Tiny Adventures

So, there are rumours that JJ Abrams is in talks to produce a TV adaptation of a Stephen King time-travel story.

Ignoring the fact that King has not written anything good enough to be put on film since Carrie, this rumour worries me.

Abrams is working on Star Wars.  The new Star Wars.  Episode VII.  After decades of anticipation, adoration, and repeated viewings, the Star Wars saga got prequels, finally.  And they sucked.  They were a huge disappointment, and pretty much solidified the global feeling that George got lucky the first time around – the man was a hack.

So Disney is trying again, with a well-respected filmmaker in control.  And he is now rumoured to be splitting his attention to a Stephen King adaptation?  I’m sorry, but no.  This should not be allowed. Disney should have put it right in the contract – you cannot work on anything else until this is finished.

The fans deserve this.  This story no longer truly belongs to the studios, or the writers.  We own it just as much as anyone, and we deserve a new Star Wars movie that is just as good as the original trilogy.  If only for putting up with Jar-Jar.

I have no doubts that she was raped.  I want to make that clear from the start.  I am not excusing the boys accused in the media in any way.

I’ve written this a few times – and rewritten it – because I want to say this, but I don’t want to be seen as callous or uncaring.

I was raised in a small town in Nova Scotia, and I have some first-hand knowledge of what terrible situations will do to you when you live there.  Small communities like things to go one way, and anything that sets you outside the norm is cause for concern.  This is what happened to her, and it is the ultimate cause of her death.

I don’t believe she killed herself because of the assault.  If that was the case, it would have happened earlier.  It was the fact that her entire community turned their backs on her.  Left her with no support, and nothing but doubt and aggression when she needed love and caring most of all.

The police are not entirely to blame here.  The police investigate crimes – and accusations of crimes – with the foreknowledge that everything they do will be open to minute scrutiny in a court system that is harsh and unforgiving.  Video evidence and public opinion is not enough.  Hard proof, beyond doubt, is what they need.  And it is likely that they did not find it.

My heart goes out to her family – no one should have to go through this.  The horrific assault on your child is bad enough, but having your friends and coworkers turn against her and drive her to suicide is the far worse crime here.  She was raped.  Whether there was proof or not, whether her attackers were charged or not, is irrelevant.  She needed help.  She needed to know that her peers loved her and wanted her to be safe.  Instead she got harassed and driven further into depression, until the only way out was final and forever.

The scorn and derision was targeted to the wrong person.  She was the victim, and she was treated like a monster.  The people in her community now calling for blood are the same ones who ignored her, and let her spiral into despair.  And now they feel guilty, but rather than admit that they were wrong they are screaming for the easy fix – crucify the boys who started this, but pay no attention to the months of abuse we heaped on her after the fact.

This is a sad event, and one that cannot be fixed.  Publishing their names will end with their deaths.  And this is not deserved, any more than hers was.  That is beyond justice or retribution.  This is people trying desperately to shift the attention away from their own mistakes and selfishness.  Her parents needed you.  She needed you.  And now that everyone knows you refused to help, you are terrified.  And you should be.

By all means, look into the investigation.  If mistakes were made there, the police involved should be charged.  Absolutely.  If better evidence is found that can bring these boys to court, by all means charge them with everything you can.  But look into how the community responded, as well, and charge every single one you can with everything that you can find – because they drove her to suicide.  They made her life unbearable, and should be held responsible for that.

Her parents deserve that justice, because they don’t have their little girl anymore.

It is 1992, or thereabouts, and I am a 14 year old kid. A friend in school tells me about this series of fantasy novels he’s reading, and I decide to give them a shot. And thus began twenty years of wonder, frustration, joy, and fury at one of the best fantasy stories I have ever encountered.

The Wheel of Time is huge. Spanning 14 novels, each one heavy and dense, it is convoluted, with hundreds, if not thousands, of vital characters living in a fully-realised world. Countless plots and subplots weave together to form a massive, rich, and enjoyable story.

