“Em? That’s not a word!” At eight years old, I
felt cheated, incensed. My uncle often tried to beat me at scrabble. “It is a
word,” he remonstrated. “Look in the dictionary.” And indeed, upon flipping
through many familiar pages, I realized I was mistaken.
In the relatively short dash between then and
now, so very much has transpired. That singular line between dates, like 448-338
b.c.; 356-326 b.c; 110-44 b.c.; 33-61 a.d.; 539-612; 1122-1204; 1343-1400;
1412-1431; 1564-1616; 1756-1791; 1809-1865; 1819-1901; 1879-1955; 1892-1951;
and 1918-2013 certainly represents a chronological series. Yet these dates are specifically
significant, indeed, and perhaps even recognizable; but it is that all too
brief em dash betwixt the dates that really signifies. Therein lies the life.
Therein lies the influence of a given person on others, from birth to death. And
suspended as that short-stroke em-dash is between the book-ends of any given
dates, it is there that the very chapters of all history get written.
Social distancing is creating a stressful
acclimatization to a new world order. Indeed, we adjust to being alone, and we
preoccupy ourselves with the house-chores of isolation and free time. Indeed,
we phone and email and Skype and Facebook, etc., but the physical reality of
hugs and handshakes are very much a current aversion. We are to stand six feet
apart, if we do not want to be buried six feet under. And evidently, too many
lives have been foreshortened by a bug, a disease, a contagion, that horridly knows
no international boundaries. Our globe is under attack, or at least, we human
beings are the ones being attacked at this dastardly time on our world.
“A debacle! It is my favourite word of the
month,” writes 97-year-old M’Lady Nancy Sinclair. In her long lifetime she’s
seen the world wars, and plenty more. She’s endured and persevered within the
storms of inordinate odds. At now, just about to turn 98 on April 01, she is
supposed to allow no one into her cottage on The Swan, near Perth, in
Australia. Her adult daughters, her friends, her neighbours, how will they be
able to celebrate M’Lady’s birthday? That em dash of her life is indeed
experiencing an awful shrinkage in the debacle of this 2020 year. To be so very
alone is difficult for anyone, let alone those who care to be generous with
their love toward and care for others. It is in direct contact with others that
most of us share our very vitality.
A debacle is defined as ‘a sudden and
ignominious failure’. Therein lies the rub. Are we, by staying chiefly in a
virtual reality for the next long while, able to control the contagion, to
contain it, and even, like polio, or the bubonic plague, or malaria, or aids,
to stem the spread and so to keep things in check that we no longer need to be
so fearful of each other? Certainly, all personnel involved in essential
services, from our health, food, and maintenance workers, deserve a hero’s accolades.
Their bravery to keep us all as cared for as possible is deeply profound.
And as for that all too brief em dash in the
lives of those who once lived, and all those not as yet book-ended by a final date,
we can but love day to day, appreciating all that is good and beautiful and marvelous
and wonderful within our lives. The em dash of Plato, and Alexander, and even
Caesar, and Queen Boudecia, and Bertha of Kent, and Chaucer, and Shakespeare,
and Joan of Arc, and President Lincoln, and Einstein, and Sir Arthur Street,
and Mandela too, contains their experience of love and appreciation of life. Then
too, they also indeed needed to overcome the slings and arrows of outrageous
fortune. So too, one fears, for each and all of us.
And as for the present debacle, darn it, we
need, indeed, keep apart, and keep clean. Let us not play scrabble with the
rules. After all, life for any of us can be too short. And lest we do not take
precaution, unlike the inevitable and unavoidable reality of our own personal
em dash; for some of us, we fear, it might become the even shorter ‘en’ dash. (Yes,
the same, but shorter still.) We need think of our own impact on others. So
stay safe. Be well. Move about with care. Please.
“I’ll
lasso the moon for you,” young George tells Mary, in Thornton Wilder’s 1910 ‘Our
Town.’
And
as the 'Ball of Gold' poem by Stephen Crane (1871-1900) goes:
A man saw a ball of
gold in the sky;
He climbed for it,
And eventually he achieved it --
It was clay.
Now this is the strange part:
When the man went to the earth
And looked again,
Lo, there was the ball of gold.
Now this is the
strange part:
It was a ball of gold.
Aye, by the heavens, it was a ball of gold.
Yes.
“Be careful what you want, for you’ll get it,” goes the saying. Yet, the thing
is, it’s the envisioning, the dreaming, and the actions taken toward our
objectives that count, over and over. How else to live life as fully as we can?
With goals in mind we move ourselves from stasis. Yes, there is no real perfect
paradigm; no one size fits all. Still, by making choices, choice after choice,
it is the journey itself that involves us most, very seldom the finality. We
move! As Robert Frost (1974-1963) wrote: “I have promises to keep; And miles to go, before I sleep.”
Thing
is, are we internally, or externally, motivated? What incites us most to action?
And once a thing is obtained, then, what’s next? After all, as Robert Browning (1812-1889)
urged: "A man's reach should exceed his
grasp -- or what's a heaven for?" Then too, as Shakespeare’s Juliet exhorts: “Swear
not by the moon, the inconstant moon.... [of the 1500’s] but swear by Thyself.”
