Why Teach? A Somewhat Brief Overview of How and Why I Became a Teacher

For my whole adult life, I have worked in schools; first as a high school teacher and for the past 10 years, as a counsellor. In fact, since the age of 2, I have been in school. And, while it isn't a heart-pumping thrill-ride each and everyday, I love what I do and consider myself so fortunate to wake up and actually look forward to going to work and that I leave each evening feeling like I made a difference and have had an impact on the lives of the youth I work with.

Recently I was cornered by one of my recent graduates, but to be fair and accurate, I was already near the corner of my office when he entered so it wasn't entirely his fault. Turns out he was looking for some career advice and he wanted to pick my brain, metaphorically speaking of course, or else I would not have been interested in the slightest. Career counselling is one of my favourite aspects of my job and I love helping a student figure out who they are, what their strengths are and what sort of careers would be a good fit. We also, if time permits, try on fake mustaches.

This student was considering becoming a teacher himself and, after a short, but enthusiastic, round of applause, he asked about my story - why I went into education and didn't pursue a more obviously lucrative career like pig farming. The whole thing felt sort of like how a researcher who is interested in how a mouse responds to different stimuli must feel, just on a much larger scale. I paused before replying to make sure it wasn't part of an elaborate prank or that he wasn't asking solely to check the status of my sanity. Then. after attempting to sneak out the back door before remembering that I only had one door to my office which he was not-so-coincidentally blocking, I began to think. I took a few moments to stroke my glorious summer project, my beard, as well as considering the answer to his question, a question I've been asked many times before.

Why teach?

A question that is gloriously simple which, coincidentally, is also how my kindergarten teacher described me to my parents on my final progress report.

A question that is as good as it is short and it's also a question kids used to ask me when I assigned too much homework, only hopefully including a comma in those instances.

A question I'd first been asked all those years ago when I was about to enter the Teacher Education program at UBC in 1994 and many many times since by the bartender at my summer job, my friends becoming doctors or lawyers, my private section squash league teammates, a random passerby dressed as a banana who was being pursued by a pack of other guys dressed as monkeys as well as so many others.

Obviously there is no one correct answer, but before I relaxed too much I reminded myself, there are plenty of wrong answers with my having a God Complex and wanting a daily excuse to hear myself talk being just two of them. And my response, when asked this question, is not solely why I chose to teach, but also why anyone would go down that suspiciously well-lit path in the forest when other paths are also well-lit while also having far better signage. Each time this query arises I feel as if I am having to explain/defend my profession as, unlike in other areas of the world, teachers are just not universally held in high regard by society. The implication always seems to be: why did you settle on teaching?

My answer to my student on that day, which was clearly lacking in eloquence thanks to my genetics, was that I just always knew I wanted to be a teacher. He appeared to be considering backing away slowly or creating a diversion so that he could flee to safety or find higher ground in case of a flood, but instead he stayed partially to ask some follow up questions and partially because he'd paid for parking and felt like getting his money's worth. I liked his moxie and said as much, just not in those words.

In the conversation that followed I told both my rags-to-riches story as well as the infinitely more enjoyable, though less based in reality, riches-to-rags-as-part-of-an-elaborate-hoax-to-find-true-love story that I'm trying to get made into a modern rock opera as I write this. I really wanted to try to help my student figure out if education was the career for him, as it is not for everyone. To help, I'd brought along props and a light snack.

My story all started when I was young boy who was often intentionally mistaken for Little Orphan Annie because of my curly red hair and my propensity for breaking out into song while wearing a red dress. That boy, let's call him Frank just in case the Feds are reading, got up each day and went to school, because that's what little boys named Frank do. When not in school, Frank spent a lot of time in an elaborate dreamworld populated by highly intelligent unicorns who bullied him mercilessly. Frank also was highly proficient at the ancient art of whining.

All joking aside, I loved school from the beginning - the classrooms in all their rectangular and nondescript glory, the hallways full of joyfully poor children's artwork, the bells or buzzers or jazzy saxophone riffs that mark the start and end of everything and the sense of community which I am contractually unable to joke about until the year 2024. 

I distinctly recall being in grade three or four and I was, among other things, quite cute, like a smaller, less disillusioned and more infinitely more adorable version of my present self. It was recess and as we ran after one another, screaming, the conversation on the schoolyard turned, as it invariably does among 9 year olds, to our future careers as we had exhausted all that could be said about more macho topics like cars and sheet metal and the negative impact steroids may one day have on professional sports.

We went around the circle, naming jobs we were dreaming of doing and, maybe this is an indirect critique of my ability to dream big, but I was the odd one who didn't want to be an astronaut or a doctor or a cowboy or a princess. I mean I sort of wanted to be a princess, but only a fictitious one or a cowboy but only the kind that has absolutely nothing to do with cows do to my irrational fear of being recruited to "their" side. I remember telling everyone, especially my somewhat proud and somewhat worried teacher, that I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. Then she made a note using her special long, red, tapped teacher's pen in her book while glancing up at me and shaking her head slowly from side to side.

I'm not sure what initially interested me in teaching. I'm not sure about a lot of things, but I'm attempting to keep this piece focussed. What initially attracted me to the job? The power? The responsibility? The ability to unfairly grade others on a curve? Being referred to as "Mister" or "Sir" or "O Bearded One" with only small amounts of sarcasm? For those wondering, I planned from an early age to one day grow a beard and, if all went well, to go full-Muppet at some point after that. But, I did like the idea of standing up in front of a class of wide-eyed kids with all eyes on me, but I also liked the idea of my sitting in front of a classroom of an empty classroom equipped with multiple containers of thick molasses and vats of feathers, but that is a story for a different day.

