Sonia M. Dubinsky's Blog

I’ve been busy driving the grand-kids back and forth to school, and looking after them until my daughter, Jada, arrives home from school, where she is doing her RMT. ( Registered Massage Therapy). It seems like only yesterday that I was completing my thesis for my Masters Degree in social work, and here I am now, already retired. Life flies by at a pace I can’t keep up with, and those birthdays just keep coming around.

Despite being retired, I’m as busy as ever, penning the new novel, kitting scarves, cooking meals, gathering the eggs from the hen house, and a host of other tasks.  I recently wrecked my lower back, climbing under the 5th wheel  and crawling on my belly in dirt and gravel in order to plug in three heat lamps which will hopefully prevent the pipes and lines from freezing. I insulated the septic and water lines, as well as applied heat tape, and am keeping my fingers crossed that nothing will freeze solid when the really cold weather hits. If the septic line should freeze, you get something called a “poopsicle”, according to those winter campers who post tutorials on line on how to survive a winter in a 5th wheel.Let’s pray I never experience that particular joy.

Thus far, the electric space heaters are keeping me reasonably warm, so I can’t complain.

Oh, and I’ve already decorated for Christmas.

Smoke haze is a little better this morning….. Fed and watered all the critters. Man can those little chicks eat. I’m refilling their pellets at least five times in a day. Last night they were acting like they were on cocaine…. fighting with each other, chirping like crazy and flapping their little wings. I went down there at 11:30 pm for a final check to ensure it was warm enough, and found a hen lying on hay bale beside the chick shack. Had to carry her over to her house. Weirdest dream ever this morning. Dreamt I was 14 and back in the joint. I had tried to escape with another girl and when they brought us back they sentenced us to death. At first they were going to put us in a gas chamber and one of the “nicer” staff tried to assure me that it would be over quick. Then the superintendent changed his mind and decided that we were going to be electrocuted. (so much better… NOT!!) I decided I had no intention of experiencing either one of those so escaped and found old clothes hanging on someone’s clothes lines. I figured the scent of another person would confuse the dogs that they were undoubtedly going to send after me. I found an open car and hid and when the female owners found me they felt sorry for me and agreed to take me to the borders of the province. They dropped me off and I went into a bus depot hoping to catch a further ride. I saw a man with long blonde hair and asked him if he owned a pick-up. He said he did and I explained my dilemma. He helped me chop off my hair, dye it, and bind my breasts so I looked like a boy. We drove as far as we could. I made him promise me that if I was caught, he would shoot me twice in the chest because being shot and killed by a friend was far more preferable than being executed by an enemy. Then it occurred to me that something was intrinsically flawed with a system that would kill 14 year old kids and I contacted the media. Just before I woke up I was giving a compelling radio interview…. Jesus, where did all this come from??

They’ve left me home alone with two dogs, three cats, fifty –nine, two week old chicks, and sixteen laying hens. The dogs and cats are easy, but the fifty-nine chicks require constant watching. They are insatiably hungry and thirsty, and I have to be vigilant about the two heat lamps hanging from the ceiling lest the chicks become over-heated, or too cold. Little do they know that in approximately six weeks, they will be resting comfortably in my daughter’s downstairs freezer. The thought of it makes me re-consider my position on vegetarianism. Each time I check on them, I am forced to harden my heart like pharaoh.

The hens follow me around like dogs, whom I refer to as “the girls”. They allow me to pluck their eggs from the straw-lined nest boxes, some of them still warm. I shoo the girls away whenever they follow me to the ramp leading up to where the chicks are housed, and some of them peck at my shoes, confusing them for food.

The cats are as easy as the dogs. Jimmy spends most of the day lying curled on my daughter’s unmade bed, and Michael lurks around the trailer, keeping a close watch out for Diesel, our neighbor’s evil tom-cat. Diesel routinely slinks onto the property for the express purpose of causing trouble. I break up the cat fights with water, tossing it onto the cat in closest proximity to me.

