This must be the place I’ve waited years to leave

I have often commented on the tendency to romanticize past experiences or memories. Over time, they become somewhat distorted and take on meanings that they prehaps never truly held. Years dull the pain of situations and relationships gone wrong, and yet on the other side of the coin it ca be argued that absence truly does make the heart grow fonder.

My wife and I used to live in Montreal. We were only there for a year, and it was about a year too long. We really didn’t fit well there. Our conservative values seemed out of place, I had no patience for the whole separatist/distinct society movement, and the people there seemed very self-involved and aloof. Honestly, I found Toronto to be friendlier. I’m not sure what it was about Montreal that grated on my nerves so badly. I am fluently bilingual in both English and French, (although a strong case could be made for Quebecois having nothing to do with French) and I like to think that I’m relatively easy to get along with. There was just something about the place that didn’t sit right. Something about a province run by Hell’s Angels that didn’t agree with me. Something about a city where everyone is out for themselves, and everything is approached with a “what can you do for me” attitude that I just couldn’t feel comfortable with. The day we left Montreal was one of the happiest days of my life.

That was five years ago, and sometimes I find myself looking back with almost a sense of nostalgia. Sure, we were in Montreal, but my wife and I were newly married, we had no kids to weigh us down, and we were living the happy, spontaneous life of an average newlywed couple, even if we hated the city we were living in. We did manage to do a few things that we really enjoyed, like day trips to the mountains or the Eastern Townships of Quebec, or walking around the neighborhood. I think back to those things now with what can almost be described as fondness, and wonder if maybe I didn’t give Montreal a fair chance. Maybe, I reason, it wasn’t that bad after all.

I spend the last week in Montreal, and I can now honestly say that yes, it was that bad. Four and a half days were plenty to assure me that my instincts are trustworthy. The place is a hellhole. Still controlled by bikers, still can’t decide which language they want to speak, and still a messy, corrupt, run down excuse for a city. It is strangely conforting to learn that it wasn’t just me not wanting to be there; the place really is a dump.

It’s good to be home.

Travel, kids, & crisis

Today started off innocently enough. I scoured eBay last night for a replacement stuffed bear for our oldest son, which of course precipitated a phone call this morning from my father in law telling us that he had miraculously found the original one. Christmas bear was found in the church kitchen (apparently he was hungry all this time and we simply didn’t know it) and will be returning to us on Thursday. Thank heaven for small miracles.

I will be leaving for a week-long business trip this afternoon for Toronto and Montreal, and my wife is very stressed about the prospect of having to deal with all three kids on her own for a week. It makes it tough on me as well to hear her telling me that she doesn’t want me to go, yet knowing that I have to. Her parents are coming up for a visit so I’m sure she’ll at least have a little help from them.

The kids reinforced her fears tonight by creating the kind of mess that legends are made of. She took them to the zoo all day, where they were remarkably well-behaved. Upon returning the Bear settled in to watch videos, the Frog sat quietly on the floor to play toys, and the Moose went down for an afternoon nap. In short, they were model children. It wasn’t until I left for work that they began to show their true intentions. I had to leave an hour early today to attend an operations meeting and pick up some things for my trip on the way to the office. I had been gone for about half an hour when I received an agitated call from my wife. Apparently the Moose had decided to run off with her car keys and had hidden them somewhere. She eventually cornered him, but being 20 months old and possessing extremely limited verbal skills, the Moose was not about to divulge the location of the keys to anyone, no matter how loudly they yelled. A dedicated search turned them up inside a plastic fish toy, which again was apparently starving right under our noses. I reached the office, went to my meeting, and had just finished a conference call when my wife called again, this time wavering between panic and white-hot rage. The Moose and the Bear were having their evening bath when the Frog began crying in the other room. My wife went to check on her, and in the four minutes she was gone, the two boys decided that it would be fun to empty the entire contents of the bathtub on to the bathroom floor. My wife returned to find sheets of water coursing down the hallway floor, while the bathroom itself had been transformed into a four-inch-deep lake. The water was deep enough that it was draining down the heating vents and soaking through the floor into the basement, coming dangerously close to the fuse boxes. The Moose and the Bear were unceremoniously removed from what remained of their bath and sent straight to bed, and I spent fifteen minutes on the phone trying to convince my wife that despite what her instincts were telling her, she couldn’t just walk out the front door and leave them all there.

