Category: Uncategorized

Gillesheree

Gilles Plante died on March 2, 2024. By choice.

Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in 2017, Gilles made his own decision about when and how to leave this planet.

Years earlier, it was said, Gilles watched his mother deteriorate and die with Alzheimer’s disease. He wanted to spare himself and his loved ones that same unlovely fate.

So with the assistance of MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) Nova Scotia, Gilles Plante chose to die at a time and place of his own choosing.

Gilles Plante was married for over 30 years to author Sheree Fitch. Sheree called him her Deeply Dimpled Frenchman (having been born and raised in Quebec, Canada).

Sheree Fitch might be a relative unknown in the US unless you have, or ever had, kids. In Canada, she is a superstar.

Stories like Toes in My Nose and Sleeping Dragons All Around enthralled my kids when they were little. Truth be told, those books enthralled their Mom, too.

So when CBC/Radio Canada TV cameraman Gilles met much-published children’s author Sheree Fitch, a beautiful love story and life journey began. Their mutual adoration was obvious and enviable to outsiders.

Sheree’s inherent talent and goodness pours out of her pores. Always has done.

Enter Gilles who had – as Sheree once described – the kindest eyes she had ever seen. Their meeting in Halifax, NS derailed Gilles’ ambition for an overseas CBC posting and had him happily step into the role of husband and stepfather to Sheree’s two children.

Gilles eventually did land a foreign posting in Washington, DC for a number of years. When he retired, they headed back to Canada to fulfill a mutual lifelong dream. Gilles and Sheree bought a hobby farm together in River John, Nova Scotia that would become their home base and a local cultural beacon.

On the farm, Gilles got to pursue his woodworking passion and take care of animals. Sheree continued to write and create. They became deeply entrenched cheerleaders in and for their new community.

So when the River John community school closed, Gilles and Sheree were eager to fill the void. Thus Mabel Murple’s Dreamery was born. A “bookshoppe” by definition but actually so much more.

A gathering place. A recitation hall. A cultural flag and beacon of literacy planted in rural Nova Scotia. Until COVID hit, book lovers and Mabel Murple lovers and Sheree Fitch lovers came by the thousands to visit this “summer season only” literary oasis.

I have been a Sheree fan for decades from a distance. I have watched her star rise in the Canadian literary firmament. I have delighted in her delicious wordplay and slippery command of the English language.

I watched her marriage somewhat wistfully and I celebrated Sheree. I felt her happiness was the just dessert she reaped for the joy and delight she spread about to others with abandon.

In the wake of COVID, Sheree and Gilles lost their adult son Dustin. Fate can sometimes seem crueler and more intentional to some than others. For no good reason.

Difficult fate came into Sheree’s life once again recently. In the past two weeks, Sheree lost not only Gilles, but her beloved mother, Doe. Too much for any soul to have to bear. Let us hope it is true that God never gives us anything more difficult than we can handle.

In her “Museletter,” Sheree asked for words from friends and acquaintances at this tender time. Her experience of life-altering loss is all too relatable and ahead of all of us, if we haven’t yet experienced it.

But in the sweet words of love and appreciation shared about Gilles in his obituary, we are left with what we all might want at our passing. The choice to have made our own decision about where, when and how we elect to leave the earth. And with whom.

To have loved and to have been loved as Gilles and Sheree did each other is a great legacy for anyone to hope for.

In terms of devotion, longevity, productivity, and joyously living every day, Gilles and Sheree set a very high bar indeed.

RIP Gilles Plante and Doe Fitch.

You lived well and with much love – given and received.

That’s something we should all hope for when we take our leave.

A Month to Go(al)

In my personal calendar, this is an important milestone. One month until I hit the one year mark in publishing a daily blog post. A normal year is 365 days. I get to wrap up this accomplishment in 366 days being a leap year and all.

That’s just like me. Always taking off a little bit more than I can chew. And full confession, I will have hit my goal on March 13th. March 14th, 2023 is when I published my first post on this journey. So 367 days.

Like any destination I aim for, I certainly hope to get there. I wasn’t sure when I set out if I would. (I’m still not if I’m honest. A lot can change or go sideways in 30 days.) Like I said, I hope to get there.

I expect my posts over the next thirty days to be more reflective. More filled with figuring out what this exercise was all about. More filled with stock-taking. More winding up for the BIG FINISH. The false construct of a false deadline that is important to me and me alone.

What have I learned? The secret to life and living? Some aspects of what matters most in a lifetime are clearer to me.

