Adrift With Jerry or "Beware the Jabberwock!"

“’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.”

 

            I saw, once, a very funny thing. The memory of it, of that ocean crossing, still brings a smile. It was a seal, lolling in the sun, rolling belly up atop a picnic table that was then adrift at sea. Whether this table was there amongst the waves by chance, or there a-purpose (the end result of an adolescent prank, let’s say), well the seal could not tell me. All questions he ignored, as he luxuriated under the warmth of a blue sky. It is a silly story, and rattles in the head.

 

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

 

                A smile, pen a-blur. A seal on a wayward table. The mind gives the pen leave to write of it. There are worse ways to start a tale told whereby isolation and wistful melancholy are the prevailing emotions.  Unlike some, this mental illness is easy to hide. Make sure people always see you laughing, and they don’t think to ask if you are sad.

 

“He took his vorpal sword in hand;

Long time the manxome foe he sought –
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.”

 

            I am here alone, almost. Khayyam, of course, faithful, has come. This solitude is by design. I like it, and do not want for company. “I wish I was going with you,” she had said the day before my leaving. An awkward silence had ensued, the sentiment not having been shared. I need this time. It is for me, and for me alone. Selfish, perhaps, but there is no ‘us’ here, not yet. Only thoughts, memories, no spoken words to another human being in almost a week. The sweetness of this time, the happy ache of being alone.

 

“And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!”

 

            From Ashburton Head, I can see both the near and far places. The dark imposing cliffs of Seven Days Work, rushing broken to the sea. Chimney smoke clinging desperately to the crowns of fir trees in the lull between hills that is Whale Cove. The wind, against which I face, threatens again and again to nab my cap, and hurl it from this high place, to chase the eagle which has since winged away, our footsteps having disturbed this isolated eyrie. I am sorry for that. The bluffs and jagged chasm here is the bird’s home, we are the interlopers.

 

“One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head,
He went galumphing back.”

 

            Later, Whale Cove beach, and its boulders make a fine seat. Feet up on driftwood, back nestled on stone, I watch the dying of the light on Hole-in-the-Wall. It is a long evening, better suited to June than December. Lucky in that, in this slow fall of shadow.

 

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
He chortled in his joy.”

 

            Khayyam laps water noisily from a stream. I watch a group of seals dive offshore, near a herring weir. Eating, perhaps. Perhaps at play. It is a mystery to me, watching these hounds of the sea. But there is no table. No lone seal barking in happiness, sunning its belly, lolling away time in the swell. Thoughts in this solitude.

 

“’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.”

 

            Is this time my table? The Sailor Jerry has a potent kick tonight. The drink and the pen conspire against me. Flow of consciousness has become an inevitability. Do I idle away this time in the sun, barking and lolling alone? I smile to think so. That happy seal is a memory of sunshine, even as the sun dies for another day, even when on a high place, against the wind.

Oh Canada

                Yesterday I wept. Tears ran down my cheeks as I tried to negotiate my way along a stretch of Quebec highway which had become perilously laden with snow. The winter storm that had been forecast had arrived. The stress of it had me clutching the wheel in a sort of manic death grip, and when I finally rolled to a stop at a roadside rest station, my fingers ached when pried away. But this was not the cause of the tears.

                I wept because, for the first time in a very long time, I was proud. Proud to be able to say I am a citizen from north of 49. The Syrians had begun to arrive.

                I have made a very real and conscious effort to keep the Know-Mad free of my own political thoughts. The passion I feel for politics and the issues make me write poorly, for a start. I also wanted to focus on stories that could unite, and not divide, as political musings so often do. But not today, not now, in this new era that has dawned for us here in the True North, Strong and Free.

                As a nation we have endured a decade of true darkness. Civil liberties were assaulted. Scientists were muzzled and told that if they wanted federal funding they could not discuss science. Social programs were left in tatters. Debate was labelled weakness, and fascist resolve was heralded as democratic virtue. It was our nation’s darkest hour, the Harperian era. Once lauded as a nation of UN peacekeepers, we had become NATO “yes men” willing to wage war without global consent. People became embittered and sullen. Fear was intentionally sought out to replace thought. And worst of all, xenophobia was dressed up in the rags of patriotism.

                What could we as Canadians do in the face of this reckless agenda of hate? That question was answered. And the CBC, that vital lifeline to the Canadian ethos (as any cross country traveller can tell you, tuned in while the postal codes whir by) was there to share the moment with a people in need of this holiday miracle.

                Calls were made to people from coast to coast to coast, and what these people relayed was a spear of summer sun to me on that treacherous winter road. The Prime Minister and his cabinet were there in Toronto, and again in Montreal, at the airport, to greet the very first plane loads of refugees (refugees no longer, Trudeau the Younger proclaimed, but landed immigrants now, as soon as they walked from the terminal). A spontaneous rally was held in the downtown core of Fredericton, complete with singing and dancing, to welcome these new comers in what must be a strange land. The Saint John Value Village proclaimed that all Syrian immigrants could shop there for free to get clothing and household items. A sponsorship group in Kelowna, spearheaded by the Catholic Diocese there, told of how, after the horror in Paris, the people in that community rallied together, not in an attempt to restrict or limit the immigrants slated to come there, but rather to ask “what more can we do?” And more they did do, pooling resources to sponsor even more families to come and live amongst them. They answered violence with open hearts, investing in the commonality of our shared humanity. In the Yukon, volunteers set up a home for a family of 10, expected to arrive any day now, the whole of Whitehorse prepared to warm them even as the thermostat is set to plummet. A woman in Toronto, along with her mother, re-financed their home, and maxed out their credit cards, to the tune of 250 thousand dollars, so that they could bring all 43 of their family members from a refugee camp in Lebanon. A community group in Prince Edward County, Ontario, fuming at the Harper regime for actively working against the refugee process, has since welcomed a family of 14 to live amongst them, opening their small rural home to the change such an arrival inevitably would mean. Welcoming the change, embracing it.

                The Harperian right still hounds the debate on the periphery; like mad dogs looking for any opening to seize upon at gnaw at. They ask questions like “shouldn’t we do more to help the people already in this country, like the homeless?” Of course, we can and should do more to assist those already in need in this country, but such a narrative is bold indeed coming from the political right that eviscerated social programs during their tenure in office. But the CBC took those concerns to the streets of Calgary, and asked the homeless in that place what their thoughts were, if they felt that the Syrians should be passed over in favour of they themselves. And with a single voice, the homeless on the streets of Big Oil Country answered loudly and clearly, that Canada should do everything in its power to help these refugees. That this debate should not be reduced to an “us or them” issue, that Syrians should not be punished in the name of the homeless community.

                And so I wept. This was the Canada that we had very nearly lost. This was the Canada that we always had the potential to be. Oh Canada, indeed.