble an older version of her dead husband.  There were too many people in this terminal. 

            Winter was approaching.  It was already November, the dry season in Nicaragua.  It would be no different from England.  She had felt the cold there and elsewhere in Europe.  At first it was horrible, then it became strangely invigorating.  And rather sexy.  She always fell in love during cold weather, as she had with Richard, who was doing post-doctoral work when she first me him in Oxford.  She was merely killing time, performing the duties of a diplomat’s clever child, though she excelled in English literature, specializing particularly in the Romantic poets.  They met again in a street market in Managua four years ago.  She wanted another husband.

            Where were they?  She could not handle her luggage on her own.  They said they would be here.  The plane had arrived on time.  She had been very specific with them.  They could not have misunderstood her.  There was nothing at all wrong with her English.  Her arms were starting to ache.  Why did the child have to fall asleep in her arms like that?  Clearly this was the only place where she’d ever feel safe.  And now she, the mother, was starting to weep, as she stood by the carousel.  How could she weep?  She was usually so strong.  She watched and waited for her luggage to appear, as well as to catch sight of Mr. And Mrs. Bertholdt.  Had she been duped?  Was this yet another Sandinista plot against her?  She hated them.  They had ruined her country, they had ruined her life, and they had tried to take her money, calling her a thief, that she was robbing her own people.  It was hers.  Her father had given her this money.  It was hers by right.  She was almost stopped from taking it out of the country.  She had left in time, only just in time.

            There they were, her three suitcases.  That was all that she could take. She didn’t want to think of everything, most of her earthly belongings, she had had to leave with her mother in Managua.  She would never go back.  She would remain in Canada, this cold November country for the rest of her life.  She gently eased her sleeping child onto an empty chair, and as she woke up howling, made a quick valiant grab for her suitcases.  “Maria Gonzales?” She heard a man’s voice call, and looked up to see a kind-looking elderly man smiling tentatively in her direction, the shyly welcoming face of Canada.

Thirteen Crucifixions, 84

            Here they were, curled up together on Marlene’s couch, watching the late news on TV.  Almost two months they had been back together, she and Randall, and already the passion had ebbed.  Still, she had a man in the house, on the couch with her, someone who seemed in no hurry to leave.  He had changed in the three months he had been away tree planting.  Grown up a little perhaps.  He seemed less needy, less insistent on getting his own way.  Now Marlene wanted to be with him.  This was the man she would surely marry. She knew this now.  She accepted it.  He had just proposed to her.  How could she turn him down?  They were perfect for each other.  And yet it was no big deal.  They liked hanging out together, they didn’t always have to be together.  She didn’t even mind his smelly socks.  And they weren’t particularly ripe tonight.  Now he was spending more time with her than at her brother’s and Marlene had asked Glen the other day if he minded.  “Mind?” he replied, looking authentically puzzled.  “What would there be for me to mind?”  Which simply confirmed to her that in many crucial ways she would probably never really know her brother.  Anyway, Randall was moving in with her, the day after Hallowe’en.  Marlene only hoped that wouldn’t put Glen out for rent, such help as she would certainly welcome from Randall, since she was about to become unemployed.

            She wasn’t going to miss the Pitstop.  She’d put a little money away, she could rest for a while.  And Randall had made a bundle while tree planting, giving them lots of time together.  She hated being alone.  But only since Randall.  She thought that maybe two years of working with gorgeous and unavailable gay men had fuelled in her a real hunger for male companionship that could finally comfortably surface.  Actually that was Glen’s theory, but it made sense to her.  Randall’s head lay over her right breast.  She stroked the thick dark hair as though it was her cat, who slept across the room in the armchair.  Randall also slept.  She didn’t want to wake him, she wanted him never to wake.  She wanted not a single piece to come dislodged.

            A normal life Marlene wanted.  No gay restaurant, no coked-out boyfriend, nothing weird.  Her life had always been off-balance.  She had never had conventional parents, but a father who bedded girls younger than her and a mother who stole her boyfriends from her.  Nor an ordinary sibling, but she was proud of Glen’s extraordinariness.  She had always felt cheated, of ordinary parents who stayed together and slept only with each other, whose sense of culture and intellectual erudition was only a little above average.  Marlene was white-bread ordinary.  Now she felt entitled to having a husband, two kids, a house, her cat and a dog.  Other wives to sit and gossip with about children and less than satisfactory husbands, and when the kids were a bit older, a part-time job somewhere, simply to get her out of the house, away from the TV and give her something to do.  Middle-class suburban marriage hell would be heaven to her now, and she fully expected Randall to deliver, even as she stroked his dark hair, invoking under her breath that he would deliver, that he would deliver, that he would deliver.

