PSYCHOLOGY BUSKING a la wordswords: MOMENTS TO REMEMBER

BARON AND SELF AT THE CURE

Lately these past couple decades suffering through my existential dread, I have really come to realize that my existence is but a moment in time. I could write that “Our existence is but a moment in time,” but I certainly do not want, too, to suffer deductive reasoning to the point of bracketing everyone along with me and my thoughts. For if I did, then you, too, (the collective you) would unnecessarily be suffering that same existential dread as I.

Years ago, a colleague of mine stated at the lunch table in a high school staff room that life was just an odd collection of moments. At the time I thought something of that line, and still today, I think of that line. Yes. Life is, indeed, a collection of moments, and now I know that every moment is precious (the cliché of all clichés) and that practically anything can happen in practically any moment. Such moments play regularly in my head. Not all moments, but I do have some recurring moments that have prompted this blog entry. Some of these moments are of life and death themes, while others are more narcissistically glorious, but could be delusional and more fitting for my romantic nostalgic personality profile. Hmmm …

When I was 13 years old, I was riding a horse on a bridge over Notekeu Creek, a mile south of Vanguard, Saskatchewan. My friend, David, was with me, but he was riding my bike. Moments earlier we had traded saddles, he was sitting on the saddle of my brand-new bicycle, while I was sitting on his old saddle of his old Clydesdale farm horse. We were riding south to his place, a spread another mile south of the bridge. On that bridge I halted the horse while David rode on. I halted that horse to chat with some buddies below, who were out shooting frogs and birds along the creek. Dwight and Mike and Philip were in a rowboat, the “Snail,” rowing and smoking and shooting with their 22 rifles. This was back in the summer of 1964 when every boy in our town owned a 22 rifle, and every boy would be shooting something, gophers or birds or frogs or even tin cans were frequent targets. On this summer day, while the boys in the boat were chatting with me while I was still riding high above them on my horse, Philip decided to take a couple pot shots my direction, simply to scare me or maybe scare the horse to bucking me off. Whatever the reason, the boat rocked, the gun tipped, and I got a bullet in my right shoulder. It went through my shoulder blade and lodged midway to my chest. Another couple inches to the right or left or up or down I would have been dead. Seeing the blood, the boys clambered from the boat to the bank to assist me as I jumped off the horse in fright. Dwight was supposed to be delivering groceries for his dad’s store and his delivery vehicle, and old paddy-wagon was near. They loaded me into the paddy-wagon and drove me to the hospital.

Being shot, never mind being shot off a horse became my notoriety; anybody around Vanguard at that time stills chat about it today. Now that was a moment.

Another near-death experience moment was when I was hydroplaning on Highway #43 between Vanguard and Gravelbourg, which was 36 miles straight east. I was enroute from Vanguard via Gravelbourg and Moose Jaw to Regina; I was a university student. I was cruising in my 1968 Ambassador, a lit cigarette in my mouth, and pouring rain over the countryside, without my seatbelt fastened. The car began to drift toward the right and I vividly recall deciding if I should let go the steering wheel to fasten my seatbelt, imagining the car would very soon hit the shoulder of the highway then roll once or twice or thrice in the ditch. Time stood still, or at the very least I was experiencing a time expansion moment. I did nothing because instead of hitting the shoulder, the car kept spinning, rear wheels to the left lane then continuing counter-clockwise into the right lane until I was actually speeding down the highway in reverse, the car heading straight east in the right lane, and me, facing west still directly behind the steering wheel. And then the car slowed and stopped. I righted the car, drove slowly down the highway until I pulled over at an approach, stopped the car, got out, and smoked a couple of cigarettes. I could barely get them lit because my hands were shaking so badly. I have never exceeded the posted speed limit since that date, and I always adjust my driving speed according to the weather.

And I’ve had moments of glory. All my life I loved to skate, and I loved playing hockey. Seventeen years old I was playing in a hockey tournament in Neville, Saskatchewan. Neville is 16 miles on #43 Highway practically straight west from Vanguard, the same highway on which I was hydroplaning last paragraph. Those years I played defense for the Vanguard Eagles of the Notekeu Hockey League, or as I still refer to it today, the NHL. Well in that one game, it was not the final game but one in the preliminary round, I scored four goals. And I remember especially my last goal in that game, carrying the puck around the back of our net, then stickhandling past Melvin (a friend and player of the Neville team), going coast to coast and deking the goalie for a score. That game and that moment I was Bobby Orr.

In 1985 I had my book, A WISHBONE EPISTOLARY, published by the Guidance Centre, Faculty of Education, University of Toronto. A WISHBONE EPISTOLARY was a series of letters ostensibly from one Jereboam Smiley, soon-to-be-superannuated Guidance Counsellor at Wishbone High, to his successor, Neil Child. The letters were fictional, Jereboam Smiley was fictional, and Neil Child (moi) was a newly appointed guidance counsellor at Balfour Collegiate, here in Regina. Sales for this book were not brisk, so nor were my royalties. I did make some money, more like a pittance, but my social status and social capital amongst my peers in the counselling community rose to the status of those of thin and wispy in the sky stratus clouds. They (stratus) are the lowest-lying cloud type, but I was in heaven.

And my last moment to describe was 17 years ago when Baron (my busk-mate son) and Craig (owner of Crave Kitchen Bar in Regina) and I were loading the van to go on my very first buskation. We were headed to Victoria, British Columbia, where we had rented a small house very close to the downtown, my plan was to busk there for the summer. Once there, every morning Baron and I would lift weights at Club Phoenix, a gym in downtown Victoria, afterwards followed by breakfast, and then a look at the ship schedules, what times the ships carrying upwards of 2000 passengers, would be unloading these potential consumers onto the streets of downtown Victoria. This was our daily routine. This is when and where I learned how to guitar busk on the street. This experience was glorious. Every moment of this entire buskation experience was priceless. Since that summer, I have been busking in The Netherlands, in Ireland, and in Morocco, with both my guitar and my sketchpad. And therefore, I fancy myself as a wannabee planetary busker.

I would advise anyone who is reading this to make every moment count. But I am not an advisor and as a hypnotherapist, I NEVER GIVE ADVICE. However, as a hypnotherapist I can certainly suggest to anyone and everyone, to at least think of every action you are doing in any given moment. Offering such a suggestion is in the spirit of Zen … or Mindfulness … or even Carpe Diem, which translates to grasp, seize, and enjoy the day!

Ah yes. As per usual, this essay is ALL ABOUT ME. Always am I filled with bluster and oftentimes I offer myself the opportunity to bloviate in my blog. My empirical self-manded lessons in all of this are becoming a constant, a kind of empirical educentrism – translated by me to keep moving and keep learning. Now that I am 71, soon to be 72 years of age, I know I suffer existential dread as I’ve previously confessed at the start of this blog entry, because I am so aware that life is both fun and fugacious.

My senior existential epiphany:

I ACHE FOR MOMENTS OF FUN UNTIL I AM FINIS ...

MARCHING MOMENTS in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week: