what is it all about?

Another Canadian soldier died today from a homemade bomb of hatred. A married father of three daughters. A man who was an elite human soldier from the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry..... Corporal Nicholas Bulger. They played an interview with him on Canada Day and he spoke of how different it was to be in Afghanistan because he sees how much of a difference our Armed Forces are making. He stated that he saw it when he watched the children play freely when they once weren't able to. "When you look into the eyes of the children, you get a different perspective...." he said. A different perspective.... we could all use a bit of that kind of insight.

I think he saw human universality. He could relate to those children because it connected him to what he knows and sees here, on his home turf of Canada. It was obvious that it touched his heart with inspirational motivation, and in turn it touched me. I connected to this soldier because I was able to see and hear him ..... I heard his emotions .... heard his human-ness. And because I connected from my heart, I am saddened by his passing at a deeper level. I understand what he meant.

One Canadian man died today. 5 other soldiers were injured from the same blast. They were all members of Brigadeer General Jonathan Vance's technical team who toured sites with him, protecting him, reacting to any threats, responding to violence. Every death of a soldier is sad no matter what side of the trench he/she is on. Every death of an innocent victim is sad. Every death from the suffering of conflict is sad.

Violence prevails on every corner of our planet in some capacity or another. It's been there from the beginning of man, which makes me acknowledge to myself that we all have the potential to be violent. Even if I choose not to be, I still have it in me. Everyone does. So, what is it in a person to allow the violence to surface? What lies underneath the ACT? What is it that feeds hate which in turn flames a war? The only thing I can think of is a festering fear.....a fear so intense and so unresolved that it ferments in its own seething irrationality.

What do you fear the most? What are you most frightened of? It's good to know. It's important to consider what it is you fear and why...... AND how it impacts your choices and how you see others, both in your own neighbourhood and beyond. You can't work on those fears if you won't even begin to take a look at them. And they will fester....and they DO impact your choices and your lens. No one is exempt from this.....

I have been haunted by the photo Paul posted on his blog this week.....a man holding a mortally wounded child in blood stained clothes, his body contorted in death... his innocent face striped in his own blood. Maybe before this boy was injured, he was able to somehow get lost in some form of play? Even under those circumstances? I don't know.

The man is carrying this young one (his son? his neighbour's son? his nephew? a stranger to him?) along the drydirt path beside the wall that keeps them in and away from basic necessities, in the line of fire. Violence prevails. It prevails on both sides of the wall only the humans within the cement fortification have no choice but to attempt to survive as prisoners, as sitting targets of violence. Innocents suffer. There are no words.

What fear feeds this hatred? What anguish sucks the marrow out of love? Frightened of the other? Is that it? War and violence stem from our incessant fear of someone who is different? Different religion, different culture, different way of interacting in this world?

I read a story Jean Vanier conveyed about a Jewish woman named Etty Hillesum who died in Auschwitz at the age of 29. In her journal after she had been yelled at by a Gestapo officer, she wrote: "I felt no indignation, rather a real compassion and would like to ask: 'Did you have a very unhappy childhood, has your girlfriend let you down?'"

There she was in a place of living Hell, but she had an abiding belief that each person is a "house" where God resides. She believed that every single person had the potential to carry the mystery of God within the essence of being able to love and to be loved. Through that lens, she saw the beauty in every individual. Etty Hillesum, Vanier wrote, is one of the people who has influenced him the most. I bet Etty projected a calm sense of kindness and compassion as her approach to combatting the hatred fueled in the hearts of the Gestapo who ruled Auschwitz. Through believing in compassion.......one always feels forgiveness.....

I wish we could teach this. I wish we could believe in the power of compassion and kindness....of empathy. I wish we could live by the belief that all human beings are loved and can love. If we have the propensity to be violent, than we all have the propensity to be loving. Right?

