SCRIBBLES

SCRIBBLES

MORE SCRIBBLES

A client of mine, who has schizophrenia, handed me, unsolicited, his latest “scribbles.” Yikes. He had drawn these during his episodic drink-and-weed consumption a couple evenings ago. Yikes again. According to my client, these sketches offered up rich symbolism and insight, directed from his “super brain.”

Hmm. As I look at these, I see a creative quality akin to kindergarten art. And to be analytical, in the first drawing I see a checkmark, and a question mark, and a number sign within a light circle of dots. In the second drawing, top left to right, I see, simply, a percentage sign, a filled dot, a plus sign, and some arrows. Middle left to right I see a filled dot, more arrows suspended in a rectangle, and yet another filled dot. From the bottom left to right I see a circle with a plus sign and a scribbled treble clef, and another filled dot. Yes. I see Kindergarten art.  

But my client said he sees his scribbles as significant and meaningful. When I asked him for his interpretations, he said that in the first set of sketches he drew a checkmark, a question mark, and a number sign within a light circle of dots. His interpretation seemed no different than mine. As for his second set of drawings, he confirmed that he drew a percentage sign, a few dots and filled them in, some arrows, and last, a treble clef. Strangely, or maybe not-so-strangely, his interpretation of these drawings seemed no different than mine.

Save for the arrows. He went on and on and on about those arrows, and how he has perfected them. He stated that he draws these oftentimes in his free time, and I know he has plenty of that! His only obligation for the day is his self-mand, to every day at 1:30 walk downtown to the local gym and lift weights for approximately one hour. He has had this routine for close to a decade, and he looks the part. My client has a ripped and shredded body and he is as strong as an ox. My client has been lifting weights daily for over 20 years. My client has followed his exact self-manded regimen for over 20 years.  

Regarding his scribbles, I figured there would be bits of insight revealed by my client in this kind of projective psychology conclave. Being a psych guy, I could have contributed some pseudo- scholastic wit in my interpretations of his sketches. I could have projected some intellectual efflorescence, interpreting the checkmark as the point of his unconscious desire to create a checklist and check items off his to-do list accordingly. I could have easily interpreted his question mark as representing his inquisitive nature, his enquiring mind ever seeking universal truths regarding the universe and his station therein the universe accordingly. And the number sign I could have easily offered that he really knows life is but a game of Xs and Os, and this number sign replicates the grid for the game. The circle of dots is a simple one, representing the never-ending circle of life.  The percentage sign is a reckoning of the odds of being, and the treble clef most certainly symbolizes his eclectic love of any type of music.  I could've rescripted his art, but nope I did not. Nothing to see here, folks – was all there really was for me, and that’s okay by me.

SNOW SCRIBBLES (COURTESY OF "ALAMY") 

Scribbles. Truth be that I like to scribble too.  I like to scribble in the snow with my skis on the slopes. In any serious nonversation (talking to myself vs conversation of talking to someone), my scribbles project nothing.  They are neither symbolic nor insightful. My snow scribbles project only that I LOVE SKIING. Nothing to see here, folks -- save that I am a humble-bragging ski instructor.

SADLY, THIS SKI SEASON FOR ME IS FINIS.

Marching in my CHAUCERIAN PARADE this week:

THE FELINE OF A FRIEND

Here is my last MISSION for the season (pun intended) - Another ski picture, of course!

LIFTIE PROJECTIONS AT MISSION RIDGE SKI RESORT -- SEE THE SNOW SCULPTURES!

FACTOID: My client's scribbles came on the same day as my last day on the slopes -- the very day Mission Ridge Ski Resort closed for the season. Call it what you will -- I call such coincidences, PHENOMENOLOGY, the psychology of being able to make sense of coincidence! 

My client's scribbles were the nidus I needed to write yet another entry about downhill skiing. And to put scribbles and such into perspective ...

SKIING FIXES EVERYTHING!

  

FOOTNOTES: *BAREFOOT AND *BOOTS

 

I've been a swimmer, a diver, a teacher, a counsellor, a university professor, a hypnotherapist, a buskologist, an author, and now a ski instructor. I started out barefoot and now I am a boot guy. Seriously. 

Soon after my undergrad days I was a swimming/scuba instructor. Swimming or diving in a pool or in a lake or in a river, barefoot is still the norm, but I must confess that boots are my modus operandi. I wear boots all four seasons long. When I walk or run or busk in the rain or shine, thirty degrees above or thirty degrees below, I wear hiking boots. Wintertime, as often as possible, I wear my ski boots.

