Talking about the weather with some people I have never meet before. Jasmine and Quin are just passing through town on their way to Alaska to serve in the Air Force. We met in line as we were trying to place our orders and conversation about traveling the world evolved. We ended up sitting together for a lack of table space. Quin had served in Iraq and Jasmine was his nurse when he came in was all they offered. The pain of their conversation interrupted their thoughts as both fell silent in memory for several seconds. Both gradually returned to Tim’s on Victory East and their drive to the air force base in Fairbanks. They had been married for less than two weeks and this was their honeymoon, so to speak, driving from Pensacola, Florida to Alaska. A quick friendship developed in Regina over swirl and a breakfast sandwich. The line up at the till goes out the door and yet we timed it very well hitting the till with relatively few people in the place. Our conversation slowly crawls to awkwardness as we try to break away. We exchange addresses even though for facebook both parties thinking there is relatively little chance of that happening. Jasmine says thank you as she leaves to my surprise.
I get in my car and head towards work wondering why Jasmine said thank you. I most likely will never know. Life is interesting just with the people one can meet as we our path dissect for a minute in time. Where do these people end up and what happens in their lives. Do they change the world in some small way or just fade to black like good rock song.
The Busker arrives in his Acura sports car just as I get out of my vehicle and we walk into the building together chatting about the outcome of last night’s hockey game. Chi town leads the series three games to two heading back to Philly. We both liked the coach’s decision of splitting up his number one line. The games the generals of sports play in the sub plots of pro sports and we like chatting about to distraction. I was called a sports freak over the weekend by a close friend when I texted requesting an update. They always text asking for weather updates at the beach and I always respond. I will have to rethink that one I guess or get a t-shirt that says "weatherman" on it. Luckily, there were people in the stands with blackberries and internet access
Monday, June 7, 2010
Difficult Topics
I heard an Amber alert this morning on my 35 minute drive to work and tried to put myself in the parent shoes. It was just a news item about how the alert system was changing so that it would be faster and hopefully more effective. We hear these things all the time and they are always from someplace else or about someone else but what would it possibly feel like,even for a short a short time beside the fear, the questions, doubt, and later the anger. Empathy is an emotion unique to humans they say but this is a hard topic to write about and follows the concept outlined in last blog about writing being hard work. So why not try a difficult topic?
A call came this morning that I feared would one day arrive. Once before, I received a call stating that the children were not in school and have been pulled. The day after thanks giving how ironic is that. Six hours of waiting wondering if they were safe, wondering if they had been taken across the line to the states, where some of her family lives. The brain takes you places that are ugly in situations like this. Thinking the worst and pleading for the best. Hoping beyond hope that it is just a surreal dream you’re about to wake from and knowing it is just your brain trying to cope in a rationalized way. Looking back I saw the signs. No wedding band, parties that went all night, phone calls from unlisted numbers, hang ups in the middle of the night,personality changed over a period of time. Then a business trip to Trinidad without a hotel room coupled with working hours from 8 pm to 4 am. New start up Computer Companies often have those hours I was told, but do those people working in those companies look like they dressed for clubbing I asked. Anyway, papers arrived by courier soon after, then court dates followed by a Doctors baby, born in early spring. This was followed by more court dates with the Doctor I have heard or was told when she asked if I would sign an affidavit on her behalf. Life is different on a big screen T.V. So flash forward to this morning when the message was left on my machine saying two of the children have not showed up for school. Thoughts of six painful hours in the near distant past and reflections on what I read somewhere said by an University lecturer about predicting behavior based on past behaviors. In essence if someone has a history of doing a certain action they will continue that behavior in the future. Some people who are always late with plausible excuses tend to be late in the future. This relates to children being removed from their school and their home and then in turn, don’t get to see their father for three weeks. The chance after this incident occurring more than once is greater than that with her words echoing “I am a flight risk too”. All that in less than five seconds as I wait for the school phone to ring. Hello Mr. Wright! They just walked in the door. Your children were 16 minutes late. Thank you for the call as the tension drains form my system and I hang up feeling like I run 26 miles against the wind in a very hot day.
"Double espresso please", as I place my order. That is as strong a drink that I will have at this Java Bar drive through. The song on the wolf playing is I will walk alone by Greenday. I sense it is going to be a long day. After a long wait, the evening before, sometimes people have to stand up and be recognized. Stop letting others treat you like the remains left in an outhouse. The song on the radio changed as Amanda puts on Voodoo!
A call came this morning that I feared would one day arrive. Once before, I received a call stating that the children were not in school and have been pulled. The day after thanks giving how ironic is that. Six hours of waiting wondering if they were safe, wondering if they had been taken across the line to the states, where some of her family lives. The brain takes you places that are ugly in situations like this. Thinking the worst and pleading for the best. Hoping beyond hope that it is just a surreal dream you’re about to wake from and knowing it is just your brain trying to cope in a rationalized way. Looking back I saw the signs. No wedding band, parties that went all night, phone calls from unlisted numbers, hang ups in the middle of the night,personality changed over a period of time. Then a business trip to Trinidad without a hotel room coupled with working hours from 8 pm to 4 am. New start up Computer Companies often have those hours I was told, but do those people working in those companies look like they dressed for clubbing I asked. Anyway, papers arrived by courier soon after, then court dates followed by a Doctors baby, born in early spring. This was followed by more court dates with the Doctor I have heard or was told when she asked if I would sign an affidavit on her behalf. Life is different on a big screen T.V. So flash forward to this morning when the message was left on my machine saying two of the children have not showed up for school. Thoughts of six painful hours in the near distant past and reflections on what I read somewhere said by an University lecturer about predicting behavior based on past behaviors. In essence if someone has a history of doing a certain action they will continue that behavior in the future. Some people who are always late with plausible excuses tend to be late in the future. This relates to children being removed from their school and their home and then in turn, don’t get to see their father for three weeks. The chance after this incident occurring more than once is greater than that with her words echoing “I am a flight risk too”. All that in less than five seconds as I wait for the school phone to ring. Hello Mr. Wright! They just walked in the door. Your children were 16 minutes late. Thank you for the call as the tension drains form my system and I hang up feeling like I run 26 miles against the wind in a very hot day.