From my trailer window I can see the empty house, a forlorn rug hanging limply over the deck railing. Despite thinking how wonderful eight days alone was going to be; eight days without the sounds of grand-children scrapping, I’m surprised to discover how much I miss them all. I distract myself by reading, and doing yard-work.

I’ve recently discovered what appears to be a bunion on m the side of my left foot. A small knuckle that serves no purpose whatsoever other than to signal the fact that time is no longer my friend, and in fact is doing its level best to spring unhappy surprises on me on a fairly regular basis. I still haven’t grown wholly accustomed to the softening of my upper arms which my grand-daughter enjoys patting and referring to as “peachy”.

Bunions make me think of Paul Bunyan, and then Babe, which makes me think of Babe Ruth, and then of course the game of baseball, and how little I understood it when I was a kid and forced to participate during Phys. Ed. Then I think of the chocolate bar, and how ridiculous, the English language.

I’ve had free floating anxiety since my family left on their eight day holiday. I think it may be related to a recent car accident we were involved in, whereby a drunken woman drove into the back of us, doing at least 50 kms p.h. The grand-kids were at first stunned, and then scared out of their wits, but were mercifully unhurt. I could tell I had a mild whip-lash having been in three previous accidents, and my daughter had a more serious one, due to her head being turned to the right at the time of the impact. We have both since recovered, but there is that lingering sense of dread at how randomly shit occurs, presenting itself out of seeming nowhere.

The air is clogged with smoke from a nearby forest fire, which has forced me to remain inside due to allergies, hence the writing of this blog, due partially to boredom and a need to break from the novel I am currently ploughing through.

I might also mention that I recently joined a social networking site that most people attempt to use as dating site. I am fascinated by the flotsam and jetsam that troll this site, and it is this morbid fascination that prevents me from deleting it and running for cover. It’s like a bad accident that I can’t look away from.

Most of the people that send friend requests are either in their twenties, or octogenarians. The latter are sad souls, probably widowed and desperate, and the former, people who can’t get dates within their age group due to being socially inept, or budding serial killers looking for an easy target. Most of the requests originate from places like Tunisia, Egypt, and Morocco. Other requests come from Israel and Palestine, yet no one seems to want to discuss their position on the Gaza strip. Sad really when you think about it.

More on this later…..

I’ve been away from blogging for far too long.

Sometimes life gets in the way of writing, something I’ve yet to adequately balance. But here I am, some months later.

In April, I changed my entire life. I officially retired from social work, and my job at Addiction Services in PEI. My house had sold in March, and I  subsequently bought a 5th wheel, selling almost all of my worldly possessions along with the house. I have to say it was refreshingly cathartic. Owning almost nothing was also strangely freeing. A hundred pound anvil was thus lifted from my shoulders.

Gus, the cat, flew to Vancouver  (a 10 hour round trip) and my daughter and her husband picked him up at Air Cargo, returning home the following day. No such luxury for me, however. I drove my PT Cruiser from the east coast to the west, a sojourn of five and a half thousand kilometers. I made two stops along the way, visiting a friend in Carleton Place , Ontario, and another in Swift Current , Saskatchewan. All told, it was seven days of driving.

My 5th wheel is located on the southern portion of my daughter and her husband’s property. It is tied into septic and electrical, and my water is piped in from the well. From April until now, I have been staining the deck built by my son-in-law and his brother, painting the fence, and landscaping an area previously overgrown with weeds and fallen trees.

The following photos chronicle my new home and life.

I’ve also changed my hair…….

For those of you not familiar with the beautiful Shuswap area in British Columbia, this is my barrio.

The count down to retirement has begun in earnest.

It cannot come soon enough, particularly after the recent spate of storms we have been having. I swear my left bicep quadrupled in size from throwing snow off the deck and digging a tunnel along my front walkway over the course of the weekend. I still have yet to shovel around the shed, or dig a tunnel to the basement door.

