I was flying
but could not control
where I was going.
Illustrations by Rachelle Maynard.
]]>On Sunday Rachelle and I took our son to his swimming class in Kensington Market.
Walking down the stairs to the pool there’s the heavy, nostalgic smell of chlorine drifting up to meet you, and when it does, something takes place that moves you from one point in time to many others.
Every pool you ever knew is conjured, and you remember feeling a little vulnerable and excited as your bare feet padded toward the pool. You remember diving boards and lifesavers, games and races, unknowably beautiful lifeguards perched above like trophies, and the light catching the water as it swells and dips, glinting.
Everything refracted, everything reframed.
But on this day there were about six parents– each one with their tiny, precious child– forming a semi-circle around the instructor. So comfortable and confident in the water, she was like some mythical sea creature who spoke only in a song.
“Three blind mice, three blind mice, splash your hands, splash your hands,” she encouraged, and all the children kicked and splashed– and that, the water leaping up, became the physical manifestation of their joy. To witness this could have been the instructor’s great passion, the love to which she had given her life over.
And Jones was so happy. Excited, he shouted along to all the nursery rhyme instructions. He was game for anything. Even Torpedo Time, when the toddlers are submerged under water and then pushed through a hoop by a parent only to explode out of the water like the radiant beasts they are. Rachelle, who was smiling so broadly her face could have split in two, swung Jones through the water and then lifted him as strong and high as she could, before swinging him back down and then throwing him up in the air. And Jones, now soaring, was above it all, glowing in a weightless paradise for a moment, before falling back to us and into his mother’s arms.
It was a small affair, just a little trip to Prince Edward County. The weather was ridiculously beautiful, and like so many other people, we headed to Sandbank’s Provincial Park to meet some friends, friends who had carved time and space out of their lives to drive up from the city to see us. Often, it feels like friendships are circumstantial rather than permanent aspects of a life, little more than rushed appointments to reschedule, but when you’re by the water time moves differently. Nothing is hurried or obstructed, and friendships returns to the effortless state of grace from which they once emerged.
The day slipped away easily, and soon enough we found ourselves having dinner with about a dozen people at a nearby campsite. Sitting around the bonfire everybody was happy, happy like this was the only spot in the world they wanted to be, and these people, strangers and friends alike, were the only people they wanted to be with. Somebody with a strong and steady voice, the sort of voice that could lead the rest of, picked up a guitar and began to play Canadian classics.
Bobcaygeon.
Heart of Gold.
Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Hallelujah.
Songs known in the bones.
And after each one, faint applause rose up from the dark of unknown campsites as other people let us know that they were there, too, a part of our circle even if unseen. After an hour or two, through all all the coincidences, improbabilities, miracles and tragedies that led us to this point in time, Rachelle and I went down to the beach, lay on our backs and looked up at the sky.
I took my glasses off. The stars, they were already so far away, how were my glasses going to make them any more comprehensible? It amazes me that the stars, such a permanent and essential declaration of the beauty and mystery of our existence, are occluded from those of us who live in cities. How could we let that happen? How could we travel so far from what we are?
And within this simple night, the sound of water lapping at the shore. A train in the distance. Disembodied music, rising like ghosts from the lake. Somewhere laughter and wind, a girl splashing and giggling into the water and a boy following her, and all around us infinity stretching out in every direction.
]]>It’s as if the adult world has been rendered small, simple and fun, and as we boarded the ferry for the three minute journey to the airport, we felt like children getting on a ride at the CNE. It was first thing in the morning and a dense fog hung mysteriously around us, covering everything.
We could not see where we were going, and this created an atmosphere of adventure and whimsy, and in this context all the businessmen looked particularly ridiculous. Each one of them in a suit that suggested the distance between the corporate status to which they aspired and the disappointing status that they’d actually been assigned, they sat in isolated, self-important concentration. Brows furrowed over spread sheets and columns of data, their too-large fingers hunted-and-pecked on miniature keypads, and it was all a little heart-breaking. Like kids pretending at being adults, they attempted to project that what they were doing was of vital importance, but you could tell that inside they all knew better.