I'd be lying to say the power didn't interest me. This will be the last time I lie to you. And the responsibility spoke to me with a thick German accent who turned out to be my imaginary German exchange student, Hector, the entire time. I loved the idea that I alone would be given the immense responsibility to fill these impressionable young minds with ideas and the ability to think critically and to problem solve, just like I had the immense responsibility to fill buckets full of hot, sudsy water each Saturday afternoon for reasons my father refused to reveal.

Some would argue that it was my long-term exposure to teachers from a young age, while others would argue it was my exposure to large amounts of toxic glue, but all I know is that I just always wanted to teach and I often wondered why the trees always appeared to be melting before I remembered the glue. Back in elementary school, I was fortunate to have a number of passionate, caring and fun teachers who directly influenced my career path with only somewhat-obvious brainwashing, while also indirectly influencing my love of chalk. Chalk, I must say, is fabulous and to this day my spare time is often spent going outside and drawing immaculate coastline vistas using nothing but white chalk as my family decided that I wasn't ready for colours yet.

But sure, I spent so much of my formative years eating toast as well as sharing the space in and around teachers and school it left a mark which thankfully didn't leave a scar. The scars you see are from my short-lived desire to erase all of my freckles using extra-coarse sandpaper. I just really loved elementary school and, when no one was watching, I often hugged it. One time I called it "mom". Some may wonder if it was my first love, but that was my Raggedy Ann doll with Raggedy Andy being a close second. I believed that teachers were cool as they knew stuff and used their mouths, and occasionally their eyes, to teach things to us. I loved learning and the feeling in my brain as I learned, which I often described to my parents as being akin to how a garburator works. I'd sit there, in my desk, and multi-task - one part of my brain was actively learning, one part was strategically planning on either training to become a teacher or using my newly obtained powers of ESP and the other part was eating tuna fish straight from the can.

I dreamed of being a teacher and on expanding my caveman-like vocabulary too along the way. I wanted to be one of them; to write "nice try" or "close" or "come see me" on top of someone's paper, to enter the staffroom without feeling anxious or at least feeling less anxious then I did doing it as a kid, to resolve conflicts between students using the silent treatment juxtaposed with barking like a dog, to force others to raise their hands when wanting to talk to me which never worked on the schoolyard and to gain entry to their elusive club where I figured there was lots of hidden perks and free nougat.

And throughout high school and into university, I continued to love school and look up to my teachers mostly due to my lack of height, but also because I appreciated how hard they worked and how much they cared. Despite all of the rain, I never wavered from my future career goal. I got up each morning, brushed my hair into a wonderful afro, carefully made sure not to step on the cat, before feeling guilty and going back and stepping on him and then I continued marching towards my destiny as an educator. Others occasionally scoffed at me and my desire to be in school for the rest of my life, while others claimed they were just clearing their throats and that their proximity to me at the time was merely coincidental.

Though I was occasionally confused as to where I was going in life as evidenced by a glazed-over look not dissimilar to a glazed doughnut, I never really considered any other career. "Was this fate or just evidence of a lack of any real imagination" I was once asked? I spent many summers wondering why it couldn't be both while also liberally applying sunscreen. I mean sure, I had the flash-in-the-pan ideas of being a world-famous NBA broadcaster or a world-famous flamenco dancer or even a world-famous frying pan designer thus making all flashes in pans easier what with the copious amounts of pans on hand, but all roads pointed towards education and I skipped all the way there and I haven't stopped skipping till this day. Literally.

But, while I sat there on my chair, swiveling around slowly and dramatically, I considered the question "Why teach?" and all of the times I have had to explain or justify or fight off a pack of hungry wolves with the answer, which happens much more often that you'd think. Teaching in North America, unlike in many other countries, just isn't held in high regard by society. The age old joke that those who can't do, teach persists no matter how many times I demonstrate my ability to "do" things. So often I've found myself not only explaining my love for the work that I do, but also justifying teaching itself.

I strongly believe that teachers are as important to society as doctors and nurses and only slightly less important than creative writers. It just feels like important work, and as I sat there in front of my student, remembering so many amazing and cathartic experiences along the way - my education degree, student teaching, substitute teaching, my first permanent position, directing plays, my year of exchange teaching, and becoming a counsellor - it took all of my power not to weep. I always try, by the way, to weep outside in the rain.

As we continued to chat, I thought about my own path towards teaching and also about what continues to motivate me today, after over 20 years in education, to keep getting out of bed in the morning and head off towards school. My student wondered aloud if I ever found the job and the routines boring, while also wondering numerous other things that I was able to pick up on what with my natural telepathic abilities. Again, the answer is quite simple; I just really enjoy working with students and helping guide them. I feel that the job is a true higher calling which initially made me quite concerned what with my debilitating fear of heights.

Sure there is repetition, and some days are monotonous and mundane. Other days are a tad dry and uneventful. Still others are tedious and dull. And let's not forget about those days that are unvaried and unstimulating. It is just a fact that not every moment of every day is exciting, but that is true about all professions. But, the good moments and days heavily outweigh the bad or boring. Sure, I sometimes look out the window of my office like a trapped-inside-puppy dog and briefly flirt with the idea of becoming an accountant or an accountant's brazen, no-holds-barred assistant, before I come back to Earth and snap out of it. Thank you mom, for the travel set of smelling salts!

