freedom 55

In 3 days it will be my 55th birthday. That's a big one as 5 years ago I set a goal to keep walking without a scooter at least this long. I can safely say that I will make it. Walking is getting a bit more difficult for sure. I have more occasional aches and pains, such as a small pull I have today in a tendon that joins my left thigh to my pelvis. My left ankle is definitely weaker too, and it is easy to strain it when climbing up steep ramps, etc.

Some strength could get return. On Thursday my sister Linda gave me a treatment to counter my allergic reaction to a typhoid vaccine that has been in my body since I was very young. She tells me that vaccinations can lead to lupus, fiber myalgia or arthritis later in life, and perhaps even to something like my muscular dystrophy. Western medicine turns a blind eye to any evidence of this as it offends their deeply-held belief that these vaccinations are essential.

My brother Rob has also sent me a box of supplement packages that are supposed to increase energy and maximize muscle repair and potentially cause muscle growth. One box costs $130 and lasts for 2 weeks. The fine powder is unpleasant tasting and does not dissolve in water. I have to fill a glass half-full and mush it with my fingers for five minutes to prevent it from turning into cement. Then I need to clean the glass with a steel wool scrub pad, and then my fingers and nails, or it will harden on terribly. I do this twice a day.

I have been looking forward to this, my pre-birthday weekend. For more than 50 days in the past two months I have had visitors staying with me, two at a time for most of the 50 days. The weather has not let me down either. It is spotlessly sunny, warm and graced with light breezes. Except for some clouds this evening and overnight, the forecast is the same for all this week.

I was also looking forward to seeing Doozer this weekend. I consider Doozer a dear friend, but I am beginning to doubt the feeling is mutual. He has been up here on Galiano Is for two months but has made no effort to contact me since he arrived. This is his last weekend here this year before he returns to work for the summer in Aspen CO. His birthday was last week and I bought a book for him that I got on special order. His husband Flash didn't want to take it when I met him last weekend. He said they would both definitely be in town this weekend and I could give it to Doozer myself, but if they are here, they are not answering their phone or trying to contact me.

I rather expected this. I was more bother than I was worth when I went on vacation with them to Tennessee 13 months ago and our friendship has suffered because of it. Doozer visited me the week after we got back, mostly because he wanted to see Michal who was visiting from Kelowna, but he has not visited me since. Flash wrote to me last winter and has met me twice for breakfast since he returned to Galiano in January. He comes over at least twice a month during softball season as he plays on the West End team, but he no longer stays with me when he is in town as he used to.

I am being quite zen about it though. I see the waning of close friendships as a sign that I need to return to my writing. Like Scarlett O'Hara, my "Tara" is my unfinished novel.


PHOTO: a "Doozer" from the TV series "Fraggle Rock"

An ugly guest, a beautiful stranger

I really need to choose my guests more carefully. For the past 12 days I have had a friend visiting from the Rockies, who stayed with me most of May last year too. It went well then. We made several meals together and hung out together.

This year he seems to prefer alcohol to food. He came home stinking drunk last night, barely able to walk. (I know we have all done it before but not all of us do it when staying with someone else.) I advised him to drink some water but he plunked himself down at the dining room table and opened another beer instead. He was so drunk he had trouble drinking it. Next thing I knew his head was hanging and his eyes shut.

I left his sitting there, after removing anything breakable or spillable from the table, and I went to bed. Half an hour later I heard a crash and found him passed out on the dining room floor with half the tablecloth pulled off. Nothing was broken but he was sound asleep. I returned to bed. A couple hours later he woke up (if you could call it that) and stumbled into the bedroom. He spent half an hour trying to remove his shoes and clothes. When he finally rolled under the covers he stunk so bad that I almost left to sleep on the couch, but I was too tired.