Eventually she calmed down, although it took over a dozen towels to clean up the water. I find it interesting that the kids always choose nights when I am not at home to pull stunts like this. My wife is now terrified of what they will attempt while I am away. I feel sorry for her, while at the same time harbouring some apprehension that I may not have a home to come back to if the kids get really out of hand. Heaven help us if they ever figure out what matches do.

Between the demands of the business trip and checking in on the family every night, it is unlikely that I will be able to post for the next week. For most this won’t matter, as after enjoying a breif spurt of pseudo-popularity, my blog has faded back to it’s previous averages of 1-2 visitors per day, most of which seem to be foreign. For all you portuguese-speaking uber-fans out there, I’ll be back in action on the 27th. Try and keep dry until then, and remember to eat; it seems that there are dozens of toys out there who apparently don’t get to.

Love and loss

We’ve all been there and experienced the sickening, heart-rending feeling of knowing you will never see someone again. Perhaps it’s a friend who is moving away or a family member or loved one who is passing away. Often it is the emotionally saturated mark of the end of a relationship. This weekend, for my oldest child it was the loss of his stuffed bear.
This is going to be a little confusing, since my oldest child is referred to as the Bear and this post is about a stuffed bear. For the sake of clarity, “the Bear” is a reference to my child, and the stuffed animal will be called either “Christmas bear” or “stuffed bear”.
When the Bear (my kid, not the stuffed animal) was born, one of my wife’s collegaues gave him a stuffed TY bear as a “welcome to this world” gift. Seeing as he was born at the end of November, the stuffed bear was a white holiday edition with a holly print on him. We figured that the stuffed bear was a Christmas-only thing and put it away with the rest of the Christmas decorations. Besides, our little boy already had a blue stuffed bear that we had named Bluebeary that he loved to chew on. We figured that Bluebeary would be his “special” animal. We were wrong. The Christmas bear sat in the box until after the Bear’s first birthday, when we hauled out the Christmas decorations to prepare the house for the festive season. The Bear saw the stuffed bear and latched on to it like he had never seen something so precious before. He would not put it down or go anywhere without it, and we soon realized that this was going to be his “special” animal.
That was nearly three years ago, and the Christmas bear has been a constant fixture in our lives ever since. Our son will simply not let him go. He comes to bed, comes in the car, comes on family vacation, and basically goes everywhere we do. Once we misplaced him for two days but were able to track him down at a friend’s house. It was good thing too; the Bear wouldn’t sleep without the stuffed bear and cried constantly until it was returned.
This weekend we were in Lethbridge visiting family, and attended their stake conference on Sunday. As usual, the stuffed bear accompanied us. About half way through the two-hour service, the Bear informed me that he needed to go potty. Off we went to the men’s room with the stuffed bear in tow. When we got there, my son dropped the stuffed bear on the bathroom floor so he could do his business. Telling him that the bathroom floor was dirty and not a good place for the stuffed bear, I picked up the stuffed bear and placed it safely on top of the paper towel dispenser. My son finished going potty, washed his hands, and we went back to our seats leaving the stuffed bear in the washroom. We didn’t notice that it was missing until that night at bedtime, when all hell broke loose. We finally placated the Bear by letting him borrow one of his grandmother’s stuffed bears and assuring him that we would go find his Christmas bear in the morning. This morning we returned to the church, and went straight to the mens room, expecting to find the stuffed bear where we left him. After all, this is a very well-used bear. It is matted and stained from being hauled around by a child for the last three years, and has bald spots where the fur has fallen out after repeated washings. Not exactly the kind of toy you would pick up out of a public washroom and give to your child.
To our surprise and horror, the Christmas bear was not there. In fact, a dedicated search of the church did not yeild the stuffed bear, and my wife and I were beginning to wonder what we were going to tell our child. As it turns out, he didn’t take it well.
Again, the day went by relatively uneventfully. As long as the Bear had something going on to occupy or distract him, he was fine. It wasn’t until bedtime tonight that it finally hit him that his stuffed bear was really gone. There were a lot of tears, both from him and my wife. It was heartbreaking to see his little face crumble when we told him that his special stuffed bear was lost. He couldn’t fall asleep without it and ended up back downstairs with my wife. They called me at work, and he came on the phone, his tiny voice cracking with emotion, and asked me if I would find his stuffed bear. I said I would try, feeling like the lowest person in the world as I said it because I knew that the bear was gone forever.
Tonight, I scavenged through dozens of eBay listings looking for a replacement stuffed bear. I think I’ve actually found one, but it won’t come cheap. That aside, I wonder if he will accept it. Christmas bear was his friend and companion; an anchor of security for a three year-old in a crazy world of change and discovery.
Tonight, I have mixed emotions about the whole episode. I wonder where the stuffed bear went, knowing full well that it probably wandered off with some other kid, or worse yet ended up in a garbage can somewhere when some parent discovered that their child had found it in the bathroom. There is a possibility that someone put it in a closet somewhere at the church and we missed it during our search, but we did check the lost and found and all of the shelves in the area and came up empty-handed. It makes me kind of angry that people can’t just leave something alone if it doesn’t belong to them. It disappoints me that even in a church, things still go missing. Most of all, it just makes me very sad for my little boy. This is a tough lesson to learn for a little kid. I hope that the little twit who walked off with that stuffed bear cares for it as much as my kid did, because that is one well-loved bear.
Happy trails Christmas bear, wherever you are.