"Double espresso please", as I place my order. That is as strong a drink that I will have at this Java Bar drive through. The song on the wolf playing is I will walk alone by Greenday. I sense it is going to be a long day. After a long wait, the evening before, sometimes people have to stand up and be recognized. Stop letting others treat you like the remains left in an outhouse. The song on the radio changed as Amanda puts on Voodoo!
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
writing is hard work
Writing is hard work sitting here at a South Albert location in a parking lot sidewalk coffee bar. A wire stool is my seat at a round table looking north at an Earls restaurant as cars drive by on a very busy street. Writing paper hanging over the edge of the table fluttering in the wind and without words or even concrete thought waiting in anticipation for even a doddle and looking to white. The smell of the food being prepared makes my mouth water. The coffee is a treat at the end of a long month; Cameral Macchiatto’s flavor will have to last as the cost is low on my priorities. I sit here thinking how I can make these words into short stories that make sense and flow from one chapter to the next with character development and insight. From one coffee shop conversation to the next. Meeting people and connecting with ideas as this world seems large yet everyone seems to know one and other in some way. Put it up to social networking were you can have two completely different chats with two different people from totally independent and isolated parts of this earth and feel that they are sitting by you.
Yet I sit here alone drinking Italian coffee made by made be an Australian student who fallowed her Canadian boyfriend from England in a shop sandwiched between a drugstore and a nameless designer eyeglass outlet with terrific fumes drifting over in a blue haze.
Someone said that the Salzburg story was too disjointed and poetry hiding as pros which in a way is heavy on my mind this day in June. Could not resist that one!
I am simply a man with stuff on his mind. I meet friends from time to time in coffee shops in and around this town. When I look back over time, that being my time here, the pattern was set long ago. Hanging with friends at a shop that is warm, most times I have been there early waiting for them to arrive. I grow up in Northern Canada were the winter s are cold and warmth was important. I now live in a place of extremes. The temperature can vary from minus 40 in the cold months to plus 40 in the hot mouths and the wind feels like it can peels one skin off. What is important I think is family, honesty and integrity!
Writing and these stories is an outlet of sorts to pass the time. An idea being that a story can be facts interplayed with fiction. Not that facts are the truth only that they are an illusion hiding in reality diluted in folklore. Wow that one hurt.
Coffee is a metaphor for life waiting to be tasted. Some bitter others sweet and always better fresh but stale better than nothing. Superficial as that sounds, if all else fails than have tea.
Still I am sitting here waiting for Dan to call who is a friend from high school who just came on facebook. What is the number of your phone he asked? The last time I chatted with Dan was one year before when I was coaching baseball. We spoke for a couple seconds that day. The time before that he visited for a couple hours refusing to stay the evening saying something about needing to get back. Throughout the years there have been few friends that have been there for everything. Dan is one of those few. Conversation just begins from were it left off. Thinking back to the time when Dan signed me up for the military because he had signed up. Joining the airborne almost like the French foreign legend going off to new worlds or countries similar maybe to the movies we enjoyed watching as kids. He sent me a t shirt from Cypress once where he served with a sniper rifle. Who would have thought going through those barrels of 22 bullets as kids would turn into a job as morbid as that sounds. Neil say hi as he passes by the table with his guitar in hand ending my though process for now.
Yet I sit here alone drinking Italian coffee made by made be an Australian student who fallowed her Canadian boyfriend from England in a shop sandwiched between a drugstore and a nameless designer eyeglass outlet with terrific fumes drifting over in a blue haze.
Someone said that the Salzburg story was too disjointed and poetry hiding as pros which in a way is heavy on my mind this day in June. Could not resist that one!
I am simply a man with stuff on his mind. I meet friends from time to time in coffee shops in and around this town. When I look back over time, that being my time here, the pattern was set long ago. Hanging with friends at a shop that is warm, most times I have been there early waiting for them to arrive. I grow up in Northern Canada were the winter s are cold and warmth was important. I now live in a place of extremes. The temperature can vary from minus 40 in the cold months to plus 40 in the hot mouths and the wind feels like it can peels one skin off. What is important I think is family, honesty and integrity!
Writing and these stories is an outlet of sorts to pass the time. An idea being that a story can be facts interplayed with fiction. Not that facts are the truth only that they are an illusion hiding in reality diluted in folklore. Wow that one hurt.
Coffee is a metaphor for life waiting to be tasted. Some bitter others sweet and always better fresh but stale better than nothing. Superficial as that sounds, if all else fails than have tea.
Still I am sitting here waiting for Dan to call who is a friend from high school who just came on facebook. What is the number of your phone he asked? The last time I chatted with Dan was one year before when I was coaching baseball. We spoke for a couple seconds that day. The time before that he visited for a couple hours refusing to stay the evening saying something about needing to get back. Throughout the years there have been few friends that have been there for everything. Dan is one of those few. Conversation just begins from were it left off. Thinking back to the time when Dan signed me up for the military because he had signed up. Joining the airborne almost like the French foreign legend going off to new worlds or countries similar maybe to the movies we enjoyed watching as kids. He sent me a t shirt from Cypress once where he served with a sniper rifle. Who would have thought going through those barrels of 22 bullets as kids would turn into a job as morbid as that sounds. Neil say hi as he passes by the table with his guitar in hand ending my though process for now.
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