Rain

Last year a Calgary police officer faced disciplinary action and a criminal investigation because he shot and killed a man who attacked him and stabbed him in the shoulder. The same man moments before had been terrorizing his “friends” with a knife, prompting them to call the police. The man was a repeat violent offender with a criminal record as long as your arm, and yet it is the police officer who is at fault for defending himself. Is this not madness?

Yesterday a woman in my city was brutally attacked and beaten on her own front doorstep, by a member of her own family, in broad daylight. She lived in a good neighborhood; a neighborhood that I very nearly moved my family to not even a year ago. What is this city coming to?

Today it rained. Not a downpour, but just a quick, tentative shower to water my wife’s flower garden and bring that fresh, delicious smell that reminds me that there are still good, beautful things in the world. I thank God for it.

While my guitar gently weeps

I first began playing the guitar nearly fifteen years ago, when I was in high school. I had formed a band with two friends, and we were doing our best to sound like Depeche Mode and not really having all that much success. Our only public show was for a birthday party at the seminary building, and would end up being forever remembered as the time I ate a slice of ice cream cake right before I sang. Everyone in the room that morning discovered at the same time I did that at 7 am with a slice of ice cream cake gooping up my throat, I don’t sing very well. With my failure to emulate David Gahan and the fact that we couldn’t afford a decent synthesizer complicating things, we began to lean heavily on the guitar-driven writing of our lead player, Matt Demas. Arguably the most accomplished musician among us, he had written dozens of songs that we struggled to adapt to our crude 3-man format. In the process, I found myself picking up one of his spare guitars to try and flesh out the sound. The guitar was an old Vox that someone had tried to convert to a bass at some point by sawing off the headstock and attempting to lengthen the neck. Evidently the experiment had failed, because the headstock had been epoxied and bolted back on and the guitar restored to playability, if only marginally. I managed to learn about 4 chords before the school year, and the band, ended.

That fall I moved to Utah to attend University, and left my early rock star days behind me. It wasn’t until midway through the first semester that I discovered that one of my roommates had once been in a band and was a halfway decent bassist. When he found out that I also had a musical background, he immediately drove to his parents’ home 4 hours away and returned with a microphone, an old guitar amp, some cables, and what was left of his old bass. A few days later, I went with him to a local music store to find out if the bass could be repaired. I had no intention of buying anything that day, until I saw the guitar of my dreams hanging on the showroom wall.

It was a Vantage; a beautiful jet-black, semi-hollow bodied electric copy of a Gibson ES-335. For those of you not familiar with guitars, that is the big, rounded kind of electric played by BB King. More importantly for me, it is also the guitar played by the Cure and by my musical idol, Bernard Sumner of New Order. I took the guitar down and tried to strum it, suddenly coming to the realization that I had forgotten absolutely everything Matt had taught me. Still, something clicked inside me and I knew that I had to own that guitar. I was a starving student at the time, and the $700 US price tag hanging from the tuning pegs had about the same effect as sealing the guitar up inside Fort Knox. I put it back on the wall and wandered over to where my roommate was talking with the shop owner, trying hard to pretend like I had never seen it. When I reached them, the store owner asked me if I had found what I was looking for. Somewhat bitterly, I replied that I had found a guitar I liked but that it was well beyond my price range. When I pointed out which one it was, a strange expression came over his face. He told me that the guitar had been a special order for a local woman who wanted it for a Christmas present. Even though it was a model he didn’t usually carry, he had agreed to bring it in. Unfortunately, it had not arrived in time for the holidays and the woman had bought something else. The guitar had been sitting there ever since. As I stood there amazed that a guitar that beautiful could sit there unsold for so long, I suddenly heard him telling me that rather than let the guitar take up floor space for another two years, he was willing to take offers on it. I blinked, not sure I was hearing him correctly, then held back my excitement as he asked what I was wiling to pay. Knowing that my offer would be significantly less than even the wholesale cost of the guitar, I told him that I was a student and the most I could possibly pay would be 200 dollars. He grimaced, then confirmed my suspicions. The offer was far too low. As he returned to his dealings with my roommate, I walked over to the guitar to drool over it one last time. A few minutes later, my roommate completed his purchases and came to pull me away from the guitar. As we turned to leave, the shop owner called after me. “Hey, is that offer of yours in cash?” I explained that it could be, but that I would have to run to a bank machine to pull out the money. He paused for a moment, then said “Well if you’re serious, go now before I change my mind.” Ten minutes later, I walked out the front door with the guitar in my hands. I had just spent my entire food budget for the month on an intrument I didn’t even know how to play, but I couldn’t have been happier.

The guitar would take up a place of honour beside my bed, where it would sit for most of the remainder of the year. A classmate came over and tried to teach me a few songs, but for the most part I just messed around with it and kept it out in the open to look cool when I knew that girls were coming over. My roommate gave me the old guitar amp he had unearthed from the corners of his parents’ garage, but unfortunately for me, my playing didn’t sound any better electrified than it did acoustically. When I returned home for the summer, the guitar was placed carefully in a corner of my room and largely ignored. That fall, I decided that the guitar was too beautiful to use as a decoration and actually took lessons for about a month. The teacher was a nut and I could barely have a conversation with him, let alone learn from him. Still, it sparked a desire to really learn to play, and soon I was buying up sheet music of my favourite songs and trying to struggle through it on my own. I was just starting to get the hang of it when I left on my mission.

I figured that the mission would mean two years of no guitar playing whatsoever. I was amazed to discover that almost every apartment in the mission had at least one person who played guitar. The mission president actively encouraged us to develop our talents, including learning a musical instrument. Within a month of arriving in France, I visited a music store in Bordeaux and purchased a Seagull acoustic guitar with a solid cedar top, a cutaway, and the richest tone I had ever heard. I named her Sarah. For two years, I spent nearly every available spare moment with that guitar. At first it was difficult; even painful. The steel strings cut into my fingers, and my nightly practice sessions would usually be ended only when the blood on the fingerboard made it too slippery to play. I began to bite my fingers habitually to harden the callouses on my left hand, and gradually the music began to come. I learned Oasis, the Cranberries, Sarah McLachlan, U2, and a variety of popular French songs. I even played a guitar solo in a mission-sponsored musical tour. By the time I returned home, I was developing into a competent guitarist.