My place was a horrible mess in the morning, a state that has been worsening for a few days as he also expects me to do all the cleaning. I was in no mood to deal with him or the mess so I strolled up Davie and had breakfast at Mary's Diner. Just after I was seated a handsome blond entered, caught my eye and asked me if he could join me. His name was Shane. I assumed he was hitting on me but that wasn't the case. He was meeting a prospective bf later that day to go to Wreck Beach. I wouldn't have minded an ego-boosting pass but he was great company and an unexpected blessing.

When I got home my guest was up and claimed he didn't have a hangover. The place stunk of alcohol still, even though he had showered. As soon as he left I did two loads of laundry, straightened and cleaned the place. I felt better. I repaired a lamp for a client and did more research for my Utah trip. I am getting tired of seeing pictures of Utah, as beautiful as they are. Today I am still on holiday and I plan to focus on getting to know my camera instead.

New leaves

It's a great time a year, my favourite actually. Late May/early June is when the leaves are still a new lime green and the air is scented. It's the time of my birthday, and I'll be 55 this year, and landmark that I will successfully reach and still be walking. When I reached 50 and was still walking, having been diagnosed with muscular dystrophy when I was 43, I reset my goal for age 55 and here I am, almost.

I have made up with my sister in the past 5 months and then Michal this past weekend. Once again I have our trip to Utah to look forward to. That's coming up in only 3 weeks! I can hardly wait, but doing my best to keep a lid on my excitement for now. That may change when I pick up my new camera tomorrow.

The other reason for gratitude is a new relationship with my brother Rob, who has never been close to me. He's 9 years my younger and I left home when he was still 8. I have heard that brothers bond better if they have both weathered puberty together while growing up, and we didn't. He took a different path than the rest of the family (just as each of us did), becoming a boring-again proselytizing Christian, then an Amway salesman marketing image and avarice, and eventually settling into promoting various forms of alternative health therapies, such as iridology and trainer of holistic allergists. (He trained my sister who has treated me.)

Rob did not call me for 16 months after being told of my diagnosis in 1997 and his interest in my well-being was lukewarm at best. In subsequent years he passed through town again and again without even leaving me a phone message. His business and church friends who held judgmental "family values" always meant more to him than his family. I remember I organized a family dinner to celebrate my parents' 40th wedding anniversary in 1992 but he opted to attend a birthday party for one of his "down line" instead, though our father was already ill and unlikely to make it to another landmark anniversary.

When I mentioned to him that the candida cleanse he had recommended had left me weaker than before and caused me to fall three times in 12 days this spring, he said that was unlikely as he had known 13,000 people to take the cleanse and none of them had reported losing any strength. I lost it. I asked him how many of them had the same type of MD as I had, knowing full well that no one knows exactly what is causing mine. Hot words were exchanged in both directions and we spilled the beans about resentments and judgments we had held against each other over the past couple decades. In doing so, we opened up our wounds and hearts and apologized for our lack of communication and interest in each other. It was very eye opening and a great relief. Now it is more important than ever to develop a habit of openness and communication to build a new connectedness that lasts.

Gawd nose, we might actually create a functional family eventually. I'm all for it.

"Find a place inside where there is joy, and the joy will burn out the pain." - Joseph Campbell
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Travel plans

Wow, life moves fast. This weekend is out as Michal can't get two days off. I'm glad I stuck to my guns and insisted on a fourth day. When he saw some of the google photos on the route I had suggested he was amazed and admitted we could spend a lot longer exploring. Like me, he likes out of the way places, natural beauty and exploring terrains with a taste for spontaneity. We should get along fine.
Last night I sat at the computer going over a possible itinerary or routes and attractions along the way, throwing in the odd out-of-the-way route to spice things up. I like to plan a trip this way just to know each area's attractions as thoroughly as possible beforehand, so as time permits we will see the most important ones first, but it won't be a Bible. I never know what is worth seeing until I'm there.

The date is set and the tickets booked. We fly out of Seattle at 6am on the 12th of June and leave Salt Lake City around 1:30 on the 15th, giving us only three days in the area, but Michal still has to drive back to Vancouver to drop me off and continue on to Kelowna after we arrive in Seattle at 8pm (having passed through Phoenix airport on the way home).

