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We all think we’re different, but we’re the same.

As much as I’d like to believe I’m beyond that.

That I do things differently.

The special snowflake in the midst of all the similar snowflakes.

I have long hair. Multiple piercings. A long bushy beard.

I have all these because at some point, someone told me to do the opposite.

Cut my hair. Don’t get pierced. Shave my beard.

Such a contrarian.

Going against the grain.

Today I learned I’m just like everyone else.

That the powers of social cohesion, those invisible threads that bind us all in society, work just as well on me.

I could see it happening. As it was happening.

Compelled.

That’s the word that popped into my head as I did exactly what 9 out of 10 behavioural and social scientists would have expected of me.

I went from rebel without a cause.

To rebel because.

Because they did it.

I did it too.

Doing exactly what virtually all of you would have done.

I followed the well beaten path.

Ignoring the sign and doing what the others before me had done.

The ones right in front of me.

Trodding along the same path to different destinations.

I ignored the “sidewalk closed” sign.

And kept walking.

Right past the “Do Not Enter”.

And I kept walking.

…Because the dad and took his young child that way.

…Because that elderly gentleman followed them.

…Because the other pedestrian also shrugged off that ominous sign

And decided they too would take the shortcut.

Through the closed sidewalk.

With that action, I was just like them.

The invisible hand of social pressure conforming me to do what those around me were doing.

In the famous words of Seth Godin:

“People like us do things like this.”

And now I am in the company of trespassers.

Photo by Jumpei Mokudai on Unsplash

There may be no way to come back from this.

An event to which its predecessor has faded from memory, vanished and disappeared.

A time so long ago. A land before time. Perhaps even a time before land. Or a time before time.

This was an event upon which the fragility of my male ego has been exposed, a house of cards that has come crashing down, falling into the abyss below.

Crash.Crash.Crash.

Broken.

I am a broken man.

Broken into a million pieces.

Shattered.

A million and one serpentine slashes slithering along the contours of my blighted being, cascading down my countenance, etched ever-present and evermore.

It has taken me days to write this.

Days for the searing trauma to settle.

Days for me to put down the words I now share with you, as painful as they are.

These words need to see light of day. To normalize the events.

To grasp as the last vestiges of my manliness as they seep out of me.

It was Friday.

And I had a task. A primordial task. Once that has stretched along with the sinew of time.

A task of sustenance.

Hunting and gathering.

And after my successful foray into the wilderness, it was upon my return that these events came to be.

It was during my return, where grave tragedy struck.

Where the undoing occurred.

Hoisting my gatherings, 6 bags in each hand, carton of 36 large eggs precariously perched with other breakables, the weight distribution calculated to the closest Newton, precision balanced like Nesmuk’s Jahrhundert Messer, I made the journey from car to front door.

With each step, sure and confident, the ground littered with potential slip and falls everywhere, lawsuits just waiting to be borne, I moved closer to my destination, closer to home.

The weather being what it has been, the ground abounded with danger. Icy patches. Loose gravel carelessly strewn about by the irresponsible condo developer next door. Detritus and litter strewn about from recycling day in a wind storm.

And another step.

My shoulder on one side dipping and weaving to maintain balance. A shadow boxer without an opponent. A tightrope walker on terra firma. Then the other side. Finding footing. Finding balance.

I can feel the tension in my knuckles, the cutting bite of the bag handles as they edge their way against the soft, supple flesh of my palms.

I feel the tension within those bags, their skin stretching and creaking under the strain of their copious loads inside.

Another step. And then another. The nearer my destination, the more I feel I’m slip sliding away.

Only a few more before I’ve safely made it home.

I hear a rip.

I freeze in place, only a few feet away.

It’s the bag with the 3 dozen eggs.

As luck would have it, my most precious cargo, the most delicate of fare…

The earth defiling plastic from which it’s composed is deteriorating right before my eyes.

The handles now inches and inches longer. Growing and showing its weakness.

But I’m so close.

Two more steps and I won’t have to put the dozen bags down…the dozen bags which I carefully looped in various ways to make the trip.