Though I've been at this for a while, and there is an occasional feeling like I've seen and done it all, what prevents it from becoming stale for me are the students. Each group of students is unique and they come with their own challenges and original personalities and I love getting to know them all as people. I see working with a new group of students sort of like doing a similar yet new puzzle with a similar yet different answer to the last puzzle I did. As one group leaves, I miss them and bemoan that my work will never be as enjoyable, and then the new, young and exciting group comes in and I get hooked once again. I honesty care about helping them all and that is something you can't fake or grow tired of, unlike that week when I attempted to convince my friends that I was a part man part frog which got old really fast.

And my colleagues. Too many to mention now and even if I could it would really negatively effect this piece of writing to the point where I'd just abandon it and go for a walk. Going for a walk every once and a while is great exercise by the way - give it try. Anyways, I have really been so fortunate to work with so many passionate and enthusiastic teachers in my 20+ years, who have greatly added to my overall love of my work. Sure, I have also seen with my own two eyes, aided by thick, constantly-smudged glasses, a small number of people who were ill-fitted for the profession. Teachers who didn't inherently like students and seemed to be in the job purely for the vacations or those were bored by their subject material and taught on auto-pilot or ones who just seemed unhappy and cranky all the time. But, these types of educators are few and far between, sort of like random, but pointy, thorns in the strawberry patch that is education. As I spoke to my student, I took a minute and imagined I had a big bowl of strawberries and whipped cream in front of me right now and I exaggeratedly licked my lips which was one of my bad habits along with stupidly fondling thorns.

The focus from my friends in the private sector when the topic of public education is brought up is often on the bad apples, the teachers who aren't that good. They argue that teachers are glorified babysitters who have it so easy with too much vacation time who leave at the bell and don't work hard. I always find that line of reasoning so offensive as it is so far from the truth. Sure there are a few bad apples, but I always say to them find me a profession where there aren't any including, but not limited to, apple farmers as some of those farmers are totally mailing it in. For the most part, the schools I have worked in have a staff that really cares and that is clear as soon as you take a few steps inside the building. After that I usually take a few more steps, followed by a short break to stretch my hamstring and then I resume stepping until I find a place to sit down.

And the pay is sufficient, at least for my current lifestyle. Sacrifices have had to be made along the way. I mean I won't be holding any champagne and caviar parties anytime soon unless it is BYOCandC, and then I'm all in. But I'm doing better than okay what with my full head of hair and new sneakers and set of shirts and sweater tops that don't scream "80s!" To be clear, I definitely wouldn't turn down more money if someone was in the mood to pay me more, unless it was hush money as I staunchly refuse to hush unless I have some sort of diagnosed throat ailment or if they sweeten the deal as I have a sweet tooth or, more accurately, a mouth full of sweet teeth.

So, to the question "why teach?" I told him, the answer is because deep down inside you love working with youth. It definitely isn't for everyone and it has to be much more than loving the hours and the holiday time. There will be plenty of days when you are tired or stressed or don't feel like going to work for a variety of reasons, but once you are there, you'll find yourself rising to the occasion because you just care, a whole awful lot. If that describes you, I finished, then yes, teach. But not everyone is as lucky as just knowing like I was. Not everyone has taken such a straight path towards education. So, volunteer at a school or community centre or youth group. Tutor or coach or mentor. See how it feels. You'll know. It will either fit like a boot or it won't and remember as my preschool teacher always said "never wear boots that don't fit".

I watched him leave just wishing I could be the one doing the leaving at some point in the future. I'm not sure if my student will pursue teaching and I'm not sure if he found our chat illuminating or helpful or coherent. But I enjoyed the chance to take a trip down memory lane and to reflect on my journey. I have some days when I daydream about "what if" I had gone a different route in life and whether I'd be even happier or more satisfied or at least write using fewer travel metaphors. Impossible to say, but what I do know, is that I am fortunate to be where I am at this approximate midpoint in my career. I experience satisfaction, fulfillment, reward, and accomplishment each day and I'm just so lucky to enjoy what I do. I just hope my student is able to find the same for himself, either in education, or wherever his path takes him.

Another Day in My Life

The following is part 2 of a story I am writing. To see part 1 please click here: Part 1

Part 2

I sit there on my front steps and survey the area.

It is true, I live on a really attractive block and I can only hope that I have become more beautiful as a result of all of the time I have spent here. I'm pretty sure I am more attractive now then before I lived here and not only because of my once-secret downstairs lab of mostly-male beauty products. I say once-secret because I recently took some photos and submitted them to the local newspaper who is running an expose on downstairs labs of local residents. I also refer to the products as mostly-male as I am not ashamed to admit that I do use a few products intended solely for women as well as one that is supposed to be for canines which is making my chest hair so light and fluffy that even my dog growls softly whenever I enter the room. It is an attractive block - splendidly tall trees that reach up to the sky as if leading a yoga class only with a fair amount more greenery and they create a very fresh and natural aroma compared to the last block I lived on that only smelled of toothpaste. There are no potholes on the street or cracks in the sidewalk the result of a neighbourhood group that was struck to crack down on late night acapello singing and an unforeseen byproduct was eliminating the potholes and cracks as it was determined that they could be connected to all of the singing. There was a newly painted fire hydrant that seems to scream out "let me spray you!" and "my name is George, by the way, in case you were wondering" and it was the talk of the street usually on Saturday mornings and the occasional Wednesday if baseball was rained out. And to top it all off, there was quite a set of front yards that are stunning in and of themselves and all-the-while piquing your interest in what could possibly be happening in the backyard. I mean, could it be even nicer most passersby would wonder, and the answer was yes, the seldom seen backyards made those front yards seem so pedestrian and more of a way to cover the earth then a yard. They couldn't hold a candle to those backyards, but I could, and I did every once and a while for no apparent reason or pleasure. My holding-a-candle-to-backyards thing started out small and stayed small - it just never caught on, not sure what I did wrong.

