THIS EXCITEMENT IS THE ADVENTURE OF OBSERVATION

My contemporaries wonder aloud, about my reluctance to travel abroad today, and seek out the evasive holy grail of adventure. It’s always been a sliding-scale kind of thing, dependant entirely on my mates at the time, and the quantity of booze consumed in the planning stage. I used to plan a lot but there were also many aborted missions due to exhausted funds. It also, can be said with some relevance that I used to imbibe more than I should have, and many of those adventures, of once, had alcohol as the fear-reducer. I got to a point however, when the odysseys were more self destructive than life enhancing. I had my share of party exploits to boast....the “no one ever did that before,” kind of accomplishments, some that I apparently still hold the record for.....and continue to be the subject of whispers at events that I’m still barred from attending thirty years later. I was a struggling writer who felt so much more creative with a belly full of ale. A lot of writers have fallen prey, to this over-reliance, on demon rum. I still have some of the manuscripts from those early days, and they’ll always be keepsake reminders of wasted days and nights.

Occasionally a lady friend, from those days, will ask me if I still swing on chandeliers for a laugh, take bites out of decorative candles, or eat fresh flowers from ornamental vases I come upon......while hammered. I know I did that once, at a wedding, and the bride wasn’t impressed. I wasn’t either, the next morning, as I spit-out large portions of colorful petals, when I brushed my teeth. Apparently I had also consumed a quantity of after shave lotion, on a dare, and that made my morning breath quite fragrant......and flower-full.

My grown boys know I was a wee bit of a rascal, in my bachelor days but I haven’t told them anything truly embarrassing, like the trysts with my girlfriend’s mates at these same party fiascos. I was a three-slap a party recipient from the girls, a two punch minimum from respective boyfriends.

Heck, one of my all time coups, was getting to drink with legendary Toronto Sun columnist Paul Rimstead, at a benefit hockey game back in the early 1980's. He tried my hockey sweater on and got trapped in it, and it took a couple of strapping lads to free him. Now that was worth drinking about. Getting trapped. And then freed. There was a lot of symbolism for a writer to consume. Rimmer was my role model. He died as a result of his excesses.

I got married and Suzanne sobered me up. My wife became my manager. I finally became a writer, who could actually make sense out of the copy, he wrote the night before and the week before that!

I kind of chuckle to myself, when one of my associates today, questions my gentler way of living, almost as if the fire within had been extinguished. In reality, those crazy days of bewildering excesses, were banked in memory. Whenever I feel the need for something out of the ordinary, I can recall, with striking clarity, those forays in social extravagance. I still wince a little, thinking back on events that changed my history forever. I suppose the most surprising aspect of it all, is that I survived. I’m very grateful for this but Suzanne deserves the credit. Being locked outside in October, and sleeping on the picnic table, gave me some food for thought, about how bad our marriage could get...... before I smartened up. I like to think this has happened, although she feels compelled, from time to time, to remind me of some ridiculous misadventures from my past. Ones that I’m supposed to remember, simply to scare me straight evermore.

Today it’s all the faded pages of a contented historian’s biography. Mixed into it all, was a union with many wonderful characters, who, in their own way, enhanced my days with a lifetime worth of reminiscences. But I look out, this afternoon, onto this snow-sculpted winterscape, and find joy that so many more birds are using the feeder; feeling such striking fulfillment as a writer over these many decades. Possibly it is true that I lack the courage for some new adventures, at least the ones I used to adore, when there was a wee bit of pay cheque left after the rent was paid. And I had time to make last call. Still, I wouldn’t sacrifice this now, for anything. The dog laying over the tops of my feet, the cat purring on the windowsill, the neighboring kids wrestling on their front lawn, and this invigorating scene of January sun, sparkling off the frozen landscape to the treed horizon. While I’m sure it is of great concern to my former friends that I’ve apparently lost my desire to conquer the world, I’ve found quite the opposite, that engages my sense of adventure. . My adventure is this amazing place, observing the seasons, the storms and bluster of autumn, the grace of late spring nights, when sounds of new life fill the air. I can sit here for hours and never be bored. Or feel uninspired. Very seldom, except for today’s recollections, would I even contemplate switching back to my life then. Especially at the expense of sacrificing this joy as a writer, to watch the amazing transitions of nature, light and shadow, wildlife and wildflowers. Of this, I must concede, passion has replaced the passion to binge. Observation has infilled where liquor once inspired. I will learn so much more from this study of nature, at Birch Hollow, than I ever gained in the social network climb, that always ended with a hell of a fall and a tell-tale hangover.

It is a brilliant sun that reflects in diamond light off the new snow from the night before. The sky is a beckoning, heavenly blue, imposing upon the watcher, to take flight in spirit, to adventures unknown.....but worth investing imagination. I might finish this day having composed no more than four or five pages of editorial copy. There have been a few days this winter, when I’d wake myself up, chin against chest, having slumbered off, rather peacefully, not having typed anymore than the day’s journal heading. It’s that peace and solitude, this generous inspiration afforded by The Bog, and its woodlands, which has become my temptress adventure.....and if it ends in my passionate daydream alone, I resign only to write a wee bit more the next day as compensation.

The dog has just this moment, let me know it’s time to go out for an afternoon constitutional. The cat requires a pat on the head, to demonstrate equal affections, and the copy I’ve been working on for the past hour, needs its exclamation! I shall retire here, for a lengthy walk in the woods with an old friend. Come on Bosko!