And it is done. Finished. I finished reading the 14th and final book less than ten minutes ago.

With the hype, and the wait, for this ending I was expecting disappointment. Indeed, I took my time with this volume, for fear that it would let me down. After Jordan’s death in 2007, there was a great deal of concern among fans of this series. Would it ever be finished? Who would complete this monumental task? And when the new author was named, I admit I was worried. I had never heard of Sanderson, and in the fantasy fiction world, I expected to know the name of the person chosen to finish this, the Lord of the Rings of our generation.

When I read his first novel in this series, book 12, my doubts were immediately washed away. This man was more than a writer chosen to complete another’s work. This man was a fan, someone who understood this world and these characters, someone who wanted this to be finished, and finished well, as much as anyone else.

And he was good.

Back when I first started this series, the third book was out, and the fourth was on it’s way. Since then, the release of the next volume has dominated my time. On launch day, I would buy the new book, and spend the next 12 hours or so reading it as fast as I could, only to have to wait another two years for the next book.

It was the same with Sanderson’s three volumes. This was not Jordan’s world in another’s hands, but another writer bringing a beloved story to a close.

Spoilers Begin Here

This, the last book . . . I don’t know what I expected. I really don’t. I truly believed that my twenty years of devotion to this story would be the cause of my disappointment. Nothing anyone wrote could possible live up to how I wanted this to end.

Wow, was I ever wrong.

The Last Battle – a chapter named for the culmination of the entire story – stands as one of the finest pieces of storytelling I have ever encountered. I was up till 4:30 in the morning last night, reading because I could not stop. And when I reached the end of the chapter, I nearly threw up. It was too much, too intense, too good. I sat in my chair and simply held the book in front of me. Closed, on my lap, trying to grasp what had just happened, and how there could possibly be another 150 pages to come.

People died. Beloved, important characters. And they died. Some heroically, some in senseless and unimportant ways. But it was real. It was not contrived; killing these characters was not done just to show us that the author really meant it – these characters died in real ways, and it was a shock not because of the ham-handed way it was done, but because a friend was gone.

The whole battle, from start to finish, was believable. At no point did you look at the situation and believe that the right side would win despite all odds. Nothing happened that made you think that this was how they were going to pull it out of the fire – there was real danger, and a real chance that the good guys would lose.

And it was written so well, I think I would have been okay with it, if they had.

But of course, they pull through in the end, and all is saved. But even that was done in such a way that it didn’t feel forced. It didn’t feel inevitable, and it came with an almost overwhelming sense of relief – they did it! – and sadness – at such a cost, though! – that you felt as though you had been on the front lines yourself.

This was a fitting end. An imperfect victory, but a victory nonetheless. I finish this series with mixed emotions – sadness that there will not be any stories going forward, but with a great joy that I was able to enjoy this for this long, and as much as I did.

It is over. Thank you, Mr Sanderson, for finishing this, and for doing it well.

It is difficult to imagine a year. To hold that span of time in your mind, and really see it. We use the term to divide our lives, to mark our passage on this earth, and use the intangible to set real, tangible limits on ourselves. I am 34 years old. My children are six and one years old. In two years, I hope to purchase my first house.

Years. Meaningless, but vital.

This past weekend, my wife, children and I travelled to Nova Scotia for the weekend. The trip was longer than expected, as the weather had shut down the ferry for the day, but we forced ourselves to make the long drive ‘around’ – across the Confederation Bridge, through New Brunswick and along the north shore of Nova Scotia.

We wanted to make sure my stepfather had as much family with him as possible, on the anniversary of his wife’s death. Last year, he was as close to completely broken as I have ever seen anyone, and I wanted to be there for him, and spend the day with family myself.

We arrived late Saturday afternoon, and spent the day together. My brother and his family are staying at the house, after his surgery, as it is far easier for him to maintain mobility in that house than it is his own, and it made for a good weekend. Good conversation, with laughs and memories.

Monday morning, before we left, we took the children to the cemetery for the first time. My daughter is old enough to understand where she was, and why, and was very quiet. My son, picking up on the mood of his mother and I, was very quiet as well. We paid our respects, and went home.