The greatest learning may be that living life is much simpler than we conceive it to be in our heads. The basis are the basics. We deviate too far from them at our peril. The basics are essential to our survival.

I found this quote from Richard Feynman and it sums up an aspect of what I’ve learned and how I’ll shape my life moving forward. To keep moving forward seems to be the most consistent advice I’ve heard and read out of some of the world’s greatest minds.

For all of the deliberate obfuscation and mental gymnastics some people engage in to inflate their sense of importance, this advice is stupefying in its’ simplicity

Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don’t think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn’t stop you from doing anything at all.

Richard Feynman

By the way and by way of bringing up a non sequitur, speaking of love, today is Valentine’s Day.

A celebration of love they say.

From where I sit, it seems more like a celebration of chocolates and flowers and ballooning the bottom line of the companies that sell them

Not that I’m cynical.

I like chocolates and flowers as much as the next person.

Punctuating my looming period of deeper self-reflection, a sampling of chocolates can only assist the effort.

The Banality of Evil

ED. NOTE: I never talk (much) or directly about political issues. Today I was moved to for a couple of reasons. The spectacle that is unfolding “out there” of unchecked evil rising to power (again) and an age-old pattern of revictimizing sexual assault victims in courtrooms, tidily presented in one offensive person.

No one likes to talk about sexual assault. Often least of all, women who have been its victims.

This week, I’ve watched and read in anger Donald Trump’s derisive and disrespectful conduct at the defamation trial brought by his rape victim, E. Jean Carroll.

For the record, can we step back for a minute and consider that Ms. Carroll is 80 years old? She’s not trying to build her resume or gain instant fame. Quite the contrary.

For me, that is significant. Society is largely incapable of handling sexual assault cases in any semblance of what might be deemed sensitivity, compassion, or a clear and collective understanding of the power dynamic that lands women in that unfortunate position.

I like that E. Jean Carroll is 80 and fighting this renewed fight against her attacker. She already won $5 million in a civil lawsuit against Trump for raping her in a department store fitting room some decades earlier.

So many elements of that victory astonished me. It astonished me that E. Jean Carroll was able to muster enough evidence to see Trump rendered accountable. It was not a criminal trial that she won, however, but a civil one.

That Trump had raped her was established and she was awarded damages accordingly.

She is back in court now charging Trump with defamation for the hatchet job he did on her reputation after she won the civil suit. Many women’s victories in this arena of the law are shaky and short-lived. People don’t like hurt women who talk about it.

I don’t know if Carroll ever saw or will see the money she was awarded. I haven’t been able to confirm that. What I do know is that Trump’s inflammatory remarks in the courtroom about her after the award made her life a living hell. She endured death threats from the lunatic fringe that supports Donald Trump “no matter what.”

There is so much that defies logic these days. Donald Trump is perhaps the biggest logical disconnect out there. I can hardly write what I’ve read. That Donald Trump is poised to become the de facto Republican nominee for the 2024 Presidential election. Please god, make it not so. At this juncture, it seems only an act of god will derail him.

Trump’s renewed rise in the Republican ranks proved and proves two deeply unfortunate things. Fanatics attached to would-be dictators have made up their minds and won’t be dissuaded by any facts that paint him or her as less than s/he advertises.

Trump’s lifelong con of projecting superior business ability and success is all that matters to many. Even more bizarre is that anyone thinks he has the best interests of the American people in mind.

This view is deeply held in spite of the economic carnage he foisted on many unfortunates – contractors, consultants, small businesspeople – who were caught up in the wake of the Trump juggernaut.

What doesn’t make sense is his supporters who come from deeply religious backgrounds. The man is a walking affront to any and all things decent, honest, sacred and, yes – religious. And yet, here we are.

I am now deeply worried that intelligent and powerful spokespeople are expressing their deep concern over his possible reelection as President of the United States. Michelle Obama. Kamala Harris.

It is akin to the feeling of helplessness watching a loved one (or in this case, an overwhelming segment of the population of the USA) battle with an addiction that inevitably will destroy them if they don’t switch tracks.

So in a New York courtroom this week, Trump continued his revictimization of E. Jean Carroll by audibly hurling insults that she could hear to the point the judge considered evicting him from the courtroom.

“I would love that,” he crowed.

He uses every opportunity employed by responsible adults in authority to check and modify his behavior as another feather in his political cap. It is not only astonishing, but, as Michelle Obama, said very recently the prospect of Trump’s reelection is “terrifying.”

A recent issue of The Atlantic magazine was wholly devoted to an analysis by expert authors in various public sectors like defense, economy, justice to opine on the likely and devastating impact of a second Trump presidency.

While I read that issue with great interest, my heart sank at the same time. The Atlantic is preaching to the choir. It is not the well-educated, socially and politically sensitive crowd who has Trump’s back. They are programmed not to pick up a copy of such a magazine but if presented with it, are similarly primed to dismiss it and its content out of hand.

“Fake news,” you see.

I am not sure how the hand at work in this particular epoch of American and global history is going to play out. Borrowing from Eve Arden’s character in the movie All About Eve, there is only one prediction I can make with certainty about this 2024 election cycle.

“Fasten your seat belts, folks. It’s going to be a bumpy year.”

Just like E. Jean Carroll, a lot of Americans are going to be revictimized if the unthinkable but possible reelection happens – whether they know it or not. Time for folks to revisit Hannah Arendt’s book, The Banality of Evil.

[If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline: Confidential 24/7 Support: 1 – 800 – 656 – 4673]

On the Waterfront

I firmly believe we create happiness and today I have outdone myself.

I am at the oceanside in a houseboat in the Florida Keys. A gentle breeze is blowing off the water. The vibe is super chill and laid back. The biggest noises around me are water lapping on the edges of other houseboats, a floatplane passing by overhead and squawking seabirds.

I may take a boat ride today. Or not. Frankly, sitting out here on a mini-dock with a cup of coffee may be as much activity as I need to make this a perfect day.

Earlier, an earnest Chinese man with his young daughter strapped in the front of a kayak emerged from a stand of seagrass not far from me. He made his way into our area in the distance. He was clearly struggling. He paddled this way and the boat went that way.

He would dip the paddle in the water again and bumped up against another houseboat. This went on for quite some time.

The whole time his tiny little girl sat upfront in the boat completely relaxed. Dad grinned and struggled to get the strokes right. Eventually they disappeared back into the seagrass alley from which they emerged after about fifteen minutes in our little cove. The expression of Buddha-like calm on the little girl’s face never changed throughout.

A pelican just flew overhead. Yesterday driving down here to the Keys on the Tamiami Trail, I saw a flock of about twenty pure white pelicans roosting together in a tree. Very few pelicans where I live in Florida. No ocean nearby, you see. So these seabirds are a visual treat.

Sitting on my tiny deck to write, it has started to rain. Just a sprinkle but enough to send me back inside and freshen the air outside.

I brought with me the fixings for a nice Christmas Eve dinner. A tenderloin wrapped in bacon. A long russet potato to bake and have with sour cream. I’ll gently fry a serving of gourmet mixed mushrooms with sliced onions to complete the side dish.

For dessert, a fancified gourmet caramel apple.

A houseboat does not have much space to spare. The listing says it sleeps four but didn’t actually say comfortably. There is evidence of careful space planning aboard and an economy of amenities.

It reminds me of a much simpler time in my life when I was a regular traveler. With only a backpack and a pair of good hiking boots, I lit out for all sorts of places even less well equipped.

Places where the only potable water was in the fast running streams along the trail. Where I made coffee by throwing the grounds in an empty tin can over a thrown together fire of twigs and larger pieces of hardwood.

This houseboat reminds ever so slightly of those bygone days. Turns out I forgot the bag of coffee and teabags I thought I’d packed. I made do by breaking into a couple of Keurig coffee pods I liberated from the hotel I stayed in last night.

My Swiss Rosti breakfast was so generous it made a fine leftover breakfast this morning. The roll I couldn’t eat yesterday will be a mid-afternoon snack with the sliced ham and Swiss cheese the breakfast came with.

What I feel overall is safe, satisfied and self-sufficient. I often feel this way while traveling. There is aught to worry about except finding a safe place to sleep and meeting your basic needs. In my daily life, there is much too much busywork. The trick will be to transport the peaceful vibe here to my life at home.

It will start with lowering expectations. I have some fantasy in my head generated by fancy magazines of how life is supposed to look and be. I forget that those “ideal” environments are created by people whose entire focus – indeed their livelihood – is to make those places look as perfect as possible.

So others of us – okay, me – writhe in shame and feelings of insufficiency when a spoon is out of place in the cutlery drawer. Poppycock, say I.

I once thought I could happily live permanently in something like an RV or a houseboat or a boat, boat. I no longer think that is realistic. What I long for, I realize, is the simplicity and uncluttered surroundings that tight quarters require. I’ve learned that stuff expands to fill the amount of space available.

