I had a long stay in the Toronto General back in October and it wasn’t much fun. You feel interred when in hospital, and for a quite a stretch there it seemed as if I didn’t have very much to be encouraged by. The days, enveloped by a fog of confusion, frustration and dread, were very long and very slow, and I found myself looking forward to dinner, imaging it might be a little clearing in the woods. However, nothing could have been further from the truth.

The meal, delivered wordlessly by a stranger in a hair net, would arrive with the loveless flat, slap of a plastic tray. The food itself, alien, was a visual insult, a slushy confection that had been poured from one container into another, a reminder that you had absolutely no control over this life you now inhabited. I found it all inexpressibly demoralizing, so I began to order food in whenever I could.

I wasn’t much good at providing the delivery service accurate information about how to get to me. The Toronto General Hospital is a monster. It goes on forever, in every complicated direction and level you can imagine.

It’s disorienting, like a space station made by a long extinct civilization, and having been moved a half dozen times since my admittance, I didn’t have any practical understanding of where I was. I simply could not give instructions as to how to get to my room. I didn’t have a clue.

All the same, I was in a ward with three other men on the 14th floor of the thoracic/respiratory wing of the hospital, and it took the delivery man ages to find the place. He must have travelled all over the hospital, unwittingly engaging in a tour of all the grief and suffering tucked away there from public view.

Across the hallway, a woman wept loudly, as she did every day at that hour. An elderly man lost to dementia, roamed the corridors a muttering shadow. Family members, huddled and speaking in quiet, hollowed voices stood by the ice machine trying to devise coping strategies.

Our room was dark but for the glow of my tiny tv set, but still, at a glance you could tell that everybody in there was pretty deep in the woods and not going anywhere soon. The delivery man, who probably wasn’t expecting this intimate and difficult a journey when he started work, brought the food to me. Looking very emotional– for reasons that I am sure ran deep and mysterious on this Thanksgiving weekend– he said a quick prayer in a language I didn’t understand, and then petitioned me to get well, “You must get better, sir, you must, there is so much for you, sir!” and then nodding toward me, his palms pressed together, he returned to his life, and out of ours.

I wanted to stop, too, just to see more than help I think, but obviously we’d only be getting in the way, and so we proceeded slowly past, reverently bearing witness. The tone in the car was suddenly very different, the music playing now all wrong, an insult. We drove by the other vehicle involved in the accident (the mathematics of the crash mysterious and vast) and saw a young man, just as white as the moon, wide-eyed and breathing hard. The blanket wrapped around his shoulders gave him an oddly spectral appearance, and his friends stood around him as if surrounding a miracle– frightened to either be present or to step outside of the moment.

They were all so young.

This accident was just an arbitrary swoosh, something that could have happened to anybody or nobody with equal measure. And the day itself was so vivid and beautiful— surrounding us like an indifferent God, emitting an inexhaustible palette of autumn colour and sun that so clearly, so urgently required our attention and investment. It was such an odd transit that all we could do was give quiet thanks as we passed through, grateful and lucky to have home still waiting.

On Lowther Street, a young mother cycled by, her child towed along behind her in a little trailer. She was so happy, healthy and competent looking that I thought she could put out fires with her mind. She was simply glowing, as if the sunlight was radiating out of her rather than falling upon her, and the fact that her child was actually screaming didn’t seem to diminish the gratitude she had for her life one bit.

On Bloor Street I saw a supremely confident man. He was wearing a perfectly tailored suit and sunglasses, and with his hands tucked deep into his pant pockets he strode down the street chewing gum. His facial expression was fixed, as if posing for unseen photographers, and I looked warmly toward him, trying to get him to acknowledge me, but it was not possible for he was projecting ever outward, letting nothing of the world around him in.

When the dog and I returned home there was a street couple resting on the edge of the pathway to our apartment. He was defeated looking, bearded and hiding beneath a ball cap while she was round, ruddy and loud in appearance. They both had huge knapsacks on their backs. “Hey team!” I said, as I moved past them. They nodded, sheepish, maybe a little defensive, and then inside from my desk I watched through the front window as she secretly passed him a big bottle of whiskey. The amber liquid sloshed in the bottle, was then caught by the sun and for an instant appeared luminous and divine– a small, perfect miracle unfolding before me.

At any rate, at this reading I brought a guest book and asked all of the attendees to please leave a comment critiquing my work so that I might work on improving  my performance.

These are the comments that were left:

1.You are easily the bravest person that I have ever met.

2.Funny??

3. I used to be very nervous speaking in public, too. When my friend Sandra was getting married and asked me to be Maid of Honour I was terrified. Honestly, I could not imagine standing up in front of all those people and speaking, so I really know how you must have been feeling! My heart went out to you, and that heckler, even though he did get off some good ones, was way out of line. So what if you look better in ladies jeans? It doesn’t mean you’re not a man! Anyway, what worked for me and might work for you is signing up with Toastmasters, it’s like a crash course in confidence! Anyhow, better luck next time!

4. Really appreciated the open bar, but why only from 8:00 to 8:30?

5. Your teeth are very distracting. I couldn’t stop looking at them and didn’t hear a word you said. You should really look into getting veneers.

6. Wasn’t expecting the Karaoke, never heard such a plaintive version of Working 9 to 5, so thanks for that, sort of. I thought you were pretty funny. I’m not sure exactly what it is you’re aiming for, but it’s a very disquieting stage presence you have. Interesting.

7. Jesus, Mike. Didn’t you learn your lesson at Mark and Julia’s wedding?

8. I couldn’t hear you. You have a thin and raspy voice and I think you might have asthma. You need to stand up straighter if you want to speak into the microphone.

9. Oh, Michael.

10. First of all, your fly was undone and you had what looked like (I hope) toothpaste stains on both your sweater and shoe. I know that people who get stage fright are told to imagine the audience in their underwear, but you went creepy overboard! I actually saw you licking your lips at one point when a college student bent down to pick-up some change she’d dropped. Gross!! Also, your feelings about the Olympics and 9/11 Conspiracy theories were not welcome– you were like the sleazy, drunk uncle at Thanksgiving dinner.