            “I was undergoing radiation treatment when I saw you last.  I’m better now.”

            “It’s gone?”

            “All of it. It’s in remission.”

            “You’re looking great.”

            “Thanks.  You’re married now?”

            “Yes.”

            “You sound a bit tentative.”

            “It isn’t exactly an ordinary marriage.”

            “I wouldn’t expect you to be in an ordinary marriage.”
            “Dwight is wonderful.  But he’s really more like a brother than a husband.”

            “But not a lover.”

            “No. It isn’t like that.”

            “But you’ve chosen to stay together.”

            “We’re very good together.  It works.”

            “But what about the marriage?’

            “We’ve discussed divorce.  Neither one of us wants to.”

            “So then, in what sense are you married?”

            “I suppose, between Dwight and me, that it’s more like a spiritual union.”

            “But no love?”

            “There is plenty of love there between us.”

            “But no sex?”

            “There was.”

            “But, not now.”

            “It didn’t work.”

            “Yet you choose to remain together.”

            “It works.”

            “For both of you.”

            “As far as I can tell, yes.”

            “Do you sleep in the same bed?”

            “We each have our own bedrooms.”

            “Would either one of you be free to have a lover?”

            “I suppose so.  I mean, the thought hasn’t really crossed my mind.  I’m not the jealous type, myself, and I don’t think that Dwight is, but we’ve both agreed, for now, anyway, that we feel called to celibacy.”

            “Called?”

            “Yes.”

            “So, you believe in…God?”

            “Yes.”

            “That doesn’t strike you as absurd?”

            “Megan, I’ve always believed. Even while you and I were together.”

            “That’s news to me.”

            “I don’t think there’s been a time in my life that I haven’t somehow believed, or known that God is.”

            “Metaphysics and religion bore me.”

            “No, they threaten you.”

            “What?”

            “Because you have always been such a control freak.”

            “Me?”

            “You always have to be God, or Goddess or whatever, and you’ve never seemed eager to share your throne.”

            “If you say so, darling.”

            “But Megan, that’s the way it always was between us, and between you and the collective.  Consensus?  We didn’t have consensus.  It was always the will of Megan.  With all our feminist dogma about patriarchy and male oppression did it ever once occur to you that maybe you were playing the part of the oppressor?”

            “Well darling, I can’t say that I disagree with you.  And, actually, this is why I was wanting to have this chat with you.  You see, Margery, while I was recovering from cancer, I was left with a lot of time on my hands, which means that I had time to think.  And remember, I was soon being visited with some shocking recollections about our relationship.  I was quite horrible toward you, especially towards the end when you got involved with that man and…”

            “And you made me abort his child.”

            “Your child.”

            “OUR child.”

            “Fetus.”

            “Whatever.  Megan, you nearly destroyed me.  That baby was supposed to live.  I felt like a murderer.  I still feel like a murderer.”

            “You’ve become pro-life?”

            “No.”

            “You loved him, didn’t you.”

            “Yes.”

            “More than me?”

            “Yes.”

            “Because he was a man?”

            “No.”

            “Think, Margery.”

            “I’m absolutely convinced that gender had nothing to do with it.  Megan, in matters of love I don’t think in terms of body parts.  Nor even sex.”

            “Hence, your arrangements with your…husband.”

            “I suppose so.”

            “Tell me, Margery, does he desire you?

            “Dwight?  I think he does.”

            “You don’t think you’re being a little unfair to him?”

            “I’ve sometimes wondered.  He does want a family. He seems to really miss his kids.”

            “What if he gets tired of you?”

            “I don’t think I’d mind. It would take a little pressure off me, anyway.”

            “And you wouldn’t feel at all let down or abandoned?”

            “Maybe, maybe not.”

            “I must say that you are looking outrageously well.”

            “Thanks.  Is that a poppy you’re wearing?”

            “That it is.”

            “But you were always, as I still am, anti-war.  It was a patriarchal construct of destructive male oppression.”

            “It still is.  I’m wearing it for my father.”

            “But you hate your father.”