The fall and winter of 1997 were spent playing constantly, and it was during this time that I really began to progress. I formed another band, called Hey Farmer, during the summer of 1998, but we only ever played two shows. The first one was a birthday party in September, and the second one was a farewell show in January 99; just after I had moved to Calgary.

I don’t remember exactly how I met Rob Proctor, but within a few months of moving to Calgary I was hanging out with him regularly and we decided to put a band together. Phone calls were made, auditions were held, and sometime in April, Full Circle was born. Surprisingly, we had good chemistry, and the band came together quickly. I bought a new amplifier and my Vantage electric finally began to get some serious use. Sadly, the change from the humidity of southern France to the arid semi-desert of southern Alberta had wreaked havoc with my once-beautiful acoustic. The wood had shrunk, popping some of the braces in the body and twisting the neck to the point that it was now impossible to keep the guitar in tune. I sold Sarah to a guitar shop specializing in restorations and bought a black Washburn EA-20 acoustic-electric. Our lead player, Darrell Unger, had played with big-name bands like The New Meanies and 54-40, and trying to keep up with him pushed my playing to new heights. By summer, we were playing shows weekly and had begun to develop a name for ourselves in Calgary’s club scene. In July, we were asked to open for Rhymes With Orange when they visited the city. Unfortunately, our bassist was not available that week due to family reasons and we had to decline. Still, our schedule continued to fill up and we began to make plans to book studio time to record a CD that fall.

In September, disaster struck. Our bassist had a complete meltdown and blamed the band for everything that was going wrong in his life. Two days before a weekend show at Morgan’s on 17th, he left the band amidst a flurry of baseless accusations and Full Circle fell apart. We cancelled the show and tried to regroup with a new bass player, but after trying out two new hopefuls it became evident that the chemistry simply wasn’t there. Frustration mounted quickly, and by the end of October we had quit playing together completely.

Surprisingly, we were rescued by the same Matt Demas I had played with nearly ten years before. He stepped in as the new bassist and we began playing again after Christmas. Unfortunately, it simply wasn’t meant to last. In March, Darrell announced that school was demanding enough of his time that he no longer had room in his life for the band. It was the final straw, and we agreed to take some time away from music to decide if we still wanted to pursue the band seriously. A month later, Rob sold his drums to buy an engagement ring and Full Circle was officially laid to rest.

I kept playing solo, occasionally writing with Matt. Summer 2000 was hectic though, and I began to find that it was getting harder and harder to find the time to play. That fall, I began dating the girl who would become my future wife and quickly got engaged myself. I didn’t know at the time that I had chosen marriage over my music, but by the time we were married and settled down in Montreal, PQ, I realized one day with a shock that I had not touched my guitar in six months. Sadly, the trend would continue. Returning to Calgary in August 2001, I got wrapped up in work and responsibilities at home and found myself drifting further and further away from music. In September 2002, I became a student again and found my time more limited than it had ever been. By the time the Bear was born in November, my guitars and equipment were packed carefully away in storage and wouldn’t see the light of day for nearly two years.

When Moosie was born in August 2004, I returned to Calgary alone for three days to work while my wife stayed with the kids in Lethbridge. Moosie was still in the hospital at the time, and for the first time in recent memory, I actually had some time to myself. Venturing into the dusty corners of the basement, I dug out my Washburn and played until my fingers bled. Remembering that I had named the guitar years before, I teased my wife by telling her that I was “spending some time with Lauren.” When the kids returned a few days later, the guitar went back into storage and remained there until the Frog was born. This time I decided that having a family should not hold me back from pursuing my music, and I decided to resume playing regularly. My resolve lasted three days. My callouses long gone, I was back to the stage of shredded fingertips and bloody fingerboards. The years of hiatus had taken their toll, and I was at a loss to play even the most simple of the songs I once knew. I had even forgotten my own material. To make matters worse, the kids figured that if I was playing, they should play too, and began trying to rip the strings off of the guitar. In hopes of preventing her destruction, Lauren went back into the case and was hidden carefully behind the couch in the basement.

Today, she is still there. I have tried to steal time to play, but have been unluckly so far. Someone is always awake, and if they aren’t then I can’t play out of fear of waking them up. Then there is the simple matter of finding time, which seems an impossible task these days. My guitars remain hidden in the basement, gathering dust. My wife has approached me several times asking why I don’t sell them, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I miss my music very much. I miss being able to write songs, and the rush that comes from playing live in front of a crowd. Sometimes it is hard to attend concerts because I feel like I am on the wrong side of the microphone. I still see Rob, and invariably we always end up talking about playing together again or forming a new band, but both of us know that at this point it is nothing more than a dream.

This week I popped an old, unmarked CD into my car stereo and heard the song “Loud” by Matt Nathanson. The song itself is pretty but unremarkable, but it sparked in me a desire to play that I haven’t felt for a while now. This weekend, I’m going to try again. Heaven only knows how well it will work or how long it will last, but I’m going to try. I’m putting new strings on Lauren, and I intend to have them well broken-in by Sunday.

There will be blood tonight.

I remember…

I don’t know what brought it on, but France has been very prevalent in my thoughts lately. It’s been nine years this month since I returned; nine long years since I turned the page on one of the most important and perhaps most difficult stages of my life.

It’s funny that it’s even an issue at all. I was in France as a missionary, which for those of you who are unfamiliar with missionary life is like saying that I was there, but I wasn’t really there. As a missionary, your life revolves around church, service, and spiritual activity. Don’t get me wrong, that isn’t a bad thing at all. It’s just that in being so committed to the work that you are doing, you tend to put your own life on hold. You are bound by a very specific set of rules, and the missionary work that you are there to do can be completely consuming. You don’t have time (or the ability, as there is someone constantly by your side) to stop and think about things like relationships, personal growth, or really much of anything that falls outside of a spiritual context. In some ways, that is very taxing. Probably the most difficult aspect of my mission was going almost two complete years without having any time for myself. When you serve a mission, you are assigned a companion of the same sex who stays with you 24/7. You get up at the same time, you eat at the same time, you spend the day together working, you come home at the same time, and you go to sleep at the same time. With the exception of things like showers and bathroom breaks, you must remain within eyesight of one another at all times. There are a lot of reasons for this, which may well be the impetus for another posting on another night, but I won’t get into them here. Suffice it to say that for the duration of your mission (or your sanity, whichever comes to an end first) you never, ever, have any time to yourself.

