The Suitcase

Out of seemingly nowhere, the mild summery feel of a relaxed weather autumn just vaporized into freezing air. Apparently, the aftershock effect of a massive typhoon in Asia locked Canada and the United States in a bone chilling cold. Our tender pink and brilliant red fuchsia flowers hanging motionless in the silent icy afternoon, the sky a blindingly bright blue, I walk to the wooden table in the back of our yard and crumble several thick pieces of whole grain bread for the birds and squirrels. It seems sentimental to feed them perhaps, but the food is always gone within an hour or two, and it makes me feel good I lend a helping hand to my friendly forest buddies. I feel the cold air stripping through my warm pants and coat like an unpleasant and sticky smell, and as my gloved hands fumble with the shredding of the bread, the memory of reading at age 22, " One day in the life of Ivan Denisovich " comes to mind, one of my all time favorite books by the Russian literary giant Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. I know nothing of being a Gulag prisoner but I did relate, as I still do, 35 years later, to the raw emotional nausea of the exile. It is never far away, and only became more acute after the loss of my family under such infuriating and tragic circumstances. Feeding the birds on this surprisingly cold, silent day somehow alleviated the familiar emotional ache, that like a mugger in the dark attacks at random and without warning. I saw myself as a child, holding a suitcase, pretending to put important items in its hold, for an imaginary, exciting trip : a plastic pink teapot, a baby blue mirror , a teddy bear, a magnifying glass, my book of favorite fairy tales, a lipstick, a small perfume bottle, a pretty handkerchief. I felt like that child today, still trying to load a suitcase that would magically take me to a magical land, where there was no such thing as isolation and the ache it brought. I was amazed how persistent some themes are in my life. Solitude and its ever faithful companion, isolation, have been like shadow puppets in that suitcase. No matter how many times I try to load that suitcase up with different items, the puppets of isolation and solitude always end up in my surprised hands, ever since I was about 8. As a young child I was drawn to Charles Dickens and stories written by Mark Twain , so stories involving basically lonely sorely tried individuals, albeit not without resourceful spirits. To this day, on cold days, both physically and emotionally, it seems I am still trying to load that suitcase, trying to figure out what will get me to that magical land where my spirit will thrive and feel truly at home. I have tried to make this vast country my own emotionally for almost 40 years now, and some days, I feel close to reach that border where I will get entry to full belonging, but a lot of times, I still feel like an outsider, patiently waiting for those Neil Young harmonica blues to fade away for good.