My house appears to have been sold with a possession date of March 5th. Once the financing clause is removed this week, it’s a done deal. I have made the decision to sell the house with everything in it, right down to the bedding and decor, along with a snow-blower, and almost new lawn tractor. Basically I decided to give everything to the buyers for nothing, and I am only coming away with the equity I put into the house.

It’s a weird thing walking away from all my worldly possessions, material things that served me well over the years. I sometimes find myself walking through the house and gazing at all the antiques and little treasures I selected over time with such care; the myriad collection of antiques and the Victorian style decor. Whenever I feel a small pang of regret, I remind myself that Jesus walked the earth with only the robe on his back, and lowly sandals on his feet. Mostly I feel a sense of relief, and then a greater sense of freedom.

Over the past few years I’ve embraced the idea of anti-consumerism, distancing myself from the disease of spending. Ostensibly, the less I owned, the freer I felt.

The great thing about retirement is being able to channel my more bohemian side. This is an irony not lost on me. When I was younger, whenever my siblings and I were rowdy and out of control, my mother admonished us, suggesting we not act like a bunch of bohemians. I was never sure exactly what bohemians were or did, but whatever it was, it sounded interesting, and piqued my interest.

Being employed by the government as a social worker has implied a certain decorum and conservatism in dress. While the dress code is open to interpretation, and fairly loose at the addiction center where I work, I have never felt as though I had full license in which to truly express myself in the way I am most comfortable.

Funny, how life tries its level best to shape and constrain us, it’s social mores, gender, and politics dictating how we conduct our lives, and express ourselves. In many ways, life is a relentless hammer pounding away at the square pegs of it’s citizenry, forcing them into fitting into round holes. If we resist, we are ostracized. We then wander the world as solitary pariahs, speaking our truth to the wind and trees.

Yesterday, I stumbled across a photo of a man who once held me in thrall. My heart tumbled to the ground as I gazed upon him. Gone was any trace of the long, curly haired gitano, I once knew. I stared at the photo thinking that the time’s cruel alchemy had transformed his bedouin soul, changing it into that of an aging conformist. How had this happened?

Perhaps life steadfastly whittles us down to what, and who, we really are at the end of the day, exposing our true nature and selves, and ceaselessly pounding us into round holes where eventually we acquiesce, becoming subservient and bland as porridge.

The only recognizable feature was the blue of his eyes. His countenance had softened to the degree that the sharp edges of youth were no longer discernible. I saw resignation, fatigue, and apathy in the middle aged face. The idealism and drive of youth had long since fled.

Once he turned to me and said, “Sonia, you have everything.” I never knew what he meant, nor did I ask.

I hope never to become so complacent that all my sharply honed edges become blunted and dull. To no longer rage against the dying of the light is to be already dead.

From the greasy, smudged window of the airplane I looked to the firmament and sensed God’s presence in the smeared pink and azure gauze of scudded clouds. Hazy diaphanous wings of angels brushed the horizon with silver gilt tips, and the steady drone of the plane’s engine reminded me of the thin fragile veil partitioning my mortal existence from eventual death.

From thirty thousand feet, the earth was a bas relief of furrows, veins, and curvatures.

We are tinier than bacteria as viewed from up there in the clouds, but just as lethal, nonetheless. We are six billion parasitic microbes, killing our host planet which has sustained our very existence from the beginning of time. Funny, how thirty thousand f eet can put everything into perspective.

Down there, beyond the discernment of my naked eye, wars were being fought, children were starving, and atrocities were abounding. But from up there, all I could see were meandering rivers, mountain chains, and the deep blue of the ocean’s surface.

The ego of humankind is meaningless at thirty thousand feet. It occurred to me that the pursuit of material goods is entirely ludicrous when viewed through the window of a plane traveling miles above the earth.

What did not seem ludicrous however, to my wandering thoughts, was the notion of human love and kindness. When pondered from thirty thousand feet, it appeared that those things transcended all physicality, floating out there in the ethos, as shimmering and beautiful as beacons of light.