Drowning not waving

5 days. Wars have been fought in less time than that. I find myself struggling for time again over the past few days, with family, work, and other obligations conspiring against me. This weekend we’ll be going to Lethbridge for Easter and I’m looking forward to the break. It feels terrible considering the kids have been extremely good over the last few days, but it will be nice to get away from them for a few hours. My dad apparently wants to go fishing, which would be fun even though I never catch anything. Maybe a round of golf is in order as well.
I just re-read that last sentence and holy crap; it sounds like I’m 75. Then again, the way things have been going this week maybe by the time I make another entry here, I will be.

Chairs, candles, & cloth

I find it very interesting how facts can be presented in so many different ways, and the context they assume can drastically alter their interpretation. Context truly is everything. It is staggering yet intriguing how idealogy can be twisted in so many ways, and often tragic how those twists impact those who hold the ideas close to their hearts.
I just finished reading Dan Brown’s “The Da Vinci Code“. Although I disagree thouroughly with many of the concepts that the book presents as fact, mainly the assertation that modern Christianity is simply a politically-driven creation of man and that Jesus Christ nothing more than a human prophet falsely elevated to diety by the fabrications of the Catholic church, the story is fantastic and the book is a very entertaining read. I enjoy a good book and from a plotline standpoint, this was one of the best I’ve read in a while. For me it was easy to approach it as a simple story and not consider it to be anything more than that, but in seeing some of the reviews of this novel, I am amazed at how many people are immediately willing to accept anything they read as truth. Further to this, I am positively dumbfounded that people will argue against the Bible, which is considered by most to by holy writ, yet they will openly buy into the allegations of a book that is nothing more than a novel, albeit one infused with the religious inclinations of its author. Perhaps Mr. Brown should consider starting his own church.
What was perhaps the most interesting thing to me is that many, if not most, of the “truths” that the story puts forward as these big, mysterious secrets that would blow the lid off of Christianity is exposed are really not all that controversial at all. I suppose if I was approaching this from a Catholic standpoint, I would likely feel very differently about it, but given the things that I do believe, it really wasn’t all that sensational at all. In fact, much of the information Mr. Brown uses to attempt to discredit Christianity reinforces my belief in it.
For starters, the first big “shocker” revealed in the book is that Jesus Christ was allegedly married to Mary Magdalene. No surprise here. This has been an accepted, if not regularly discussed, idea in my religion for as long as I can remember. If you think about it, it makes nothing but sense. Jesus lead by example in everything he did. He was baptized even though he personally had no need of the ordinance because it was important to teach us that we must be baptized. I believe that eternal marriage is a necessary ordinance in order to attain exaltation in the next life, so why wouldn’t he have given us an example in that regard as well? The book goes even further, claiming that Jesus fathered children and has literal bloodline descendants on earth today. Although my church has no official position on this that I am aware of, again this makes sense to me. I do not subscribe to the Catholic viewpoint that holy men must take vows of celibacy to remain pure, and in fact in my religion the family is a sacred institution to be honoured and continued.
