Tag: lifecycle

Re: Tray

About three years ago I looked in a bathroom mirror and shrieked like a deranged lemur. For some reason, and apparently almost overnight, my lower middle incisors had crowded together like those crossed cement barriers on WWII’s Juno Beach. That moment was a decisive turning point in my dithering campaign to solve my peg-tooth issue. This ‘dental action’ rivals some military ops and will involve modern prosthetics at some point, so brace yourself.

A tray was once, only something I would get at a cafeteria to load plates onto as I selected my food in high school. A trey in cards doesn’t count because of spelling. I had considered no other use for the word until I discovered trays are the new braces used to realign teeth. When he was barely a teenager, my eldest son had such a painful experience with those old-timey metal devices he actually tried to cut them off with kitchen scissors. The poor lad also had something called a Neo-blastoma that is still being talked about at dental conferences throughout North America. His history was my history so I was a bit squeamish about ‘braces’. But hooray for technology! I was glad when I saw these clear plastic form-fitting trays so I relaxed a bit. But first I had to get an extraction (cue ominous music).

I had never visited a dentist until I was 18. I learned two things back then: I had a strangeIy angled molar which the dentist at the time wanted to pull-out. I said no thanks, but was grateful he had pointed out I had strong enamel. So time passed and I found myself a career as a teacher, which came with a dandy dental plan. With my champion enamel (I kept being told), I have had only three cavities, so I never viewed going to the dental offices with trepidation. 

But now I had to sacrifice one of my pearly-whites so the rest of my teeth could stand at attention properly. I had a 360 degree head scan that captured an amazing view of my jaw, making me look like my head had been found in an archeological dig, and carbon dated to sometime in the BC years. These neanderthal features showed the tooth-that-must-be-pulled, along with my tipping over band of soldiers. I chose to be anesthetized to minimize the trauma. It was done in a second! My bride drove me home while I floated beside her on roads made of marshmallows. 

Why was I making such a fuss, I had to ask myself when I came back to full consciousness. Weeks later I had a better attitude when I was fitted for my trays which would continue the realignment of my smile. I was pumped for the novelty of being in my seventies and wearing invisible braces. Wearing them 22 hours a day made for a readjusted eating schedule. Each time I graduate to a new set of trays I suffer growing-pains but it’s bearable. I like the thought that I have some control over my body as it returns to dust. After all, we’re just part of a celestial wind.

Re: Wing

I’ve been watching a pair of seagulls raise a pair of puffy looking offspring this past breeding season. I have a vantage point that makes me feel like a voyeur some days and an anxious grandparent on other occasions. When the parents seem in a panic as they defend their own privacy, their nest, and then their nestlings, I can’t help but believe that I’m witnessing the reason for the phrase, ‘Living on a Wing and a Prayer.’

In my home I have a folk-art sculpture of a single herring gull I made to scale out of wire, plaster casting material, and paint. I call him Webster. He reminds me that I share this planet with other sentient beings; capable of being parents, babies, teens, and ultimately road kill. Webster reminds me of the circle of life for all living things. Some times we are required to go-with-our-gut by winging it and hoping for the best outcome.

For soaring birds like gulls, it appears that the sky is virtually the limit. As I watched the repetitive runs by my neighbour avian parents, returning from a hunt, regurgitating, and flying off again, I wondered about my past role as a parent looking after the needs of my growing boys. When the emotional weather was stable and resources were in good supply the job of preparing my kids for flight seemed routinely easy. But on stormy, unpredicted days it seemed all I could do was find shelter for my trio in the nest that I had painstakingly built with my wife.

Immature gulls must be trained. Reaching the size of their parents doesn’t guarantee successful flight. I can’t imagine what that risky leap from 3 stories up must feel like. Presently I watch as they bob on the waves near shore hoping for a handout from the latest military-like feeding style of the local harbour seals. Those marine mammals hunt in pairs, laying a bubble trap for minnows then exploding through the centre of the curtain to gobble a mouthful. Gulls, young and old, wade nearby looking for scraps.

A common human dream, next to appearing in our underwear, is being in flight, soaring above our problems and having the advantage of the sky as our higher ground. From there, while on-the-wing, we observe our possibilities and potential from a more commanding perspective. I wonder if that is an advantage that my gull friends are aware of as they take wing each morning. Looking for an updraft to lessen their need to flap they squawk like they know the meaning of freedom, even boasting of their superpower.

I can only imagine that first flight feeling by engineers like the Wright Brothers. Or of poet/pilot John Gillespie Magee Jr. as he “slipped the surly bonds of earth” on “laughter- silvered wings.” When I daydream of joining my fine feathered friends in fantastical flight I soar through clouds that comfort me as a blanket might when my mood is blue. Up there I’m away from the perils of a human Earth.

