Again

My brother once prefaced a phone call, saying “I am going to tell you some stories here, and I may tell you some that you have already heard before. Please do me the favour of pretending you are hearing this for the first time.”

Some stories write themselves, but most come together the hard way, word by word, each word building, one upon another, until finally, a theme emerges. But when you go back to the beginning to read what you have written, perhaps an alternative pattern emerges, jumping out, asserting itself, screaming to the world, “Let me out!”

Michelle and I went to a house party last night, as we have done for every August in the past two years. Even though it has only been two years, it seems like a tradition . The occasion was a birthday party for our dear friend Joyce. Amid the familiarity of her beautiful house, we saw her generous bounty of fresh pizzas coming out from the oven, a birthday cake the size of Rhode Island, homemade samosas, lemon tarts, cheese plates, a giant metal bowl filled with alcoholic beverage choices, and a knights helmet—where obviously the ice was hiding, were the friends who gathered to share this special evening with her.

Last year, I had just finished my cancer treatments. I was frail, but incredibly grateful to be alive, filled with the strength that comes with survival. This year, my face has filled out a bit, my hair is longer, and we are all a year older. This year, Joyce had a different set of musicians play at her party. Last year, my friend Sinead X. Sanders played, and this year we had the good fortune to enjoy a group anchored by Mike Jacobs. Later in the evening I was surprised to learn that my old friend Mallory Temple was here, and had been playing drums.

One of the joys of a house party is talking with people you know, but also talking with people you do not know. I had the great pleasure of having a conversation with one of my oldest friends, Jim Cummins, aka Braineater. Jim and I go way back to 1975, which coincidentally is also the year that Michelle and I first met. Can you believe that —49 years — if the powers of basic mathematics has not failed me.

Rather than feeling old, and there were many “older” folks at the party, older than me at least, there was the feeling of being grateful. Grateful for the blessings of friendship, the gift of love, time, and survival, along with the insights that come only with age.

There is a beauty that comes with time, and age. I overheard a conversation: “Wow, I guess we are the same age. You look so fabulous.” This was not a come on, simply a fact being expressed, and all the more charming for that.

As usual, my greatest gift was getting to go home with the most beautiful woman at the party. We were given two generous slices of cake. Some guys have all the luck. Don’t forget there is a lot of hard work informing that “luck”.

I like to look back and see what I was writing about a year ago, while going through my cancer treatments. Last year, on August 13, 2023, I wrote about Joyce’s birthday party as well. The post was titled Why Cancer Is So Fuckable.

Besides being a great friend and a brilliant artist, Joyce is a generous supporter of this Substack. Let me say again, that I appreciate each and every one of you. All of you who take the time to read my posts, who join me on my journeys with the strange beast known as my mind— filled with glorious rabbit holes, dead ends, songs and memories.

The Paris Olympics are finishing today. It is amazing to witness all the personal heroics, as they used to say on The Wild World of Sports, the” thrill of victory and agony of defeat”. Speaking of agony and defeat, my feet had the agony of walking into the rear metal wheel on my bed. Again. How many times do I get to enjoy this exquisite pain before learning something? Wouldn’t it be great to invent something that could protect our toes from this experience? Something like shoes or slippers?

I was taken with the story of fighter Imane Khelif from Algeria, who was caught up in the Culture Wars, accused of being someone she wasn’t, accused of being some thing that she isn’t, of being “othered” on the global stage, of enduring trial by magnifying glass in the sun. She won the Gold in her weight class, getting what we hope is the final word.

The word that best describes this ordeal by social media is humiliation. A Facebook post had suggested we just pull down her pants and find out for sure “what”they really are. Really? What moral certainty gives anyone the right to violate another person to justify their own bias, bigotry and inhumanity?