When we ceased living in clans and tribes with the advent of “civilization”, where we were once wholly inter-dependent on both each other and nature, we severed our direct conduit to the spirit world. We also severed our connection to all other living things and each other, choosing and valuing individuality over community. In the process of doing so, we forgot who we were, losing ourselves in the process.

The older I get, the more I sense the loosening of the ties and desire for things I once deemed as important. I no longer want to be shackled to material things that weigh down my spirit and enslave me.

I want to travel light.

I dreamt of illicit love. The kind of love you can’t own, can’t hold, can’t nail down, or ever make your own. It is diaphanous, ethereal, intangible.

While I dreamt, the wind pummeled its fists against the side of the house, rousing the trees from their somnolent state, and threatening anarchy.

The snow swirled, and then adhered itself to the frosted tree tops.

You loved me in the dream.

In real life you do not, although you may have considered it once or twice. Like most, you settled for safety which is always the saner choice.

It seems that I have spent most of my life standing on the outside and peering in at other people’s lives and hearths, where love’s light casts a warm glow, and couples huddle together in shared camaraderie.

I walk away, a solitary voyeur, swallowed up by winter’s cold.

Mostly, I am happy, the stars and moon my trusted companions.

After supper I pull out my new banjo, caressing the gritty skin that feels like sand paper. I labor over chord charts, willing my fingers to bend into unfamiliar positions, chords so different from the guitar chords I have learned over the years.

The strings sing.

And then I am happy.

When I was in grade 12 and taking social studies, I noted that it was the boys in the classroom who lit up like Christmas trees when discussing World Wars 1&2. I listened intently, interested in their eighteen year old perceptions. One day after turning in a paper, the teacher approached me as I was leaving the classroom. “You should speak up, more”, she said. “Give these boys a run for their money”. But I couldn’t. I was shy, and certain that they would discount my views and simply refute anything I might have to say. I remained a silent and passive listener and observer.

There was one boy who did capture my attention, however. We had been discussing death. ” We cannot say with any certainty that we will die, ” he said. “We can only assume we will all die based on the fact that everyone who has gone before us, has died.”

Finally…… someone who could think in philosophical and abstract terms. I sat up straighter in my seat.

And then there was this. ” Let’s talk about war crimes and criminals,” the teacher said one day.

Whhaat? War criminals? War crimes? Whatever did she mean by that? She of course was referring to The Geneva Convention comprised of four treaties and various protocols establishing the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment of war, and the types of weapons allowed under it’s terms.

I had never heard of the Geneva Convention until that moment. My mind whirled. I wanted to push myself away from my desk, stand up, and declare what to me was so glaringly obvious. War by it’s very nature was a crime against humanity. The taking of human life went against everything we were taught from the cradle to the grave. Thou shall not kill. The taking of any human life is an act of contempt, a blatant disregard for the sanctity of human life, and a sickening atrocity. To draw up a convention outlining how to mitigate the horror of killing and destroying life seemed like a complete irony and paradox.

I said nothing. I had only recently learned that psychiatric hospitals had once performed lobotomies on psychiatric patients without their consent, and I was still reeling from that epiphany. I needed time to try and contextualize these things. The world was not only a dangerous place, but the things that human beings did to one another were unfathomable and unspeakable What kind of twisted minds dreamed up things like war and lobotomies, anyway? And how did this kind of insanity ever find social sanction?

Once I had a crush on a beautiful boy who had a gravelly voice, and a mind that was sharper than the sabers of war. He insisted that in any given society, there is only a tiny segment of the population that can critically think, and whose political views are not shaped or informed by the propaganda disseminated by mass media. The greater portion of the population, he said, is comprised of people who are largely uneducated, and who have limited understanding of their political system and how it really works, as well as their country’s foreign policies. He was convinced that this larger and generally uneducated segment of the population was influenced by propaganda, easily manipulated, and unlikely to ever challenge domestic or foreign policy. He went a step further in saying that it was therefore incumbent upon the smaller segment of the population to engage itself in political activism in order to disseminate truth.