We could erradicate the fermentation of irrational fears and turn it into wine instead. Wine to sip and share...... If we really want to. We have to start at looking at our own fears....! Then the very idea of making a bomb wouldn't even be considered. Then maybe walls would come down and little boys could play within the safe haven of their peaceful neighbourhoods. Then we wouldn't continue to mourn the loss of human beings struck down by the violence of wars. But how? How do we turn this world around so that people stop spitting venom and hatred at one another? I think it begins by looking into the eyes of the other. Just like Corporal Nicholas Bulger did with the Afghanistan children. It changed his perspective.
It can change our own. When was the last time you truly looked into the eyes of another human being? It may make all the difference.

______

This week's prompt at Sunday Scribblings is "human." To see more contributions, check out their blog.

enveloped in the fog.....

It's been three weeks since I packed up my temporary office at "Employment Central" and turned it back into a storage room. 6 weeks before that, I said goodbye to a work family I had been a part of for 17 years after my job was unceremoniously chopped. I was deemed "unessential," in the eyes of the suits sitting in a boardroom; the number crunching fear mongerers who wouldn't see a homeless person if they tripped over them. Unessential too, I guess. We all have our priorities. No matter how you slice it.....on a community level or on a global one, we humans seem to fall into the orbit of hierarchy. I wonder why. Why do we feel this compulsion to create a "top/down" way of being where some float to the top while others are pushed down into the depths of barely surviving and where did this thought of mine come from? Good God, I was planning to write a happy piece!

I have much on my mind...... a mind that feels like it's been in fog storage for three weeks. My intentions were to clear away the collected cobwebs to prepare for my next career gig which starts up...REVS up on Monday. Not that I had huge unrealistic plans as to how I was going to use my time off, but it did included at least THINKING about a couple of projects on the horizon. I was also going to finally "pull" out the vestiges of some of my pieces of bloggie prose which seemed to court "potential" after a little airing and editing. I was going to go to the beach.....maybe a walk or two..... I was going to arrange to meet a few friends for lunch.... maybe a day trip with my son. Play a few card games. Decide what colour I wanted to paint the living room. Nothing Nobel prize winning, but cobweb clearing and fun. IN.THE.SUN. Not in the fog.

Not that I was completely cocooned.....I did take part in a few events and had some fun. It all just seems like I'm viewing it through an echo. And the weather didn't cooperate one iota. In fact, as I write this, a new rumbling of thunder rolls into the Saint John River Valley in all its incessant doom and gloom. We have had more rain and cloudy days in a row than I can ever remember!

My parents came for a visit and I do recall we had a big lobster feast while they were here with a few friends and I was the chef. I think everyone enjoyed themselves. I do recall hosting an impromptu Bar BQ with a bunch of girlfriends and their daughters to celebrate and toast two of our little ones who are going to high school next year. Oh, and I think I sat at an outside pub patio and quaffed a beer with my girlfriends before one of them took off with her family for their extensive trip to Europe. I recall spending an evening cloistered in the room downstairs going through old photos and paperworn letters I hadn't looked at in years. I think some really famous entertainer died. I read the paper, read a great book, putted A LOT, wrote some, slept when I could, watched my daughter pack and get ready for camp. Heck, I even sat in the passenger seat of the van and went for a few rides. Gee, I even think I drove a few times....... now that's a scary thought.

All done in a fog. Today? 3 weeks after I left my storage room office? I'm coming out of the tunnel. Somewhere in the thick of it all, my new/old colleagues took me out for lunch which was so thoughtful and kind of them....I had only been a part of their team for 6 weeks and it touched me deeply that they cared enough to celebrate my "moving on...." We congregated at a friend's restaurant/pub downtown, that much I know. But, I do not remember what was discussed or what I even ordered for lunch? NO! Not only couldn't I hear anything properly, I couldn't focus even when I tried.

I've been sick....my energy was stolen from me. I'd had minor surgery, a subsequent infection and then a cold from hell kicked in. I was a hacking, coughing phlemgy poor excuse for company on penicillin. I truly was in a fog. For over a week, I couldn't hear a damn thing except the sound of a cluster of whirring crickets in my ears! As much as I tried to go with it, knowing it was a temporary glitch in the bigger scheme of things, I couldn't help but wonder if this time off and how it unfolded was some kind of symbolic transition? It made me tired just trying to process it, and every time I tried to lay down, I'd fall into a fit of coughing. Still, the thought that I needed to get the last couple of years working in a very toxic environment out of my system and it was going to happen through my sinuses kept filtering through the fog. Or maybe it was just shit luck. Sometimes its best not to evaluate everything to death. I just can't help but recognize the timing of it all.......