            “We’ve become reconciled.  And he is getting on in years. Dad and I have had several long talks—about him and the war.  He had some real surprises for me.  It turns out that he’s as anti-war as we are.  A lot of veterans are, it seems.  He wouldn’t go into much detail, but it seems that killing a man was the hardest thing he’s ever done—for him a supremely unnatural act.  He believes that the war could have been averted through diplomacy and negotiations, that even the Jews might have been spared their fate had Germany not been allowed to become an international pariah; that even Hitler himself could have been stopped, or at least, redirected through peaceful means.”

            “Even I find that reasoning naïve.”

            “Perhaps.  But you and I weren’t there.  He was.  So, this Remembrance Day I’m going to wear the poppy and I’m going to stand with my father before the cenotaph.  Together we will ignore the war-rhetoric and pray that we might all learn peace instead of war.”

            “You just used the word ‘Pray.’ What kind of atheist are you, anyway?”

            “Ambivalent, I suppose.  I’m not as sure about things as I once was.”

            “Last March, when I ran into you at the lobby of the Ridge, why didn’t you tell me you had cancer?”

            “I wasn’t telling anyone.  You see, I didn’t want to encourage it.”

            “I see.”

            “But it was nice seeing you.  And it’s nice seeing you now.”

            “Likewise.  Are you staying for another coffee?”

            “I’d love to, but I’m expected back at the office.”

            “What is it again that you do now?”

            “I’m a travel agent.  And you, Margery?”

            “Nothing really.”

            “You’re between jobs?”

            “I guess you could say that”

            “Is everything alright?”

            “Fine.  There you go, worrying about me again.”

            “I’m afraid it’s hard-wired into my nature.”                                                                         

            “I’m taking a long rest, for as long as I can afford it.”

            “It wasn’t that nursing home, was it?  I read about you in the papers a couple of years ago.”

            “Everybody read about me in the papers a couple of years ago.”

            “That was very heroic of you, the way you exposed the abuses those poor patients were suffering.  I’m very proud of you.”

            “Thanks, Mother.”

            “How is your mom, by the way?”

            “Fine.  She asks about you.”

            “Well, now you can answer her.”

            “Great seeing you, Megan.”

            “My pleasure, darling.  Call me sometime.”

            “I will.  Come visit us.”

            “Your husband won’t mind?’

            “No.  He’s very open minded.”

            “He’s a playwright, isn’t he?”

            “Yes.  A well-known one.”

            “I loved his remake of the Crucible, especially the lesbian overtones among the witches. Oh yes, I would love to meet him.”

Thirteen Crucifixions, 83

                                                        1984

            “I awoke not knowing where I was.  A sheer white curtain billowed like a Hallowe’en ghost by the open window.  It was dark, but for the full moon that made the night almost intolerably bright.  I was somewhere, sleeping in a narrow, rather hard bed, inside a smallish room with a sloped ceiling.  I could hear the waves outside.  I knew I had been dreaming, though I remembered nothing. I didn’t know my name, nor how I’d arrived here.  I had no memory.  I switched on the night lamp, then reached for my clothes, hoping for some clue to my identity.  My wallet was missing from my pants.  I had no identification, no money.  I got dressed.  The white walls of the room were bare but for a small painting over the bed of a poppy field.  I looked at the door and wondered if it was locked.  I opened it without difficulty, onto a darkened corridor.  I found my way to the bathroom, peed, then looked in the mirror.  I didn’t know the face staring back at me.  I returned to my room, closed the door, and sat in an easy chair.  On a small desk I noticed a thick notebook and three pens.  Nothing else. All the pages were blank. I wrote down my experience of amnesia, and of waking up in this strange room in the middle of the night.  I wondered if anyone would come to the door.  No one came.  I was alone, yet I felt not alone, as though one hundred thousand eyes, within this space, were trained on me, watching my every move, reading my every thought.