I need time for myself. When I don’t get it, I start to feel trapped and overwhelmed. I remember looking forward to transfer day and the precious few hours I would hopefully have on the train without anyone following me around. It was bliss for those few stolen hours to not have to talk to anyone, and to be able to just look out the window at the world racing by and know that until that train arrived, I could actually just stop and think without feeling like someone else had to be a part of the process. Once, I was serving in a city of four and the three other elders were transferred in the same day. Between the last train departure in the morning and the first new arrival in the evening, I had four hours completely to myself. Mission protocol dictates that you spend this time alone in your apartment, which I was all to happy to do. It was heaven. For those four short hours, my life belonged to me again and I felt free. Inevitably, however, the new missionaries arrived that afternoon and my contentment disappeared into a swirl of introductions and orientation. By dinner, we were back to work and the tranquility of that afternoon was a million miles away.

I say this only to illustrate that my life in France wasn’t exactly a normal one. When you are living within the parameters of a missionary lifestyle, your ability to truly experience a foreign country is limited. On the other side of the coin, however, having to work in that country forces you to absorb as much as you can of the local language and culture. Your work is based on building relationships quickly, even if it is just so you can teach someone more effectively. I always had a problem with that part. All relationships serve some sort of a purpose, but I am really only interested in the meaningful ones. I felt like a fraud trying to pry my way into someone’s personal life just so I could deliver a spiritual message and go home. Granted, the message was one that I felt very strongly about and wished very much that the person would want to hear. I just didn’t like trying to present myself as their best friend just so they would trust me enough to hear me out. Luckily, there were a few instances where I really did connect with the person, and in those cases the relationship we formed was real, and my intentions felt true. Whatever the motivation, missionaries build relationships quickly, and some of those relationships are intense.

It’s the same way with the experiences you have while on a mission. When you spend your time being so committed to one thing, the experiences you have can stay with you for much longer than they might under different circumstances. People who are brought together rapidly and with the knowledge that they only have a certain amount of time together tend to bond quickly. Likewise, the places you visit knowing you may never see them again can take on an almost larger than life element that allows them to hold a special place in your thoughts and memories. Perhaps it is for these reasons that I miss France so much. Perhaps it is because of this distorted view of my time there that I now find myself becoming a little bit homesick for the wooded hills of the Dordogne Valley or the narrow stone passages of old Bordeaux, even though I am well aware that my home lies not in the history-shrouded cities of France, but in the dust, wind, and elemental power of the Canadian landscape. I am rooted here, and I can feel it as I watch the sky grow heavy with a coming storm. I know it when I hear the faraway roar of the wind in the mountains, or smell the rain coming to the prairies on a cool west wind. I belong here, yet I long to be there. I miss the heaviness of the summer air, thick with humidity as the day turns to night. I miss the touch of ancient stone and the dank, musty smell of cathedrals and castles that have stood for longer than my country has been organized. I miss the people and their ways; ways which long ago felt comfortable and familiar to me. At times I truly do feel as though a part of me sprang to life when I went to France, grew, matured, and flourished while I lived there, and winked out when I left. At times I miss that part of myself very much.

It is sometimes difficult to discern what is real. I have heard countless stories of missionaries returning to the lands where they served and being met only with disappointment. Without the intensity with which they were experienced previously, the people and places simply aren’t the same. I am left wondering if perhaps my memories of France and my desire to return are not somehow predicated on a romanticized distortion of actuality; if not an outright falsehood. Although I try to temper my recollections with the knowledge that time and emotion are not my allies, I refuse to dismiss my feelings entirely. After all, I reason, these memories have to be based on something, don’t they?

My logic fails like a poorly-built house of cards when I realize that, ten years ago, I was seeing things from the other side of the equation. A stranger in a strange land, trying to force my clumsy tongue to speak a new and foreign language and relate to people I had never even heard of before, I held fast to my memories of home and my ideas of familiarity. I kept a booklet of photos of the people and places I held dear, and formed within my mind a sparkling and near-perfect idea of what home was. Anyone willing to listen would be treated to a tale of fairytale magnitude, in which my friends and family became the embodiment of goodness and nobility and resided in a clean, pure land of snow-capped mountain peaks, crystal clear rivers and lakes, and the greenest of fields dancing under expresive skies. Home had become a dream, and that point was hammered home when I stepped from the plane at Calgary International Airport nine years ago this week. The snow capped mountains were hidden behind a veil of dusty cloud, and a sickly purplish haze of exhaust and pollution rose from the city and ringed the skyscapers as though they were unable to escape the filthiness of the streets below. The rivers and lakes were muddy and clouded with runoff from the snowmelt, and the verdant fields I remembered had not yet shed the somber blanket of winter. Everywhere, the grass and trees were still dead and brown and the leaves and garbage from the autumn before had escaped the concealment of the winter snow and danced on the wind like a dirty secret that had just become public. Home was not the way I remembered it at all.

I don’t know if the contrast would be as severe now as it was then, but I wonder if I would have a similar feeling returning to France. I try to tell myself that it is memories that cannot be recreated that I am missing, and not necessarily the people and places themselves. Sometimes I am successful, other times not so much. I suppose that the glory of memories is that they can become anything we want them to. It is only in the act of trying to replicate them that we are often shocked or let down by what we expect to be the end result. Does that mean that we should be content to keep them catalogued, and never try to revisit the people, places, and situations that once meant so much to us? I don’t pretend to know the answer to that. I suppose that ulitimately it is a personal decision, and that the results will vary greatly between each of us. Again, I don’t presume to know how things would turn out for me. I only hope that time and circumstance will one day see fit to give me a chance to find out.

The road not travelled?

Life is full of interesting choices. Some are glaringly obvious, while others are subtle to the point of being insidious. All of them have great bearing on the course our lives ultimately follow, and can come to define us as individuals if we let them.

