Who More Foolish than I?

So pleasant and so stupid.  

The levied criticism tonight.  A night like no other, and hopefully never again.  Hopefully.  But hard to see how you misfired so dramatically, how you failed to notice the tell-tales until it was far too late, and failed to get rid of that last opened beer that - Chekhov-esq - to put the final stake into the mix.  The need to videotape.  The need to shelter the child from the blows.  The screams that were no doubt heard throughout the lake.  To be passed off as a nightmare, and the piss on the couch as AA’s.

But underlying the excessive mess (excessiveness, ha) are the daggers thrown, that come from a real source.  Missing intimacy.  Feeling as though you don’t care.  The “tips” she’s learned in the past two days, not sure what the lasting impression given was, but perhaps a fatal one.

The screams and the blows were new - the “I don’t care about your needs” comments, the selfish stuff, I get.  As much as I try, the Plaskett stuff and the Black Tot combined with the family all a bit much.  But just as things seemed to be going well, getting through the most hectic part of the summer… cannot say I was expecting this.  A further insight into human behavior and experience.  Imagining actually feeling threatened, or worrying about this happening again, over and over, and not being able to do anything about it.

Tonight, hopefully, the first and last of it.  How quickly the sobering up occurs.  It is 2:37 and I can’t see sleep coming until the sunrise.  Which should be nice from this bunkhouse on Caribou.  More memories.  Oh me.  Oh life.  Of the questions of these recurring.  The main question is, what’s next?

Raza, Argentia

Another bottle of air, another airing of grievances amidst an overall pretty decent day and week.  Lack of sleep a killer all around, as is the underlying soundtrack of our teething young man, who wails even as he enjoys the tummy time and bathing and strolling the Eastern Passage boardwalk bumps.  It is a new life, and one that needs adjusting.  Inviting someone into the family quirks and intracies... "so hard," haha.  Remember?

Mush-A-Mush, and Time

Maybe it was Max’s comment, that the next generation of kids has arrived.  Maybe it was the long day today, the (im)patiently waiting at checkout and for another wig purchase.  Maybe it is this fabulous J Lohr wine. Maybe it is seeing everyone at the lake, beholding the memories in real time.  Maybe it is the realization that you will now be here, long-term, and Bissett will still need some escaping from.  And maybe it’s Ernst going up for sale.  The idea of finding a better spot in NS is foolish.  Tancook or Brier or Tangier or otherwise.  

Build on foundations, on memories.  Get a trailer even, and drop the SC on a mooring there and get Inch involved as co-owner caretaker, subsidizer, etc.  

The last is the genius idea, how it works.  With him and TKR down the road, as successors to Reid and JAM before him, it can be done and ensures continuity and full usage and .  Fills a need for them and a sharing that will last.  Inclusion easily sold for that very purpose.  The linch-pin, of sorts.

And so it can begin/continue.  This ongoing process of taking ages to come around to inevitable conclusions.  And, when it comes, maybe the feeling of everyone saying finally, he’s come to it on his own, here it is.

For - if you think on it - the nostalgia for the future line drove a lot, as did the desire for solitude, the need and desire to remain hidden.  The lack of responsibility.  There is no running from that now.  And so that ground where you jumped once yourself, and climbed once yourself, and spent so so so much time.  Why not pass it on. Why not keep this place at Maplewood for unique day-to-day things and the Mush-a-Mush oasis for the broader welcomes.

Legacy is a funny thing.  It is such a big world, and choices can have such long-lasting ramifications.  But what you need to know, is that the good choices you let ride, and the bad ones you change up as soon as you are able.  And that’s how it can all work out.  

Time, as an old colleague Liam wrote coincidentally tonight.  Not exactly clear when certain shifts occur, and when they can be gradual all the better, maybe best?  The old Hemingway quote, gradually then suddenly.  Recent realizations have been like that, post-Covid in particular.

Messages tonight to Gander and to Connors, both alike in their own ways.  Be nice to see them.  And perhaps we shall soon.  Let’s see how it all unfolds.  Sail tomorrow.  Own the ocean, McMahon.

Greenworks

Mowing of the lawn.  The putting together of the equipment from China, the ease of it and the unexpected satisfaction.  Hard to describe that sense of revels, it was not in the plan but that just means the plan was not that good.  How did you arrive here, that lawn, this kitchen.  Just in time for this child. Who continues to look sceptical, inquisitive, questioning.  But the smiles come, and as Ray said you own the world.  And the growth and strength.  

Still hard to believe he is a human, to one day go  by about his business independently on this fair globe.  But I guess that’s the real magic.  You have him for this little bit.  We are trying, my beloved son.  Can’t wait to see.