Here in Canada and the US, we live in what can be loosely termed a democracy. The fact is that our civil liberties have been slowly eroding over time to the point that we scarcely notice, and worse, don’t seem to object. Civilian spying? We scarcely flinch. Endless gulf wars with no end in sight? Who the hell cares? Trillions of dollars being diverted for war. Oh well. Our torturing of political prisoners? Where’s the evidence?

The evidence dear friends has been withheld from the public for fear of a hue and outcry. But I say, no fear of that. People are too bogged down in debt, and far too distracted with cell phones, tv shows, and navel gazing to look up long enough to even take notice. What doesn’t directly impact our selfish and privileged lives, doesn’t matter a whit to most people.

When I was younger I always wondered how it was that the citizenry of Germany stood silently by, allowing the Nazis to round up their neighbors and fellow human beings, slap stars on their chests, and herd them into cattle cars, sending them off to concentration camps to die horrible deaths. How could that have happened? Why didn’t they mobilize and challenge the atrocity that was taking place right under their very noses.

Why indeed? We are no different than they are. At this very moment the US and Canada are involving themselves in active combat roles in both Iraq and Syria. Fighting ISIS, so we’re told. How noble, we tell ourselves so we can sleep peacefully at night. Meanwhile thousands of the innocent are displaced, their homes bombed, and women and children as well as old folks maimed and killed for reasons they cannot fathom. How are we any different than those good German citizens?

Our involvement in war is framed by the media as noble, after all we are fighting terrorists, are we not? We are liberating women subjugated by patriarchy. Really? That’s laughable considering that statistics show that one third of US female armed forces members are either raped, or sexually assaulted by their male- counterparts and fellow servicemen.

Karl Marx used the term cultural hegemony to describe the domination of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class , (in other words, current government administration) who in essence manipulate the culture of that particular society. We presently live in a society that can loosely be termed democratic, but is hegemonic in it’s construct. Our government which is backed by an elite strata of society, ie, banks, mass media, war munitions factories, oil tycoons, and the very rich, manipulate and shape our beliefs, perceptions, values, and mores. It is both insidious in nature, as well as overt. Mass media is owned by a handful of corporations world-wide. They shape and frame the news from a particular agenda, and often through a narrow lens. Mass media’s job is to reflect the government’s domestic and foreign policies so that it’s agenda and view-point is accepted as true and accurate by its citizenry. We buy into dominant ideology with very little forethought, and it thus becomes the status quo. We accept the often unacceptable without question, and it is viewed by us as natural, inevitable, perpetual, and even beneficial, rather than artificial and harmful. We have become hypnotized lemmings on our walk to the abyss. Meanwhile our governments merely pay lip service to climate change while the polar ice caps continue melting at an alarming rate, and we continue losing hundreds of species a day due to environmental toxins and global warming. As melting continues, the carbon dioxide currently trapped under the arctic ice will be released and cause an unprecedented global disaster. Our Canadian government has muzzled our scientists. Peak oil has already been reached, and in our quest to extract what little remains in the earth, we are fracking, contaminating water supplies, and possibly contributing to earthquakes. We are pushing for the expansionn and building of pipelines when we should be investing our dollars in sustainable alternative energy sources. We are poisoning our earth with chemicals, injecting antibiotics and hormones into the animals we slaughter and then consume, and purchasing and ingesting Montsanto’s, GMO’s. We allow pharmaceutical companies to take out patents on life saving medications (ie, flu, AIDS medications) that prevent other countries such as India from mass producing them cheaply and distributing them to third world countries. As a result, those who can’t afford the patented medications die needlessly. The poor. The disenfranchised.

If all of this isn’t enough to evoke our ire and bring us to our feet in righteous indignation, I fear nothing will. We’ve become a nation of obedient sheep.