Most of us, at some point in our lives, have looked back at the decisions we have made and taken stock of where we are presently as a result of those choices. This process of self-evaluation can be comforting or tormenting, depending on our level of comfort and satisfaction with ourselves and our accomplishments. Sadly, it can also be both.

It has been said that we are the sum of our experiences, and I believe this only up to a certain point. While it is evident that the life events that influence our development are largely dictated by our environment and circumstances, there is also a strong element of conscious decision that factors into play. Regardless of our background, we always retain the faculty of deciding how we want to react to the waters of life boiling around us. I have seen bad people go good simply out of a will to do so, and have seen good people with solid backgrounds go very, very bad. We cannot control the journey, but we are ultimately responsible for our own destinations.

I often look back at the experiences I have had and the decisions I have made and wonder where I would be today if I had chosen differently. Understand that I am not pining for what could have been, but rather am curious to compare the person I am today with the person I might have otherwise been.

When I returned from my mission in 1997, I had already laid the groundwork to return to France. I had interviewed at the University of Bordeaux and was accepted to the faculty of fine arts. I anticipated spending a year there and then transfering to the Talence school of architecture once my technical vocabulary had improved enough to permit my pursuit of a degree without getting lost in the material. Upon returning to Canada, it was intention to work for a few months to earn the money to return to France, weed out my belongings to prepare for the move, and be back in time for the fall semester. I had lined up a place to stay, and was in the process of figuring out how I was going to pay for things like food and clothing. Tuition in France is free; even if you’re a foreigner. The plan was simple enough, but the execution was infinitely harder. Returning home to friends I had not seen in over two years and being reunited with my family made me question my willingness to leave it all behind again. I got a job and bought a car, and instead of shedding my possessions found myself accumulating more of them. My parents worried that I would not be accepted at Talence and would have to stay in the fine arts stream at the University of Bordeaux; not such a bad thing from a cultural perspective, but a little bit scary from a practical standpoint. Fine arts degrees look great hanging on your wall but don’t usually go very far towards putting food on your table. They also pointed out that once I was over there, the likelihood of returning to Canada was slim. If I built a life for myself in France, I would be making a choice to abandon the one I already had in Canada. It made me think things through very carefully, and within two months I had resigned myself to the realization that returning to France was not the best course of action for me.

I look back on that process now and wonder sometimes if I made the right choice, or if there even was a right choice. Often I find that these decisions are not so much a question of right and wrong as they are a comparison between two different ideas, both having equal merit but in different ways. Still, it makes me wonder. Would I have been accepted at Talence, and if so, where would I be now? Would I still be in France? Would I be married, and if so, to who? Would I still be active in the church? Sometimes I think I know the answers to some of these questions, but the truth is that I will never really be sure. Still, the questions remain. I look at some of the personality traits I have developed over the past few years and wonder if I would be the same person if I had followed a different path. Would I still have children? What would be important to me?
Rather than driving myself crazy with “what ifs”, I prefer to look at it from the perspective of a man musing over the possibilities and pitfalls of his past. It isn’t distressing or regretful, but rather becomes a measuring stick of where I am now vs. the estimation of where I could have been. Some of those estimations are intriguing, and others are downright scary.

I know that years from now, I will look back on the choices I am making now and evaluate them, just as I now look back on decisions I made years ago. I think I’ve done pretty well up to this point. Many of the crossroads I remember now may not have produced an end result any better or worse than the one I am currently living; just different. Given the chance to do it all over again, there are some things I might change but many more that I would keep the way they are. I suppose that is some measure of success in itself.

Calgon, take me away!

It is time for a vacation. Not just another weekend in Lethbridge, but an honest to goodness trip to somewhere I haven’t been for a while. (or ever) I need to take a week or so and just go. Get away from it all. As horrible as it sounds, ideally this vacation would not include children, but I’m pretty sure they’ll be a part of the package so I’d be best served to choose somewhere where they will be easy to keep track of and won’t turn the whole thing into more hassle than it’s worth. Then again, maybe there is no such place and that’s why we haven’t gone anywhere in the past 3 years.

When the Bear was barely 9 months old, we took him to Vancouver island for 10 days to see my wife’s extended family. We left Calgary around 9 at night and drove through to Revelstoke, where we had to stop and sleep for a few minutes or risk ending up in the bottom of a canyon somewhere. The turnoff where we pulled off the highway must have lead up to a trailhead of some kind, because I kept seeing signs that said “trail to the cedars” or something like that. It wasn’t until I had to get out of the car to get something from the trunk that I smelled the air and realized that those must have been some pretty big cedars. It was the most fantastic smelling air I have ever breathed in my life. It was clear and clean, and laced with the moisture of the cool night air. The scent of cedar was heavy all around, like someone had cracked open one of the big trees just to let the smell out. I stood there for a minute just breathing it in, amazed that air like that could even exist. If I could have bottled the stuff, it would outsell every air freshener on this planet. I don’t remember everything we did on that holiday, but I remember that air.

After a quick nap we continued westward, trying to wring as much mileage as possible out of the hours that the Bear was asleep. Morning broke somewhere between Salmon Arm and Chase, and by Kamloops our time had run out and the Bear was wide awake and doing his best to let us know how unimpressed he was at being strapped into his car seat. My wife had anticipated this problem and had purchased a toy cow that sang kids’ songs and had flashing lights and little animals riding it that moved around while the music played. He loved it. The singing cow turned out to be a double-edged sword, though, because although it kept the Bear quiet, we still had to deal with an endless assault of nursery ryhmes. To this day, I equate driving across the Patrician Bay Highway between Sidney and Victoria with “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic.”