What I do know is that I have a lot of my mind now. Good productive stuff is surfacing! Clear ideas, thoughts and feelings which go beyond that dreaded sense of guilt for feeling so crappy and not being available and present to my family and friends are streaming through my ass kicking brain again. I have much to do....that "to do" table is stacked up high now and in need of dusting before I can get to it. And every project....every single task on that table is interesting and challenging.

• Arranging a much anticipated trip to the Greenbelt Festival at the end of the summer.
• Planning out a night course on Crisis Counselling I'll be teaching at the University in the fall.
• Kick starting the planning of a month long Seminar Camp attended by 17 and 18 year olds from around the world who will be congregating close by my home in July 2010. I'm coordinating it and I'm SO pumped!

And front and centre? A brand spanking new job at the College running Counselling Services awaits Monday. In order to be up for the challenge, it required me to slip in and out of the fog to finally reach. Learning, stretching, cocooning, growing, hibernating, attempting, practising....... in and out of the fog, but most of the time under the clarity of day.

I get to build it from the ground up because they have never had a Counsellor on site before. I'm the first. :)

My toolbox is brimming. My enthusiasm is heightened. My ideas are bearing fruit. It's time to create. It's time to DO. My cold is almost a bad memory......I can hear again.....

Just in time......now where's the kleenex box?

home....

We are 142 years old today.

Every year there seems to be more and more Canadian patriotic paraphenalia out there in consumer land for our purchasing pleasure most of which makes me laugh...especially the Moose motif stuff. Gotta love our gangly Moose.

My son and I were in the local dollar store the other day to stock up on a few of these items so he can take them to Costa Rica when he attends a CISV village in late December and use them as traders with the other kids who will be there from around the world. We stood in front of the HUGE display which ranged from hilarious hats shaped like leaves to dancing beavers, maple leaf key chains, tatoos, frisbees, squishy footballs, stuffed moose, neck ties (FOR A BUCK!) and were in fits of laughter over the tackiness of the lot. Of course, we were determined to grab the best kitsch we could. Let's hope he's allowed through customs with that Canuck craziness in his suitcase.

When I was a kid, the annual fireworks were lit on Victoria Day in May. This was the tradition. We all saw it as the beginning of summer.....the first long weekend. Of course as members of the Commonwealth, we all understood the seriousness of celebrating Queen Victoria's birthday in style.....er, I guess...... by blowing off little checker firecrackers and running around with abandon holding onto a sparkler, also known as a piece of wire on fire.

Though we still have the long weekend in May, and the Monday of it is still recognized as her birthday (funny how it changes dates every year). But, somewhere along the line, our country's fireworks celebration moved to July 1rst, Dominion Day.....the day we recognize as the anniversary of our national status within the Commonwealth. Maybe we switched because it was easier to make a cake in the form of a maple leaf flag than the head of a sexually inhibited sourpuss? Or maybe we began to embrace our own sense of pride, separate from another country?

Obviously it wasn't an overnight thing.....one day we scoured at any display of patriotism and the next day we adorned our homes in all things red and white? No. It was a gradual, albeit swift turn around. Even now, I would wager a bet that most Canadians feel an attachment to this vast and magnificent wilderness we call home more so when we cross its borders? But there is definately a different feel to our celebration of our "home and native land...." Hence, the desire to don a goofy leaf pointed hat, pull on a Moose motif t-shirt and go with the flow of our known sense of humour while sucking back a few pints and singing off key?

Did you know Canadians are a very funny lot? Absurdity is in our blood. Satire swims all around us. We crack each other up! And it turns out we do a pretty good job exporting our finest comedians. I think it has to do with choosing to remain on this freakingly cold tundra in February and go about our daily routines like it was just a little irritation to start your car when its -40 degrees and a wind chill? You gotta LAUGH! You gotta bundle up too or you will die!