To mark the day, I left my poppy behind. We usually attend the ceremony at the cenotaph each year, but I have missed the last two years for obvious, and important, reasons. I think leaving it with my parents is close enough.

A year ago, my mother died. It is difficult to imagine a year, but this one, I can.

I was not yet born when he took the most important step in human history. Nor was my older brother, six years my senior. I would not be born for nine more years. But I cannot recall a time in my life when I could not have told you what he said.

Everyone knows those words.

Regardless of what nation you call home, or what god or gods you pray to. It doesn’t matter where you live, or what you do for a living. It doesn’t even matter if you believe he actually did it or not. You know what was said. People will know those words for as long as there are people to hear them.

Neil Armstrong’s one small step was the culmination of a rise in Cold War aggression, and very politically motivated. But that does not detract from the accomplishment. It does not lessen the impact, or make it any less important. At that moment, we were less a world divided by nation and creed than we were a species, rapt and united.

It is difficult to put into words how monumental his act was. He will forever be the first. Our first. No one can ever take that from him, or us. He united the entire population of the planet, if only for a few brief days. No man has ever done so much to make us realise that we are all together in this. That we are one people, with one home.

Neil Armstrong is, in my opinion, the single most important human being in history, and likely always will be. Even if it was by chance. He was no more special than you or I. Nothing set him apart from his peers before he stepped from the ladder onto a desolate lunar surface. And after his walk was done, that step was the only thing that set him apart.

He was one of us; simple and happy and flawed in all the ways that everyone is. And he was a giant. He lived among the stars, and he proved to us all that anything – anything we could imagine – truly was possible.

This day will be marked as the day we lost our ambassador. Today, we are lesser.

The carnival is in town, for Old Home Week – the annual sign that summer, at least as far as PEI is concerned, is over. As a parent, there is an understood duty to take my kids to the fair, to win my daughter a stuffed animal, to eat bad food and come home with a headache and sore feet.

I loved the carnival as a child. The Lobster Carnival, in Pictou, was something that we all looked forward to. The end of the school year brought two months of no classes and no teachers, of sleeping in and staying up late. But it also brought the carnival. For three days every year we ran through the streets of downtown Pictou, raising hell and avoiding our parents.

From the age of seven until about fourteen, I saw my mother in the morning, when she dropped me off, and again at night, when she drove me home. I have many memories of wading through seas of people, looking for her at midnight so I would not get left behind.

Her leaving me was a real concern, in the later years – the walk was not far enough that she would be overly concerned about me making my own way home.

By the time I was fifteen, maybe sixteen, it had lost it’s appeal. The noise was too overwhelming, and I had finally realised that there was no way to come out of the midway even remotely financially okay. After that, I avoided carnivals, and developed a snide elitism toward the idea. I was too good for them, I thought.

The Weenit had not been to one, despite being six years old. We never really told her about them when they were around, but she learns things from people other than her parents, and she had been talking about fairs for a while.

So we took her, today.

The lights were the same. The noise. The smell – it was all the same as what I remembered, from twenty-five years ago and in another province. I did not want to go, as I was perfectly content to let her grow up without the experience. But she had an absolute blast, and I am glad my wife changed my mind.

I won her a teddy bear – a two-foot tiger promptly named Stripes whose gender fluctuates depending on her mood – and showed her the rides. I took her on the bumper cars – a very old favourite of mine – and the roller coaster. The look on her face as she exclaimed “This is exciting and scary at the same time!” on the first trip round the tight spiral on the roller coaster was my highlight of the day.

We ended the day at the petting zoo, where she got to pet a caiman and a tortoise, and saw several snakes and lizards that frightened her mother to both of our delight. Despite our attempt to not spend too much money, the trip ran us about $80, though I consider it money well spent. If only for the look on her face the second and third times around that same tight turn on the roller coaster.