That was the last holiday we took, and it seems we were lucky to get that one. We have had positively abysmal luck with vacations ever since we got married. For a wedding present, one of my wife’s friends who worked for Air Canada gave us two round trip tickets to anywhere in the world we wanted to go. We chose to go to France, but due to the demands of my work, the only time we would be able to make the trip would be over the Christmas holidays. No matter, we were both very excited at the prospect on spending New Years’ Eve in Paris. Our plans hit their first hiccup on September 11, 2001, when the unforgettable attacks in the United States sent the airline industry reeling. We were still willing to fly but were met with some stiff resistance from my wife’s parents, who seemed convinced that another attack was imminent. We were eventually able to convince them that we would be fine, and continued making plans for the trip. The only other concern is that our wedding gift tickets were employee tickets, which are basically standby tickets. Since everyone else in North America was terrified of getting on a plane at that time, we didn’t anticipate that it would be a problem. When we checked a week before Christmas, we couldn’t find a flight that was more than half full. It looked like we would have our pick of flight times, so we chose a few options and settled in for a quick Christmas with our families before our departure.

Three days later we got a phone call from our friend at Air Canada. She wanted to know why we had not left earlier and asked if we had checked out the flight bookings lately. Faced with a record low number of bookings through the holiday season, Air Canada had panicked and offered a last-minute seat sale for the Christmas season. Even with the widespread hesitation to fly, almost everything had filled up. We were able to find seats on a plane to Paris, but everything was booked solid coming back. I had to be back at work on January 7th, but with the standby tickets there was no guarantee we could make it. I called repeatedly in hopes that something would open up, but the first flight out of Paris with room on it was on January 16; much too late. 24 hours before we were supposed to leave, we were forced to cancel our trip.

Sadly, the pattern has continued. We were supposed to return to Vancouver island last summer but were unable due to my wife’s pregnancy. We were supposed to spend our 5th anniversary together at Emerald Lake, but Moosie landed in the hospital and effectively killed those plans. We were supposed to go to Utah three weeks ago and ended up missing that one as well due to time and financial contraints. It’s enough to make a grown man cry.

Instead of spending days of carefree bliss on some fantastic getaway, I’ve been sitting in my basement huffing solder fumes and burning my hands on molten metal as I install ten decoders in someone else’s model train collection. I would at least be able to find some satisfaction in knowing that I’ll be paid quite well for doing it if the money weren’t already allocated towards bills and other necessities. I suppose I should be thankful for having the means to provide for my family, but it frustrates me to no end that nearly everything I make is spent before I even bring it home.

I need a holiday. Someday soon, I’m going to pack up the car, load up the family, and just start driving.

If you love something, set it free…..

Her name was Valerie Passerieux, and she was an artist. If you looked up “artist” in a dictionary, you may very well have found a photograph of her under the heading. Standing a slight 5 foot 5 with long blonde hair, one green eye and one blue eye, and a playful French accent, she seemed cast for the part from birth. Her room and entire house were decorated with her work; plaster busts of African women inspired by a trip to Morocco, some unique texture-oriented abstracts that had been part of a school project, paintings and sketches of local towns and statues, and even a self portrait. Walking into the tiny house that she shared with her mother was like walking into an exposition hall.

I first met Valerie through her mother, Marie-France. A school teacher by trade, Marie-France was uncommonly quiet and kept herself aloof. She didn’t interact socially with anyone in particular at church, was not close with her colleagues at school, and didn’t really seem to have any friends. The only thing that seemed to get her talking even a little was to bring up Valerie’s many artistic accomplishments. I had just been transferred to Bergerac two weeks before Christmas 1996, and I wasn’t adjusting well. It took a little while for me to warm up to Marie-France, as she didn’t seem very interested in wanting to get to know me or anyone else any better and I really didn’t care to hear any more about her daughter’s talents. Besides, she seemed very distant all the time and seemed to want to be left alone. In my twenty year-old head, I figured that it wasn’t worth beating my head against the wall trying to get her to open up. After all, I was a stranger in a strange land, and six months from that point I would more than likely be in another country and far away from Marie-France and her child prodigy. She seemed so closed off and secretive all the time, and I couldn’t understand why. As I would learn, Marie-France had her reasons.

As a few weeks went by, I found myself spending more time with Marie-France at church. She had three callings and spent most of her time outside of work running the genealogical library. I can’t remember exactly what happened or when, but suddenly one day I found myself wanting to reach out to her. I can remember watching her bent over the light table, quietly examining microfilms, and knowing that she needed a friend. Nothing had been said up to that point and nothing ever really would, but over the Christmas holidays we would begin to forge a relationship that would stay with me for much longer that the seven months I would be part of her life.

Just before Christmas, Marie-France invited us over for dinner. She was going to the Pyrenees mountains to spend Christmas with her children, Valerie and Eric. Neither lived at home, and it was an opportunity for her to spend some quality time with them. It would quickly become very clear that her children were the centre of her universe. When I walked through the front door, I couldn’t help but look around at the collection of art that seemed to take up every available square foot of wall space. I couldn’t find a piece of furniture without a sculpture on it, and even the corners were occupied by canvasses and paintings in various stages of completion. To my surprise, the art was very good. I was impressed, and began to understand Marie-France’s pride in her daughter’s work. The paintings, in particular, were beautiful. During dinner, Marie-France actually talked to us about herself for the first time. Her life had not been an easy one, starting with her childhood and culminating in a very difficult divorce a few years earlier. As she spoke, I felt a strange sort of connection to her, like I could somehow relate to the pain and frustration she was feeling. I left her house that night trying to figure out how to help her.

I had planned to speak with her on Sunday at church and ask her if there was anything we could help her with, but that all changed when I met Valerie. She was home visiting her mother for the weekend and had come to church with her to meet the new missionaries. When she came into the room, it was like someone somewhere had turned a light on, and all I could see was her. It scared me a little. I don’t believe in love at first sight, and to complicate matters even further, I still had another six months remaining in my mission and was prohibited from getting involved with anyone until I went home. Luckily, she had an easygoing way about her that disarmed me and put me at ease. I ended up talking with her well after the church meetings ended. When I left, I felt like I had known her for years.

I would only see Valerie periodically for the next month. Christmas came and went, leaving in its wake a grey and rainy European winter. It was a cold and cheerless month of January, and we worked hard. The town of Bergerac had been canvassed dozens of times over by previous legions of missionaries, and the work was slow and difficult as we struggled to find people to teach. I began to have difficulty sleeping, and found that it was an ailment I shared with Marie-France. She recommended that I try magnesium supplements, which I did with limited success. I began to spend a lot of time on the phone with her late at night, and learned a lot about the trials and experiences that had shaped her into the person I was slowly getting to know. I also began to learn more about Valerie. At first it was innocent comments, but ultimately I found myself fishing for information. I knew that I couldn’t pursue a relationship with her, but I wanted to know more about this creative blonde girl that had sparked my interest.