True,
restlessness grips us. We scarcely can stay put. We hardly can wait. We find
our bones need shifting. We find our brains need stimulating. We want more, and
more, and something else, somewhere else, (and sometimes even someone else.) We
seldom can meditate. We seldom can sit still. With no magazine to flip, no
phone to check, no music to hear, no new person to enter the room, no drama, no
tv, no games, no cookies; how to be self-satisfied? Cigarettes, and coffee, and
chatter, and (unchecked) thoughts govern us, mostly. Sometimes our brains
simply slip out of gear. Yes, ideas (and ideals) can be ephemeral. Obtaining
them is satisfying, yes, but soon enough one needs to be away. Like birds on
twigs, or even at last in our nests, we humans are fundamentally itinerant. All
that glitters, indeed, is not gold.
“A
rolling stone gathers no moss,” goes the dictum. Frequently though, one meets
the exception. (Wendy, of the Shady Rest in Qualicum Beach, has worked there for over 30 years. So too has Darci worked for three decades in the same barber shop,
in Victoria’s Fort Street. Then, recently, our too-young-looking server at the
Maple Bay Pub revealed that she’d worked there for over 22 years.) Everywhere, there
are outliers. Indeed, at times when we over-generalize there is often enough
evidence to disprove one’s contentions. (Yes, one can become quite astounded at how
utterly wrong one can be.) Our gold can become clay. Then again, generally, like
“the inconstant moon” itself, we prefer once more to be on the move! Wonderful
as anything is; where’s the next pot o’ Gold?
We human beings are fundamentally ontological.
Sharon would’ve liked that word. In the meaning making sense of things, Sharon
took special delight. But she does not get to read this tribute. When she died
around 7:00 p.m., this February 28th, she did not make it into the leap year. The
28th we get to remember, yearly. She left the up and down and round
and round carousel of life. She was, at last, free. Yet a surprising day of
sunshine, Feb 29th, wedged into the calendar for those on Vancouver
Island. The preceding weeks of grey clouds and rain had marred wishes for
pleasant weather, and the horrid threat of Sharon’s cancer loomed over all
those who loved her. By March 1st, here, so far from Calgary, it again rained
and rained. ‘Tears from heaven’, indeed. Our grief is profound. Sharon’s
life was too short, at 57. And as for March, we are called upon to march on and
on. Sharon would like that image. Yes, we each must eventually also go, but for
Sharon, cancer was her last marathon, here on earth.
She’d actually run a marathon in every province
of this vast country. That’s ten 26.21875-mile marathons in a lifetime. Most of
us have not yet run one. For those of us unfamiliar with this Canada of ours,
it makes for an incredible feat of training, preparing, flying or driving to,
and then attending the grueling races, stretched out on diverse tracks across a
vast country thousands of miles wide. And always, she appeared humble about her
achievements. Always, she was interested in and caring of others. Always, she loved
her dogs, and loved nature, and loved the people she knew. And always, she was
supportive and compassionate and insightful.
Jessie (Sharon’s mother) and Sharon had flown
out westward, 2016, just especially to see me perform with a new actor, Perry
Burton, who played ‘Mitch’, in ‘Tuesdays with Morrie.’ (Morrie dies, onstage, of ALS.) Nine years before, in 2007,
they’d seen Jay Newman’s ‘Mitch’. (That was the same year Jessie's husband, and Sharon's father, Vic Peters, died of the disease.) In 2010, they saw me do it with Donovan Deschner. And next,
in 2018, when I was invited to perform ‘Morrie’ in Canmore, with Rob Murray,
they drove to see the show yet again. Think of the courage, the bravery, it
took them to stare down the face of death, again and again. Yes, ALS, Lou Gehrig’s
disease, has claimed and is claiming many victims, but for Sharon, and her
mother, as well as for Sharon’s older brothers, Doug and Russ, their father,
Vic Peters, succumbed to ALS, finally, back in 2007. For them all, and for the
family and friends who knew and loved Vic, it all was a dreadful time. And now,
with Sharon being taken by cancer too, how awful it is that we each must march
on, without her. How very sad for her two daughters, Maryanne, and Jessica
(with Charles and little baby Leo, who will not get to know his grandmother,)
and for Sharon’s dearly beloved husband, Ken.
“My funeral was last week,” beamed Morrie. “All
those people saying all those wonderful things about me, and I got to hear
every word. I kept thinking; Morrie would’ve liked this! And I did!”
Sharon would beam at the reminder. During the
dreadful last months, we all gave her love and care, and our prayers were felt
by her, to be sure. And now, as she is off on “that final journey into the
great unknown,” as Morrie puts it, she indeed has packed with her our love and
concerns and appreciation for all that she gave us, while she was still here,
running her marathons in the psyche of our consciousness, sharing her love and
good humour and deep interest in our lives. So, it continues. She would want us
to share our puns. She would want fun.
On Feb 7th, to my texting her about kismet and
the unending love we shall have for her, always, she responded: “I cannot say
anything quite so eloquent but say it like this: love, love, love.”
Yet her eloquence lay in the very art of love
with which she contributed to life and gave to us all; it was so much greater
than mere words. And as for sunshine, she shall always be a ray of love and
lightness of being in our memories, for each of us. We now can but stand at the
sidelines, cheering her on in the marathon of our minds, sustaining her spirit
in our hearts, and carrying her love for us, always.
