September ceases

The sinking September sun is shining directly into my eyes, as I head to call in on Demeter for the evening. That's why I initially think I'm imagining the spheres floating towards me.

Squinting, I can make out the silhouettes of a mother and two tiny girls, who are hurrying along the sidewalk away from me, living trails of bubbles.  Both girls have enormous wands, which they wave imperiously, but they are heading away so briskly, that they don't really see the full effect.  That gift is given to me, as each iridescent orb drifts past me, catching the golden light of early autumn, and turning it into bright pinks, greens and blues.

The trio vanish into the blinding aura, and I spare a glance at the last doomed globe.  It vanishes without a sound.

An angel whispered trick or treat

The neighbourhood started oozing Hallowe'en decorations before Thanksgiving.  I think everyone is eager to have a real Hallowe'en, although you hear of scaredy-cats who don't want to shell out this year either.

Much as "Boxing Day" has been highjacked into "Boxing Week", or even "Boxing Month" by the merchants, I've been hearing the phrase "Hallowe'en Week".

Well, I'm prepping the pumpkins today, so I might as well get into the mood.  I didn't hear this 1992 Hallowe'en tune by Richard Shindell until a couple of years ago.  It combines the bitterness of a busted up love affair with dreamlike and nightmarish aspects of All Hallows Eve.  

It's a toe-tapper.

You took the toaster when you went 

You never paid your half the rent 

You took the spices from the rack 

But you don't have to put 'em back 

'Cause in your haste on Halloween 

You left your camera on the bed 

Where we played roles in black and white 

You left a roll of black and white 

I set the timer and thought of you 

And put the lens up to my head 

I took a photograph for you 

What comes out grey is really red 

Are you happy now? 

I smashed your pumpkin on the floor 

The candle flickered at my feet 

As goblins flew across the moon 

The children peered into the room 

A cowboy shivered on the porch 

As Cinderella checked her watch 

A hobo waited in the street 

An angel whispered trick-or-treat 

But what was I supposed to do 

But to sit there in the dark? 

I was amazed to think that you 

Could take the candy with you too  

So, are you happy now? 

I've sat all night and now it's dawn 

And I cannot believe my eyes 

There's garbage strewn across the lawn 

Where we once stared up at the sky 

And streams of paper fill the tree 

That hovered over you and me 

Shaving cream covers the car 

That we picked up in Baltimore 

Though I know it's hard to tell 

I hope that what's-his-name treats you well 

I still maintain that he's a bum 

But it's your money – have some fun 

And are you happy now? 

You always asked why I had not 

Written you a verse or two 

Since that's the one thing I regret 

I dedicate this one to you 

So, are you happy now? 

Are you?

Closure without closure

July was one strange month.  Trump took the Republican party in a hail of warped reasonings.  ISIS types murdered a twelve-year-old boy and, of course, posted the video.  There were other horrors, but I won't catalogue them.  Surely you've been following the news.

After some glitches in the journey (younger daughter's horoscope predicted as much - no, really), the Resident Fan Boy left me at a last-minute house-sit, and, in the company of younger daughter, arrived back in Ottawa to discover that her school, the one she's been attending since 2009, has closed.  Younger daughter has completed her provincial requirements, but the plan was to send her part-time for work experience which had been deferred, due to last year's anxiety crisis.

This leaves us hanging.  We're not devastated, exactly. I've had some doubts as to what daughter was getting out of school recently, but this is a closure -- without closure. The road ahead has suddenly developed a fork.

I'm not in despair.  Despair is a luxury.  I'm more baffled with dull surprise.

Given what was going on in this brutal July, it would be churlish to feel sorry for ourselves.  We have resources, even if accessing them seems a bit daunting.  Younger daughter, battling anxiety, is sometimes belligerent, but never violent.  We will look for a way forward.

Odd.  When the RFB and I met with the teachers three months ago to plan younger daughter's coming year, I never dreamt I was seeing the school for the last time.

Seven years of younger daughter's life and . . . gone.

No goodbye.

Farewell to Nova Scotia

It was only when our taxi was tooling along the highway from Stansfield Airport in the direction of Dartmouth that it occurred to me that this was, in all likelihood, our last time in Nova Scotia.

I was in the front seat with the taciturn driver, gazing at the trees, still winter-beaten in mid-May. The last time I'd come this way was on a hot day in early September 2010 with my then-eighteen-year-old elder daughter about to embark on her first time living away from home, studying at the University of King's College. At the time, it seemed like the first of many visits, especially when we returned by train to spend Thanksgiving with her a month later. However, the years slipped by and here I was on only my third trip to Halifax, ready to see her receive her degree.

It wasn't a unreservedly joyous week. Elder daughter was still severely jet-lagged, having only flown in from London two days before, where she had had a month's internship with the London bureau of the CBC.  This left her homesick for London, a city she's always dreamed of calling home, and eager to leave Halifax where she has slogged and stressed over term papers, exams, and the diplomatic struggles of editing the university magazine, with little time for the social life that is associated with post-secondary education.

We learned, while sitting with the other families in the surprisingly intimate All Saints Cathedral leafing through their programmes and waiting for the graduands, that elder daughter was receiving a first class honours degree in journalism, one of three awarded in her category.  The Resident Fan Boy and I wept in quiet pride, although our eyes had plenty of time to dry during the four-hours-plus ceremony. Younger daughter made it through this trial, but melted down when we had to wait for a restaurant table after the long trek back to the university to pick up the frame for elder daughter's diploma.  On top of that, when we were finally seated, the family at the next table belonged to a former dorm mate who used to be a close friend but no longer is.

So, with four days left in our stay, I was almost as eager to leave as elder daughter.  The weekend was saved by my awareness of the finality of it all and my resulting determination to grab opportunities.

 The first of these was the Ghost Walk of Historic Halifax.  A ghost walk is painless and quick (if a wee bit creepy) way to learn a city's history.  I've taken such walks in Victoria, Ottawa, and London (the one in England).  This one was run with appropriate melodrama by an actor whose tour emphasized the events that have shaped and scarred Halifax: its ancient days as a British fort, its part in the 1812 war, the sinking of the Titanic (what bodies were recoverable were brought to Halifax to be claimed or buried), and, of course, the Halifax Explosion of 1917 which somehow isn't nearly as famous as the Great Fires of London or Chicago, or the San Francisco Earthquake, although many more people died in Halifax that day.  The tour ends at Alexander Keith's history brewery under his rather unsettling wooden statue.

Yet somehow walking out in a cool spring evening hearing spooky tales made me fond of Halifax again and sad to leave it.  I made a pilgrimage to the tiny Unitarian Church in the south end of the city. I walked through the Public Gardens in the first furls of spring, having previously seen it in the summer (after Hurricane Earl devastated it) and the autumn. And we made a hasty visit to the unexpectedly charming and thorough Museum of Natural History which was a 15-walk from elder daughter's final apartment in Halifax.  An added bonus:  I was able to manage the long walks and the relentless hills of downtown Halifax - a final sign that my knees have made a recovery.

When the time came to leave Halifax, it was not with a sense of relief, but a feeling of having said goodbye properly.  I can, with a good conscience, breathe a sigh and a wish for her.