Then of course there is a that wonderful myth created by the late Pierre Berton who stated that you know you're Canadian when you can make love in a canoe. Ask any Canadian if they've accomplished this feat and they will affirmatively reply, with a sly smile and a look in their eye that tells you..... wouldn't you like to know how this is done? Ah, its all in the balancing between the thwarts. Its in the melodic movement of the gunnels....its how you hold your paddle.... Is there any other country who defines their patriotism through such a lens? We crack each other up.

There are definately benchmark events which foisted us forward into a more contented place. It wasn't so long ago when our national past time was a collectively navel gaze..... where the cry of the "True north strong and free" wasn't an anthem we now sing loudly at sports event and instead was "Who are we? How are we different than our neighbours to the south? How do we define ourselves...." Such nervous nellie self absorption is finally disappearing. We have grown up a bit. We've won our fair share of international hockey tournaments. We gave the world Celine and Shania.

Dominion Day. In 1982, the same year the Canadian Constitution and Charter of Rights was signed, Dominion Day was renamed Canada Day. Hindsight makes me wonder if this was the turning point. Before this significant moment, maybe we were allowing someone else to make our beds? Whatever caused us to stop feeling so damn inferior and to care so much about that fact that the rest of the world doesn't really give a rat's ass about our identity, I'm glad. Why? Because what matters most is how we have come to terms about our own selves as multi cultural individuals who call this place home. The confidence felt is new to us. But it will be our growing confidence along with the accumulative stretch marks from eating the most recent national food concoction...."poutine...." (dont ask! it's gross! I'd rather smoke pine needles) that will allow us to shine on any international stage. Or not.

When I was 18 years old, I flew across the pond for the first time with a backpack on my back and a much searched for Canadian flag patch stitched on the outside of it. I had to look high and low for it. For one thing, there were no dollar stores around, and I didn't live in the middle of a tourist hotspot like Niagara Falls where touristy kitchy gift shops were at every corner. It was a different time. Patriotism was kept under wraps. Patriotism was frowned upon as a tacky display of emotional wanking best left to the flag waving country below the 49th parallel. But, I found one, and proudly sewed it onto my backpack. And I'm glad I did. Because every time someone saw that little flag, they would ask me questions about my home....my country, and I would have to think about how I would describe it's beauty, it's strength, it's people......its history.

Like many of my neighbours, we learned our patriotism....and our heart filled fondness for Canada by leaving it's borders and looking from a far. At age 18, I began to see just how lucky I was to proudly state that I am a Canadian. Though, it was said in a tentative whisper compared to my open flag waving loud anthem singing boldness of today. OH, who am I kidding?? I may be wearing my very best moose t-shirt today, and I will definately take part in some of the Canada Day celebrations this afternoon down on the beautiful Green along the Saint John River. Fireworks are in the plans after a big potluck at a friend's house. But, when it's time to sing O Canada? My boldness will quickly evaporate and my silly red pointed leaf hat will be lifted off my head. My heart will fill with gratitude.....and I will lose my way in the meaning of the words. I'm too much of a softie...... and our anthem always leaves me choked up and in tears much to the embarrassment of my family. It's a good thing they're used to it.

This place I call home......? I loveitloveitloveit.....

Happy Canada Day.....with a glowing heart from me

honesty.....

"Go where your best prayers take you."
Frederick Buechner

Sometimes the clouds get in the way. Sometimes they lift you up into them. Prayer is like that. It makes me wonder if our best prayers are the lifting ones when you strip away the wants and wishes. You know, the ones with the expectations you have of God "granting" that special wish or fulfilling a need? I'm thinking our best prayers happen when we go beyond that to speak from a place of truth. When we empty that overflowing cup of need by letting go of what we feel we deserve or what we feel is justified, which is always a place of entitled anger, it leaves us bereft of ego clutter. This is when we feel the most vulnerable and tired. Our physical and emotional strength is often depleted. And this is when we can feel a lifting UP into the clouds.