Having planned ahead, my keys were placed in my hands so there would be no need to stop the onward march, so there would be no need to unload before the time was right.

Another rip as I’m turning the door handle. I feel the vibrations of the tear shuddering through my body.

Calculating the risk, I knew a fall from that distance would be instant devastation.

A mess of epic proportions.

The door gave and I was inside.

Relief washed over me. Immediate. Complete.

The eggs were safe as I slowly lowered them, carefully placed against the ground, no longer at risk of fall from height.

As I returned to the car to pick up the 36 pack of toilet paper, I couldn’t help but replay the tragedy I had just averted, I couldn’t help but internally congratulate myself for a job well done.

That is, until I was back inside.

And with those cutting words she crushed my world.

And I became an abject failure.

“So it took you two trips to bring everything in, eh?”

Photo by Jasmin Egger on Unsplash

Today is the day.

I rose from a fitful night of sleep – hours before my alarm would cry it’s shrill banshee wail – my mind turning over the endless array of nefarious possibilities, catastrophic dangers, and uncalculated risks that could derail life and limb.

The countless, seemingly never ending threats that could shift things sideways in a blinker of an eye, leaving me in a mangled mess of sinew and bone, blood and guts splattered about like raspberry jam on a fresh slice of caraway rye.

Was I prepared for this?

This would not remain a rhetorical question as the agreed upon hour was nearing.

I had to hop in my four wheeled chariot and make my into the deep depths of downtown, leaving the comfort of my pants-free life and joining the panted world.

There was a severe wind warning for today, heavy gusts expected, although as I navigated the quiet early morning streets, the sky was blue with the sun shining the way it does with nary a care in the world.

I pulled up in front of the appointed place, a dozen or so minutes before the appointed hour.

For being early is on time, and being on time is being late.

Those words reverberated inside my head as I gulped the last dregs of my coffee from my shimmering red travel coffee mug, the mocha java gently kissed with two and a half tablespoons of sugar and a generous pour of full fat milk, coating my parched throat like the fresh salve from a newly cut aloe vera shoot.

As I clicked my quick arrival message on my palmheld super computer, I steeled myself for the upcoming undertaking, taking a few deep breaths, letting the oxygen permeate within my keyed up physiology.

In a few moments, she arrived. I could see her approaching my car clear as day.

I quickly exited, contorting my tense body out of the driver’s seat and went out to greet her.

It had been some time since we’d last met up, a whole pandemic and then some.

It’s funny how time shifts and twists, yet sometimes, it seems like it hasn’t moved at all.

“Are you ready?”

After our greetings and pleasantries, those were the words that mattered.

“Right now?” There was a subtle waver in her voice, an undercurrent of uncertainty, as though she didn’t think it was the right time, that she wasn’t ready. That this wasn’t the right place to start.

But she was. And this was.

It was early Sunday morning. There would be no better time.

Not here. Not in this town. Not in this place.

“Yes. It’s as good a time as any.”

And I meant every one of those words, using my decades of experience, assessing the risk, the danger, reflecting on those terrifying images that had broken my slumber not even a few hours ago.

It was indeed a good a time as any.

As we took our places in the vehicle, on that first thrust forward, I felt my body shake with inertia.

109 horses lurching forward in unison, a herd of steeds that wouldn’t be stopped, that couldn’t be stopped.

A sudden jerk at the stop sign. A hard brake. The bent L caress across my lap and torso. My foot pressing down against an imaginary pedal, coming up empty, compressing nothing.

Our safety belts held fast, the hardy nylon straps clicking firm with the locking mechanism. Our bodies restrained as they should be.

This was a good sign. The safety systems were functioning, the first test passed with flying colours.

With another powerful thrust forward, off we went again, gaining speed and momentum. Focused intently on those others around us in their cars, their chariots.

Not trusting them to maintain their distance, their space.

As time wore on, our velocity increased to match the rising comfort, the streets shifting subtly as we passed from neighbourhood to neighbourhood.