Inside they still wanted to discover a waterfall.
Swim with a knife clenched between their teeth.
Find the hidden treasure.
To our son Jones, who is nearly two, everything is a wonder. He is on the edge of language, and his words, mysterious and uncontainable, are still holier than ours. Excited, almost breathless, he exploded onto the ferry with bright, astonished eyes. He ran around pointing, naming everything he saw. The businessmen all kept their heads down—there was important work to be done—but an older couple watched, smiling as this new world broke into day around our son, aware they were in the midst of a tiny God now bringing his universe into being.
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His pitches were comets from distant and never imagined galaxies. They were rockets, they were bombs, they were terrifying, curving flourishes that made you think you were watching the astonishing dazzle of an alien technology. It was a new kind of physics, one that allowed him to perform stunning feats that lifted us from our lousy, mortal shells,.
He was a blazing fire, a goddamned Demi-God.
Fernandez died in a boating accident on Sunday at the age of 24.
( This is a photograph of Dee Gordon, Jose Fernandez’s teammate. Gordon is known for his speed, not his power, and he is so thin and little that he truly looks like a child out there amongst the gigantic professional athletes. On the first game back after his friend’s death, in his first at bat, he hit a home run, and as he circled the bases he wept like a boy. As he said later in an interview, “I ain’t never hit a ball that far, even in batting practice. I told the boys, ‘If you all don’t believe in God, you better start.’ For that to happen today, we had some help.”)
Three times, Jose attempted to defect from Cuba to the US unsuccessfully, and after each failed attempt he was put in prison where, still a boy, he shared space with hard and dangerous men. In 2007, at the age of 15, he made the crossing successfully, but not before somebody on his boat was washed overboard. Fernandez, operating on the pure instinct of a boy that age, when right and wrong seem clear, and your body, your entire life, is still radiant and unlimited, dove into the night waters to save the person. He had no idea who had been swept into the ocean, and with each stroke he took, an eight-foot wave grabbed him, lifting him up into the shifting darkness above, before splashing down and submerging him again. The person, somewhere before him, bobbing in and out of sight, was his mother. He got to her, told her to hold tight to his left shoulder, asked her not to push down, and slowly swam her back to the boat.
Imagine that.
Imagine doing something so great with your life.
His baseball career was short and beautiful and joyous. It was something to behold, each start an event I got excited for, anticipating it the same way some other people might anticipate a new Game of Thrones episode or a Bruce Springsteen concert.
He was, in a word, awesome, and his death was a tragedy for the communities he lived amongst, and even beyond, even to a 50 year-old white guy living in Toronto who found himself trying to explain to his wife why he’s crying about the death of some pitcher on his fantasy baseball team.
The boat Fernandez was on the night of his death was traveling around 55-60 mph. He was with two of his friends, both around his age, and it was late. It would have been dark, black even– nothing but the feel of water beneath and sky above. Everything beautiful, the wind and spray and stars in his face, infinity spreading out in all directions…And Jose Fernandez, soon to be a father, moving into the future with such velocity, confidence and hard earned momentum… And then the boat hit a rock jetty and all three of the men died on impact.
Just like that.
They would not have known what had happened.
Our lives are so brief.
We’re all speeding through the dark, the beautiful and the damned, alike, each one of us luckier and more vulnerable than we could ever imagine.
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Donald J. Trump: I just hope that Brad was smart and had a prenup like I did. #ArtofTheDeal
Donald J. Trump: Getting married, like ISIS, is no joke– you need to be ruthless when you end it!
Donald J. Trump: It’s a nuclear situation. #VladisaGreatLeader
Donald J. Trump: Brad Pitt, a little flaky. In a golf tournament with him once. No sense for the game.
Donald J. Trump: Quite a bit shorter than me, but still a real looker.