Oh, we struggle to remain there don't we? We can be demanding controllers....fools really who allow the clouds to get in the way of recognizing the necessity to be REAL....to be truthful with ourselves and with God. John O'Donahue writes in his book, Beauty of "the slow work of integrating the flaw." I love this possibility...not the part that it takes a long time, but the part that its doable. He describes the beauty of reaching an abandoned place in your heart, numbed by neglect, and restoring it by accepting our own flaws unconditionally. There is a sense of reclamation, which in turn allows us to see ourselves as beauty becoming.

Our flaw is often the determination of holding onto a fancy facade painted in the colours of an illusionary rainbow in hues of cloud covered entitlement. We expect to be "saved" or "rescued" or "atoned" simply by praying. The problem is we pray from a place of want. "Please God....get me out of this mess!!! If you really exist God, you will grant my wishes!!" Does this ever work??

What if you.....

invite Him to your flaw restoration project.....
tell Him how you're feeling.....
put words to your deepest most frightening thoughts.....
All you have to lose is a whole lot of burdensome weight off your shoulders. And when the weight is lifted....so are you...into the clouds.

Go to where your best prayers take you? Methinks its up in the clouds.

just a thought.... I'll let you know what happens when i try it.....i've got some clutter to dispose of first.

off on an adventure.....transitions in the making

After spending the week hanging out with her close friends, saying good bye to some who were taking off to do amazing things for the summer, and attending a party in her honour because she too was about to embark on an amazing summer, my daughter arrived home exhausted and contented. She summed it up beautifully by saying ....."I'm in such a good place with all of my friends. I'm ready now." In order to be ready for this next big step in her life, Martha instinctively knew what she needed to do. I could see it in her face. I heard it in her voice. Her words spoke volumes. She was ready.

Half way through last week, I wondered if she was having second thoughts about spending the summer away from home at a children's camp in a counsellor in training program. But, I could see the frenzy in her actions to arrange her week around the important friends in her life.....to be there to say goodbye to them as they ventured off and to say goodbye for her own sake. And it worked. Yesterday, we packed the van with an enormous amount of "stuff," stopped at the Blue Canoe restaurant for a big scarf of a breakfast and dropped her off at her summer home away from home.....Camp.

We stayed for a short time.....got her settled a little bit in a big cabin she will be sharing with 8 other girls the same age, and then wandered around the grounds of the camp as she moved into the group of new staffers. There was an immediate sense of belonging, as many of them were campers together over the past couple of years. There was also a sense of unease....a bit of discomfort, wondering what to say, what to expect......how it would all unfold.....the new kids standing back from the core group because they are so much more tentative. I watched, standing off the to side where I wouldn't be seen, knowing the butterfly feelings strumming in the bellies intimately. Long ago, I had been there too. First day of camp has that effect.

The day before, my daughter and I had talked on and off as she packed. I tried to hold back on sharing my own memories, and I tried not to give too many "words of advice....." which I'm apt to do. She knows most of my camp stories...... is aware that I'm still in touch with several camp kindreds. So, I didn't feel the need to rehash my stuff. I was just so pleased and excited for her and could see that as much as I wanted this opportunity for Martha, I felt at ease that she had made this decision on her own....that this is something she wanted for herself and hadn't made the decision to be a camp counsellor to please me. I listened to the stories of her previous week .... the ones she wanted to share with me, and I could see a really happy beautiful girl standing in front of me whom I thoroughly enjoy spending time with.

What I did decide to offer to the conversation? How exciting and profound her friendships with her peers will become through all the sharing and "new" adventures. I also told her that there will be times when you know instinctively you have touched a child in a profound way and it feels terrific, but that there will be even more kids whom you will never know about. They won't tell you....or they won't even know it until later in life, but that something you've done.... a kind gesture, a slow down listening moment....a memorable moment sitting around a campfire....recognizing their homesickness when words aren't spoken. You just never know...... but the more you interact with others.... all ages, the more you learn about your own gifts and your own self and the more of an impact you will make in the lives of others. It goes hand in hand.

