Right near the park where I take my dog for her daily sessions of fetch lives a man who appears to be Native Canadian. Immense, with thick, black hair pulled back in a ponytail, he’ll often come out into his backyard and survey the activity unfolding in the park around his home. With his hands on his hips, he’ll stand there watching as Heidi sprints after her ball.
I’m not sure, but I think he might be a healer of some sort. Often I’ll see people leaving his home, crossing the field where my dog and I are playing, carrying some sort of Native totem. From across the fence, the man will yell one last piece of advice to them, ” And remember, drink plenty of water when you take those herbs and try to get a good night’s sleep!”
Something like that.
Anyway, for a long time we merely nodded at one another, but one day he saw me wearing a Montreal Expos baseball hat and this opened up an enduring and unexpected route to conversation. From that point forth whenever he saw me, he’d shout out the name of an old Expo.
“Ross Grimsley!”
“Woody Fryman!”
“Larry Parrish!”
“El Presidente!”
And with each name we’d both tell one another a story about the player, or more appropriately, a story about one another. And so it went, two men of a similar age, each looking back, trading tales of a connected past.
The conversations always end abruptly. He’ll nods, let out a series of yips– that always sound to me like one of those war cries you’d hear in an old Cowboys and Indians movie–for the benefit of my little dog, and then go back inside.
Recently he’s been coming out into his backyard to engage in a thick, racking and phlegmy cough, which over the last couple of days has turned into a hard and dry hack. Today, without his shirt on, he spotted Heidi and I and shouted, “Dave Van Horne!” We used this man, a broadcaster for the Expos, as a launching pad for conversation, and just as it was winding down I said, “l’m getting married today, do you have any advice?”
He looked at me and nodded his head. “l’ve been married twice. Now I’m single. I want you to know that you must never measure love. You cannot measure whether she loves you more than you love her, or vice versa. You cannot measure your love against loves from the past, or whether love for family is greater or less than love for your partner. It’s not linear, living neither in the past or future, but in the present, all around you. Breathe it in like you would air and be happy in these moments the creator has given you.”
And then he let out a series of barks for Heidi, raised a hand to me, and walked back inside, coughing.