The other so-called bombshells revealed in the book revolve around the idea of symbology and ancient religion. Again, these things are presented in a manner that seems intended to illustrate inconsistencies in modern Christianity and jar the reader into a realization that they have been deceived by the church. Again, this may be effective for someone reading the book from a Catholic perspective, but for me the so-called inconsistencies just didn’t materialize. If anything, the arcane symbols laid out in the book can be tied to biblical references and employed to reinforce religious teachings.
I find it interesting that a specific subject matter such as this can be interpreted in so many ways. It is fascinating yet frightening that information can be presented in a manner intended to back up a certain line of thinking, yet to another reader can have a completely opposite effect. It is not at all difficult after reading this to understand why knowledge is considered dangerous by many, and a seemingly benign book can become explosive in the wrong hands.
In today’s age there is an incredible availabilty and flow of information. It seems sometimes that this is a mixed blessing, and that in addition to the difficulties associated with sifting through the barrage of viewpoints and accusations, we are also saddled with an impressive responsibility to be mindful of what we disseminate. One man’s Wealth of Nations may be another man’s Mein Kampf.
If you haven’t yet read The Da Vinci Code, I highly recommend it. Approach it with an open mind, but ensure that you maintain a psycholigical boundary between where the story ends and the religious teachings begin. The movie comes out on May 19 and will likely be very good but will not have nearly the impact the book does. Dan Brown has also written a book called Angels and Demons that falls into the same vein as The Da Vinci Code. I intend to track it down and read it, as I’m sure it is every bit as interesting and I am curious as to what kind of an idealogical slant it will carry. Happy reading…

Seasons change

Spring is finally here. I have known for a few weeks that it wasn’t far, but I felt it in the air for the first time last week. I walked out of work at 6 am and I could smell the rain in the air. Not snow, but honest to goodness rain. It smelled delicious.
This weekend in Lethbridge, the sun was out and it actually felt warm. For the first time in months, I wished that I had packed shorts and my sandals.
Normally I hate spring. Spring in this part of the world is so transitional and maddening. The weather is even more uncertain that usual, and spring is not the dynamic, verdant phoenix described in the stereotypical love stories adored by romantics. Here, spring is a dead grey thing languishing in the watery sunlight filtered through an indecisive sky that hasn’t yet realized that the season is shifting. It is dusty and bleak, not inspiring and renewing. It is a time of year when the snows of winter recede to reveal a landscape beaten and bruised by the elements, and nature struggles through a colourless cycle of recovery. Instead of revealing the magic of rebirth, the land is shrouded in the hazy remains of the previous year and wears a ratty cloak of refuse that was stranded by the eager snows before it had a chance to blow away. It is windy, dirty, and uncomfortable. This year, however, I am looking forward to it.
The winter this year has seemed extraordinarily long, even though it has been uncommonly mild. Maybe the reason I am looking forward to spring is because the winter itself this year has felt like an extended version of what we usually get with spring.
This year I can’t wait to ride my bike again, and to get out on to the golf course. I am excited at the prospect of electrical storms and green grass. I look forward to photographing the spring storms and hopefully will be able to get some good material for an article I’m writing. For some reason, I can feel spring much more this year than I ever have before. I hope it doesn’t let me down.