            I didn’t want to go outside.  Here only, in this room, felt I safe, though I knew that I was being observed.  I didn’t mind, feeling that I was in the presence of friends.  Perhaps I was under a kind of house arrest? Gradually, I began to recall the old woman, then the girl in white.  But I didn’t know where to find them, nor that it would be wise to seek them out.  I didn’t know their names, though at the moment, names didn’t appear to matter.  Much to my surprise, I didn’t feel restless.  And  this caught my attention.  Whoever I was, I was a person who didn’t ordinarily hold still easy.  I seized on this clue to identity.  Why could I never rest, hold still, until now, that is?  Fear? I was one who was driven.  What had been driving me?  Why did I shun stillness, the silence?  These were questions that I could not answer.  And why did I no longer fear this being still, this being quiet?  My breathing was calm, deep and untroubled.  It had never been this way before.  Why?  In time with the waves, the gentle surf, my chest gently, slowly rose and fell, rose and fell, again, again, again.  I did not want to look out the window.  Why?  The person I had been had always been easily distracted, with the attention span of a cat.  But I didn’t like cats—or at least the person I had been had found them rather odious.  Now, it no longer mattered. They seemed as good or as bad as dogs.  Why had I preferred one animal over the other?  Dogs were loyal, you always knew where you stood with them, they were obedient, devoted.  They were active, constantly on the go.  They loved you unconditionally.  Unlike cats, which were self-centred, sneaky, treacherous, female, so very female.  And dogs were male?  I hated women?  But the person I was had loved women, many many women.  Yet, no familiar female face appeared in my mind’s eye.  I hated, rejected the feminine?  My own femininity?  His own femininity.  What a girlish concept.  Queer, actually.  I was afraid of being queer?  So then the person I had been held secret hankerings towards his sex?  To become with another man a woman—or to make a woman out of a man?  Projection.  Very Jungian.  I yearned for the feminine, though I wanted some guy to fuck my brains out?  Which brought me again to the question—how could I possibly reverence life while rejecting my own life principal, the anima, the feminine.  The sound of the waves was making me sleepy again.  I took off my clothes, returned to bed and turned out the light.  I lay still, and waited for sleep to return.

            “Sleep didn’t return to me.  I lay quiet and still, though I can’t say if I was really awake either.  Possibly away somewhere, yet very present.  The hard radiance of the moon gave way to the leaden twilight of early dawn, then a gradual softening into the new day.  Birds were singing and seagulls were crying.  There was a soft knock on my door.  I was reluctant to open or call out.  I thought I heard receding footsteps.  I had no desire to see who was there, nor wanted I any human company.  I still was aware of many eyes watching me, which somehow I found comforting.  I got up, dressed myself and opened the door.  There was a tray on the floor holding breakfast—a pot of coffee, rolls, fruit and cheese, and then I knew this was neither hallucination or dream.”

            Glen lay aside Richard’s journal in order to look at the sleeping form of Stephen.  He had only recently come out of coma, now he heeded rest.  The tubes had been taken from his nose and mouth, though he was still on IV drip.  From his wrists the thick white bandages gleamed like a lurid fashion statement.  A week had passed since his attempt on his life.  It was almost Hallowe’en.  He was fortunate to get a private hospital room.  Pierre would be back soon, once he was finished work.  Tomorrow, Glen would work his final shift at the Pitstop, which was closing.  According to Marlene, the owner’s poor management had run it into the ground.  Pierre believed that this had also triggered Stephen’s attempt on his life, since his job at the Pitstop was the only legitimate work he’d ever done.  They were for a while afraid of losing him forever.

            Marlene was dating Randall again, who had recently returned from tree planting.  He was staying with Glen, an arrangement that, to his surprise, was working well.  He was almost never there, was clean, quiet and didn’t get in the way.  He had calmed considerably.  Carol still wanted nothing to do with him.  Glen was spending a lot of time with her in conjunction with Dwight and Margery.  They had formed together a kind of spiritual fellowship, Christian, but rather spare on theological labeling.  Carol thought they were rather like Quakers, sitting together for an hour, or longer, of deep contemplative silence.  Doris Goldberg having met with them periodically, referred to them as honorary Quakers.

            Stephen still hadn’t spoken since regaining consciousness.  And Glen wanted to hear from his own mouth what had happened: not simply what had precipitated this attempt on his life, but whether while clinically dead, he had “seen” anything.  Glen wanted to compare notes.  He badly wanted to remember what precisely he himself had seen and heard while he was dead.  He seemed nowhere near finding this out.  Stephen, according to the note he had left, had named Glen, with Pierre as his next of kin.  He felt honoured.  It was a strange connection, what he felt with Stephen and Pierre, and very different from what he had going with Carol, Margery and Dwight.  He felt like a bridge between these disparate parties.