Factoid: While I am typing this right now, I am wearing my hiking boots!

Today I am writing about how my footwear relates to my life. From my vocations to my avocations, and now from my avocations to my vocations, from the bottom of the lake to the top of the mountain, my footwear has always been symbolic of who I really am.  I shall explain.

This picture atop the words in this blog entry features my bare feet whilst clad with Muay Thai shin guards. Whenever kicking in Muay Thai classes, for safety purposes and according to gym policy, I am obligated to wear my shin guards. Soft-kicking my sparring mates or hard-kicking the heavy bags would certainly take its toll if I were not donning my shin guards. But I digress.

Robert Owens, a lifelong American MMA practitioner, equates martial arts to hiking mountains – I like this guy! Hiking, you can see the top of the mountain. But when you get to the top, you realize you were looking at a false summit, because there you can view an entirely new mountain range!

My current pair of hiking boots pictured above, are SALOMON QUEST ELEMENTS, size 111/2 inches, bought locally at ATMOSPHERE. Purchase price: $249.00 plus tax.

American naturalist, John Muir, insisted that of all the paths we take in life, we sure make sure that some of them are dirt. I cannot remember not hiking in my life. In my early adolescence, my friends and I hiked the coulees and canyons along the creek south of the village of Vanguard, SK. And I have taken my own kids hiking mountain hiking every summer since their early adolescence. Now my kids are in adulthood, and all of us make a point of mountain for a couple weeks every summer. Of all my avocations, hiking brings out the best in me. At every opportunity I am a man on the move! In Henry David Thoreau fashion, the moment my feet begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow! And as I age, existential dread has become a main theme in my conversations. American mountaineer, Finis Mitchell, was spot on when he stated that we don’t stop hiking because we grow old. We grow old because we stop hiking!

Believing this, My self-mand for years has been: DON’T STOP HIKING!

Since the early ‘80s I have always skied with rented gear. When my kids were pre-adolescent and learning how to ski and snowboard, they had their own equipment. Heading to Fernie each year at Christmastime and oft times to Sunshine in springtime, transporting their equipment left no room for mine, and so I rented my ski gear right at the resort. These boots (pictured) are my first ski gear purchase since the early ‘80s! And what a treat they are. I have been skiing just one time so far with my new boots and now I remember what next to flying feels like! My boots are the perfect fit. Vertically standing my big toes just feather the end of the boot, and when I bend my knees in a simulated ski position, my heels go back just allowing my toes to wiggle freely if I choose to do so. Factoid: These days I am at the ski hill twice a week and am still pumped from my night ski just twelve hours ago!

My brand-new ski boots are ATOMIC HAWX PRIME 110 FLEX, size 281/2 mm, bought locally at SUNSHINE & SKI. Purchase price: $639.00 plus tax.

And here is what I know about skiing. Where you are is where it’s at. I love skiing in the mountains, some of my favorite places being Sun Peaks, Silver Star, Big White, and Fernie. Factoids: Sun Peaks is a one-hour drive from Kamloops. Silver Star is a half-hour drive from Vernon. Big White is a one-hour drive from Kelowna. Mount Fernie is a five-minute drive from Fernie. In skiing there is a saying: Where you are is where it’s at. Mission Ridge is not a mountain. Rather, Mission Ridge is a Qu’Appelle Valley escarpment but happens to be only a forty-minute drive from Regina. Yes. 

Where you are is where it’s at!

Whenever I am on the snow my mind is back in time, travelling to my early adulthood days skiing with my cousin, Craig, at every one of the mountains mentioned above. Also, whenever I am on the snow my mind is with my sons, hoping to gather with them and hit those same slopes as many times as possible before springtime.

This I know: A bad day skiing beats a good day at work!

Yes. My feet are me. What I wear is who I am. When I fight on the mat, my feet follow my fists.  When I ski down the mountain, my feet follow the fall line.  When I hike, my feet follow my fancy – wherever the birds chirp the loudest or wherever the vistas are the greatest, is where I go.

Call me fusty, but I know there are no shortcuts, no Annie Oakley tickets, to any place worth going. Nowadays, I am yet again, standing at a fork in the road. With a shout-out to Robert Frost, I shall take the path less-traveled by!