In truth, we don’t need all that much to live a happy life. Not as much as we think we do anyway. And by no means as much as the marketing geniuses in Manhattan and elsewhere want us to believe we do.

This morning, I made a camp coffee equivalent out of the two Keurig coffee pods, relished my leftover potato pancake with ham and eggs, listened to (and I am listening to) sweet South American flute music on my computer.

The birds glide continually and effortlessly overhead. Another party of houseboat renters across the cover have what appears to be about five dogs in tow. They are frolicking with abandon on the dock outside the floating houseboat.

I can feel the built-up stress of the past few months seeping out of the end of my toes and my body gently collapsing in relief. Happiness is this simple to achieve, my friends.

It is an important reminder on this Christmas Eve that the life and lifestyle you seek may only be a potent wish, some elbow grease and a few hundred miles away.

Or right on your own doorstep. It is all a question of attitude and perspective to achieve..

2024 will be a year of “deaccumulation” for me. A commitment to getting rid of excess to get back to the basics of happiness the hides underneath it.

Merry Christmas, ya’ll from the mostly sunny (but sometimes rainy) Florida Keys. Happiness on a houseboat for me this holiday.

But I Don’t Wanna

Getting up and on with it every day is a choice. Even raising the question may baffle some people. “Of course, we have to get up every morning and face the day.”

No we don’t. Not really. And therein lies the miracle and mystery of our lives.

It has been a long time since I heard the phrase “will to live.” We have not been actively and daily engaged in close-to-home wars or other mass traumas that provide us with examples. Yet I believe it is still very much a thing. How else does staying alive make any sense after heart shredding and gut-wrenching losses?

I watch in wonder at beautiful young men and women whose limbs have been blown off in foreign lands. They come home to recover and rehabilitate. What they have to recover from defies understanding. How they manage to go through the rehabilitation required to re-engage in their lives stupefies me.

These young men and women are lucky enough – if you can call it that – to have well-supported systems in place to aid in their recovery. And they go through recovery with fellow travelers dealing with similar injuries. They help each other find a reason to keep on living and moving forward.

War has always been riddled with stories of hope and recovery even in the most miserable and bleak conditions imaginable. I recently finished watching the mini-series The Pacific on Netflix. Not only did I not know much about the skirmishes that took place in the Forties in that part of the world, the story unfolds unsparingly episode by episode in reflecting the horrors of war.

I winced (as did any others who watched the series, I am sure) during a scene where an American Marine tosses rocks into the open skull and exposed brain of a recently killed Japanese soldier, sitting upright with his rifle still in his hands.

I did come away from that series with a better understanding of why veterans share such a deep and intractable bond. Sharing extreme experiences can do that.

Parents whose children were murdered in mass shootings. Victims of natural disasters. They likely use the same god-given techniques to get through and live with it. That experience was and would always be “theirs.”

Opportunities for extreme bonding generally diminish as we get older. Gone is the fresh blush and deep impact of first experiences (reflect on your first kiss or lover). We are more open and malleable in youth.

In fact, a key part of staying “young at heart” is remaining open. Which can be quite a challenge. Many people don’t even bother.

I recently attended a high school reunion where it was exciting and fun to catch up with our remaining high school buddies. The telling part was the stories of those who are still around and didn’t come. They hated high school then and saw no good reason to relive it now in their dotage.

Fair enough. But that attitude comes at a cost to everyone. Both themselves and those of us who missed seeing them again. It is very likely now that we never will.

We eventually learn to roll with life’s punches. We realize loss is a constant as life continually renews itself. “Out with the old, in with the new.” Like leaves in autumn, our friends start falling from the tree of our lives. Celebrities who defined our adulthood start to leave, too. Ryan O’Neal most recently.

Even political stalwarts like Henry Kissinger and the first woman to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, Sandra Day O’Connor have recently died. (I recall trying to reach her by telephone for the better part of a day for an interview on CBC-Radio when she was first appointed back in the Eighties. My calls were not returned. A missed journalistic coup.)

So this morning (if it wasn’t obvious), I didn’t wanna get up and face the day. No harm would have been done by me whiling the day away in bed. I’ve done it before. But, no. There is a “to-do” list to face. And a husband to make coffee for. And a blog post to write. And Christmas looming.

We may never fully understand and appreciate what external and internal forces get us up and moving forward every day. But I’m sure our will to live has something to do with it. And our tacitly held expectation of pleasant and happy surprises. Especially around Christmas.