            But, he needed badly to find out what, exactly, he had experienced.  Ever since he had felt a pronounced rift from his life before the fire.  Yes, his life had changed and certainly for the better, he felt.  But he needed to remember who he had been.  He had forgotten.  The Glen who had painted, who had lived with and loved Timothy, who had wandered through a confused and silently tormented adolescence, seemed to him a ghost, a pale memory, unconnected from who he’d become. He knew that he would have to again move forward with his life, that he must grow, but he could not do this without his roots.  He needed, wanted his roots back.  He tried to discuss this with Pierre who replied with insouciance replied that he merely needed to get laid.  Recently, in the silence with Carol, Margery and Dwight, it had occurred to Glen that he must somehow embark on this process of reconnecting with himself.  He felt the time he was spending with his sister and mother was helping.  But he still needed to make that one strategic connection.  He must remember, completely, what had happened during the fire.  Margery believed that during their next several sessions together, it would come clearer to him.  He was getting impatient.  He didn’t like much this restlessness, this sense of uncertainly.

            He was painting again—small pieces, smaller than a notebook.  Single flowers he was painting—trite, unoriginal work, but he needed to begin somewhere.  And flowers were rooted in the earth, so of course he would be painting them.  Anything abstract felt too threatening, scary.  His colours were bright, flashy.  Marlene had already bought two from him.  She wouldn’t let him just give them to her—she attached to his recent paycheque an extra hundred dollars.  He still refused to write her a receipt.  On Greg’s advice, they had discontinued their visits together.  He had become unemployed again, and felt that there were too many personal issues, spiritual and emotional, for him to sort through to make him much good to anyone.  However, they’d just recently chatted in the Pitstop, and had agreed to reestablish their meetings together in early November.  He’d had a difficult time leaving his job.   Slowly he had been losing his voice from the constant talking on the phone.  His doctor had diagnosed a strained larynx, and recommended that he take an unemployment insurance holiday.  Greg had also confided that the last two surveys had sent him over the edge.  They had been, respectively, Colombian coffee and international banking.  This was when his voice began to go.  Aware as he was of the human rights abuses, and all the innocent blood that was being shed over the causes of coffee growing and global mammon, Greg had confided to Glen of a particularly gruesome nightmare he had had, thus convincing him that he should quit.  He had walked into the phone room of his work place.  All the stalls were dripping with blood.  Greg knew that it was human blood.  The following day, telling his bewildered boss the dream, he tendered his resignation.  He thought that it was just as well that they’d taken a couple of months off from each other.  Glen again was feeling very sexual towards Greg.  He seemed so innocent, and he didn’t want to complicate their relationship with sexual desire.  He didn’t want to contaminate this beautiful mantle of peace that covered them together.

            For now, his life was particularly occupied with Stephen and Pierre, especially Pierre.  He had come running into the Pitstop to find him, the evening he’d discovered Stephen bleeding to death on the bathroom floor.  Glen would be off shift soon.  He sat with Pierre in the hospital emergency, next to what was left of Stephen, then returned with him to his apartment.  He hadn’t the heart to leave him alone, and Pierre begged that he stay.  For several nights they slept together, side by side, sometimes cuddling, but tactfully, and without sex. They needed and wanted only warmth, comfort and acceptance from each other.  When Glen was home alone again it seemed to him strange, this solitude.  He actually hankered for another night, however chaste, sleeping next to Pierre.  A long dormant yearning had been awakened?  Perhaps.  But he still wasn’t interested in sex, except perhaps with Greg, who was not about to be forthcoming.  And Glen still had a desire to damage the integrity of what they shared.  But now, thanks to his nights with Pierre, he was remembering in painful detail what it had been like with Timothy.  He was being overwhelmed by nostalgia.  He wanted someone, not anyone, but someone.  There with him, next to him, touching him and wanting him there, by his side, whosoever it should be.  Glen was lonely?  He couldn’t really say.  He didn’t have to be with Pierre, neither with Glen, nor with anyone.  And he did want Stephen to pull through, which now seemed likely.  It was Stephen’s fault?  Teasing, tormenting, stalking then abandoning him, all the time reminding him most cruelly of his one and only lover, Timothy?

            He scanned what he had just read of Richard’s journal.  This was taking him an awfully long time.  Fortunately Carol was patient. It was too much to absorb, except by reading it a page here, a page there, not every day, and not always every week, either.  These writings had become for him, as for Carol, Dwight and Margery, a surgical instrument.  He would review with them the contents of what he had read.  They commented little.  They were together receiving surgery.