Donald J. Trump: Anyway, when you’re rich and powerful you can have your pick. That’s the American way.
Donald J. Trump: Brad knows that, so why would he stay with damaged goods?
Donald J. Trump: Why would America stay with damaged goods? Time for a change, America! #TrumpIceGreatestWaterEver
Donald J. Trump: Sure, Angelina was really something a few year ago, but now? After all those cancer surgeries? Brad can do better. America can do better! #VoteTrump
Donald J. Trump: Do people notice Crooked and Sick Hillary is copying my airplane rallies – she puts the plane behind her like I have been doing from the beginning.
Donald J. Trump: Crooked and Sick Hillary is taking the day off again, she needs the rest. Sleep well Crooked and Sick Hillary – see you at the debate!
Donald J. Trump: Wonder if Gwyneth Paltrow had anything to do with the end of Brangelina?
Donald J. Trump: Wouldn’t put it past her.
Donald J. Trump: You gotta watch out for the exes. Always come crawling back.
Donald J. Trump: Paltrow married a Brit. Always putting on a fake accent. Don’t trust her.
Donald J. Trump: Both she and Angelina are washed up. Sad.
Donald J. Trump: Bet Jennifer Aniston is happy now.
Donald J. Trump: There’s an American. A real girl next door.
Donald J. Trump: Rachel, and those headlights? Whoah. What American man didn’t want to shtup her?
Donald J. Trump: I would take my chances with her, she’s one Skittle I’d eat regardless of the poison risk. #NoToSyrianRefugees
Donald J. Trump: Did I have sex with Jennifer Aniston? Gentlemen don’t tell. #Probably
Donald J. Trump: Did I have sex with Jennifer Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie? All I will say is I am very happy with my beautiful wife.
Donald J. Trump: Melania will be the most beautiful First Lady in history!
Donald J. Trump: I know it’s not politically correct to say, but Crooked Hillary has to be the ugliest FLOTUS in history!
Donald J. Trump: Why would we want her as the ugliest POTUS, too?
Donald J. Trump: Brad Pitt hates Crooked Hillary.
Donald J. Trump: I don’t even think Bill had sex with Crooked, Sick Hillary. #WasChelseaAdopted
Donald J. Trump: Crooked Hillary wants to take your 2nd Amendment rights away. Will guns be taken from her heavily armed Secret Service detail? Maybe not!
Donald J. Trump: However, you do have to hand it to Angelina for taking her clothes off in so many movies. Very brave.
Donald J. Trump: Nobody braver than our troops though! Not even naked Angelina!
Donald J. Trump: She never would have had a done a nude scene if she was a Muslim. #FeministsForTrump
Donald J. Trump: Think about it America.
Donald J. Trump: Commemorative Donald Trump coins now available for order. #Buy9The10thForFree
Two years or more, probably.
Stepping out of the car at the Port Stanley beach, I was hit by the smell of deep friers and sunscreen. Beachgoers played volleyball or tried to bronze themselves for the perfection that the cities they lived-in demanded, and children, like radiant beasts, played– their happiness a wildfire burning along the surf. Overhead the gulls flew, their shadows rippling along the sand, a kind of double life,
and then, looking forward, there was Lake Erie stretching out as far as you could see until it became sky.
Like the pilgrim I was, I walked down to the water. Standing up to my knees, an oxygen tank slung over my shoulder, I closed my eyes and held out my arms, waiting for something to wash through me and lift all the scars, bruises and fears of the last couple of years free from my body.
It seemed like a perfunctory, symbolic act rather than a felt one though, and I trudged back to our towels feeling a little disappointed. As I looked around I noticed a blind woman sitting nearby. Pale, thin and out of fashion, she looked like she had been confined to an indoor life of illness and uncertainty, and that this, this outing was a step outside of the protected, comfort zone she typically inhabited. But she did not look happy. She sat in a rigid, defensive posture, her face turned away from things, her fingers worrying some rosary beads she kept clutched in her hands.