PHOTO 1: Cathedral in the Mountains, SE of Bryce Canyon NP
PHOTO 2: mill near Bicknell UT, near Capitol Reef NP

Utah again

On Sunday, a day more than 7 weeks after Michal was supposed to call me back with final plans for Utah, I sent him an email saying I was all packed and ready to go in 5 days and was so excited about it. He read my sarcasm and decided to stop by to see me on his way home from Portland last night.

I got my concerns off my chest about his lack of accountability, he apologized and promised never to leave me hanging again, and we discussed doing Utah. Our plan to leave Friday is still a possibility, though I have a few conflicts: I want to buy a better camera first, I have a birthday party I should attend and possible overtime on Saturday. I also have a stained glass client who would have to wait an extra week for me to get glass for his lamp repair. I love the build up to a vacation like this, even for just four days, and this would leave me without one, so we are also looking into going June 12-15, which would mean taking a Monday and Friday off. We will check the availability of those dates today and set plans tonight. Yeah!

It has been a weekend of positive developments. My client for the camellia bush circle and the sailboat window picked them up Sunday and gave me the remaining monies in cash. She had no objections to the colours or designs and might be back for more later this year. As I mentioned, another client (a handsome gay one) dropped off his damaged lamp which requires one piece to be replaced. Another woman wants something small, a triangular piece for a sundial in her yard. I have made a dogwood sun catcher and a small orange lily window over the weekend too, just to use up some glass. Tonight a suitor named Fredrick is coming by to spend time with me.

I feel the warm breath of spring that is relaxing a long standing cramp in my life. It's about time!

Marcel left today before noon to catch his flight to Brazil at 2pm. The place looks much the same except that his bags are gone. The sofa bed still has the bedding on it. There was no "thank you" note or anything. He would not have said goodbye on his way out last night either if I had not reminded him how to lock up when he left.

I am not sure if he enjoyed Vancouver. Many of his comments were negative. He did not try to socialize with me in his last week here, not even for a coffee or meal, not since last Sunday when we went together to breakfast and with Rich & Luis up into the mountains, though he went out frequently with several others including a neighbour who had him promise not to tell me. He kept vampire hours and I had to work. The few times we were both home he was usually pounding away on my keyboard communicating with friends or looking for new hook-ups.

Saturday night I fell asleep at 7:30pm. I woke when one of Marcel's friends rang the intercom at 10 just as he was leaving for the evening. I didn't wake again until almost 6am when he returned. The long rest did wonders for my mood. I lay there luxuriating until my friend Flash phoned at 7:30 wanting to meet me for breakfast. Marcel went to Wreck Beach that morning with an Australian couch surfer named Murray and stayed out until early evening. I made good use of the quiet time alone. I finished the novel I was reading and most of what remained of the sailboat window I am making for a client. I need to finish it by next weekend.

As much I love hosting, I have had guests 26 days in April and expect to have guests 28 days of May. I am feeling the need to be alone, but that won't happen immediately. I have 2 days until my friend Mike Derkson arrives from Fernie. He will stay until the end of the month. Tonight I am going to a men's group, something involving singing I think, and tomorrow night Fred and Eric, my French couch surfers from last month, are taking me out for dinner. :o)

The weight

I venture out for breakfast with only a T-shirt this morning. I sit by the window of Joe's Diner looking out over the small patio, still empty at this early hour. The cafe and sidewalks themselves are still empty although it is 9:30. The gorgeous morning sunshine lights up the new leaves on the trees that line Davie St as they stir in the breeze. I sit transfixed by their gentle motion.

Although the day is light and airy there is a heaviness in my heart again. Summer is coming on and it seems like an empty slate, as though there is nothing to look forward to. It has been 6 weeks since Michal promised to set the dates of our trip to Utah, which we had planned to do in just under two weeks from now. I've given up on that trip, as well as our friendship by this point. Danzante offered to bring me down to Portland to stay with his friends next weekend, the long weekend, but now he has 9 days off, which I do not, and wants to do many things like camping which I am no longer capable of doing. He badly needs the escape and rest so I suggested he go without me. It was the only sensible choice.