            He looked up, and tried to estimate for how long Stephen had had his eye trained on him. They said nothing to each other at first, and Glen simply stared back, blue-grey eyes meeting brown-black eyes.  Stephen closed his eyes.  “I’m thirsty”, he said weakly.

            “Shall I get the nurse?”

            “Please.”

            Glen returned with a sealed plastic container of orange juice, into which he inserted a straw.  He held it under Stephen’s mouth, as he slowly sipped.  He expected Pierre, who would be finished his final shift by now.  He wanted to leave before he got there.  Suddenly, he desperately wanted to be left alone

Wanna Go Out For Coffee?

Do you remember the days when if you ordered a cup of coffee in a diner or café that was what you got?  A cup of coffee.  Nothing else.  Remember the days of the bottomless cup?  If you do then you should be lying about your age.  It was all the same swill.  And cheap.  Nothing about Arabica, mountain grown, organic, shade friendly, or fair trade.  Nothing about the terroir of coffee beans and other terms of snobbish endearment borrowed generously from the wine industry.  It didn't matter whether you were sipping espresso, Guatemalan, Colombian-French, Sumatran, or Costa Rican.  No one had ever heard of lattes. And Frappuccinos?  Oh puh-leez!  Dark roast, medium roast, light roast, blonde roast. And never mind that sissy decaf, or Maiden's water, or brown water, or why bother?

Coffee was coffee was coffee.  Now we are paralyzed in front of the coffee counter, unable to choose among the plethora of options that smile out at us from the menu board.  For me it's still easy.  I drink mostly decaf, Swiss water of course.  They make it differently nowadays.  The green unroasted beans are placed on a special rack through which water is poured to flush out the caffeine.  Then the beans are dried and roasted.  I can tell the difference.  Decaf doesn't keep me awake at night.  They use quality beans now for making quality decaf and this is why it can taste every bit as good, or bad, as regular coffee beans.

In 1990 or so, in a hip café, I overheard a customer order "Unleaded, please".  She was not being ironic.  She gasped, put her hand to her mouth, while her friend and the server were both laughing (this was back in the days of table service.  Ah, the halcyon days of table service!) she corrected herself and sputtered, "decaf, I meant decaf coffee, not gas!"  I swear the trendy joke of calling decaffeinated coffee "Unleaded" began at that precise moment, time, day and place.  And I was there to witness.  After that I, the server, her friend, and the young lady herself, began to refer to it as unleaded at every coffee shop, social gathering, dinner party and coffee break banter.  It spread like wildfire. 

Besides decaf I will order whatever fair trade organic dark roast is on the menu.  As the selection is always limited to one or two options I never have to suffer over indecision.  I used to try to buy everything fair trade.  Impossible.  This is a niche market which doesn't match my low income.  I still buy fair trade whenever I can.  I can't start a revolution but I can still play my small part to do damage control, or harm reduction.

I am not complaining.  Coffee, like everything that matters in life, was much simpler than it is now.  And a lot worse.  I love coffee nowadays.  Especially dark roasts.  The darker the better.  It isn't so much because the dark roasts contain less caffeine (longer roasting time, more intense heat, causes caffeine to evaporate) but the flavour is so rich, complex and intense.  No cream, milk, skim milk or soy or almond milk, and no sugar, honey, artificial sweetener or stevia (Steve who?).  But black and bitter.  Just like life.  In the summertime, iced in a real glass (ceramic cup will also do but please, not in plastic), while relaxing at a patio table with flowers, birds, shade and sunshine.

This is the real Black Gold.

By keeping us addicted the coffee marketers have us cornered.  Like shooting fish in a barrel.

The European Enlightenment is owed to coffee.  Up till the Renaissance everyone in northern Europe drank beer, which kept them passive and stupid.  Then along came the coffee houses, caffeine and there's been no turning back.

Coffee.  If you're not shaking yet then you need another cup.

Drink coffee.  Do stupid things faster.

An Instinct Towards Goodness

Two days in a row it has been unseasonably warm here for January with temperatures reaching sixteen. Very unusual, especially when you consider that in New York they are being battered by a hurricane-force snow storm of historical proportions.  It is also hard to know for sure what role, if any, climate change and global warming play here.  We can only surmise and wonder though I am persuaded that human tampering with our global climate should not be ruled out.