While I watched the new staffers interacting for the first time as a group, I also couldn't help but think of how far my daughter has moved away from holding on tight to me. Painfully shy and unsure as a little one, I literally had to carry her into the kindergarten class. She would pout every time I left her, even if her father and brother were around. To say it felt claustrophobic is an understatement. It was difficult and I didn't know how to deal with it most of the time. Her first couple of attempts at spending a week at a camp were disasters. In fact, i had to go get her halfway through one stint because she wasn't able to calm herself down at night to go to sleep.

Determined to overcome this, and the shy girl label hovering over her head, she quietly made a concerted effort once she hit middle school when she was 11 years old. She joined a leadership program, took to the stage, sought out new friends who had common interests and began to blossom. It wasn't until months after school had started that year, that she shared her "plan" with her Dad and I. By then, her confidence was lifting and it was of her own making. Every year since then, our daughter has shown her beautiful true colours to more than just her immediate family.

This transition towards more independence ...... one Martha has chosen herself and one she has worked really hard to be as prepared as one can be on the cusp of being 16...... is symbolic on so many levels. We see it and applaud. We are tremendously proud of her; of how she composes herself, of how she intuitively can "read" others, of how kind and considerate she is when she calls us to let us know where she is and what she's up to ...... knows no boundaries. No doubt there will be stumbles and tears. No doubt there will be major frustrations and heartbreak. No doubt there will be even bigger joyful transitions in Martha's life. Who knows what the future holds? We can't predict and we sure as heck can't control it. All we can do is stop and recognize life events as they come and savour them as they evolve. Yesterday, I stood and watched and savoured how much I love her.

As much as we are missing her and will continue to feel her absence so much this summer, we all know Martha is where she wants to be. And because of that, I can honestly state "I'm ready."

I think.....

secrets.....

I read this last night and sent it along to a couple of friends whom I've shared a few secrets with from time to time..... and whenever I have, they always reply.... "You are beautiful...." So, I share more..... :)

"I have come to believe that by and large the human family all has the same secrets, which are both very telling and very important to tell. They are telling in the sense that they tell what is perhaps the central paradox of our condition—that what we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else.
It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are—even if we tell it only to ourselves—because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier that way to see where we have been in our lives and where we are going.
It also makes it easier for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own, and exchanges like that have a lot to do with what being a family is all about and what being human is all about."
Frederick Buechner.
_________________________

Wouldn't it be great if we all just let our guard down and spilled our real-ness knowing our vulnerability was completely recognized and accepted as the mirror of others? Wouldn't it be great that when we spill our real-ness, it precipitated a spilling response from others? Fear would be non-existant. A peaceful heart would be achieved. I'm thinking that this is where true unconditional love dwells....in the spilling of secrets and the non-judgemental acceptance of the truth.

And if by chance we cannot find open acceptance in a person whom we trust explicitly we always have the capacity to Twitter them to the Big Kahuna. I hear He likes to Tweet. :)

through the eyes of a new fan.....

Let me fill your heart with joy and laughter
Togetherness, well that's all I'm after
Whenever you need me, I'll be there
I'll be there to protect you,
with an unselfish love that respects you
Just call my name and I'll be there
The Jackson 5

Sometime during the winter, my 11 year old son began to discover the music of Michael Jackson. This is the same age I discovered him. Max was mesmerized by the dance moves and the music from the Thriller and Off the Wall albums, intrigued by the enormity of Jackson's success and full of questions about the weirdness of the man's lifestyle. He was in awe of Jackson's voice and his ability to move like he had the power to defy gravity. The style and swagger.....the energy and magic of the music which washed over this globe, created by a brilliantly talented human being was alive and well, captured for a new generation to discover. His music was uploaded onto an 11 year old's I-pod to savour.

Personally, I had stopped listening to the stories and bizarre activities surrounding Michael Jackson, had completely stepped away from even paying attention to him because of his behaviour and over the top weirdness. To me, it felt like a carnival freak show, created for the most part by an unrelenting fan base and a media which would never let go. The man/boy in the bubble choked on his extravagant success, turning himself into a distant recluse locked away from reality, surrounded by a hoard of handlers who treated him like an alien. It was like watching a slow motion train wreck that took 35 years to reach the point when we all watched him shuffle into a courtroom in his pyjama pants. Are there words to capture his demise? Sad? Pathetic? No, it was more mind boggling than words could convey.