Re: Evacuate

I’ve recently had a moving experience. It seemed like a move on the surface: There were boxes to pack, items to sort, donations to be made, a yard sale, and relocation planning. This was all accomplished with the usual amount of fuss, tears and goodbyes. Things get emotional with a move.

I’ve been involved in several moves in my lifetime yet this was like no other. I tried to wrap my head around the experience by using different descriptors like Leaving, Escaping, Evacuating, Purging, Departing, Fleeing, Vacating. This seemed most like an evacuation. We left behind things. We knew we weren’t likely to ever come back. Fortunately, we weren’t joining a long line of similar evacuees, fleeing a war zone, but we did have a sense of loss, a sense of leaving a homeland. We felt these feelings vicariously. My wife and I saw them, in the eyes of our 94 year old dependent elder.

My mother-in-law had just witnessed the death of her husband after a protracted illness. The reality of what to do next lay ahead and we three decided that a relocation was necessary. My wife and I wanted to take our mother home with us to the place that we had loved before all this turmoil had begun. That meant our elder had to leave the apartment she had existed in for 44 years. Not an easy thing to accomplish; physically or emotionally. She was good humoured and forward thinking, telling her life long friends that she was excited about the prospect of a fresh beginning. She described how she felt grateful we had the resources for a successful transition.

When my wife and I first fell in love the notion of running away from it all was a frequent item of conversation. We thought that life would be freer and simpler if we just owned a backpack to carry a few necessities. We wanted to hit the road, be of no fixed address. Moving away from circumstances that have made us feel trapped felt liberating. One of the reasons we originally made a home in British Columbia was because we wanted to start life anew. 

My special mom has a great sense of humour. We equated our seemingly sudden departure to an ‘Elvis has left the building’ sort of moment. There were momentary hilarious thoughts of the whole exercise being like a bowel movement: All sorts of memories and possessions being expelled and flushed away. She hadn’t been evicted but there was real sadness in the eyes of the superintendent when the lease on the apartment had to be terminated. Along with her sunshiny attitude Mom had moments of darker comedy when she asked me jokingly if we were going to set her on an ice floe and push her out to sea. Reassurance was provided.

We are now settled together, we three. Our elder is busy exploring her new neighbourhood. The trauma of the move is over and a new chapter in our lives awaits to be written.

Re: Birth

Spring is a time for rebirth. It’s the season for positive change. A birth heralds new possibilities. A new generation can now lead us to a better way, a better life, a better world. After our mothers bore us, we must now bear the responsibility of making our lives count for something. That is the challenge inherent in our birth. Maybe that is part of the meaning of birthright: each of us has a chance, a right and a responsibility to use our lives well and to leave a worthy legacy. When I experienced the births of my own three boys, I remember being awed by the process itself. Now as I watch my grandchildren, I am enjoying their eager minds birthing new ideas, new games to play, new imaginings that sparkle out when they awake to greet a fresh day. I love being surprised by their behaviours.

Recently my wife told me a story of how her mother responded to her gift of Easter treats. Chocolate eggs had been placed for easy finding to accommodate tired elderly eyes. On this particular spring morning, my mother-in-law got up early with laser vision gathering up a feast of sweets, filling her pockets and quickly going back to bed. When she arose for a second time that same morning, she seemed petulant that she hadn’t got as many treats as her husband. The trail of foil wrapping, brown chocolatey smudges on her bedsheets and breast pocket attested to her haul, yet still she doubted the accounting. Endearingly, Mom asked her daughter to help tie the Lindt bunny’s bell ribbon necklace around her frail wrist. At 92 she allowed her 2 year old soul to shine through.

Our personal birthday, the anniversary of our beginning, can be a time to reflect on how far we’ve come and where we want to go. I am getting old enough to not think back to count my age, but rather to see how many more years until 100. I’m closer to that date than I am to the year of my birth. Age doesn’t scare me too much at this point. Luckily I have been able to witness the experience of others born before me. My elders have taught me much about patience and other important values. What I am most charmed by is the way the seniors in my life have returned to their childlike selves in response to events in their lives. 

My fondest and most frustrating memories of my sister often revolved around her gathering the treats of life too fast for me to catch up, leaving me wondering if I had got my share. I need not have fretted. Judging by my mother-in-law’s Easter egg experience, I’ll have a chance to be a kid again. Life viewed this way surely eliminates the fear of death. Maybe this is a signal that life is a never ending circle. Death, as we call it, is just another sort of birth. With patience, we’ll soon discover what’s next and find happiness there.