The world has changed since I was younger.  Change, they say, is the only constant.  But is this really change, or is it rebranding?  I just read a bit on the internet about hipsters and really they are not very different from the way I was in my teens, twenties and thirties, and in many ways I still haven't changed though I hope that I've grown some.  I still don't wear labels or advertising, get my clothes at Value Village, try to think and live environmentally; I am still a vegetarian; I am still an artist.  I have not grown a beard (I don't like beards) and I have no intention of wearing glasses that I don't need.

Unlike many people my age I still care about the world, the earth and the environment and I have not, thank God, been cured so far of my youthful idealism.  Perhaps it is no longer youthful but has aged well?  I no longer worry about my place in the world or in society.  I am too old to worry about this.  I am part of everything.  Even though we all walk around outside as though we are disconnected from each other we are all connected.  There is no getting away from this.  What brings us together as humans is how frighteningly alike we all are.  We are also, of course, individuals, but we are a unity in diversity.

It just seems impossible to alert others to this except through acts of kindness, tolerance and compassion. No one can be bludgeoned or black mailed into changing.  It is like forcing someone to convert to Islam (or pick a religion) while holding a gun to their head.  They will only give lip service to save their own hide.  I am also reminded here of some of the conversations I used to have with my therapist.  He was Adlerian in his approach, huge on self-actualization, self-development and empowerment.  This was great for some things but it did seem difficult to persuade him that not all our human acts are selfish or related only to our own self-actualization.  I have long believed, and believe this more strongly than ever that humans, we, are by nature kind, generous and unselfish.  We learn to be selfish and uncaring but there is in all of us except the most sociopathic a need and desire to give and share, an instinct towards goodness.

In the meantime we are basking here in this false spring while on the East Coast they are pummelled with snow and wind.  In three weeks in Victoria they will conduct their annual flower count.  In most of the country they will be shovelling snow and throwing salt on the pavement till at least Easter.

Thirteen Crucifixions, 82

“So, you’ve made your decision.”

            “We both have, it seems”, said Glen.

            “In three months Chris is going to ask you to re-evaluate your reasons for being here.  You know that, don’t you?”

            “He’s told us.  How about you?”

            “It’s coming up in a couple of weeks.”

            “Your first?”

            “Yes”, said Matthew.  Three months.  It feels like three years.”

            Glen noticed that he wasn’t smiling.  He resisted an urge to ask Matthew how he felt about it.  It had been raining throughout his and Michael’s trip to the community.  Now the sun was beginning to break, its strong midsummer light pouring now into the common area where they were sitting with Michael.

            “What’s the rule of thumb?” Michael asked.

            “This isn’t a traditional monastery”, Matthew said, “Not by any stretch of the imagination.  We don’t accept final or solemn vows.”

            “So what do you do instead?”

            “For the first year, each new member is required to re-evaluate his or her reasons for being here at three month intervals.  The second year it’s every six months.  After that you’re required to do it annually.  This way no one has to feel pressured or coerced into staying here.”

            “Are there any who leave?” Glen asked.

            “Quite a few don’t stay beyond the first three months. Every one of them is sent off with a blessing.  They always return to visit.  Two have returned to stay.”

            “How about you, Matthew?” Michael asked.

            “I expect to be here for a while, anyway.  I mean, I don’t seem to have any other place to go.”

            “But is that a good reason for being here?” Michael said.

            “It’ll have to do.”

            “What about calling?”

            “That goes without saying.  I’ve never questioned the necessity of my being here, and unless something else opens up, this is where I stay.”

            “What else could open up for you?”

            “I don’t know.  Right now nothing else seems relevant.  Therefore this is where I am.”

            “The glass is half-empty.”

            “It is neither empty nor full.”

            “Are you still happy here?”

            “No.  I’m not. But neither am I unhappy.”

            “So then why stay?”

            “Why not?  Michael, there is nothing else for me but here.  Please accept this.”

            “Even if you’re not happy?”

            “That’s a word that no longer fits in my vocabulary.”

            “Well, if you want to remain miserable for the rest of your life here—“

            “—That isn’t it either.”

            Both had withdrawn into the silence of their accustomed armed camps.  Glen could tell they’d had this sort of quarrel many times throughout their relationship.

            “You’ve seen my portraits?” Glen said.

            “I have”, Michael said.

            “Have you noticed that my faces are never smiling?”

            “Yeah.  They look pretty intense.”

            “But not unhappy?”

            “No, they look miserable.”

            “Because they’re not smiling?”

            “Yeah, because they’re not smiling.”