As January waned, Valerie began to come home more often. Coincidentally, it seemed that every time Marie-France invited us over for dinner, Valerie would be there. One day, out of the blue, Valerie called me to ask about something we had discussed the previous weekend, and the phone call ended up stretching into an hour-long conversation. The next morning, I awoke to the realization that I was developing feelings for Valerie and that as a missionary, I was treading on dangerous ground. I resolved to keep the friendship in check, and began to put up a wall between Valerie and myself. She noticed immediately and seemed to be hurt, although we continued to speak regularly. Within a week, Marie-France asked me why I was being so distant. I explained to her the position I was in, knowing full well that the information would be relayed. A week later I received a card from Valerie telling me that she understood and would keep her distance, but that if I was interested in giving things a shot when my mission was finished, she would be around. She kept her word and our friendship remained appropriate as we continued to get to know each other. As the end grew closer, however, it became more difficult to maintain the necessary distance. Even though I was not supposed to correspond with any women within mission boundaries, letters became the only way for us to speak candidly with each other and we began to write to each other more frequently. Valerie began to limit her visits home to every two weeks, as it was becoming difficult for us to ignore the physical and emotional tension that was developing between us. With six weeks left in my mission, I was relieved when I was transferred to another area to prepare for a traveling musical that I was involved in. Thankfully, the last month and a half went quickly. The musical was touring western France doing a show every second night, with practices and travel in between. It was hectic but provided a much needed focus. In the four months and change I had spent in Bergerac, I had formed a friendship with Valerie that felt like it was decades old. The more I had gotten to know her, the more I had found myself caring for her. I was now in the unenviable position of having found someone I wanted to be with but being unable to do so. I did my best to push Valerie from my mind and concentrate on finishing my mission with dedicated effort.

In mid-May 1997, my parents came to France to pick me up as my mission ended. We spent two weeks visiting the various areas I had served in, and not surprisingly, I found myself back in Bergerac. Free from the restrictions that had defined our friendship from the beginning, things became awkward between Valerie and I as we struggled to adjust to the continuation of a growing relationship in a “normal” context. After over two years of keeping everyone at a distance emotionally and spiritually, I found myself unsure of how to actually let someone get close to me. I felt like a twelve year-old kid again, learning how to act around girls. During the second week, Valerie accompanied my parents and me to Arcachon, on the west coast of France. As we were climbing the giant sand dune that draws people to the town, Valerie stumbled and reached out for my hand. Instinctively, I caught it and helped her back to her feet. As she caught her balance, she squeezed my hand but didn’t let go. It was electrifying but frightening for me as I reminded myself that I wasn’t a missionary anymore and that this was OK now. Later that afternoon we raced each other down the seaward side of the dune as my parents waited on top. As we reached the water’s edge, Valerie threw her arms around me and laughed. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to stay there with her forever.

Reality called me back two days later as we left for Paris to return to Canada. My mission’s boundaries did not include Paris and I had never been there, but my excitement at visiting the city of light was dampened by the feeling of loss as I said goodbye to Valerie and Marie-France. They felt like a second family to me, and it was very difficult to leave them. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was the last time I would see Marie-France. I spent a wonderful day in Paris with my parents, but couldn’t shake the feeling that my world was collapsing. That night, I called Valerie from a pay phone to tell her that I didn’t want to leave. I felt like the plane would be taking me away from everything I now found familiar, and I was afraid that the connection we felt would die on the vine once we were on opposite sides of the world. The next day, under a blanket of grey skies and pouring rain, I walked on to an Air Canada Boeing 747 and flew away from Valerie, Bergerac, and the life I had known for over two years. As the plane lifted off from Charles DeGaulle airport, I felt my stomach flip-flop uncomfortably. Victor Hugo once said “Every man has two countries, and once of them is France.” At that moment, I knew that part of me would always remain there.

Two months later, another Air Canada plane landed in Calgary, Alberta. When Valerie cleared customs and walked out to meet me, I felt like I hadn’t seen her in years. To me, it felt like she was coming home. For some reason, that still scared me a little bit. The drive back to Lethbridge calmed my fears, and I felt like I had been given a second chance to have Valerie as a part of my life. Being with her seemed familiar; even more familiar than the prairie landscapes that had been my home for 19 years before going to France. She brought one of her paintings as a gift for my parents; a watercolour of the medieval marketplace at Sarlat la Caneda where we had eaten lunch together months before. When they hung it on their bedroom wall, it seemed to belong in our home.

Valerie stayed with my family for almost two months. We took her everywhere we could think of that might be interesting to someone visiting Canada. Although I enjoyed the time we spent together, to me it seemed almost as though we were trying to sell the country to her. She became close with my mother and went hiking with her once a week while I was at work. Our relationship was no longer awkward and was becoming serious. It seemed like all the pieces were falling into place. The first week she was with me had brought back some of the hesitation I had experienced as I tried to allow myself to interact with her as a man, not a missionary. The four weeks in the middle were bliss. Valerie was becoming my best friend. We had so much in common that it seemed there wasn’t time to discuss it all, and we enjoyed each others’ company. Knowing that our time together was limited, we tried to make the most of it. For much of the time we were together nearly 24/7. I was also staying in touch with Marie-France, who seemed elated that things were going so well between me and Valerie. It was almost too perfect.

The first feelings of uneasiness began when I looked at the calendar and realized that Valerie would be going home in less that two weeks. Home to France, home to a world that seemed agonizingly out of my reach. She would get on a plane and fly away, and then what? When would we see each other again? Could we just keep our lives on hold until we could be together again? What if one of us met someone else? Long distance relationships are one thing when you see the person semi-regularly, but both of us had to know that it wasn’t realistic to keep flying back and forth between Canada and France. I began to wonder if I was doing the right thing.

