Sunday afternoon, just home from church, I’m scraping 60 years of crud from a couple dozen old boards. I like to imagine I am redeeming them. Turning ugly into beautiful. Giving these boards a new home as the backdrop to my creative studio. I hope they appreciate how close they were to the dump.
I’ve always loved the look of weathered wood. Rich yellows fade into walnut greys. Knots and grains pop with the accumulated darkening of decades and dirt. These wrinkles and age spots may be my favourite patina.
Later on, at Blue Christmas, we are speaking of grief. Loss. Pain. I think of my boards.
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Where there should be peace, there is a well-curated chaos inside me. Tis' the season.
But it is not that season. Not examined deeply. Not through the ages. It is Advent. A season of longing. Waiting. This Sunday, specifically, we are waiting for peace.
Peace through the dark anniversaries of lost love ones. Peace as a friend processes a cancer diagnosis. Peace as the walls come down and debris gets loaded into the truck and you realize you lost the keys to said truck. Peace as 14 people get shot in an American social care agency. Peace as dozens more are killed in bombings almost daily. Peace through the bad news playlist of radioland.
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This Millennial world of moral floundering is confusing. Frustrating. Especially when it needs to be navigated via faceless texts. Dev is doing his best. His friends are rarely helpful. The sea is vast and the rudders have been removed. These sailors need to build their own rudders, while sailing, with no anchor. No way to stop moving. No land in sight.
We all know where this is headed. We've seen Dev and his friends 10 years down the line on another show. It's called Seinfeld. It is a show about nothing.
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This room feels darker than the other ones. More silent and spacious and private. I have wrappedthe wire of a paper Monarch butterfly around the smooth tubes of the bedframe at the back of her bed. A tower of origami pagodas that my youngest son has folded to pass the time, sits at a slight angle upon the corner table. To the right of the bed is a big window with a tree filled urban view. On the window ledge are two watercolour wooded landscapes. If she had her choice, I know my mother would have left this world from a deeper wilderness.
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It’s Saturday. The sun is beaming down mid-afternoon to erase every excuse against yard work. This is the day, perhaps the final day, to clean up leaves and backyard detritus. This is the day to swap the old window screens for window panes and brace against the coming cold. This is the day to clean the gutters.
It is also Halloween. A day for facing fear head on. Embracing it even. My own dance with the devil will not come in a horror film or a haunted house. I need to face my own unhaunted house. Specifically, I need to get up on that roof.
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I am sitting at a table with Lorraine Mansbridge. She is briefing me for an on air spot we are about to film. She is asking me questions about Bleeding Heart Art Space and I think I am ready. But I am not. When Lorraine asks me about our name–why we chose the name Bleeding Heart Art Space–I freeze. Nevermind, she says. It’s not important. We won’t talk about that. I feel like a failure.
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My wife and I found it a few weeks back. We thought then may be the last time the weather would allow this adventure. Now, into October, the sun has warmed the air to a summery gold. We swing into and out of the evening.
Some anonymous contributor built the swing. Now, without them, it offers up a valley full of thanksgiving. The leaves shine bright yellow and the sun throws a glowing streak across the river. The river holds the trees upside down, rippled by the wind. We soak it all in from our man-made perch, as close as we may come to the effortless gratitude of Carl the bounding dog.
It is notable that none of this cost us a penny.
You are what you plant.
After a few moments on the swing, my daughter and I venture further. We return to the forking path and take a right this time. What we find in this direction is entirely different.
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They say that God is in the details, but I’m not so sure. I’m beginning to notice a whole lot of details that seem left entirely up to you and I. The amount of influence we have in this world–for good or evil–is a sobering thought.
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Not an aphorism I typically use for God. But it’s been floating around my mind for a week or two. The feather has fallen, perhaps, from the wings of friends I’ve watched fly out the open windows of churches over the years.
Sitting with a new friend over coffee, the image takes shape. He tells me how he’s tried to leave his faith behind, but has remained within its ever-expanding walls. The problem is Jesus, he tells me.
He just cannot get over Jesus. Jesus sticks. Like a feather, I think.
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Do you see bright and beautiful people or the ugliness of the world smudged across faces? Do you see a marching mob or a happy parade?
Incline your ear. Do you hear gunshots or fireworks?
This past week has been one of contrast for Alberta Avenue. For a community in transition. A community trying desperately to emerge from its chrysalis. This weekend at Kaleido Festival we saw the butterfly. Last week, we saw blood on the streets.
Five shootings last week. All nearby. All reminders that there is still a darkness here. That people still do ugly things to one another. That it gets so dark you want to hide. To build what walls you can manage and light a candle for you and yours.
But love was never easy and love was never safe.
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