I feel my heart sinking as I look out at the sunshine. It shouldn't be this way. Joy should come more easily, but at the same time I am kicking myself for getting excited about Utah. Nothing brings the joy in like having something wonderful to look forward to, but looking forward to anything just leads to disappointment, like counting on friends does. After a bit, joy itself seems to foreshadow a loss.

I look across to the shops on the far side of Davie. The Marquis Wine Store is having a special on Spanish wines. The word SPAIN is written across the red and gold flag of Spain in the window. It is partially hidden by a column at the entrance to the patio; all I see is "...PAIN". A couple doors up the street I see the burgundy front of the bar "Numbers", partially hidden by the building next door. All I see is the word "NUMB..." Life has a delicious way of mocking our suffering: my smile returns.

After a little shopping I return home. Marcel, my Brazilian couch surfer is finally up, though still in his pajamas. He is attacking my keyboard with a fervour as he does for hours each day now, connecting with friends on Facebook or arranging a hookup with some stranger for later in the day. I retreat into the sanctuary of my room to read the end of my novel, waiting for him to get dressed and leave.

"Hope only to rise above hope." - Toaist saying

from "Last of the Wine" by Mary Renault:
"His body had not stiffened yet, but his skin was growing cold. He lay already as one of the unnumbered dead. Always, from my first remembrance, whether he rode, or walked, or ran, or stood talking in the street, as far as I could see him I knew him apart from all other men; nor was it possible, in the darkest night, to mistake another's hand for his. Now the flies were beginning to come and I had to drive them away."

New friend

Marcel arrived last night a bit earlier than expected. Luis, Rich and I were just finishing our first game of Settlers of Catan, a cliff hanger that Luis came from behind to take from me just as Marcel rolled through the door with a suitcase large enough to choke a brontosaurus. It was partly empty because it had been overweight (DUH!). He had bought a smaller bag to off-load some of the heaviest items but that bag was lost by the airline.

He settled in with the rest of us very easily, as I imagined he would being a social guy. After half an hour of chit chat we decided to introduce him to the game. Shortly into it Rich joked about getting high and I brought out a joint and passed it around. Maybe it was Marcel's charm or the fact that he was was also from South America, because Luis had never smoked with his partner Rich before. They each complained at how powerful BC bud is but no one got too stoned. Rich is particularly funny when stoned though, as all logical thinking and memory of detail is gone. It wasn't helping the rest of our thinking either, for the first game took 2 hours. We played a third game too, which finished about 2:30am.

Marcel and I chatted after Rich and Luis left. He is in love with guy in Toronto with a 9" dick, and his fellow is behaving as though he is in love with Marcel too. It's the first time love for both of them. Marcel says the only reason they fell for each other is because they both resist affection and intimacy and felt therefore that they were safe. Hopefully their first foray into the the heart's fury won't be as painful as mine was.

Sweet day

Weekend mornings are my favourites. It's a grey sky this morning, but none the less sweet for it. The air is perfumed with scent of flowering bushes. It is comfortably warm and there's a slight breeze. The faces I passed on the sidewalk on the way to and from breakfast had smiling eyes filled with the pleasure of the day. About two dozen people were working in the community garden at Davie and Burrard, wheelbarrowing fresh top soil and planting flowers and shrubs, laughing and chatting as they worked.

Today Marcel, my couch surfer from Brazil, is arriving after his stay in Toronto. In Facebook he says he is in mourning, not wanting to say goodbye, but I know he will enjoy Vancouver. His anticipated arrival time is just before midnight. He says he hopes to go out and party, though it will be about 3am Toronto time by then.

In the meantime I have lots to do today. There's house cleaning and laundry, and I want to finish the sailboat window I have been working on for a client. When that's done I will relax.

"Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair." - Kahlil Gilbran
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