Tag: discovery

Re: Quest

Back in the day when I wrote for my local newspaper, The Timmins Daily Press, I would often make a request of my readers to take time to wonder. My column was filled with questions about life and all of its curiosities. It was my writerly responsibility, I pompously thought at the time, to encourage some mental adventuring amongst the Tim Horton’s coffee crowd.

In my youth I thought often of going on quests. In school I loved to learn of the seafarers who cast off the mooring lines of their home port to seek out riches in foreign lands. Education in the fifties and sixties was all about studying heroes who cruised the oceans looking for new found lands where resources were just ripe for the taking. I loved looking at reproductions of the maps used and routes charted by Prince Henry the Navigator, Magellan, Vasco de Gama, Drake and Cook. Textbooks of my time as a student contained scant information regarding the indigenous folk whose presence would be dismissed by these European explorers, as one might swat a bug while sipping Pina coladas at poolside.

We only learned about the upside to adventuring in history. Kings and Popes suggested that our Earth and Seas were a place to play, to conquer, to dominate. The world was ours for the taking and if anyone else was on the beach when we landed they’d better step aside unless they wanted to be part of the servant class within our colony. White English folk were good at this questing for things that already were part of another’s culture. But the swarthy Portuguese and Spanish had their say in their day. French and Dutch also sought the resources of distant lands without questioning whether the indigenous had an opinion. Early Norse folk were romanticized as Vikings in tales of discovery but their questing objective was also narrow; land was the prize! Those inhabitants with foreign coloured skin were merely chattel to be enslaved.

The fictional character Don Quixote as written by Miguel de Cervantes went on a quest; an impossible dream to right the wrongs of man. I feel his mission was more about searching for his inner compass than vanquishing evil but the idea may be the same. Watching a documentary on rock climber and media sensation Sasha DiGiulian made me wonder what motivates some folk to do risky things. Questers have always desired to be the first, the fastest or the most innovative. Creatives also can be defined as testing the boundaries of mental and physical forms.

I hope all my grandkids become adventurers. I want them to be brave and explore the limits of their world, perhaps expanding the realms of existence for all humankind. When I was a teacher I used to love it when one of my students discovered a fresh way of thinking or doing or being. Questing can be a wondrous pastime. Life is about finding a place for yourself, not a specific geographical location or a plot of land, but discovering your unique purpose.

Re: Miracle

The miracle of birth is a wonder of creation. There have been many circumstances labelled miraculous throughout world history. We don’t need to be religious thinkers to put weight on things that amaze us. Awe is everywhere.

Survival stories of car crashes, natural disasters or medical recoveries are often cited as miracles. My mom was a local track star in her early teens, following the sport into her adulthood. In August, 1954, a ‘Miracle Mile’ was run by Roger Bannister, beating the unimaginable time of four minutes. Stories of that Vancouver, Commonwealth Games record event were still being printed in Canadian newspapers when I immigrated to Canada later that fall.

I believe in miracles when I feel deserving or hopeful, yet everyday miracles may be just happenstance that end up making a great story that we can tell others as we age. I can’t quite get my head around the idea of finding a life long romantic partner. Mutual love is unfathomable. Is it fated when we find a soulmate? Couples will gasp, “It’s a miracle that we found each other!” Even that character Rick of Casablanca seemed awestruck,”Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” Barry Manilow wrote a song about the wonder of it all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc-2F3VDs2w

On the day my mother died I lost my wedding ring. The death had been coming for a while, the loss made a bad day worse. After my wife and I got the call from the nursing home, we raced there to watch as she took her last breath. The nurse was notified, procedures ensued. The attendants couldn’t get her ring off, so I managed the job with a dab of cream. It was then I noticed that my ring wasn’t on my finger. A search began that alerted all staff, covering the whole building, including refuse bins, and outside all around the parking lot. I had to come back the next day to sign certificates and such and the search continued. I checked the car, my house, my clothing: No luck. Was this a weird cosmic thing where rings are traded in an alternate universe? Was there something here requiring a return to psychotherapy? Was it a lesson in grief? Was this someone’s idea of a joke? About a week later I went to pick up my mom’s ashes. I put the container on a shelf in my shed and decided to do a small clean-up. I repositioned things and moved my recycling boxes so I could sweep the floor. The broom made its swishing sound as it found leaves, bits of string, plastic bottle tops, then something heavier. I knew instantly what it was. I picked up my lost wedding ring and held it tightly in total disbelief. I called my wife. We cried with the miracle of it all.

Sometimes it’s a struggle to get up in the morning: Bones creak, muscles are stiff, phlegm must be cleared. Life is a miracle.