I began at the bottom and I shall finish at the top. I began at the bottom of the lake as barefooted swimming instructor; I shall finish at the top of the mountain as boot-buckled ski instructor.

And as a ski instructor, my goal is to get my clients from the top of 

the mountain to the bottom of the mountain. 

But as a skier, my primary goal is to get in as many runs as

possible before my sun sets!

 

 

  

 

 

 

MINIMUM EFFORT FOR MAXIMUM GAIN: GUILTY!

 

SELF-PORTRAIT

Yikes!  Upon reflection, it seems I mostly expend only minimum efforts for the arbitrarily maximum gains at home, at work, and at play. This is in harmony with my utilitarian practice I employ everywhere and always in my life.  Yikes again!

At HOME when it is time to clean my downtown high-rise condominium, for the most part I scrub only what I (and others) can generally see. Rarely do I grab a toothpick and scrape the grime and crud from the almost invisible cracks around the light switches and cupboard handles and faucets. I scrub with hand the bathroom sink, the toilet bowl, and the shower. With broom I sweep my kitchen and balcony, and the front entrance I use the vacuum cleaner. Suffice to say my entire cleaning time is clocked at 30 minutes -- my eighth-floor condo is only 775 square feet!

Hmmm … Such a quick cleaning is good enough for company and good enough to save face. My employing a toothpick for a tool happens only on the most intrinsically motivated “cleanliness-next-to-godliness occasions.

AT WORK I am a proletarian stiff, but in a most qualitative fashion.  Stated simply, I design and deliver only programs that I enjoy. Factoid: ALL the programs I have been contracted to design and deliver with my current employer, are ALL autobiographical.  For example, when I was an all-season long-distance runner, all those clients in my charge (young offenders in a custody facility) had to join me for a minimum run of five miles daily. Within a year of the start date, those same clients not only ran every day, but right after their run, they lifted weights every day -- I was a certified Olympic weight instructor at the time. Also, within a year of the program start date, we hit the swimming pool -- I was a certified swimming instructor at the time. I thoroughly enjoyed this “autobiographical” job for seven years, ending it only when I exited the program.

My current job, again with young offenders, also delivers an “autobiographical” schedule:

Every day with a mini chess tournament – I love playing chess. Following chess, we have group discussions relating to adolescent behaviors as presented in either Psychology or English literature -- I taught psychology at the local university for 23 years, and I taught high school English for five years.

Right after a catered lunch, we partake in a play nine-ball tournament. This lasts usually for an hour, and then we embark on a ten-minute trek to the gym, where we lift weights 30 minutes, then play basketball, or practicing Muay Thai. Factoid: All of the above I love doing, except for basketball.  I am not a basketball player but my colleague, who is university basketball star, still loves the hoops.

My work is my play, keeping my social battery current amongst those marginalized group members in my charge (puns intended every in this sentence)!

Factoid: At my PLAY, I never practice, I only play which suffices for practice times.

Hmmm … EXPENDING MINIMUM EFFORT FOR MAXIMUM GAIN seems my motto and excuse for indolence.  I know that PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT, or rather PERFECT PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT, but I am truly not a professional player of anything. I do Muay Thai once a week; I play shinny at an outdoor rink once a week; I ski at our local ski resort once a week; I do singer-songwriter gigs at local bars once every four weeks. I like writing and I like hiking.

SOMEWHERE IN THE ROCKIES

And, of course, I like busking, but am never a brutto tempo busker, but always the fair-weather busker on windless days having lots of sun.

LAKE SUPERIOR, ONTARIO

MINIMUM EFFORT FOR MAXIMUM GAIN has been a general truth in my lifestyle to date, albeit there have been some exceptions.

When I was striving for my Royal Life and Red Cross swimming instructors, and my National Association of Underwater Instructors scuba certifications, I swam a minimum of one mile every morning, my very maximum effort for the maximum gain.

ANOTHER POOL-ANOTHER SWIM

Before formally running in the Saskatchewan Marathon, for years I recreationally ran a minimum of five miles Monday through Saturday, and ten miles every Sunday. Marathon running never allows for a minimum effort.

For every class in which I registered for Graduate Studies, up to and including defending my master’s thesis, I gave my academic all for a minimum of five hours per week.

This Christmastime past, I set forth my maximum effort for twenty hours on the snow to attain my Canadian Ski Instructor Alliance certification.