This is almost definitely the longest period of time I have sat and appreciated the neighbourhood, or anything for that matter, aside from the day my brother was born. Now that was a cute baby, I remember thinking at the time, and one that I could use for monetary gain or access to clubs and teams previously off-limits to my kind. I come from a long line of people who strongly felt that there should be limits to time spent sitting and appreciating anything, especially neighbourhoods, and also roasted chicken, freshly manicured nails or humourously trimmed hedges. Sitting for long periods of time was okay as long as you were okay with people talking, as was appreciating objects or people or political movements no matter how asinine, just not pairing the two together. I often wished my family was more normal in these areas, or if they were going to be weird, to be a whole lot weirder. My family fell into a gray area of weirdness that usually resulted in lots of sighs, murmuring and raised eyebrows. What I would have given to have qualified for some nervous laughter or an occasional exaggerated eye roll or maybe having a concern citizen ask if I was okay in a quiet and gently voice that would have actually made me feel less okay. I found myself mentally applauding the idea of grouping so many individual houses together to form this neighbourhood. It was also a good idea, I continue to think, of grouping so many pieces of wood together to make the houses too. And, whomever came up with the idea of stairs, bravo! Of all of the way that houses could have been configured, this seemed to be the best, but I was always slightly put-off by how rectangular and perpendicular everything seemed. Some days I wished I had been consulted and that we could have experimented with some nouveau shapes, something I can always do when decorating cakes or shaving my beard. I have learned the hard way never to do the two at the same time unless I want a sugary, frosting-covered goatee and a hairy, mostly inedible cake, which I almost never do. What did we do before neighbourhoods or houses or beards were mainstream and generally accepted by the public I wonder. Did they have to grow beards and build houses and secretly develop communities in private? Thankfully, we can openly do these now and I plan to pay homage to this by either growing a fantasticly resepefctful beard or just painting my house so that it looks more three dimensional.

After sitting for a while on my steps and enjoying both the vertical and horizontal sections equally, I decide to enter my house. The first thing that catches my eye is my umbrella and I find myself instantly taken back in time to my youth and a particular day when I was splashing in puddles, dancing to and fro and spinning and singing all-the-while twirling and tossing my beloved umbrella in the air. In this memory, I am young and free and with each leap, I seem to bend and almost break the laws of gravity, sailing higher and higher. I move dramatically to the sounds of a large string orchestra and splash and get wet as only a young boy like me could, or possibly a young girl or a different boy or one of those kids with certain haircuts that make you honestly not sure - I'll never know as my strict therapist trained me to have playful fantasies only involving myself usually playing with an umbrella in the rain - as a treat I was once allowed to eat some pizza in a daydream too. And as quickly as this daydream began, it ends as the phone is ringing. I contemplate my options which seem to be limited to either answering it or not. I curse my lack of creativity in regards to how to handle this interruption and to prove a point, I decide to talk into a unsuspecting banana instead which causes me to high five myself for such a display of spontaneity and to roll on the ground laughing at the idea that a banana could actually be a phone! "Who comes up with these things?" I say amidst the laughs and then I remember that I do and that results in a celebratory banana. "Mmmm, tasty!" I call out to myself and I wonder if that will become my new catchphrase. Only time will tell My voice mail light starts blinking from the missed call and my mind allots the next 5 minutes to who was calling and for what reason. Maybe a sales rep from the struggling local newspaper was calling asking me to increase or enhance my subscription. I can imagine the conversation so well that I am tempted to act it out then and there in my front hallway, but I decide that this prime comedic moment would be better saved for when my hand puppets have finally been fixed by my ex-girlfriend, who was both directly and indirectly responsible for their being damaged in the first place. Directly in that she cut them viciously using scissors and indirectly because I angered her so much by opting to spend our anniversary weekend staying in my room playing with the hand puppets. Buying her a pair of sharp scissors as a make-up gift and presenting the gift wearing the hand puppets was almost definitely the final straw from her perspective. Me, I don't believe in ranking straws and personally, I chose to believe in a future where there are limitless straws. If not the newspaper, maybe it is a recorded message from our local actor-turned-street performer-turned-hammock tester-turned-dolphin trainer-turned dog walker-turned-voluntary doorman-turned politician urging me to vote in the upcoming civic election and once voting, to vote for him. Would I vote for him if I chose to vote? I did like his hands I had to admit - strong, yet smooth and graceful. Hands that were the envy of most men and the object of affection for most women. The rest of the population just didn't care much for hands in general. If I could be assured that his hands would play a significant part in his duties as mayor outside of opening doors and holding papers, I could be convinced, because if not, what else does he have to offer the average person like me? He does have a nice face too and if I had to spend time looking at his face for a long period of time, say a week, it would not be a totally horrible experience, nor would it be at all a huge waste of time as I have nothing booked next week as it is.