The house I grew up in, for the most part, is a log cabin in the woods. Not too far from the road, but the trees are thick enough that you feel you are deep in the forest.

The driveway is long, with several bends. Just long enough to give me time, yesterday morning, to think about all of the things that I was walking into. But not so long as to give me time to prepare.

Before I knew it, I was in the house, hugging my step-father and trying very hard to not look at the empty chair at the table. I spent the next thirty or so hours trying to not look at it, to be honest.

We talked, we visited, we laughed and we cried a bit in the wee hours of the morning.

As usual, I got very little sleep.

This morning, we dropped the kids off with my sister, and we drove out to the cemetery. My wife had never been there before, as she has an aversion to burials, and I did not push it when it came time for my mother’s. Though I have only been there a handful of times, I directed her while firmly staring at the dashboard in front of me.

We had stopped for flowers on the way, and my step-father met us there.

Seaview Cemetery is, if you can get past the point of the place, an absolutely beautiful location. It is on a hill, surrounded by trees, and sloping down to the water. It is quiet, remote enough to be alone with your thoughts, and the view is stunning.

We left a flower at my uncle’s stone, and went to the stone for my parents. My father was buried there in 1984, and my mother six months ago. After we spent some time with my parents, I needed some time in peace. We went for a walk, and we saw far too many stones for people we know and love. Mom and Dad, Skip, Pook, Carol and Floyd. Myrna. Big Dunn.

It was too much, after the rawness of seeing Ma’s name and dated carved in stone. And we left. She knew, I think, that I had had enough, and she steered me back toward the car. Gently, but firmly. And we went to my sister’s and picked up the kids. And we went home, and didn’t talk about it at all.

Because that’s what we do in my family. We don’t talk about it until it gets to the point where there is nothing left to do but talk about it. When the pain and sadness is so much that talking about it doesn’t add enough weight to make any difference.

My wife’s family works in the opposite way, and it frustrates her immensely to see us all do it.

I miss my mother, and I miss spending time with her. I miss talking to her on the phone. I miss the sound of her slippers slapping on the floor as she walked through the house. I miss the comfort of simply knowing she was there if I needed her.

She was born on Pictou Island, on 23 December 1943. She died on the fourth floor of the Aberdeen Hospital, in New Glasgow Nova Scotia, on 11 November 2011.

She was my mother, and she is gone.

I’m getting a tattoo this weekend. Saturday, early afternoon. This will be my seventh, and while they are all important to me, this one will carry some extra weight with it. My cousin-by-marriage is doing it, in his shop in Summerside, and he knows the story behind it, so I know he will take extra care to make sure it is up to his usual high standard of work. I am getting a poppy, on my chest, in memory of my mother. For all she hated tattoos, she loved mine because they were mine, in much the same way a parent loves everything their child does.

It is nearly six months since my mother’s death, and I miss her fiercely. The other night, at about three in the morning, I was sitting in my living room, and simply started to cry. I missed her, and I wanted her back, and it all hit me at once. Overwhelming and painful and simply too much to carry.

I have not been home since the funeral, as it is difficult to get to Nova Scotia through the winter. Now that the ferries are running again, however, we have a trip planned for late in the month. I wanted to go earlier, but scheduling has been difficult, with end-of-year stuff for the Weenit’s school, and Girl Guides, dance classes, vacations, etc… it simply is not possible until the end of the month.

I am both looking forward to the trip, and dreading it. Looking forward, obviously, to see my step-father and siblings, and to simply be home. Dreading it because I know she won’t be there at the table when we arrive. She won’t get up to give us all a hug when we come inside, and berate me for wearing sandals when it is still so cold.

She won’t be there, but her presence will be. In her house, in her decorations, and the teacups and the organized chaos of the cupboards in the kitchen. In the things that will have changed since November. I expect to crumble under the absence, and have more than one breakdown in the house. Because her chair will be empty, and I won’t be able to notice anything else.

By then, my tattoo will have healed, but I think I will be keeping it under wraps. Usually, I show them off, but this one is too personal. I’ve told my step-father about it, and he seems to like the idea. But I won’t show him unless he asks.

