Truths and Half Truths

Some Writer That I Used To Know

I used to be a writer.

I was pretty good at it, too.  I could write the hell out of any topic I had an opinion about and hey, I have opinions about pretty much everything.  I was fast, too - hugely productive.  Page after page, day after day, all of it grammatically impeccable, a lot of it funny or pointed or poignant or capable of moving you or inspiring you or maybe just making your day a little better.

I used to be a writer.  Then I stopped.

I stopped writing here.  And for a while I told myself it was just here that I stopped - I mean, I was still churning out an 800 word nationally syndicated column a week, every week, without fail (and if you think that's easy, you're not a writer.  You're one of those people who say, "I could be a writer."  News flash:  No, you can't.).

And then I stopped writing the column.  In my final column, after 26 years of weekly pontificating, I did a rough word count.  I figured I had written more than a million words.  That surprised even me:

                                **********************

When I do an approximate count of the number of columns I have churned out in that time, I come up with over 1,300.  At an average of 800 words per column, that’s more than one million words I have sent out into the world.

Really?  One million words?  

Does anyone have that much to say?  More to the point, does anyone have that much to say that is worth listening to?

                                 ************************

I stopped writing a column in July of 2011, but if I'm being truthful, I'd spent the previous three years coasting.  In 26 years I had accumulated well over a thousand columns - it was easy enough to sit down the night before my deadline, call up some random column from ten or twelve years before, re-jig, re-tool, pimp it out, change the references to bring it up to date, and pass it off as new work.  There may have been some new pieces - pick a percentage that will make you happy.  But not nearly enough.

I'd been passing myself off as a writer, and putting out work I wasn't proud of.

Nobody else complained.  From time to time I'd get a note from an editor saying, "This last column has a familiar ring to it ...", but nobody accused me of outright plagiarism.  And I'm not sure one can plagiarize oneself anyway.  People still wrote me letters or emails or stopped me on the street and would say things like, "When I get the paper, your column is the first thing I turn to.  It's my favourite part of the paper."

And when they did, I would throw up in my mouth a little.

I wasn't cheating the papers.  I wasn't failing the readers.

I was cheating myself.  I was failing myself.  I was embarrassed and ashamed.  And I stopped because I couldn't take that feeling any more.

So, I was no longer writing a column.  But that was OK.  I was still writing.  I had a book on the go.  I was just writing different things.

Except I wasn't.  And I refused to admit it to myself.  Until this week.

This week I started to actually bear down and write the book I'd started back in ... God, I don't even remember, 2007?  2008?  And all those things that once came to me so easily, all those parts of "writing" that had been such a joy, just weren't there.

I know why.  The act of writing is like any other exercise: if you don't do it, every day, your muscles atrophy.  But my muscles had atrophied to the point where I began to question my ability to ever write again.  How had they fallen into such disuse?  

It seemed important to me to find out why I stopped writing.  And it seemed that the best place to start was to find out when.

Well, that took about three minutes.

On February 9, 2008, I wrote this piece about the death of my brother Jay. 

A week or so later, I posted a video of some puppies.  Three weeks after, a few pics.  A month after that ... 

The posts were thin on the ground and getting more and more sporadic.  

There were a couple of more bursts - both surrounding my Dad's passing.  But it's clear this was where things came crashing down on me as a writer.

So that's the when.

The why ...?

Here's my theory - and that's all it is.  I am not a psychiatrist or psychologist but this is as close as I can come to why things went off the track:

I once asked my Dad about an Air Force ritual.  When a pilot took it into the ground, there would be a gathering at the Officer's Mess that night.  Drinks would be poured all around, a toast proposed to the fallen comrade, and as each drink was downed, the men would file past the fireplace and dash their glasses into the bricks.

 

It seemed wasteful to me, so I asked my Dad why.  "It's so those glasses can never be used for anything less worthy," he said.

I think, on some level, that's how I felt after spilling out all those words about my brother.  I had words - sure I did.  But I couldn't bring myself to write about anything less worthy.  It just felt ... pointless.

Maybe I'm full of shit.  I've been full of shit before.  But that's what I got.  I'm treating it as an epiphany.

And the thing is - I'm wrong.  Not about the epiphany.  About the pointlessness.

It's not pointless to write words that just amuse or brighten someone's day.  It's not pointless to write about sunshine or grandchildren or sore feet or mice or ... well, anything.

You know what's pointless?  It's pointless to waste a gift.  It's pointless to be able to write and to not allow yourself to.  Because I'm not punishing you.  You've seemed to get along just fine without my words.

I've been punishing me.

So ... time to stop.

Time to start.