Or maybe it is my credit card company letting me know about my incredible credit almost going as far as comparing my credit with a perfectly feathered peacock or freshly sponged compact car or a whole series of other comparisons that make little to no sense and definitely do not help me better comprehend my credit. I had some idea about my credit standing seeing as scary looking men in black suits very rarely come by my house any more unlike the old days when I subscribed to a service that had a guy in a black suit come by once a week just to chat and ask me about my day. I usually store all thoughts about banking and money in the deep recesses of my brain or, during holiday season, at least in a room nearby that is available hopefully with a kitchenette as I like to give my thoughts the option of making their own dinners to save money. The man from the credit card is trying to either sell me on a new feature that I would be almost idiotic not to agree too or possibly not idiotic enough - as an aside, for years I have been honing my idiot skills which included an exceptional package of books and exercises that I mailed away for while watching some really late night TV after eating an excessively large dinner of sauce - some tomato, a little plum and a whole lot of alfredo. I know I'd be almost tricked into buying this new feature, because he'd have a svelte voice almost as if his vocal cords were actually made out of suede that had been generously slathered in butter and I am often quite susceptible to talking men, to suede and to things slathered in butter - put all three together and how could I resist? In fact, my father routinely got me to eat my broccoli by talking with a deep, sexy voice, dressing head-to-foot in suede and slathering himself with butter. I mistakenly tried covering myself in butter once on a third date only to have my date attempt to leave abruptly only to slip on some grease and have to be rushed by me to the hospital for bumping her chin with the unexpected upside being that the creamed corn they fed her was quite bland and needed some butter and I was only happy to make myself useful. With my newly featured card I could buy things, earn points to buy more things more easily then I ever have before, which would earn me even more points and more things until I was either broke or had no more room for things or points. I sat there trying to consider a world where I had too many points, but was unable to. Must revisit that mental construct again after I've had a good nap.

Quite possibly I've won a trip! "Guess what?" the overly excited recorded voice would mutely scream, "You've been randomly selected to win an all-inclusive vacation to the Bahamas." They would go on and on about how lucky I am and that all I have to do is answer a skill-testing question and attend a meeting about an awesome timeshare that I may also be interested in buying all-the-while I'd be considering breaking my phone with a fury that I've been saving for just the right moment and I would resist as I just know that the true moment I've been waiting for is when my boss at my job fires me and I want to react with as much faux-anger as humanly possible in an effort to save my job as I know my boss has a thing for faux-emotions- he even went as far as make a series of funny pins that said as much.You know, I've always wondered are those skill testing questions actually skill-testing for anyone? I wish they would devise some questions that are incredibly skill testing and have the skills be as varied and random as possible - like the skill to yodel underwater, or the skill to build relationships with marsupials or the skills to actually pay the bills. I would love to have that skill! Or, if someone cannot answer the simple skill-testing question, I would only hope that they aren't my surgeon or my future wife or my wife from a previous incarnation who was also a surgeon who harvested my internal organs after a night of festive partying only as a way of exacting revenge as she just lived for exacting revenge and for harvesting - her father owned an apple orchard and was always going on and on about how his only dream in life was to have his only daughter give up her dream of being the best, darn apple farmer (and only female, as apple farming in that neck of the wood was a career only open to men and sometimes to really talented and non-temperamental gorillas, a completely sexist tradition that she ate many an apple while ranting over) this side of Oklahoma (really confusing for all as they lived on a small island in the middle of the Indian Ocean almost directly opposite Oklahoma making it hard to know which way to go), go to school, study surgery with a minor in illegal transplants and then steal organs from the rich to give to the poor sort of like a modern day Robin Hood, which was quite confusing to all as Robin Hood hadn't even been born yet. And saying I did actually win a trip to the Bahamas, who could I trust to watch my goldfish whom I would be confident wouldn't touch my collection of antique gold coins or my collection of frozen fish.

Or potentially it would be a charity asking for a month-by-month donation. These ones are hard to say no to and they know it. They know that you are hesitant to refuse as that may make you seem like more of a social deviant than you already are (your past habit of throwing recyclables at the neighborhood boys didn't help, especially considering they were choir boys - past tense "were" as many of them did quit - and they were only going to help you with your recycling well before curbside service began) and they always sound so sweet, so just and so full of themselves just knowing that your money that you were going to spend on a yearly subscription of after-dinner mints is almost theirs. You were so taken with charities that you had once planned to launch your own but on the way to the government office you ran into an old friend you hadn't seen in years. The two of you immediately picked up where you had left off with a handshake and saying goodbye. You felt like you should stop and talk and hang out, but it was already too late as you had immediately jumped into a taxi on your way downtown. You had a long history of taking taxis downtown. A long, completely uninteresting history completely devoid of even the smallest odd or funny event. You always wished that something more reportable would occur on these cab rides just so you could add in a funny caption in your scrapbook that you were working on and so you could tell your mother who was complexly and totally unsupportive in almost all areas involving transportation aside from fleeing, flying and floating and, under the right circumstances, pogo-sticking. So the charity person would go on and on and you'd listen, mentally counting the money and completely revising your detailed and extravagant 9-course menu you'd been planning for your old college friends. They never came over, but that didn't stop you from constantly and enthusiastically planning menus you think they may enjoy including a few you know they would be highly allergic too, those good-for-nothing friends who couldn't even pick up the phone or drop in with cream puffs. Man, I enjoy a good cream puff especially when I need to work out my frustration with my old college buddies. Even a mediocre cream puff would do.

