Earlier this evening, my wife and I were sitting in the restaurant of the hotel where we are staying. As she enjoyed a wonderful bowl of seafood chowder, I was struggling with an emotional crisis. I bounced back and forth between engagement and disengagement. My wife, being the wonderfully understanding, perfect being that she is, kept her connection with me without pushing.

I can't really be pushed.

As I sat, and chatted, and joked, humour being my greatest weapon, most reliable crutch, strongest shield, and most potent deflector when I struggle my struggles, I happened to glance down at the spoon that I had unconsciously picked up, and which was now balancing on my index finger. My eyes locked on the utensil as it teetered to a halt on its forefinger fulcrum, and in that instant, I realized something. Or, more accurately, I remembered.

There are some things you will never be able to accurately explain or describe so that another will understand. It's all a matter of perspective. What you see and hear and feel is unique to you, depending on where you are, who you are, where you've been. Even the simplest of experiences can be unique to you, like the way the light and colour in the ceiling reflects off the concave surface in front of you as the most brilliant pink strip, and the impression this sight makes on you in your state of mind at that moment. That's ok, though. No one has to understand everything about you, any more than you have to completely understand another person.

If you're truly fortunate, as I am truly fortunate, then you have someone with whom you can share your feelings and thoughts. Even when I have these realizations, these reminders that there are some things that I could never adequately explain, I don't ever have to feel alone.

The struggle having passed, I rather enjoyed dessert.

Today, I learned a valuable lesson about the way that I approach certain aspects of my life.

Over the past several years, I have gotten myself  into a certain mindset with regards to the way that I do a certain thing. Up until today, I have been in the habit of acting and thinking a certain way because that was, for the longest time, the best way to do things. With the help of my wife, I was able to realize that some of the conditions have changed, and that the best way to approach things now is to prepare myself and start thinking in a different way. My old way of doing things had caused me to miss out on something, and I felt kind of dumb about it. As a result, I resolved to start thinking and doing things differently, so as not to suffer any more setbacks. I had learned a valuable lesson.

Then, as chance would have it, I ended up getting exactly what I wanted anyway, and I ended up in a better situation than when I started out the day, missing out on the other thing,  without having to change anything about the way I do things.

And that is a huge reason why I have such a difficult time navigating my way through life. So many things that should matter, don't.

Everybody falls. 

Sometimes we stumble, take a bit of a tumble. Other times, we go down hard. Bruised, broken, seeing stars (yeah, it happens), we lie there, wondering what happened, what went wrong, "What hit me?!?"

We have to get up. It's in our nature. In boys, through learned stupidity, the tendency is to want to rise quickly, refuse to acknowledge the hurt, and carry on (Women do this too, I just don't know why and from whom they learn).

Maybe you have fallen really hard, maybe harder than you've ever fallen before. Maybe you're hurting, worse than you ever have, even though that's not really apparent to others. Don't be afraid to acknowledge the pain.

You will rise when you are ready. Don't worry if at first, you can only take one or a few steps. Just be glad you're mobile again.

Today, especially today, I found myself thinking about two of my favourite quotes about stars:

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” Oscar Wilde

“Looking up at the stars, I know quite well/ That, for all they care, I can go to hell..."   W.H. Auden

If you find yourself in the position of the first, you would do well to remember the second. When you are at your lowest, by all means, do not forget that there is still beauty in the world.

Just don't lie there and look at it.

Life is what you make of it. No matter what you do, life will go on. The Earth will continue to turn on its axis and hurtle through space in its orbit. Time will not stop.

So, look up at the stars. Appreciate their beauty. Think grand thoughts, basking in their symbolism.

But never, ever forget that the stars don't care.

This evening, as my wife and I were coming back from running some errands, we got to discussing movies. As we drove past the local Empire Cinemas location, she read a title and asked me what it was. I hadn't heard of it (I can't even remember what it was, now), so I couldn't enlighten her at all. Then she asked me about another movie, and I said I had heard of that one, and that I was intrigued by it because of its association with the director of a certain movie that we had both seen before.

That's when the conversation got weird.

My wife told me that the movie I was talking about, the one that we had seen together, the one I said I liked, well, she told me that I hated it. I argued with her at first, but she insisted. Then, I asked her what it was about, thinking that perhaps she was confusing it with another movie, but she described it, and insisted that I hadn't liked it.

