First, a few changes and realizations about writing a blog:
1 - I'm a night-worker (that's what 'melatonin' means (irrelevant factoid)) and I haven't had internet access at night - for most of September. Hence the poor productivity. You should see my pay-check..
2 - I'm now better at (or addicted to?) writing online. I tried writing entries on paper and then typing them out. ug. My journal is suffering too..
Back to the story.. I finished The Glass Castle just before my birthday, and my favorite part of it is on page 36. That didn't make the rest of it meaningless, just not as favorite as that part. I loved the book, highly recommended.
I was going to type out the whole scene here, but now I'm not. It's too long (I'm too lazy).
It goes like this:
The main character, Jeanette, is four or five years old at this point. She thinks she sees something under her bed. Her sister tells her she's crazy, but she's scared, so she goes to tell her Dad (who is an alcoholic/genius/'kind of person I'd probably be friends with' - kinda guy). He says, "really, did he have big teeth and claws, and was he a hairy sonofabitch, with beady little eyes?"
She says, "you've seen him too?"
And he says, "you bet I have, it's that old bastard Demon.." and describes how Demon likes to scare people, but Rex Walls (her Dad) stood up to him years ago, and hasn't seen him for years. He tells her to get his hunting knife, and arms her with a pipe wrench, and they turn the house upside down looking for demon, calling him out.
He's nowhere to be found, of course.
He doesn't really explain it to her - the lesson speaks for itself. She goes on, from some very rough roots, to become a great writer and seemingly cool person. She cleary got it. Her Dad, sadly, did not. The one Demon he couldn't scare out of himself was the bottle.
I woke up the morning of my birthday and it was raining hard. The fifteen minute bike ride didn't seem like much fun, since my rain gear was in the trunk of my car, 40 kilometers away (I finally got busted for my Ontario licence plate!). But I wanted to go to Ahousat for the day, it was the grand opening of their new high school, a pretty big event. I hummed and hawed about how wet and cold I'd get, and was right - I was sick for a week after spending the whole day soaked to the skin, using the 'body heat method' to dry my clothes. But I went anyway.
It was my birthday, I wanted to have a nice day. I remembered how my Mom used to say, every time that song by Garth Brooks came on - Standing outside the Fire - "You're so quiet and shy, Paddy, and I don't know why - but that's not you."
Standing outside the fire
Life is not tried, it is merely survived
If you're standing outside the fire.
I hear her voice sometimes when I feel afraid to do something, whether join in socially (it still scares me at times) or take a leap of faith in life, or just go a little outside my physical comfort zone..
Maybe that part of the book stood out because coming here, doing what I'm doing, scared me. But I'm not sure which character I'm more like, her Dad, who talked big, and was great in many ways, a maverick in some (and handsome too!), but there was one Demon he couldn't face. She, on the other hand, never talks about it, just did it. I wonder if he knew there was a fear he wasn't facing, or if he was blind to it.
Do I have fears I can't face, or don't see? Sometimes I wonder if I'm afraid of stopping. Sometimes I wonder if I'm afraid of going..
And I talk a lot about warrior-iness, but really - the only battles that matter happen within. Once those are won or lost, they are often reflected in our lives - but not always in ways people can see.
Later that night I went to Schooner Cove (Long Beach) with some friends for a fire and hotdogs. They drove us all out and bought me beer and were super cool (and yelled "surprise" as I walked back to the truck, which acually worked:). It was a fun, great birthday.
I also found a white tail feather from a bald eagle, my fifth in life. Probably from the same eagle that gave me my first and second, but maybe not. Not sure what it meant, or again just - "you're on the right path."
My birthday wish to myself was, for the year, and life, to always say, "fuck you, Demon."
I guess the flipside of that is, what the white feather has always meant to me - faith. Facing your fears requires faith - that things will work out in a way you can't yet understand.
Wanting to fly higher and higher
I can't abide
Standing outside the fire.
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