My son hadn't heard all of the stories yet.......the ongoing accusations and acquittals the millions of dollars spent in "settlements," the flamboyant spending on everything from Elephant Man remains to renting the top floor of luxury hotels in Vegas, and the strange reclusive behaviour. Photos and videos however, revealed Jackson's transformation from a handsome young man with a gleam in his eye and a talent that knew no boundaries to a hideous looking shell of a human being whose hair draped a face that was otherwordly....whose sunglasses and veils hid him from light.

Like every single one of us, Max had many questions, most of which remain unanswered. What happened? Why did it happen? Who in their right mind would perform over 50 plastic surgeries on another human being who obviously was mentally ill and live with themself ? Who are these doctors who wrote numerous prescriptions for pain killers turning Jackson into a zombie like addict? Where the hell were his friends? Were they all living in their own pathetic fame filled bubbles that they didn't feel they could approach him, arrange for help.....?

My son and I talked occasionally about Michael Jackson.....I told him stories of how amazing the Jackson 5 were, how huge Jackson's albums were when they were first released....how at age 11 I was a huge fan! I tried to explain what I thought had happened to him in the ensuing years, but how do you explain to someone such mystery? Still, the music prevailed, and overshadowed the wacko jacko-ness of one very disturbed sick man. My son became a fan.

Last evening, Max came rushing upstairs.......his eyes popping out of his head and a look of shock on his face to inform me that the King of Pop had been rushed to the hospital and was in a coma. At first I didn't think it was serious. I figured maybe Jackson fainted or something from exhaustion prepping for his London concerts. It didn't surprise me....the most recent photos revealed a man who seemed to be a walking thin shell of himself, not the high energy consummate performer who always looked completely "in the zone" happy on stage. But, within minutes, the same media who helped turn Jackson into an untouchable were announcing his death. In the middle of what we all know will be an unstoppable barrage of stories, accolades, interpretations all stemming from the phoniness of Hollywood...... I heard a new 11 year old fan say....

"I think I will remember this day for the rest of my life." I believe he will. It is one of those moments when an event outside of your own realm interupts and leaves something indelible in one's memory. Like Elvis. Like Diana. Like RFK. Like JFK. Like Martin Luther King. All for different reasons.... but a stopping before and after recognition that you will remember where you were when you heard the news. For my son. For many I imagine.

Michael Jackson, the most famous entertainer in the world whose behaviour and secret life far outshines any head shaving meltdown Britney could throw into the tabloids..... the man whose arrested development shackled him to Neverland and a life of relating to Lost Boys.... was a true genius. Painfully, his orbiting success and his deep wounds left from abuse and never being able to know what normal is, ate at his soul and left him behind a veil. No doubt we will be living it and reading about it all.... hearing it dredged up on talk shows and news shows until we want to vomit.

Looking out across the morning
The city�'s heart begins to beat
Reaching out, I touch her shoulder
I'�m dreaming of the street .......

Can you imagine never having a chance to walk down a street all by yourself with a sense of smiling anonymity? Jackson's song Human Nature captures his desire to just be normal..... to walk on the street, to "take a bite of an apple....." So , so sad. For all of his success, Michael Jackson was the loneliest human being on the planet.

The eternal Lost Boy? May he rest in peace. May he find the freedom his life never offered him. Let his music transcend this craziness and sadness of his life and the predictable dissection of it after his death. Let his music be discovered through the eyes, ears and heart of a new fan for years to come.

Man in the Mirror.

He had such brilliance and talent but was imprisoned in a tragically wounded soul. His success was astounding. His demise was astounding. His death is a shock. His music lives on.

Perspective is a great teacher when you open your eyes.....

I do have one question burning in my brain.....what's gonna happen to Bubbles? Oh, and who did he leave the Elephant Man remains to? I'm sure CNN will eventually inform us. Hold onto your crotches friends, we're in for a long long summer.....