At times our speed exceeding the posted limit, almost unaware, until a soft voice would entreat “the limit’s forty here.”

A gentle retreat, easing off the gas, coasting back down to regulated pace.

For an hour and half we meandered through novel neighbourhoods, snow capped front yards, and narrow streets and lanes.

Tension palpable. Bodies tense. Time did not assuage that sympathetic response.

The conversation was light and easy, even as my heart rode with the Valkyries, thudding intently within my rapidly expanding and contracting rib cage.

Soon, however, we found ourselves rolling back towards our starting point, the adventures coming to a close.

We had survived.

I had survived.

The dangers of being driven by Miss Daisy.

When Miss Daisy is your ex.

And you’re helping her relearn to drive after a decade.

P.S. All the characters and events depicted are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Photo by Berkan Küçükgül on Unsplash

As a staunch believer in the scientific method, I’m often tasked with finding a robust scientific explanation for things that happen in my life that seemingly have no explanation.

Usually this works.

There’s often a small pieces of evidence, a small molecule of information that I’m missing that fills in the last remaining piece of the puzzle, thus granting me the complete image, the full picture to gaze upon in wonder and amazement.

Filled in from the edges, the parts to the whole.

Complete.

So far, in my life, this process has served me well…

Leading me down a path of enlightenment and understanding.

Until a few days ago.

When my world was thrown into a chaotic swirl of snow and freezing ice pellets that matched Mother Nature’s fury against the doubt I held as she flung them in her awesome rage down upon me and the denizens of my fair city.

You see, there had been a severe weather warning for that day.

Freezing rain. Ice pellets. Treacherous conditions. Massive snow accumulation.

By early afternoon, looking out from my workplace window, I saw none of this and held steadfast in my belief that this was not to be.

Another missed weather report. The fallibility of the meteorologist and their woo proven to me yet again. And again. And again.

“Do not believe their lies” the refrain echoing at my echo chamber door “nevermore”.

But as the workday drew to a close, and afternoon gave way to evening as it always does and always will, and my clients one by one advised me of the slowly worsening conditions outside, I knew I was on a slippery slope.

The evidence was falling from the skies above and piling up on the ground below. It was all around me.

Plain to see.

And there was no refutation as I trudged through inches of slurry slush and snow, the sleet assailing my uncovered visage, my unruly beard the only saving grace against Mother Nature’s violence against me and only me, for I doubted her and her proxy.

My head thrust down and forward, my arm wielded as a shield against the elements, I skilfully made my way across the parking lot towards my car, no longer metallic blue but dusted in a foot of blinding white crystalline powder bringing only joy to one type of skier and not another.

As punishment for my disbelief, Mother Nature, in her infinite spite, now bestowed upon me the task of brushing off my car.

Yet another step before I could take my weary body home on what would surely be an extra long commute at the end of an extra long day, my exhausted body forced to contort and sway with the bristled extension fixed to my arm thrust to and fro in that frigid dance.

Unlocking my vehicle, I did as I always do.

My bag and water bottle placed on the passenger seat, just so. My bag pinning the bottle securely in place, a restraint to tether the Nalgene snugly against the seat back.

My phone was haphazardly tossed on the seat as well, a deviation from the normal position in my pocket.

This was done to facilitate two tasks that precede the brushing off…

One, turning the key in the ignition. That first step on an icy, snowy day to being the defrosting process, that ever important task of gifting visibility.

And two, reaching into the floor well of the passenger seat to grab the snowbrush.

With the preparatory tasks complete, my little blue bell humming along, I closed the door and began the arduous process of undoing Mother Nature’s handiwork.

10 minutes later, my car restored to it’s mostly shining blue glory, I was ready to head home.

Looking back over the parking lot, the dozens of cars surrounding me, now even in that small amount of time, covered in an even greater accumulation of thick snow.

I shook my head in pity for those who would come out later and have to spend twice as much time as I just did to free their cars.

My insolence against Mother Nature costing them as well. Punished for my acts, my thoughts. Those poor souls.

As I pulled on the door handle, nothing happened.

And therein lies the problem.

