Thornbury Too

When I came upstairs on the second morning of our stay at Grandma and Grandpa's house, Joan asked me if I had survived another night in their basement. Something about the way she asked the question discouraged me from sharing that I had had another sleepless night.

The fact was I had stayed up late writing about learning. The virtues of learning the names of places and things; about the world outside the self. If I'm honest about it, I don't think I ever took a serious interest in anything outside myself. Whatever meaning I could derive out of my experience was based on very little beyond a material, consumerist impulse striving for convenience and appearance above all else. I was empty of any symbolic or spiritual connection to Life so to fill the void, my imagination nailed me to the center of my own Being thus creating a warped and self conscious world view.

It was as if a circus mirror was being held before me so I couldn't look at anything without seeing my own demented reflection. The image of the self grew so large and disproportionate to reality that everything else seemed peripheral and illusory in comparison. My dreams were a thousand times more vital and vibrant. I remember mornings when I wrote pages and pages of dream narrative only to roll over and return to sleep in hopes of finding adventure and ultimately the answers to all the questions which i had cynically and ignorantly determined had no place in the waking world. I was, in many ways, a bored narcissist, a coward who was hiding from how unfit he was to see beyond himself.

At times it scares me to think about how close I had come, circling around that singular point of solipsistic despair, but in the end, it didn't add up, no new information, so with the help of my family and Good Fortune, the mirror was shattered. It was like getting prescription glasses for the first time. Everything became in focus. I could read the world and interpret it within the limits of a healthy consciousness. The signs weren't blurry. I didn't have to make things up about myself to fill in the blanks. I was free at last to choose a balanced life, both physically and symbolically. A choice that must be made every single day.

So when Grandpa, Ollie and I climbed the rutted utility road up Georgian Peaks, pausing to look back over the bay, pet a caterpillar or squeeze a stream of water to the back of our throats it was as if we were hiking the Elysian fields. When we reached the wooden platform at the top of the hill, inspected an oversized paw print in the mud and elected to explore a small section of the Bruce Trail that brought us into a sugar maple stand, I couldn't be more content. When we took Ollie to explore some abandoned building in the middle of the woods and a critter hiding in the rafters warned us off with an ominous hiss from the back of its throat, the mystery was so fun to contemplate, I was just happy to share it with my son and father.

I want to know the names of all the trees, flowers and insects. I want to know the stars, the tides, the maps of the world. I want to know the history of the First Nations and all the fables and myths of all the cultures of the world. I want to know more stories, more life, more of everything. I want to know more words.

'It begins with your family but soon it comes around to your soul' Sisters of Mercy - Cohen

Now that I'm out of my own way!Read more