With a week left in her stay, I began subconsciously building a wall between myself and Valerie. I didn’t want to, but I wasn’t sure how I would react to losing her for good and began to unwittingly prepare myself psychologically. She kept reaching out to me, and I kept pulling away. I’m sure she felt the change, but she didn’t let it show. She just kept doing all the things that made her so perfect for me, and I kept concentrating on all the reasons I could think of that we wouldn’t be good for each other. The summer was ending, and time began to rush by like a landscape viewed from a speeding car, carrying us both to the point of decision that we knew was coming but didn’t want to face.

With three days left, Valerie went out on a limb and told me she loved me. She planned to return to France and exhibit some of her art to raise money to return to Canada. She had fallen in love with the country and with my family and wanted to spend the rest of her life here with me. She hoped to return at Christmas, and hoped that by then we could get engaged and plan for her to move to Lethbridge permanently in the spring. I was left reeling. I thought that I loved her too and I did want to be with her, but I wasn’t ready to commit to marriage. The reality of having to lock everything in so suddenly shocked me, and I suddenly found myself guarded and wanting to take a step back from the relationship to gather my thoughts. Engaged by Christmas? I wanted to take time to enjoy the relationship we had formed, but realized that with the distance in play, time wasn’t a luxury we could afford. I suddenly felt rushed and trapped, and hated myself for hesitating. Try as I might, I couldn’t think of a reason not to commit to her, other than fear. I tried to water down my response and told her that I wanted her to come back at Christmas but felt like we should slow things down a little bit. The words sounded weak and unconvincing, and I could tell that she didn’t understand. She was ready for the next step and I was not, and that hurt her.

The next few days fell into an awkward space between a desire to enjoy our remaining time together and the guarded caution that accompanied the uncertainty of our future together. When her plane took off, I felt sad, confused, and angry with myself. The empty feeling was back again, and I couldn’t figure out why I had not been able to offer her something more solid. At the same time, I knew I wasn’t ready to commit to marriage. I became bitter at the distance and the obstacle it presented, and wanted to return to France. Most of all, I thought of Valerie and wondered if I would see her again.

As it turned out, the answer was no. When she got on the plane that day in Calgary, she walked out of my life forever. We continued to write regularly and spoke at least once a week, but by the end of September it was clear that the distance was already working its way between us. The letters became less frequent, the conversation began to stall, and we found that we were living parallel lives that no longer had much in common. She had begun a new series of paintings based on the prairies and grain elevators that had captured her while she was in Canada, and her art was taking up most of her time. I had begun playing in a band and was hanging out with people she didn’t know in places she had never been. To her credit, she held on faithfully and never questioned me. I tried to remember the connection we had and remind myself how good we were for each other, but I still couldn’t get past the feeling that I was not ready to commit to marriage. In the end, it began to hurt her. Although she never said anything outright, a change crept into her voice that told me that I had wounded her deeply. By mid-October, I could no longer allow myself to keep going through the motions. It wasn’t fair to her, and I cared for her enough to realize that I couldn’t make her wait forever. I agonized over the decision, convinced that I was about to throw away the most important thing in my life but convinced that it was the only fair thing to do. It took me four days to finish writing my thoughts and feelings down, but on a chilly fall day in Granum, Alberta, I left my job managing a campground and walked through the swirling leaves to the tiny post office where I mailed the letter that ended my relationship with Valerie Passerieux.

I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I remember the line from the song “Full of Grace” by Sarah McLachlan that I wrote at the end of the letter:

“I know I can love you much better than this, but it’s better this way”.

I spent the winter alone. Valerie continued to write to my mother, and sent photos of her grain elevator paintings. One of them in particular made me feel like it had been painted for me. It was dark and stormy, showing a single elevator amidst waving prairie grasses against a backdrop of a sky heavy with cloud. To this day, I wish I had that painting. Valerie continued to write to me occasionally, but I could tell that it was painful for her. In December 1998 I moved to Calgary, where I gradually fell out of touch with almost everyone I had known in France. The letter I had sent to her had not only removed Valerie from my life; it seemed that it had severed the connection between me and everything I had lived during my mission years. I began to feel the loss then, and I still feel it today. I made an effort to keep up contact with a few select people I had been closest to, and Valerie e-mailed me sporadically throughout the summer of 1999, then that too gradually died out. My mother still corresponded with her regularly, and seemed convinced that Valerie was waiting for me to reach out to her and resume our relationship. I never tried.

In 2000, Valerie moved in with a French military officer named Benoit. By that time she wasn’t much more than a footnote in my thoughts, and I married my wife in February 2001. In October 2002 I wrote a letter to Marie-France and got a response. At that time Valerie was now married to Benoit and they were living in La Reunion, expecting their first child. I sent another letter to Marie-France in early 2003 after the Bear was born, but never got a response. I think she has moved now, and I don’t know how to contact her. Likewise, I have no idea how to contact Valerie if I wanted to. I don’t know where she is, what she is doing, or how things are going for her. I am happy with my life, but sometimes I wonder how different things would be right now if I had made the decision to stay with her. I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. I wish I could talk to her again and maybe do a better job of explaining why I did what I did. I’m sure she doesn’t even think about it anymore, but I wish that I could just have one more conversation with her to clear the air and let her know that she really was a very important part of my life.

Everyone comes into your life for a reason, some people just stay in it longer than others. Valerie Passerieux, wherever you are now, I wish you well.

A slippery slope

It is truly amazing how quickly seasons change. It seems like only yesterday I was shovelling snow off my sidewalks and waiting for my car to warm up before driving to work every morning. Today, the smell of new growth is in the air and the warmth of spring is promising a glorious summer.

Only a week ago, I was driving to the mountains and saw ice in the ditch at the side of the highway. It reminded me of my childhood. I recall the huge lakes of melting snow that used cover the schoolyard in the early spring. They would freeze during the night, leaving perfect skating patches all over the fields. By late morning recess, they would have begun to thaw but were still usually solid enough to support our weight. We would venture out on them, looking through to the matted grass below the ice and wondering exactly how deep they might be. Ultimately, one of us would find out. We would follow the bubbles below the surface to a weak point in the ice and it would crack, sending us plunging into the frigid puddle below. Some of the puddles were more than a foot deep, and the unfortunate victim(s) would spend the rest of the afternoon sitting in class in jeans soaked up to the knees with the rest of us laughing at the ridiculous squooshing sounds their shoes made when they walked. Often, when the ice broke it would send its victims tumbling, resulting in drenched clothing and a call home for dry clothes.