I notice that the street lights have come on and that somehow it was nighttime. I guess I had been sitting there for quite a while without noticing. The fresh air can do that to me sometimes, so can misreading the labels on the expired medicine I accidentally inhale mistaking it for a jar of peanuts that I also love to inhale as a tribute to elephants both real and imaginary. My next door neighbour is just returning home and he stops and is about to speak before he breaks into a extensive and exhaustive song and dance routine as his way of rehearsing in front of an audience before his big audition tomorrow. When he is done, I leap in the air and shower him with hugs, flower petals (mostly from his overhanging lilacs that he just won't trim no matter how many times I cryptically ask him - I am really bad at sending cryptic messages as they are often far too hard to decypher and I just don't have the energy to try again) and inspirational quotes from famous Asian people like Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan and Ho Chi Minh. It is my hope that he finds these quotes as inspirational as I would if I was him, as I don't personally find they do much for me at all. I hope that he does well in his audition as it would be strange for me to spend all of my free time writing and choreographing mean-spirited cheer-leading routines against him and driving to the houses of the director and producer of the show and spray-painting their cars with hate-filled messages illegibly from him and renting an off-road vehicle, driving through the mud and then parking in their spots at the theatre knowing of their dislike of off-road vehicles, mud, and nonsensical and anonymous pranks that could be mistaken as a gift of a used car. Plus, I like him and I want him to work and it would be far too much time and effort to execute the plots against him. If he works, maybe he will buy me a rose bush. I've always wanted a previously, out-of-work actor, who has recently found work, to both give me a perennial flowering plant. It is a bit weird and so random that I am not at all shocked it has never happened, until now. Go, neighbour-who-probably-has-a-name-but-I-either-never-knew-or-was-told-and-purposely-forgot-or-was-told-and-was-humming-too-loudly-to-impress-my-cat-so-it-sounded-like-meow-as-the-cat-was-highly-appreciative-of-the-humming-but-it-almost-definitely-is-not, go.

Across the street, I see a girl proudly skipping on her front lawn without a care in the world. I am torn between going to my basement and practicing my own skipping and then coming out and showing her to be the fraud that she is, or going over there, with the best of intentions, and reeling off a number of topics that would be guaranteed to give her a care or two to think about. I decided against both of these choices as they seemed petty and mean and quite unbecoming for the man I hope to one day, years from now, become. Plus she seems like such a nice girl - in fact, I would buy her a skipping rope if she didn't already have one. She seems to be lost in her skipping - maybe her mind is elsewhere and she is preoccupied by naming her socks or brushing her hair or stuffing her socks with her own fallen hair and making them into sock puppets and then creating a vibrant and dramatic series of sock variety shows that she would perform for her parents who are usually so consumed with her excessive skipping, brushing her hair and lack of human friends. Maybe she is skipping for a reason or a cause like generating electricity for her parent's illegal black market dealing of electrical current or having to log a certain number of hours of skipping to gain visiting hours with her pet bunny Alexis or she is skipping to remember her best friend, Gail, whose family moved away mostly because they were imaginary but also because her father was just given a new position within his company and transferred. The position sounded made up to the girl's father, mostly because it was, but also because why would a clothing company need a massage therapist in the first place except of course if the work was overly strenuous on the shoulders and upper back. I sat there and watched her and wished I was a young girl like her, but I had learned the hard way to keep those thoughts to myself.

Then a young boy walked by delivering newspapers. He smiled and waved and tossed me a paper with an admirable amount of coordination which either came naturally to him or was a result of hours of training with another master of the trade. Regardless I felt quite uncoordinated relative to him and also uncomfortably conscious of the raw emotional scars I still had as a result of a particularly uncoordinated youth as well as the actual scars from being to rawly emotional around my nanny who believed that a proper young boy should never display any emotions and should be aiming for robotic perfection. I felt like I knew him, or that I sort of knew him. It is so hard to know anyone anymore I thought, especially a young boy like this. I mean, I don't even know his first name. I tried out a few potential names to see if any of them rang a bell and if they did, to spend a fair amount of time figuring out how and why me saying a name rang the bell and who installed that bell there in the first place? Was it Sebastian, the young paper boy with a heart of gold who was delivering papers to save up money for his first baseball glove which would be a confusing choice as he much preferred baking to baseball? No, probably not Sebastian. But maybe he was Glen, the renegade paperboy who regularly stuck his nose up at the whole paper delivery system and its proud traditions and instead preferred to do things his own way ignoring the wrath of the others and who one day would either revolutionize the industry or bring it down from the inside - either way really, he didn't care. Definitely not Glen, but he could be Wayne, the narcoleptic, addicted-to-his own concoction of sugar, caffeine, and red food colouring he liked to call "yummy", cross-eyed, double-jointed and often mistaken for a cactus owner's son, the boy who could do no wrong, and the heir to the thrown (yes, his father actual bought and sat on a thrown). Hmmm...probably not. The unnamed boy had stopped and a look of worry crossed his face almost as a reflection of mine. I tried to fake a smile so I could release him and allow him to finish his route. Unfortunately, I am not very good at fake smiles and the look I gave him fills him with a mix of horror and confusion and also some pity. It is times like this when a little pity goes a long way and I am now motivated to practice my fake smiles more often. He has such a bounce in his step - he should probably get that checked out - and he is years or at least months away from being jaded or hardened by the harsh, cutthroat realities of the paper distribution business. He still delivers each paper like it is the right thing to do and sees himself as part of a team, or an army (he also privately sees himself as part of a gaggle, but hasn't worked up the courage to talk to his colleagues about this as they will wonder if he sees them as human, paper-delivering geese or a group of mostly male, prepubescent, completely underdressed nuns). I can tell by how he clutches each paper that he has a deep respect for the paper and probably, as I did when I was a young paper boy like him, has a hard time letting go. He wants to prolong the moment before he has to let go - to say his goodbye, to wish the paper well, to say he is sorry for the whole playing with matches thing and, if time permits, to dance a little jig - newspapers, according to lore, love little jigs especially when danced by young human boys. But, let go he must, unless he wants to turn from a paperboy whose sky is the limit to an old weirdo who has a massive newspaper collection in his basement and, when no one is watching, he hugs the big stack of old papers and, if it has been a good month, offers it a glass of merlot and a freshly baked brownie...not that I know anyone like that personally.