All the above rather temerarious exceptions have one thing in common.  To succeed there is no time for foozle! Also, all these exceptions were motivated from within, rather than from without. Factoid:  IF MY ENDEAVORS HAVE INTRINSIC VALUE THEN I OFFER THE MAXIMUM EFFORT FOR MAXIMUM GAIN -- IF MY ENDEAVORS ARE MOTIVATED BY MONEY I AM BACK TO MINIMUM EFFORT FOR MAXIMUM GAIN.

Introspection could suggest that I unwittingly proffered such maximum efforts in these to raise my social status a dram or two or three.

Hmmm … I know that I am the delusional proletarian. I know, too, that having adopted the attitude  

MINIMUM EFFORT FOR MAXIMUM GAIN 

has served me very well so far.

 

 

DEATH AND PUPPY COMFORT

These days, DEATH is on my mind. Since the new year, five people that I know have died, three of whom I have known since my boyhood days in Vanguard, Saskatchewan, and the other two, a former student of mine in Regina, Saskatchewan, and my cousin’s husband who has resided in Victoria, British Columbia for the last 50 years. All five expired from natural causes.

Death is inevitable I know, but rarely does it come at me in familiar fives.

VANGUARDIAN, MURRAY (R.I.P)

VANGUARDIAN, JOHNNY (R.I.P.)

VANGUARDIAN, RICHARD (R.I.P.)

In life there is always much ado about death. The pedestrian idioms and euphemisms referring to death are plenty and multifarious: Passed, passed on, passed away, dearly departed, and resting in peace (RIP). And countless others even being comedic: bit the dust, kicked the bucket, met the maker, six feet under, pushing up daisies.

From a planetary perspective, 61 million people died last year. Combine this information with the fact that 134 million babies were born last year, 134 million minus 61 million means a net earth population gain of 73 million people in 2023. Or to factor this another way, 0.91%.

Factoid: In the coming decades it is expected that the number of births will continue to be around 130 to 140 million per year, while during the same time as the world population ages, the annual number of deaths is expected to continue to increase.

Another factoid: As the number of deaths approaches the number of births, the global population growth will end. Surprise, surprise! But enough of these actuaries.

As a kid, my pals and I used to kill. In our early teens we drowned out gophers in the pastures; we stoned frogs along the creek banks. In our later teens armed with .22 bolt-action rifles we shot gophers in the pastures; we shot frogs along the creek banks.

However, a view to a kill of an animal lower on the food chain is significantly different than viewing a human corpse. By presenting this food change comparison, I am certainly not suggesting that we ever killed these gophers and frogs for food. Sadly, we killed them only for sadistic sport. And while I am still ranting on the evolutionary food chain, we Homo sapiens are not the head honchos. Fittingly (Darwinian pun intended), we are surviving between the pigs and the anchovies, well below the top-seated polar bears and orca whales. All of this, true dat, according to the wildlife biologists.

But I digress.

The first dead human I ever laid eyes upon was Shorty, who had been a bartender at the Vanguard Hotel. Shorty was on display at the local funeral home on the main street in Vanguard Call it simple curiosity, but my buddy, Brent, whose family owned the hotel, and I walked into the funeral parlor to have a look. That look-see moment has been etched in my mind now for 60 years. Joe McKenny, Shorty’s drinking buddy, a look-a-like combo of W.C. Fields and Humpty-Dumpty, was duly having “guests” sign the register when they entered the funeral home to view the body. And there he was, Shorty, all five foot two of him stretched out on his back, his Brobdingnagian nose noticeably protruding above the gunwales of his coffin.

Of course, since that first view of human remains, I have seen, literally, hundreds since. Being now in the autumn of my life, deaths around me seem as common as the leaves I see falling from the trees. The five friends I listed in the first paragraph of this essay, are sadly now piles of bones amongst piles of leaves.  

If the skinny of Zen is “To live is to suffer,” then the skinny of Zen must also be “To die is to assuage.” At best, this is just a philosophic puppy comfort.

MY COLLEAGUE'S PUPPY, GEORGE

ANAL ANGST: NOT FREUDIAN -- A COLONOSCOPY!

YIKES!

It began when my FECAL IMMUNOCHEMICAL TEST (FIT), the provincial screening device for colon cancer, stated “ABNORMAL” atop the letter sent to me by the health authority. That same letter reported that a colonoscopy had been scheduled for me come January 18^th!  