My mother was a hard woman. She was rigid in her opinions, and spoke her mind with no care for who was listening. Often without thinking about what she was saying, either. As a result, a lot of people did not like her.

A lot of people loved her for it, as well. Me included.

I can’t really encapsulate a woman as complicated as my mother in words. Not without wearing out a few keyboards, at any rate, and to be honest I don’t think I want to try. Those of us who knew her well will know what I mean, and will carry it with them.

You had to take the barbs with Ma. She was worth the venom, in the long run. My stepfather knew that almost from day one, though other members of my family did not. Or could not. You had to stand up to her, while accepting that she was not going to change her mind. You had to convince her that you were worth it, as well. If you could earn her respect, you were in the good books of one of the kindest, and fiercest, people you ever met.

She didn’t make it easy. Her default mode was antagonistic, and she came off as confrontational and aggressive. She suffered no fools, and would not be crossed under any circumstances.

When my now wife was about to meet her for the first time, it was as my girlfriend. She and I, in the company of my best friend, were visiting from school for the weekend. We had her terrified, and to this day she is convinced that she witnessed my mother actually breathe fire. I half believe it. When we walked into the house, the entire family, my mother and stepfather, my brothers, their wives, and their children, all were sitting at the dining room table. And they all stopped their conversation immediately to turn and watch her walk in. She was the first girl I ever brought home, and they wanted to meet her.

It was an impressive sight for a woman whose family, for three generations, have had two kids.

It was Ma that made her welcome. Ushering her in with a smile and setting a cup of coffee in her hands, sitting her down in the crowd and making sure she didn’t get lost in it. It was Ma’s opinion of her that really mattered to me. The others all accepted her immediately, but it was Ma that I really wanted to like her.

When I had a bad day, I called Ma. When I had a good day, I called Ma. When I needed help figuring something out, I called her. When I was bored, or when the kids did something cool, or when I just wanted to chat, I called Ma.

She was, for a long time, my definition of ‘parent’. My father died when I was five years old, and my brother and I had her. My two oldest siblings were already out of the house, one with a kid of her own. So my brother and I were raised, for most of my formative years, by my mother. Children see their parents as the very foundation of the world. Everyone else are strangers; it is our parents that guide us. We learn our first lessons, and the most lessons, from them. My worldview was shaped by a difficult, fiercely independent woman who was quick to anger and who could frighten the hardest of men without saying a word. Who would, when she dialed the wrong number on the phone, exclaim “Fuck!” down the line and hang up rather than apologise and explain.

Is it any wonder I am the way I am?

I have so many memories of her. At the table, mostly, and laughing. But also of her more vicious moments. Though, to be honest, even those are mostly hilarious.

And now she’s gone. I will generate no more memories.

I talked to her, for the last time, in October. In the ICU of the Aberdeen Hospital. She was awake, but couldn’t speak with the breathing tube in her throat. I told her I loved her, and she saw my two kids. The Weenit drew her a picture, and my son made her smile. I told her that I would see her again in November, and that she would likely be home by then.

She passed away on Remembrance Day, in the early afternoon. I got the call from my oldest brother, and we were at the house by 10 o’clock that night. We buried her, next to her first husband, the following Wednesday. My son and daughter still have their Papa, my stepfather, and I still have him as the only father I really remember. But it will be hard when we visit in the Spring, without her there. I am more worried about him over Christmas than I can really describe.

The Weenit is having a hard time with the loss. She sees pictures of her Nanny, and I see her eyes fill with tears. I have explained this all to her, and told her about my own father. She talks to me about it sometimes, and I try to help, but each person deals with this sort of thing in their own way. I only hope that she feels comfortable talking to me about it more when she is older, and can articulate her feelings better. I never did with Ma, and I wish now that I had. It would have changed a lot of things, I think.

The world lost a wonderful woman, and is lesser because of it. But then, I had my mom for thirty-three years, and I am a better person for it.

I love you, Ma. We all do.