They Once Were Boys

I have two daughters.  When they were teenagers, a friend asked me if I wished I had boys.

“Are you kidding me?” I said.  “Have you seen my daughters?  I’ll never have a shortage of boys around.”

And it was always true.  Until they settled on their husbands-to-be, I always had more boys around than I knew what to do with.

 

It was an education.  Even having been one, I never realized how dopey teenaged boys - and even young men - could be.

One time my eldest daughter’s fiancee was helping me trim some branches off the apple tree by the garage.  About twenty feet up, he stopped and straddled a limb, then plucked an apple off a branch and, bracing himself against the trunk, swung the axe like a baseball bat, trying to connect.  He missed, and nearly overbalanced.  So he tried again.  And again.

I blinked slowly and looked at my daughter.  She rolled her eyes. “He’s a boy.  Boys don’t think first.  They do, then they think.”

When I look at the two young men who shook out of the pack and stuck around, I can appreciate them for their good qualities.  They’re both funny and bright and charming and certainly show an adorable, puppy-dog kind of goofiness.

They’re young fathers now, closer to thirty than twenty, but I’ve known them both since they were about 17 and in high school..  In many ways, that’s how I’ll always see them - young, dorky, prone to shaky judgment, prone to the occasional hangover, and sometimes just ... well, prone.

 Hey, they were kids.  A night spent hugging the toilet bowl is God’s way of teaching us that alcohol ought to be sipped, not guzzled, and it’s a lesson most of us learned the hard way.

All this brings me - in a typically roundabout fashion - to November 11th.  What my American friends know as Veteran’s Day is known in Canada as Armistice Day or, more commonly, Remembrance Day.

On November 11, Sunday, I’ll do what I always do: go down to the Cenotaph in the centre of town and watch as the ever-thinning parade of snowy-haired, stoop-shouldered veterans marches past and they collectively accept the applause and gratitude of their fellow citizens.

 

And I’ll think about who they once were.

They were teenagers, most of them - or at best, barely into their twenties.  They were the very same age as those young men who my daughters looked at with such adoring eyes.  They were alive and brimming with energy and confidence and great ideas and sky-high hopes and that unique feeling of utter invincibility that comes from being so ridiculously young that any aches you get disappear overnight.

It’s hard to see that as these senior citizens parade past.  But then, it’s equally hard to imagine my daughters’ boyfriends and their pals in the boots those veterans wore 70-odd years ago.

Picture a teenaged kid you know well - a son, or a nephew, or the kid down the street.  Now, lock his face into your mind ... take a moment and really do this ...

Now ...

... picture him, all gangly and coltish and fuzzy-faced, in an Army uniform.  How preposterous he would look, how laughably out of place, crouched down in a landing craft rolling violently off Juno Beach in the hours before dawn of June 6, 1944.

Picture that teenager you know so well leaping up as the landing craft hits the shore, piling into the backs of his buddies as the front gate slams open ... and finding himself in the gaping maw of a Hell he could never have imagined when he signed up with all his friends.

 

He rushes forward, the very air around him rent with streaks of sizzling death, the ground under his feet shaking.  He hears a voice scream his name and he turns.  

It’s his best friend, the pal he used to go out and drink beer with only a few months and a lifetime ago.  They’d build huge bonfires on the beach and bet one another they could jump over the flames, and he can still remember the time his buddy misjudged and ended up with flames licking at the crotch of his pants and had to run over and sit in the water and how they laughed about that for months.

But now when he looks back, his best friend is missing half his face, and that can’t be right.  And in the next few seconds eight more bullets slam into the inert body, adding insult to death.  Someone smacks his back, urging him up the beach and he goes, even though every step brings him closer to the same kind of hideous fate.  But he runs, because what else is there to do ..?  And those last thirty seconds have forever changed him, and very few of his friends and loved ones will ever understand just how much.

It’s so painful.  I close my eyes and focus, and still it’s almost impossible to see those ... those boys that hung around my house going through that Hell.

 

That’s a good thing, I suppose.

But it means I have to work harder to appreciate Remembrance Day.  I have to tax the limits of my imagination to glimpse the sacrifice and pain and horror these veterans went through so that my generation - and my daughters’ generation - wouldn’t have to.

 I have to do it.  

These old men who once were so young deserve nothing less.

Another Catversation

“Door!”

“Excuse me?”

“Door. Get the door. The door. You know, with the knob? You turn it. It opens. I go out. Door.”

“I know what a door is.”

“And yet, it remains unopened.”

“... and will continue to do so.”

“Do you mind? I’d like to go out.”

“I just let you in.”

“And ...? Sorry, I don’t see the problem.”

“... and I have better things to do than to hop up from my desk to let you in and out every few minutes.”