AGAIN

We were at the beach two days ago. My enjoyment of going to the beach increased ten-fold a couple of years ago when Michelle bought me beach chair. No longer forced to sit on a blanket, I can sip a beverage, enjoy the views, read a book, listen to some music on my AirPods. Each of the beaches in our hometown have their own character and clientele. This time we were at Third Beach, which looks out on Vancouver Island in the distance. We usually go late afternoon for a few hours, waiting until the sun makes its final bow, and evening begins.

Next to us was an Eastern European family, or maybe Russian, hard to discern which language was being spoken when one doesn’t understand it. Vancouver is one of the most diverse cities, and the languages heard on our beaches is more often than not, “Not English”.

There were two men and two women, and one child. It was unclear to begin with who was related to whom, and what did it really matter. The child was somewhere between 9 and 11, my guess. They had no hair on their head, and at first it was not obvious why. Were they undergoing some kind of cancer treatment? No, it appeared that this was their normal state and that perhaps they were autistic. They were sitting on the sand with their legs spread out, and bending from the waist down to pick up sand in both hands and then let it fall back to the beach. This motion was continuous, obsessive, almost rhythmic in a loop. Whether their joy was in the duplication or the physical rhythm was calming for them, it was not clear. Whatever the motivation, it was repetitive and I hope enjoyable. Otherwise it was a Sisyphean endeavour. They were not pushing rocks up a hill, but scooping up handfuls of sand- the smallest of rocks, and watching the sand fall from their fingertips to the beach, once again joining that from which it came.

The father had a giant belly, beyond a male pregnancy. Was there a young adult in there? Perhaps a goat. He was moving restlessly around the group, eating from a giant bag of cheese puffs.

At one point, the group decided to leave, and they began to pick up their belongings. There had been no interaction between any of the four adults and the child. The child was fixed on their mission, and the adults were busy in conversation with one another. The large man moved to the child, and coming from behind, kissed them on their forehead. He motioned it was time to go, but nothing was going to stop the rhythm of sand sifting.

So with some struggle, all four of the adults picked up the child, who was pretty much skin and bones, and each holding a leg or an arm, proceeded to try to brush off as much sand as possible, all the while the child tried to free themselves from the adults grasp. Finally the father bear scooped up the child, hugging them and kissing their face, putting them on his shoulders. This was a big child, mind you. Not so much in weight, but length of arms and legs. He positioned the child on his shoulders, the child’s legs wrapping around his neck, almost choking him, while the child grabbed at his face. The father seemed content to have the child grab his face, because the grabbing accomplished the objective of leaving the beach. The sand sifting would have to be carried on by someone else. The sand sifting adventure was over.

I was reminded of the time when my daughter was young, somewhere between baby and toddler, and I would make a funny sound, or a funny face. And they would laugh, then say, “Again.” The game would go on for some time, the Again game. This child was seemingly stuck in the Again game, endlessly repeating one action that pleased them again, and again and again.

There was such a feeling of love that the Father gave in his gesture of kissing the child, scooping their little body up in his arms, and placing this rather ungainly child on their shoulders to go home.

Later at home, we watched the Olympics. It was a woman’s marathon over 42 kilometres through the streets of Paris. Their resolute faces, grimacing slightly as the ordeal continued, runners falling behind the leader’s pack, runners dropping off, until in the end, there were only three runners. Then, as the eventual winner started to pull ahead, the third runner seemed to lose energy, and it was a two person race to the finish.

In the end, as it always is in the end, there were winners and losers. The announcers spun this tale to give credit to the losers for running the race, remarking that this was the third medal race the winner had run in recent days, making their achievement that much more remarkable.

Our lives are marathons— some people win, many lose, but in the end, we all get to run the race. Some call it the rat race, devolving us to the status of rats.

We can perceive the race as a lifelong journey, from babies in our parent’s arms, to the little people we become as life wears us down.

The race is the thing. The struggle itself is the prize, as we enjoy discovering new things among the many repetitions in our lifetime.

Again, we say.

Again!

Again!

Again!