            “Oh, you just can’t appreciate ambiguity”, Matthew said.  “You still see everything in black and white. You relate only to absolutes.”

            “I just don’t have time for a lot of misery and negativity.”

            “But who’s being miserable and negative?’

            “There you go again, trying to make me wrong”, Michael said peevishly. “You’re always trying to make me wrong.”

            “Michael, no one’s trying to make you wrong.”

            “But you’re telling me how to think.  You’ve always tried to tell me how to think.”

            “Now you’re really talking horse shit.”

            “You never take anything I say seriously.  You’ve never taken me seriously.”

            “Because you take yourself so seriously.”

            “You know that isn’t true.  Matthew, it’s not like I’m still this twenty-year-old kid you can still control—“

            “—What are you talking about?  When have I ever tried to control you?”

            “You’ve always controlled me.  I’m almost forty now for fuck sake.  I’m your age when we first met.  Doesn’t this mean anything to you?”

            “Yes, it means something to me.”

            “What?”

            “Michael, can we have a time-out, please?”

            “I want you to answer my question.”

            “Not till we’ve had a time out.  I don’t feel that we can discuss things rationally right now."

            “Now you’re calling me irrational.  Just like you always use to do.”

            Matthew was heading toward the door.

            “Where do you think you’re going?” Michael said imperiously.

            “Away.”  He was almost at the door.

            “Wait.  Don’t leave.”

            “Just give me half an hour.  I’ll be back in thirty minutes.”

            “Matthew, don’t go.”

            “Thirty minutes, Michael.  Please.”  He sounded weary, old and defeated.

            “Matthew.  I love you.”

            “Thanks.” He was gone.

            Glen sipped his coffee, now grown cold, and tried not to look at Michael who sat next to him with his eyes closed.

            “Sorry.  I didn’t mean to insult your art.  Your stuff’s actually awesome.  Including your portraits.  I was just trying to get Matthew.  Fuck—we haven’t fought like that in ages.”

            “Are you sure you should be doing this?  Living here, I mean.”

            “Yes.”

            “What if Matthew were to leave?”

            “He won’t leave.”

            “But what if?  Would you still stay here?”

            “Yes.”

            “And if Adam left?”

            “I would still want to be here.”

            “And me.  What if I left?”

            “But you’re not going to leave.  Are you?”

            “Not for the next three months, anyway.”

            Michael smiled and briefly caressed Glen’s forearm.

            “So I’m the reason you’re staying?”

            “Don’t flatter yourself.”

            “But am I?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “So you’re feeling ambiguous.”

            “Don’t grill me.”

            “You mean you haven’t yet figured it out?”

            “So what am I supposed to say?   That you’re the reason I want to stay here?  Well, maybe you are.  I don’t know.”

            “The glass is neither empty nor full.”

            “Will you shut-up!”

            “Sorry.”  Perhaps Michael was really upset that Sheila was selling the house.  Glen didn’t know what to say.

            “Actually, there is no glass.”

            “You’re probably right.”

            “And what about you?  What are you doing here?”

            “I’m going to try it for three months.”

            “Because I’m here.”

            “No, because this seems to be it for now.  I’m also glad you’re here, by the way.”

            “What about Matthew?”

            “He’s okay.  I like him.  I can’t say that we’re profoundly connected or anything, but he’s good company, I sense he’s very good-hearted.  I like that about him.”

            “Matthew’s a saint.  Even before his conversion.  All the crap he endured from me, without complaining.  Hardly ever.  Pouring out all this love for me which for years I didn’t even return.  Then I finally did fall in love with him.  And he left.  I’m still in love with him.  But it’s different now.  I can’t reach him like I used to.  Like today.  He’s never left like that before.  It’s the first time he’s refused to fight with me.  It’s like, something’s died in him concerning me.  He no longer loves me.  At least not like before.  And here I am, ass over teapot in love with him.  And now I can’t do anything with it!”

            “Where are you going?”

            “I need to get out and walk for a while.  Maybe go write in my journal.  What are you going to do?”

            “I feel kind of whacked so I think I’ll have a nap.  Until vespers, anyway.”

            “Want to reconnect this evening?”

            “Sure.  Grab me after supper.”

            Michael stood there and looked at Glen, then leant over and kissed him on the lips.  After he left he remained seated in his chair until the sun became too hot for him.  Still tasting Michael on his lips, Glen got up and went outside, hoping not to run into Matthew or Michael till after he’d had some rest.