“Just this one time.”

“That’s what you said the last time. And the time before that. And the time before that. And ...”

“I see where you’re going with this. But don’t worry. This will be the last time.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“Because you always do?”

“Fine. Go out. But don’t come running and howling to be let back in right away.”

“I honestly don’t see what your problem is. I’m not asking you to build me a doorway and carry me over the threshold on a litter. Just open the door.”

“... on demand. Every five minutes.”

“Like I don’t do anything for you. What did I bring you this morning?”

“A mouse. You brought me a dead mouse. A headless, dead mouse.”

“Exactly. And what do I ask for in return? I just want the door opened from time to time. Seems like a small price to pay.”

“For a dead mouse.”

“I'm sorry, did you want me to bring them back alive?”

“I don’t want you to bring them back at all.”

“Well, aren’t we gracious?”

“Just leave nature outside, where it belongs.”

“Speaking of which, you might want to have a quick peek at the litter box. It’s reaching critical levels.”

“If you’re outside all day, why don’t you do your business out there? We’re surrounded by fields.”

“You’re outside during the day. I don’t see you crouched behind a bush.”

“You also don’t clean up after me.”

“Must we discuss this? It’s kind of ... well, gross.”

“Fine. Out you go. Enjoy.”

“Wait. It’s raining. You never told me it was raining.”

“I didn’t know. And it’s just a sprinkle.”

“It’s a downpour. I’m not going out into that.”

“Fine. Get out of the doorway and I’ll close the door.”

“Hang on. Let’s just stand here for a bit and see if it clears up.”

“In or out. Decide.”

“Fine. Out. I’ll go out.”

“Off you go, then.”

“In a minute. It seems to be easing up.”

“In or out.”

“Fine, then. In.”

“You got it. Clear the doorway.”

“Wait. Out.”

“Look, I’m not – “

”In. Definitely in.”

“Good call. Now, off you go. You must be way behind on your napping. I’ll be in my office, trying to get some work done.”

“Door!”

“What?”

“Changed my mind. I need to be out. Running free. You know I’m descended from the lion, don’t you? King of the Jungle. Didn’t you ever see Born Free? Those are my people. Er, cats. Kin.”

“Without putting too fine a point on it, you are descended from a mangy barn cat named Mathilda who rounded a corner one day and got pounced on by the neighbour’s tom. I just don’t see royal blood coursing through your noble veins. King of the Jungle. You’re not even Mayor of the Back Forty.”

“That’s very hurtful. I may not come home tonight, just for that.”

“Fine. We’ll change your name to ‘Dances With Coyotes.’”

“Ah. Right. So, then, I’ll be back just before dark. I’ll be hungry.”

“Of course you will. You’re always hungry. Enjoy yourself, Your Majesty.”

“I shall, my sarcastic, opposable-thumbed friend.”

“And no more dead mice.”

“Right, then.  Live it is. I’ll be back.  Ta-ta!”

A Conversation With My Dog

“Hi, you’re home!  Great!  Terrific!  I’ve missed you so much!”

“I was out for one minute.  I was just taking out the garbage.”

“Only one minute?  Really?  It seemed like seven minutes to me.  And it’s far too long anyway.  Hey, maybe we can go out, right now, you and me, together!  Whattya say, huh?  Wouldn’t that be fantastic?  I can go get my leash.  Or not.  I can wait for you to get my leash, if that’s better for you.  Whatever you want.  You’re great - did I mention how much I adore you?  You’re amazingly wonderful. Man, it’s just so great to see you again.  And have I told you lately you smell terrific?”

“Please stop sniffing me.  There’s nothing there that should interest you.”

“Are you kidding?  You’re a banquet of great smells.  Honestly, if I smelled half as good as you, I’d never stop licking myself.”

“You already do lick yourself a lot.”

“Exactly.  Imagine how much I would do it if I smelled as good as you.  I don’t know how you resist.”

“Limited flexibility.  But forget about that.  I want to talk about the garbage.”

“Oh, great, the garbage!  Let’s talk about it.  Here, let me get up on the couch with you and we can have a good long chat about the garbage, how would that be?”

“Off the furniture.  How many times have I told you that?”

“Oh, of course, yes, sorry, the furniture.  I’m so sorry.  Hey, do you want to go out for a walk?  You and me?  Just like old times ...”

“I took you for a walk not an hour ago.”

“Exactly.  So long ago.  And I’m not sure, but I think I have to pee.  I can’t remember if I went earlier.”

“You peed eighteen times in a five minute walk.”

“Eighteen times?  Really?  Well, a lot of those times weren’t actually because I had to go.  I was leaving messages for the other dogs..”