Seeing these two brings me back to my youth and, after being momentarily lost in my youth (I took a few wrong turns and then had no idea how to get out), I remember some of the kids i grew up with. There was little Johnny who was always swinging his imaginary baseball bat at imaginary balls. Johnny wanted to become someone that that could swing an actual bat at a real ball, but whenever we suggested baseball player. he instantly turned pale and drifted away to what seemed like a very dark place inside his mind and only a well-cooked pork chop and slap with said pork chop would snap him out of it. Then there was sunny Sally always munching celery and laughing a little too loudly at everything I said. At first I used to enjoy having a sidekick providing my own personal laughtrack who was clearly well off in the dietary fibre category, but after a while I started questioning many things like how funny I actually was, how she had access to a seemingly never-ending source of celery and why it always took a few too many "Sally"s to get her attention. And I'll never forget Ralph and his younger brother Geoff as the two of them were so motivated to follow in the footsteps of their father, the most famous garden manicurist in the neighbourhood. Ralph was the strong and silent type and George was always deferring to his older brother, which meant that the two of them didn't speak a whole lot. The only way they got any message across was through a series of incredibly well-illustrated drawings delivered with an impeccable, yet mostly silent, presentation. To let the gang know about their garden manicurist plans took 45 separate and detailed drawings presented over 10 consecutive Thursday afternoons. The presentations started with a lot of pomp and circumstance, but got a little boring in the middle - so it is good they decided to serve snacks. And, of course, I will never forget Rachel, the love of my pre-teen life  - her plain, straight brownish hair that was aching to curl and be noticed; her small collection of cute freckles that captured my heart and only gave it back for, what was considered a good deal at the time, $40-worth of gum; and her walk - she vowed never to take the same set of steps more than once which, while sounding avant-garde and like a good idea at the time, rendered her motionless for days and weeks on end as there are only so many different combinations of steps one person (and a young girl preoccupied with her straight hair and freckles at that) could reasonably devise. Rachel was so sweet and letting her get away is one of my main regrets in life, but her family moved and I just didn't have enough money to stop them. Her dad opened the bidding at $50, and by the time I called in a few favours, broke open my piggy bank and sold my precious, one-of-a-kind oyster pearl that looked like JFK, the auction had closed and they were halfway to Toledo or Tofino or Toronto or wherever they were going. I was quite unhappy that they left without even saying goodbye as I had planned and rehearsed a very emotional, long and drawn out, running down the street while weeping and sobbing, tearful and gag-inducing goodbye to Rachel before heading inside to make some popcorn and watch some cartoons. For a while there every time I saw anyone who reminded me of her, I broke down in tears. Luckily this didn't last long and eventually I broke out in laughter as a way of coping when I was reminded of her which was only slightly better - who knew people would be offended by a little boy, they didn't know, doubled-over laughing and pointing at them. I was only grieving and grief takes many forms including stuffing your own socks with foam, drawing faces on them and reenacting the Industrial Revolution - a very dry and mostly eventless period to reenact but I just couldn't bare getting blood or even ketchup on my socks. It is amazing how long ago all of this was and how much nut butter I've consumed since then both with honey and without. I wonder what they are all up to now and whether they are all happy, attractive and okay and what they would think of my plan to only keep objects in my house that start with vowels as my long-overdue way of objecting to consonants.