If we really are truly a democracy, why isn’t a decision as important as going to war placed in the public realm, and a referendum held? The government is supposedly representative of it’s people. How many of us if polled, would actually give our government the green light to go ahead and kill in our name? How many of us if we knew the sordid truth, would allow this to continue? The killing of thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians, the humiliation and torture of political prisoners, the pressing of an impersonal button thousands of miles away, subsequently sending unarmed drones to the middle east to drop bombs on targets that often are miscalculated, and subsequently result in the death of thousands of innocents. They are doing this in our name, as citizens of this country. Every individual killed, makes us party to murder. Sanctioned murder.

Each one of us has innocent blood on our hands. Unless we oppose it, we condone it.

As I mentioned earlier, I am turning sixty next month. With maturity and age, hopefully has come wisdom and a determination to leave this world a better place when I walk on. I hope I have learned to be kinder, softer, and gentler. As looks fade, and the open grave begins to beckon with its open maw, I am putting away those childish and superficial things that were nothing more than fool’s gold. Life is distilling me down into who and what I really am, and my true character is being made manifest.

Silence is complicity, and therefore I cannot remain silent.

We need to stop glorifying war. We need to stand for something, or we stand for nothing at all.

The following is one of the most poignant and compelling videos I have ever seen, and if this returning Iraq war veteran doesn’t shake up and disturb your world, I am afraid nothing will.

Namaste.

Double click on the Youtube button below to watch and listen, so my embedded music doesn’t interfere.

Sometimes I think writing a blog is nothing more than the self-absorbed narcissistic ramblings of a socially awkward individual, which then inhibits me, and brings me to a screeching halt. Writing a blog is somewhat akin to a verbal form of the “selfie”, which after some thought, gives me a nasty case of the heebie-jeebies. But when I remember that no one actually reads my blogs, it allows me to dance like nobody’s watching….. so to speak. So here go I.

I turn sixty in less than a month. Do you hear that? I’m shouting it out here in cyber space in an attempt to embrace it.

Sixty…….. Jesus, how did that happen, and so fast?

Sixty is officially old. Over the hill. No matter which way you slice or dice it, it is inescapably the stuff of serious contemplation. This is the age when women become invisible. I have a friend who is seven years my junior, and she claims that men haven’t given her more than a cursory passing glance in years, and to think that at one time she was serious fodder for many a young man’s nocturnal fantasies.

I’m pretty sure my “relationship” years are well behind me, so I don’t really care if I become invisible to “los hombres”. The other night I dreamt I was getting married to a man I barely knew, and I was in full panic mode. The thought of being tethered to another human being at this stage in my life makes me feel like someone is syphoning all the air out of my lungs. I awoke in a cold sweat. “Praise be to God” I intoned to Gus the cat, after realizing it was only a dream.

He blinked twice and then drifted back into the blissful slumber I had just hi-jacked.

Here’s the thing. I’m a dyed in the wool romantic. I actually love the idea of love. Two soul mates falling in love and growing old together. What can be more beautiful than that? As a concept it’s flawless and beautiful. In reality, it’s messy and noisy, and a steep climb that leads not to a beautiful summit as one might imagine, but rather to a low lying valley prone to floods, and the occasional earth quake. It’s a grenade laden realm, people.

Amor for me is much like flying a kite. I have always been enamored with the idea of launching a kite, and having it remain aloft, floating lazily above the tree-line and soaring amongst the clouds and God’s sweet angels. However in reality, whenever I’ve actually attempted to fly one of those bad boys, it has lulled me into a sense of fleeting joy by catching an updraft and briefly surfing on the wind before losing its momentum and nose diving into the ground.

Totally anti-climatic, and an apt metaphor for describing most of my relationships.

In my own defense, I was raised on bed-time stories that always ended with “And They Lived Happily Ever After”. I grew up with the notion that love conquered all, and that no effort at all was required to keep the love fires stoked and burning merrily on the hearth. Imagine my sense of betrayal when I learnt that Happily Ever Afters were nothing more than today’s urban legends, and more accurately, outright big fat fibs.