Of course, I googled “COLONOSCOPY” and read that a colonoscopy is a procedure that allows your healthcare provider to check your entire colon (large intestine).  This procedure is done using a long, flexible tube, up to six feet in length called a colonoscope. The colonoscope has a light and a tiny camera on one end and is inserted into your rectum and moved through your colon.

Yikes! And so begat my anal angst.

Though anal angst may seem a Freudian connotation, I can assure you it is not! MY anal angst had nothing to do with my Child fascination (pun intended) in the erogenous zone of my anus! Rather, it had only to do with the real anticipated mental and physical anguish of a six-foot tube insertion to where the sun don’t shine!

Talk about a bummer!

I had just returned from a marshmallow Christmas break in British Columbia, Christmas dinner with my daughter in Kamloops and skiing with my sons at Kelowna.

MY THREE SONS AND SELF -- PRE-SKI

Following that I signed up for the three-day CANADIAN SKI INSTRUCTOR ASSOCIATION (CSIA) course held at the Mission Ridge Ski Resort, just an hour drive from my home city. The course was intense, being six hours on the snow for Day one, six more hours on the snow for Day two, and five and a half hours on the snow for Day three. Intense but technically manageable.

MY RETIREMENT TICKET TO MOUNTAIN ADVENTURES

All this was followed by a four-hour walk-the-line teacher strike up and down and over the famous Albert Street Bridge (Regina, Saskatchewan) in minus 30-degree weather!

MARCHING WITH (TEACHER) FRIENDS

And then I had my rehearsal for opening the up-and-coming TRISTAN OREMBA concert to be held at my favorite downtown bar, THE CURE.

    

To prep for my colonoscopy was (somewhat) dreaded, yet simple. My colon needed to be clean as         whistle and therefore, some dietary measures were necessary to purge my intestines. As prescribed, I    followed these easy dietary measures: Seven days prior to my scheduled colonoscopy I could eat no   nuts or seeds. Two days before the colonoscopy I started a low residue diet. At 7 p.m. the evening     before the colonoscopy, I changed from a low residue diet to a clear fluid diet. I had to buy from the drug store, one 4L jug of CoLyte. Also, at 7 p.m. the night before my colonoscopy, I was ordered to         drink 2L (64 oz) of the CoLyte solution. At 8:15 the morning on my colonoscopy I drank another 2L of the CoLyte solution. I must admit, drinking all 4L of this liquid laxative was difficult. Drinking these  four liters was quite the chore, and upon reflection, really the only chore.

My writing purpose today was to commend all the medicos who partook in the process of my colonoscopy.  This includes the information nurse who I had to initially call to confirm I would be available for  date of my procedure, the general admission clerk at the hospital who made sure I was registered in lots of time and then directed me to Endoscopy Unit, the receptionist at the Endoscopy Unit who welcomed me with a big smile (not a sardonic smile, by the way), the prep nurses in the wardroom who had me strip and lie in wait, and finally to all those, including the good (great, I mean) doctor, who were directly involved in my procedure. (Practically every day I read that our medical state is in dire need of repair. This may very well be, but such a state did not dampen the ardor and zeal offered me from start to finish by all the medicos involved in my dreadfully anticipated colonoscopy.)

Epilogue:

It's been a few days since my colonoscopy adventure and upon reflection, that anal angst I suffered was all for naught. I must express that the actual operation was not at all unpleasant. Rather, if there is such a measure as a suffering continuum, my colonoscopy was more on side of pleasant than on the side of pain. I am happy to report that I am back in my pedestrian saddle, having ridden thrice to the gym for very light workouts, having ridden twice for half-hour outdoor walks, having performed a couple original songs at an Open Mic last night, and tonight planning to go for a skate on Wascana Lake!

To this end, or shall I say, to end this:

FOR ALL THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN ASSIGNED TO HAVE A COLONOSCOPY:

I ENCOURAGE YOU TO DO SO WITHOUT RESERVATION!

FACTOID: COLONOSCOPIES SAVE LIVES!

ANOTHER FACTOID: PEOPLE REFUSE COLONOSCOPIES BECAUSE THEY HAVE HEARD THAT THE PREP IS DIFFICULT AND ARE AFRAID THE PROCEDURE WILL BE PAINFUL.  

TRUST ME. THE PREP WAS EASY AND THE PROCEDURE WAS NOT PAINFUL, AND AS THIS BLOG ENTRY PROVES, I DID SURVIVE TO TELL ABOUT IT!