Wild horses

On the morning of the Resident Fan Boy's birthday, I pack away my journals after taking my coffee cup to the baristas' sink.  I swing my packsack on to my back and step out into the shade of the coffee shop patio.  The early September morning is cool, but the sunshine bounces off the trees and buildings across the street on to the naked body of a tall, thin young man, prancing and rearing like a mustang as two police officers attempt to handcuff his hands behind his back.

It is an arresting scene, in every sense of the word, surreal and silent, except for the sound of his bare feet beating against the side walk, as he jogs on the spot, tossing his shaved head.  I hear his expelled breath each time he falls to his side in vain resistance.  His forearm is bleeding.

Not one person behind me speaks.  They sit transfixed at the patio tables with their untouched lattes.  I am also rooted to the spot, not knowing where to look, my way blocked.

The officers get him as far as their car, parked in the middle of the north-bound lane;  he's dropped down on his side again, and I hurry down the block to pick up a prescription for Demeter.  The lights on the squad car flash red and blue behind me, and I pass more people, some becoming aware of the drama.

I say nothing about this to the pharmacist, and, making my way back, I see more police vehicles, and about a dozen officers gathered in the decks that the coffee shop erected for more outdoor seating during the pandemic.  The naked man is now in the back seat of the police SUV; someone is leaning to speak to him through the window.

A young woman, who had been further down the sidewalk when I started out, now stands quietly by the curb, gazing intently with the air of one bearing witness.

I continue up the hill, as people appear in shop doorways, murmuring to one another.  There's a corn cob in the centre of the sidewalk, with two of its fronds scattered to the edges.  I pick it up and place it on a bench, not knowing what else to do.

It's not until I get home and sit on my couch, gazing out into the street, that I realize how upset and miserable I feel.

Every one of us has all he needs

YouTube thought I'd like this.

I do, but heavens, it's surreal. It is, however, rather like a quarantine scene.

Particularly striking are the final two minutes, as he glides back into meditation. It's a palpable silence, like the Silence at a Quaker Meeting.

Stick around for it.

Securely locked out

The problem with moving between provinces is that the email I've used for about 15 years became unusable last November when we hooked up the computer in our new apartment, complete with new service provider.

This was fine until my laptop got fed up with my failure to update and rebooted itself in a fit of temper, apparently taking my password with it.

This blog continues to be under my extinct email address, which means I can't have a new password sent to it, and was forced to access another ancient Yahoo Mail account. Then Blogger refused to let me sign in a series of passwords.

This was last spring.

It's taken me the summer to summon up the courage to try again, while I came to terms with the possibility of never being able to access this blog again. However, I tried from our main computer, instead of my rapidly aging and cantankerous laptop, and I'm here!

Now I'm terrified to try to sign back into my regular account...