I wondered if she was praying.
I wondered if I, too, had been praying when I stood in the water.
An older woman who must have been her mother sat next to her. She looked quietly off at the lake. And so the two of them stared off at separate horizons, the silence between them hanging there like a shared, unspoken disappointment.
After about fifteen minutes had passed they got up to leave. As delicate as a geisha, the blind girl slipped her feet into the sandals her mother had bought for her, and quietly taking her arm, began the journey toward the parking lot, never a word uttered between them.
As she moved from the hot sun and shifting sand of the beach to the level cement and cooling shade under a restaurant’s awning, she would not have seen the elderly and infirm arrayed there. Sitting silently in wheelchairs, each one with an attendant behind them, they all stared off toward the water. Bodies twisted and agonized, mouths hanging open and useless, it was as if they were waiting for a blessing or miracle. And the blind girl, so quietly it felt like she could have been floating, passed through them in her darkness like a saint through flame. It felt at that moment that a message was being delivered, and that everybody there that day, summoned by something just beyond the water, were gathered to receive it, but try as we might, it would elude our mortal grasp.
Well, the time has come!
Having experienced many medical crises in my lifetime, I know a thing or two about the chattering beast that is anxiety. However, my story is one of hope, as I was able to conquer my anxiety using a variety of techniques that I hope to share with the public.
This is a partial transcript of Anxiety Nation, my first podcast:
(Introductory music of Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie plays)
“Hi, I’m Michael Murray, host of Anxiety Nation!
It’s on this podcast where I hope to create a safe space for you, a place where we can openly share our experiences with anxiety and strategies to overcome it. Although I’ll be our guide on this journey, I want you to know that we’re all equal partners in this voyage, and that it will be always be a collaborative, team effort.
I just want to take a moment to identify our introductory music, the classic Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie. It’s just an amazing piece of music. Although its true the artists who brought us this great song both died before their time, and that we’ll all die much sooner than we expect, you shouldn’t let that cold, barren fact alter your mood! No, that would be NEGATIVE thinking, and we’re about positivity here!
“Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see a shadow.”
Helen Keller said that.
She was deafblind.
Imagine that.
She couldn’t see or hear her enemies approaching.
Anyway, if Helen Keller could manage her anxiety, then so can we!
Okay, how’s everybody feeling? Good, I hope! Before we proceed with today’s lesson, I just want to remind you that you shouldn’t still be thinking or obsessing about how Freddie Mercury and David Bowie died.
It was from AIDS and cancer for those of you who might have forgotten, and it’s true, these diseases kill without prejudice– they just take you. Anyway, that should be out of your heads! DON’T FOCUS ON THE NEGATIVE, because by doing that you can start a cycle that’s nearly impossible to break.
Okay, let’s clear our heads of death and disease.
Let’s all close our eyes, take a deep breath and think about all the beauty that Freddie Mercury and David Bowie brought into our lives. Breathe in the good, exhale the bad, breathe in the good, exhale the bad.
Good. Feel better?
Yes, yes.
Okay, I’ve created a 21 day program that I’d like to share with you that should help alleviate any anxiety you might be suffering and put a little spring in your step.
Day 1
Drink eight glasses of FILTERED water each day. It’s very important to stay hydrated. Your mental health is directly tied to your physical health. They say Freddie Mercury weighed less than 100 pounds at his death. David Bowie probably did, too. People associate weight loss with health, but really, when most people die they’re at their thinnest. Just something to think about.
No tap water, by the way. Chemicals in there. Heavy metals and God knows what else. Tap water is VERY dangerous. Just look at Flint, Michigan.
You must drink FILTERED water. Eight glasses. Nine is too many, something could happen. Just drink eight.
(Beeping sound from a phone goes off)
Jesus! What the hell is that??!!
Does anyone else hear it?
(Something falls and a dog begins to bark hysterically, podcast ends.)
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