Things were different then. The teachers would shake their heads and hang their heads in disgust at our foolish antics, but that was all. There were no angry phone calls from parents accusing us of being improperly supervised, and no coloured tape warning us to stay off the puddles the next day. It was somehow more relaxed in the days before finger pointing and litigation over children having some harmless fun.

When they plowed the snow off the parking lots, they would shove it all to the end of the pavement so it could melt into the field. After a big snowfall, the piles would be huge; sometimes ten or fifteen feet high. For a six year-old child it was literally a mountain, and the race would be on to climb it and slide down the other side. After a few kids had been down, the snow would pack down into icy chutes that were almost like a miniature bobsled track. We would spend all of recess and hours after school climbing and sliding down the snow piles. Some of the older kids would get really creative, digging tunnels and holes in the piles and trying to incorporate them into the slides. It became almost a theme park of boot-sliding. Inevitably, it all came to an end. A young girl slipped and fell down one of the ice chutes and sustained a serious head injury. That was the end of the snow piles. The front-end loaders used to clear the snow from the parking lots would ensure that it was carefully spread out and packed down, and the ice mountains quickly became a thing of the past.

Today, it seems like everything has become diluted and homogenous, like a watered-down, safe for everyone version of a life that has been deemed too dangerous for us to live. We are protected from ourselves at every turn, with most elements of our lives dumbed down into a one-size-fits-all amalgamation of paranoia and overblown caution. Our kids can no longer ride a bicycle without helmets and body armour. We used to build ramps out of rotten firewood and jump our BMX bikes over garbage cans. Half the time the ramp would crumble on impact and we would crash horrifically into the trash cans. No helmets, no wrist guards or protective gear. Just a crowd of seven year-old boys who knew that if you could still stand up after the crash, you were OK to try it again.

This week I watched the icy fields of yesteryear become the calm near growth of spring. For the last twenty-five years I have watched as the things we once considered normal have become unacceptable risks. Social seasons, it seems, are also subject to change. I’m not sure I agree with a philosophy that robs us of experiences because we might need protection from our own bad choices. We are not all crack addicts in need of someone to police our behaviour. As I teach my son to ride a bike for the first time and watch him strap on all manner of protection, I wonder if maybe we haven’t taken this a little too far. Will we soon all be living in plastic bubbles for our own protection? The worst thing that ever happened to us when the ice broke was that we got wet, and I think I’ll take my chances with that.

Happy Mother’s Day

I am thankful for my mother. I haven’t always been able to say that with a straight face, but as I grow older I realize how stupid I was back then and it is much easier for me to be appreciative now. Thanks heavens the woman is as patient as she is.

My children are lucky to have a good mom. She cares for them and is sensitive to their needs in so many ways that I am maybe not. I guess she just understands them on a different wavelength than I do, and they are better off for it. She is the centre of their universe, and the most important figure in mine. We are all lucky to have her, and I am thankful for it. Too all you moms out there, cheers.

Past vs. Present

This coming weekend was supposed to be a getaway trip for my wife and I. As it turns out, it seems that finances and time have once again conspired against us and we won’t be going anywhere, except perhaps to Lethbridge for the weekend. We had originally planned to go to Utah for the weekend and leave our kids with my parents, but now it seems everyone has made alternate plans and our window of opportunity has closed.

Ten years ago, I served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was an fantastic experience and was probably among the most difficult two years of my life thus far. Being stuck in a foreign country far away from friends, family, and the familiar can lead one to form relationships quickly, and some of the friends I made on my mission will be remembered forever. This weekend there is a ten-year reunion of sorts for my mission and I very much wanted to go. I have not seen most of these people in at least ten years and it is entirely possible that, this weekend excepted, I will never see them again. Unfortunately, it appears that there isn’t much of a decision to make.

I am faced with an unpleasant reckoning. The demands of my life and my family have drained me of any disposable income I might once have had, and have eaten up my free time as well. I have to watch myself sometimes that I don’t begin to resent it. This reunion has been planned since before Christmas and I had every intention of going. It wasn’t until about a month ago that the bills started arriving, the kids started needing summer clothes, our vehicles started needing repairs, and the money I had allocated for the trip began bleeding away into the family finances. I suppose that from a certain standpoint I should be grateful that we had the means to pay for these necessities, but on the other hand I am disappointed that we can’t make the trip. I was looking forward to spending some time alone with my wife, and I had convinced myself that 5 years of sacrifice had earned me the right to do something for myself. Apparently, fate didn’t agree.

Rather than allowing myself to become bitter and angry, I have to force myself to evaluate once again what is truly important to me. My family is priority number one whether I like it or not, and my children are a tremendous blessing even if they are outrageously expensive. I am slowly coming to grips with the idea that I will never have any money for myself ever again. If I could just figure out how to get them to stop eating, I’d be in good shape.

Looking at it with that in mind, I have to rationalize that present is more important than past. Old friendships will have to be allowed to fade away, and relationships will be dulled by the hands of time as I serve a more worthy cause. It hurts sometimes, because I really don’t want to let these things go. Things like this reunion are a reminder of the experiences, places, and people that have made me the person I am today, and I don’t think that is something that should be lightly dismissed. I’m sure that in a perfect world there is a balance, but it is something that so far has eluded me. The present is all-consuming. Sometimes I worry that I’m just being selfish, and that someone will find me pacing back and forth chanting the mantra “My kids are worth it, my kids are worth it, my kids are worth it” over and over again. Does that make me a bad father? Is it wrong to want to hold on to certain things because they make you feel like a whole person again instead of someone lost in the responsibilities of a demanding role?

Parenthood is so much more complicated than they teach you growing up. Raising the kids is only half of the struggle, and once money, time, and personal losses are factored in to the equation, I’m amazed that anyone comes out of it with their sanity intact. Thank goodness I really do love my kids.