Something should have happened.

Something important.

The door should have opened.

There should have been a slight clicking sound, then a quiet whoosh as the entryway appeared.

The gateway home. My gateway home.

But nothing.

Nothing.

I tried again.

Still nothing.

And again.

Nothing.

I felt a thudding inside my thin fall jacket.

It was my heart.

Filling with icicles in the frozen wasteland.

But then my brain, taking charge of the situation, told me to try the other doors.

That perhaps it was just a sudden freeze from the icy pellets on the latch mechanism.

And still nothing.

Not even the hatch at the back would yield.

The harder I pulled on those handles, the deeper my heart sank.

Everything was inside.

My phone. My wallet. My water.

My life.

Even my emergency winter survival kit was inside.

I now found myself, practically naked in my thin fall jacket, outside, alone, likely soon to be dehydrated and worst off…

…without my phone, in a barren parking lot, outside of work.

And salvation.

My brain, overcoming the tunnel vision and narrow focus of intense adrenaline, heard those words and brought clarity.

“Outside of work”

All was not lost.

I would not be found here, blue and frozen, days or weeks later.

I could go inside and call roadside assistance.

Which is exactly what I did.

And then waited an hour and a half, as little blue belle continued to chug away, my heater and defroster working beautifully as mine was the only vehicle whose windshield was now devoid of snow.

Gentle puffs of exhaust tooting out the back and vanishing into the white swirls.

As the lockout specialist pulled up and gained entry in less than 30 seconds, we discussed what could have happened.

How I could have ended up this way for the first time in my life.

How I could have locked myself out of my car with the engine running on a day like today.

There was only one logical, scientific explanation.

Ghosts.

Photo by Šimom Caban on Unsplash

They know they shouldn’t be there.

Not at this time. Not at this moment.

Their antics are unwelcome.

But they can’t help it. It’s too compelling. Too exciting.

Like the scorpion who struck down the swan in the middle of the river, it’s in their nature.

They are driven to do what they’re doing. An urge that wells up from deep inside them.

Instinct.

Something evolution forgot to erase.

As I sit here typing this, I can hear her plaintive wails.

The desperate cries of exasperation, steeped in frustration.

Entreating. Cajoling. Cursing. Pleading.

At once complimentary and angry.

Begging them to cease. To desist.

It all falls on deaf ears.

Or ears that hear but choose not to listen.

Or maybe they don’t understand.

For they are just two kittens.

And she is making the bed.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

If you’ve graced me with your attention on these pages before, I thank you for that.

For without your eyeballs on my words it would only be me, screaming into the endless emptiness, hoping, wishing, dreaming of that special connection.

Between us.

Me and you.

On our special trip down memory lane.

One year older in a blink of an eye. Time on it’s never ending forward march.

From 2021 to 2022.

At first glance, it doesn’t seem like much.

But we all know the meaning behind it.

We all subconsciously grasp the power of the tiny, little shift.

How it will weave it’s gossamer across our mind, casting its filamentous tendrils into the nooks and crannies of our delicate memories, real or imagined, buffered and buttressed by our self evolved narratives.

The joys more joyous. The slights, more slightous. Everything bigger, bolder, more robust than truth would honestly say.

But today is a new day. A new dawn. A new year.

Today is an opportunity to shape the path in front of us, as the path behind us has been set.

Today is an opportunity to forge ahead into new beginnings, craft a fresh start.

Try things you haven’t yet had an opportunity to do.

Go out and seek new experiences.

This the the cusp of your new life.

Unless you forgot to cancel the auto-renew on your antivirus software.

In which case, you’ve been billed for the next year.

And your new day, your new dawn, your new year won’t start until 2023.

But only if you remember to uncheck that sneaky little box.

Photo by Moritz Knöringer on Unsplash

In the world we live in, a world full of mistrust, anger, and fear, there exists a force powerful enough to change our trajectory, to change the negativity and create a serene future for us and those around us, those with whom we cross paths.

It is the force of kindness.

In theory, it’s simple enough.