As we talked, strange thoughts popped into my head. I wondered if I was dreaming. I wondered if I was living in an alternate reality. I wondered if I was insane. I worried about my memory. Everything she said made sense. Everything she told me I had said about the movie sounded like things I would say.

I trust my wife implicitly, and I believe everything she tells me.

Something is wrong with me.

This was the week of our annual January cold snap. Temperatures all week have been in the mid-to-low minus-teens, with wind-chills approaching -30. Certainly not the coldest weather we've ever had, but still bracing, especially considering how uneven the weather has been this winter.

Everything this week has been cold and dry. It's been hard to get anything done. The cold has been a real de-motivator.

Just existing in this draughty, dry air has been like a waking death.

This is just one of the many reasons I am glad that this week is over.

Most of my beard whiskers are white, especially around my chin. There's a small patch, right in the lower-middle of my chin, where the whiskers grow black. I don't like to shave, so I don't do it every day. After a day or two, if I spot myself in a mirror from a distance, it looks like I'm growing some sort of weird goatee-type thing on my chin. I used to do things like that when I was younger, but I have no desire to do so now.

The first time I noticed it, it was almost like looking at a ghost, except that I'm still alive.

Sometimes, if I'm preoccupied with something, I see movement in my peripheral vision. It startles me, until I realize that I'm just spying my reflection out of the corner of my eye. It's like discovering an unwanted intruder, only it's me.

Recognition is seeing someone or something that you've seen before. Some days, I don't feel like I recognize the reflected image I see as he looks me steadily in the eye.

Last night, I dreamed about writing. Then I dreamed I woke up, and wrote about dreaming about writing. Now, I'm writing about dreaming about writing, then dreaming that I wrote about dreaming about writing.

Lately, I've been having a difficult time telling whether I'm really awake.

At least this is real.

I think.

I first noticed the story on the CBC website. It was sometime during the afternoon.

Apparently, a statue of an angel had been found in Bedford, outside an apartment building. Hardly seemed newsworthy; like finding someone's garden gnome or a lawn chair. Except that the statue was about a metre tall, weighed 90 kilograms, and had an iron bar protruding from the bottom.

I skimmed the story. It was fairly obvious that the leaving was probably not a one-person job, due to the size and unwieldiness of the object. Also, some sort of vehicle would have had to have been used. The focus of the story seemed to be in locating where the statue belonged, with authorities speculating that it belonged in a cemetery or outside a place of worship.

These weren't the thoughts that were foremost in my mind, but I let that go.

I noticed that a few people posted links to the story on facebook. There were references to Doctor Who, which I didn't understand. Reactions to the story indicated that people found it either amusing or cool.

Yet, still, I found it troubling.

Then I saw a news report on the CBC News at Six, where I learned some more details. They showed the statue as it was discovered: laid out on a picnic table, in front of an apartment complex, with its hands either missing or removed. The tone of the piece was lighthearted, almost funny.

Of course, that's not how I saw it. Being me, how could I?

Typically, I drive my wife to work in the morning. She works in Halifax. Under ideal conditions, this is about a 25-30 minute drive. If you've ever experienced morning rush here, depending on time of morning, the drive time can stretch to 45 minutes. One tiny accident, a fender-bender or rear-ender, can cause ridiculous delays.

Then, there's the weather.

During winter in Nova Scotia, you have to be prepared for the worst. Last week was truly odd. During the morning commute, we got to experience a little bit of everything, as our wacky weather couldn't seem to make up its mind what season it was. In just those five days, we dealt with blinding sun at dawn, dense fog, rain, snow (which stretched the drive time to almost 90 minutes as traffic was forced to a crawl on the unploughed roads and highways) bitter cold with wind chills in the -20 range, and mild temperatures close to +10. It makes it difficult to plan a morning routine when there is such a vast inconsistency in the weather from one day to the next. This is complicated tremendously by the maddeningly inaccurate weather forecasts. Being a Nova Scotian, and especially recently, I tend to equate the "science" of meteorology with astrology or palmism.

The forecast for Monday morning is cold temperatures in the negative double-digits, plus snow. Of course, that's if you can trust the predictions. At this point, I wonder whether I would be better served listening to Cindy Day, or if I should just "go down to Madame X and let her read my mind."

Here's to happy travels.