“Oh, come on.  What kind of message?  I was here, and here, and here,  and I have a bladder problem?”

“Be fair.  You get mad when I try to bark.  And it’s easy for you.  You just use the phone.  Try doing that without opposable thumbs.  Or a finger to dial with.”

“Back to the garbage.”

“Right, yes, the garbage.  Delicious.  Thank you so much for leaving it out.”

“You spread it all over the kitchen floor.”

“Was I not supposed to?  Is there a rule about that?  I can’t remember.  There was something about garbage, I know that much ...”

“How about “Stay out of the garbage.”  Does that ring a bell?”

“Really?  Is that new?  I have to say, I don’t remember the ‘stay out’ part.  Complete blank.  I remember “garbage”.  You’ve mentioned it before.  It’s delicious.  Where did we land on the whole “going out” thing?  I could really go for a good, long walk right now.  I missed a couple of tufts of grass when I was sniffing earlier.  I should probably check my messages.”

“Never mind that.  Did you see how long it took me to clean up that mess?”

“Was that what you were doing?  I could have helped.  I love the garbage.”

“I know.  But no more getting into it, OK?”

“Sure, fine.  Now ...  what was it you wanted to say about the garbage?”

“Never mind.  I give up.”

“Okay, so ... we’re done here?  I was thinking if we’re done, we might want to go for a walk.  Or not.  We don’t have to.  But it would be fun, I think.  Don’t you think?”

“Fine.  We’ll go for another walk.”

“Great!  I’ll get the leash.  Did I mention you’re wonderful?  I love you.  I really do.”

“Yeah.  You’re my best friend.  I get it.”

A Conversation With My Cat

“Do you mind? Napping here.”

“On my bed.”

“Still. You threw your robe right on top of me. Rude.”

“The tip of the terry-cloth belt grazed your tail. And again, my bed. Go sleep in the cat bed I bought you.”

“No can do. It’s inadequate.”

“In what way?”

“First, no sunbeam. I need a sunbeam. Secondly, the mattress is thin and lumpy.” 

“I’ve seen you sleep on top of the TV.”

“It’s warm. You should try it sometime. Thirdly, it’s all covered in cat hair.”

“Your hair. Which you are now depositing on my bed.”

“It needed a homey touch. Now, do you mind?”

“Right. You need your sleep. You must be all shagged out after the nap you had a few minutes ago.”

“Ohhh, sarcasm. Charming.  Where are you when I’m up all night, protecting the house?”

“From what? Marauding daffodils? Rogue African violets? I wake up in the morning and every plant in the house has little cat teeth marks.”

“Protecting the house is hungry work. Have you seen any mice lately?”

“No, thank goodness. Wouldn’t want to have them in the house, eating our plants.”

“Again with the sarcasm. You have no idea how destructive mice can be. You never show me the appreciation I deserve for killing them.”

“I’ve seen you with a mouse. You don’t kill it. You play with it.”

“Well, really, it’s only sportsmanlike. Look at the size difference.”

“It’s not "sportsmanlike". It’s a game for you. You bat it around like a toy until it figures out how to get away, then you sit there and look blankly at the crack it disappeared into for hours, like it’s going to come out to play again.”

“It's not beyond the realm of possibility. And without putting too fine a point on it, if the crack wasn’t there, we wouldn’t have this problem.”

“WE don’t have a problem. YOU have a problem. Your problem is, you do nothing to earn your keep and you treat all of us in this house like we’re some sort of carbon-based cat food dispensing units. Then you give me attitude when I come in and you’re on MY bed.”

“You seem tightly wound. You know what would relax you? Why don’t you take that dog-thing you inflicted on this house out for a walk? I hear there’s some nice hiking to be had close to the highway. Don’t bother with the leash.”

“What, so you can roam around the house, clawing at the sides of the furniture?”

“Oh, do you not like that? I must have missed the memo. I think it lends a sort of rustic feel to the whole room. No offence, but before I puffed the sides up a bit, the couch was ... well, a tad on the austere side.”

“Honestly, why do we keep you around?”

“Because you love to rub my tummy. And you love it when I purr. And you adore how I curl up on your chest to sleep ...”

“Well, OK. That is nice.”

“... and you don’t know that one day I’m going to curl up on your face and smother you while you sl – ...”

“Hey!”

“I’m sorry. That wasn’t supposed to be out loud. Strike that from the record.”

“Get off my bed. Now.”

“Fine. But when you get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom? I’d wear slippers if I were you.”

“Stupid cat.”

“Useless human. Now, off with you.  Go fill my dish. And for God’s sake, moisten the kibble. We are not savages.”