Kind [ kahynd ]: adjective, kind·er, kind·est.

1. of a good or benevolent nature or disposition, as a person: a kind and loving person.

2. having, showing, or proceeding from benevolence: kind words.

dictionary.com

Based on a foundation of empathy and awareness, it involves taking into consideration someone else’s situation and actively taking steps to make it better, to alleviate their real or perceived hardships with means that are available to you, with means at your disposition.

To actively choose to give of yourself without expectation of anything in return.

Benevolence in its purest form.

It’s often the road less travelled. The path not chosen. It’s the one covered with thick, gnarly brush and brambles that cut and snare, that slice and scratch the delicate bare flesh of humanity, dissuading many from taking such an uninviting route when one could choose the clear path, the easy one, right beside it.

No my friends, it’s not always easy to be kind.

Sometimes it’s easier to rise to anger with alacrity, burning everything in our path with fire and brimstone, our wanton acts of destruction that heed no call, no master, the acrid fumes trailing behind us, reminding us of our choice too late, unable to tether what we’ve unleashed in that moment of weakness, of humaness – a slight, a frustration – a coiled spring springing forward with full force.

The damage done.

Allowing the trigger to be triggered, jiggering the jigger, unleashing the dance of a thousand regrets.

The jig is up.

But we try. Oh we try. Over and over, again and again. To do better. Be better.

Every day a new opportunity to be kind. To do kindness in a world that needs more. So much more.

I tried the other day. And in a way, perhaps I succeeded.

Or perhaps, by putting these words down, this is my atonement for those thoughts. My thoughts.

Impure and unkind.

It was after a long and arduous grocery store trip, my face, heavily bearded and heavily masked, my breathing tasked with pulling enough air through the KN95, perhaps oxygen had seeped and creeped out the sides, the seal broken, imperfect, leaving me wanting, needing more.

People going the wrong way, disregarding arrows, avoiding the slings I slung from my eyes. Daggers thrown freely to keep my space my very own. But they were in their own world, in their own mind. Their worries and their time, theirs in that moment. Standing close. Oh so close. Shoulder almost touching shoulder in acts of intimacy years ago forgotten in this time of contagion.

But that is neither here nor there as the real story takes place as I was driving home, the long stretch of road full and choked with others like me, like us, in their steel cages on wheels, the rush and crush of time pushing us forward.

The importance of our time usurping the importance of theirs. Ours vs the others. Us vs Them.

Moving forward slightly. Braking. Inching. Taking space in the slowest race. Almost frozen but with enough thaw that we made the glacier’s pace.

And then the test of kindness.

In this congested line of vehicular molasses, I made the mistake of looking up.

When we usually stare a thousand yards ahead, eyes fixed on the destination miles away, I looked up.

And our eyes met.

He was exiting from a parking lot, wanting to turn into my lane.

I could see his entreaty, his ask, willing me to afford him the simple courtesy of ceding space in front of me, space which I’d fought for, given up my precious time for. Gazing quickly up at my rear view mirror, I saw the million shining stars reflected back at me in the dusky haze, the line of cars, only twinned headlights visible stretching back as far as I could see.

I had a decision to make.

A path to choose.

The easy one, to revert my gaze back to the thousand yards. Or the hard choice, choose kindness.

On this day, I chose kindness.

It wasn’t easy. It took calculated effort to hold the brake down as the row of cars ahead of me began their mechanical inching, to make space, hold space, for this stranger.

But I did it.

And in that moment, as his hand raised up and with a flick of his wrist he acknowledged my act of generosity, I felt a resounding peace. There was a warmth that emanated from somewhere deep inside me. A fuzzy warmth with garbled edges, expanding as I suspect the universe does, outward, inward, everywhere. Incredible. All from that simple act of letting him in.

This is what kindness felt like.

As we inched forward, it all came to a sudden halt.

As his car crossed the threshold of the intersection, it hit me.

The warmth evaporated leaving only the barren shell of what came before.

And in that moment, I learned that kindness gets you a red light.

Photo by Andrew Thornebrooke on Unsplash