It was either intensive therapy, or learning to sooth my thwarted and romantic soul by living vicariously through movies, and more recently, the novels I’ve been writing. In writing ” Beneath a Judas Moon” I was able to channel the protagonist, “Anya”. Through her, I loved Samuel, an inadvertent and fictional creation of my ideal “soul mate”. After completing the book, the uneasy notion that he was out there somewhere, waiting and looking for me, stayed with me. I found myself searching for him in a sea of anonymous faces.

In moments of reverie, I am forever tossing hay bales with Samuel in the moonlight and taking turns driving the tractor. I am stealing out of bed in the dead of the night and climbing onto his lap in order to star gaze. I am dancing with him to the Troggs, barefoot on the lawn, twirling in the spot-light cast from the truck’s head-lights, and wearing the blue summer dress he bought for me at Christmas. I am riding horses with him in the valley of Dry Island Buffalo Jump, while he regales me with childhood stories about growing up as a Hutterite on the Burnt Grass Colony in Kneehill County.

So here’s something odd…… While I was writing this blog, I went to get a coffee and upon returning to my desk clicked into yahoo to check my mail. This is the first thing I saw.

“A devoted English couple died just 10 minutes apart after a 65-year romance that started in their teen years. In their final days, Harry and Mavis Stevenson had been living in St. Werburgh’s House Care Home in Derby because she had fallen ill and they could not stand being apart. The Stevensons’ family was not surprised when Mavis passed away on Nov. 3 at 89 but was shocked when her 88-year-old husband — who was in good health — shed a few tears and died by her side just minutes later, according to local media. “Their love lasted and they were devoted to each other. I can imagine them being together now, after their death, side by side,” the couple’s nephew Stephen Cresswell, 63, told the Derby Telegraph. Harry and Mavis met at the Asterdale social club before Harry joined the Royal Marines in 1943.

He stormed the beach at Normandy on D-Day to help liberate continental Europe from Hitler’s clutches and was shot in the hand while battling the Japanese in the Pacific theater, the local paper said. But perhaps the most significant pain came from being apart from Mavis, who was waiting for him back in the United Kingdom. Cresswell thinks his uncle’s service in World War II made their bond much deeper.

“Their romance and their love kept them together during those years. When there is absence, then the heart grows stronger,” Cresswell said. Harry and Mavis got married after he returned home, and they tried to minimize their time apart as much as possible — even after she got sick later in life. Cresswell said the nurses told Harry that she had died, then they walked out of the room, only to find him dead minutes later, the Daily Telegraph reported. They were, he said, “soulmates.”

So there you have it. As they say, there are no coincidences in life. Go figure.

Autumn folds her variegated cloak around me, and the wind sends forth spiraling leaves that float momentarily on the disturbed air before settling on a crooked path winding through the trees. Some of them have been uprooted by winter’s strong gales, or cleaved by lightening. Before toppling into the supporting arms of their comrades, where they now repose like dying martyrs, they heave a sigh.

I walk alone.

Bird sounds echo off the pond. A squirrel chatters, and an airplane drones in the distance. Leaves comprised of coral and gold, form a gay ribbon of celebration. Their scent of spice and dying flora is reminiscent of a lover’s musky skin.

Did you love before you died?

You rose up to heaven on hesitant wings, a broken song bird. I envy you. You located your tribe who were camped out on the escarpment of night, eagerly awaiting your arrival. You now gleam like a newly formed star, radiant with secrets the gods withhold.

I long to quench my thirst from a goblet of hemlock, but the time is not now. My earthly trajectory unfailingly falls short of the open arms of cherubim. I am bound for glory on leaden feet.

I dream of you. Waking tears the shroud of dreams, where I momentarily fly above the tree-line.

We are particles of the same star, you and I.

Existential angst is a constant companion.

I’ve been taking the long way home, but I know a short-cut.