This season of light and miracles practically demands we engage with or at least acknowledge the beautiful mysteries and possibilities of life. That’s enough to get me up and going on most days even as I balance less beautiful challenges with utterly no mystery.

It is all part of the whole that we eventually learn to accept as life. Both the astonishingly good and the horrifically bad.

A line from the poem Desiderata sums it up: “With all of its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.”

On it – even if somewhat sleepily and reluctantly this particular morning.

Natural Conclusions

My mother once owned 40 houses. You’d think she (and we, her descendants) would have lived and been as rich as royalty. We weren’t. Not by a long shot.

I came to see it this way. Humans being creatures of habits and all, we tend to get into behavioral grooves as adults. Call them what you will. Rituals. Routines. Habits. They can be a great comfort and source of strength in managing one’s life.

When the rest of the world appears batpoop gaga, those peculiar habits are things we can do for ourselves to assure us – fleetingly – that all is well in our world, if not in “the world.” I often struggle with this. There are things I do repeatedly that I am not convinced are the best use of my time and energy. But damn, they are a comfort.

It used to be said of “ladies” that to steady their nerves or comfort themselves, they might buy a new hat. The “lipstick economy” referred to the odd economic pattern of women buying more lipstick in economic downturns. It was a comfort and vanity they could still easily afford.

My mother epitomized these two phenomena. She had been a real estate broker when she was still married and miserable with my father. That world shattered and dissolved. But in her dotage she circled back around to “house buying” for comfort and distraction.

It had to be those reasons as there didn’t seem to be any major economic game plan, like securing her retirement or passing a substantial inheritance to her children and grandchildren.

I observed that her most frantic and frenetic house-buying activity was in the midst of a Herculean power struggle that she and I were engaged in. The house purchases angered me. For several reasons. The lack of a game plan to start. Who was going to manage and maintain all of these acquisitions, I wondered?

But if I’m honest, I was more angry because my mother’s relentless search and the process of buying houses deflected her energy from coming to any peace or resolution with me. It was like her old addictions to pills and booze which were always more important than I was.

She had a similar deflection strategy at night. I always appreciate the time before sleep as a time to review the day and put my thoughts and priorities in some kind of order. Badly and imperfectly but I at least allow myself that private, quiet time.

Mom slept with every major broadcaster in the industry for years. I should probably phrase that differently. Mom went to bed every night and slept with the radio on, listening to the likes of Larry King or Peter Gzowski and Stuart Maclean reruns or anyone else with the gift of gab.

What that said to me was that she was not comfortable in her own skin and at peace with her own thoughts. She had to cram the words of voices of others into her head so as not to listen to voices she didn’t want to hear. Like mine. It was her habit.

Deflection and distraction only hold up as coping strategies for awhile. If important things in your life are consistently deflected and ignored, there will be a day of reckoning. Hitting the proverbial brick wall as it is colloquially known.

And so that is exactly what happened to Mom and her empire. Low cost houses in poor shape attracted low rents and the renters that went with that scenario. Mom had a perpetual “soft spot” for birds with broken wings. The irony, of course, is that she never did accept and realize that she was a flightless bird herself so rendered by multiple losses and tragedies.

The “do-gooder” dynamic is pervasive and well-known. There are legions of folk out there who help others primarily to feel good and generous and to deflect any suggestion of neediness they might have themselves.

That sounds cynical I realize. I also believe there are genuinely generous and good people out there. There are also plenty of the others.

Mom lost all of the 40 houses. Short sales. Foreclosures. Tax disputes with the authorities which they inevitably won. She shrugged off the losses years later: “They served a purpose at the time.”

Healing her own emotional wounds or those between her and her eldest daughter went by the wayside. Healing between us was not to be. We were in an emotional stalemate at the time of her death. Civil and superficially affectionate. Each of us wary and cautious around the other, playing our assigned roles. We circled each other emotionally and psychologically like two lionesses each wounded by the other in previous battles.

I didn’t have a mother. She didn’t have a daughter. Not in any real way that might have mattered long term that left me awash in tender and loving memories. If we are lucky, even after a antagonist’s death, healing keeps happening. It has to if we are to make sense of what we lived through and why what happened, happened.

I am taking stock of my current habitual distractions and deflections. In that regard, for all my insight and bitching about my mother’s dysfunctional habits, I sometimes realize the apple hasn’t fallen all that far from the tree.