Finally, I decide to get up and go inside and make some dinner. As I walk up my stairs and into my house, I am deliberating between an intricate 5-course meal featuring products from local farms and artisan cheese shops that tell the story of my life up until this moment or a few boiled eggs and a glass of orange juice, which oddly would also tell the story of my life quite well. I enter my kitchen and I decide that I just don't have the energy to cook anything to laborious or time-consuming and yet I don't just want some eggs, so I take out some veggies and begin chopping them up while also putting on some water for some pasta. I really enjoy chopping veggies and find it both cathartic and poetic. However, last night I made the naive mistake of lining up the bell pepper, zucchini, mushrooms and broccoli on my kitchen counter, spending quality time with them which included showing them around the house (them seemed to love my use of feng shui), giving them a nice warm bath in the sink (which included a massage and rubbing them down with extra virgin olive oil at the end) and ending off with a viewing of Star Wars (who knew they hadn't gotten around to seeing this classic film, but then again, they were relatively young and probably hadn't had the chance to get out that much growing up on a farm way out of town). The zucchini seemed to be suggesting that we were turning in too early and that perhaps a night on the town, maybe taking in a show or hitting up the clubs would be a good idea, and I almost agreed until I thought of how it would look - me walking around with an armful of veggies and I decided against it, mostly because I wasn't taking the chance of setting any new trends after what happened last time - long story short - everyone was sprinkling their clothes with red and blue paint ala Jackson Pollock for a while. I also had no way of knowing what that loose-cannon of a broccoli would do and say once we were out and I wasn't interested in either spending the night in jail, bringing the party back to my place or getting engaged. So, we stayed home and after playing a few card games, we turned in - me in my bed and them back in the fridge. There was lots of complaining, so I hand-crafted sets of pillows and comforters for all of the veggies and read them the complete works of Richard Scarry before closing the fridge door while singing a few jazzed up versions of standard lullabies accompanied by the amazing harmonies of the mushrooms who hit all of the notes with pizzazz. After spending a really great evening with them I felt like I knew them - I knew their names, their personalities and, if they were forced to choose, the animal they'd most want to be sculpted into if I chose to make some animated animal-vegetable-art. Surprisingly, they hated the game 20 Questions as they believed that having to select an animal, vegetable or mineral was cruel and unnecessary mostly because they vastly misunderstood the rules as they were only inanimate vegetables hanging out with a guy who's imagination had been declared by at least three different professionals as creative, troublesome and the reason we often should be seen and not heard. Giving the veggies names was a big mistake - it is so much harder to eat something that has a name - maybe that is why they kept on suggesting it. Oddly, I had no trouble cutting up the named veggies or stir frying them, but the eating, it just didn't seem right. I felt overwhelmed with a flood of memories of similar experiences - I have always had a hard time eating food that I had creatively assumed or assigned personality traits too. An average carrot? Yes! But a happy-go-lucky carrot who just wants to make the world laugh? What sort of devil am I to eat that carrot? A regular zucchini? No problem! But a zucchini who is manic depressive? Not as easy. Yes, eating him may ease his pain in the short term, but I'm pretty sure that that is not one of the methods that medical professionals at Johns Hopkins are currently recommending for his long term coping. What a dilemma! I almost felt like patting myself on the back and going to my favourite podiatrist and once there, have him look at my arches. Finally, my hunger for food took over and not a moment too soon as I it was starting to get a little boring just hanging out and all. I'm hungry all day long for something - sometimes the truth, sometimes some fresh air and other times a good talking too, but nothing makes me more satisfied then some good food, and if that food is also accompanied by some truth-telling, a few breaths of fresh air and a deep conversation with a therapist then I feel totally full in every sense. I cook the veggies, saying a tearful goodbye to each one - knowing that I'll never see the little mushrooms grow up and the red pepper will never ride a horse or experience her first kiss, the miniature corn on the cobs will never get over their feelings of being inadequate compared to their full-sized cousins (I once made a joke about my full-sized cousins which would have landed me in hot water both literally and figuratively except that I was fortunately recovering from a bout of laryngitis so no one heard me except for my sister who just couldn't stop laughing and eating kale chips) and the vastly misunderstood red chard who was planning on proving to all that he was not, contrary to popular belief, a communist although he did have a soft spot for one particularly attractive communist female bunch of chard who was worth the risk.

So, dinner was cooked and eaten and I lay on the couch enjoying some TV dramas. Nothing like lying on a couch and watching TV to help me settle down before going to bed. I had tried numerous other methods including throwing darts at pictures of my enemies, throwing pictures at drawings of my enemies playing darts and calling my enemies up and treating them to an exquisite meal of scallops and risotto served with an amazing vintage pinot gris where, by the end of the evening, I would have not only grown to love them all but to go as far as sharing stock investing secrets, planning to go on vacation to Mexico next year and finishing off the evening with a game of darts that feels just a tad bit strange to me. I knew I had a busy day tomorrow and that I shouldn't stay up too late, but I was really digging the whole couch thing and just wished there was some way to bring the couch along with me on all of my journeys. As I lay there, I was hit with a detailed dream I had once where I imagined a world where there were couches everywhere and all the people were full of bliss and joy due, in some part, to all of the options for places to relax. The people treated the couches well, at least they thought, until one day the couches decided enough was enough and they all got up, shook off the dust and the crumbs (they kept the loose change stuck in their cushions - could you blame them?) and all simultaneously walked off. The people all returned from their work, their tennis games and their other daily pre-couch sitting rituals and routines to find no couches anywhere, only the empty spots where their beloved couches once sat. Everyone would always remember this day - the day the couches left and the day when people tried to not take things they sat and occasionally lay on for granted, which they did until it was time to go to bed, because as great as the couches were, and they were pretty awesome, you just can't beat a bed. I smiled at the memory of this great dream and wanted to turn it into a play that could run at the local community theatre. But, that would have to wait for another day as I needed to get some sleep. I turned the TV and all the lights out, enjoyed the onset of the darkness that felt sort of like an envelope that I, the letter, was being placed inside. Having said that, I felt like a letter in many situations in life and that may explain why I felt so comfortable surrounded by my half-written, never-sent, lavender-scented-as-that-aroma-of-paper-just-happen-to-be-on-sale-the-day-I-spent-way-too-much-time-at-the-office-supply-store-for-reasons-I-still-had-not-determined letters in my office. I also held envelopes of all kinds in high regard and planned to leave at least part of my inheritance to envelope makers worldwide to both aid them in their arduous work and to provide them with a small nest-egg (I had thought it was really odd that my grandfather had left me a huge collection of fermented eggs in his will). I headed up the stairs, brushed my teeth, washed my face and went to bed. Washing my face always made me laugh - it was a private joke that lost a lot in the translation from its original Russian. My last thought, as I closed my eyes, was about a man, just like me, standing in Russia also washing his face and wondering if, for that one, short moment, he felt a connection to me that ran deeper than our freshly-washed, acne-free, multi-freckled-faces. I wanted to see him, to hold hands and dance in a circle to Japanese folk music, to share veggie bacon recipes that are appropriate at both holiday time and when eating a meal after being chased by a group of wild raccoons who ended up just being a few joggers out for a late night run and to put my finger on his nose. I have always wanted to touch a Russian man's, for failing that a goat's, nose. I would also gladly touch a Russian woman's nose, but in some remote areas of Russia that is considered a marriage proposal and the last time I married someone based on how their nose felt I ended up having to burn all of my shirts and I couldn't look at a pickle without shrieking.