2025 A Year of Challenge and Patience

August 9: I’ve said several times in these pages that travel is an adventure, and my first day here in Germany was an adventure from start to finish.

The journey started with the trip to Pearson airport which took longer than the slog through security and getting on the plane. The flight was 7 hours of uneventful tedium and we arrived in Frankfurt just as the sun was coming up. I took a local  train to the main station in downtown Frankfurt. Although I debated stopping here to explore a bit and perhaps get a SIM card for my phone, the shops would not open for a couple of hours so I decided to press on to Heidelberg.

Interestingly, it seems that Heidelberg can’t be reached by one train; you have to pass through other cities and transfer between trains. I inquired at the Deutch Bahn (DB) counter and was given a route through Mannheim. Ticket in hand, I hopped on the train waiting at the appropriate track, but the destination sign seemed wrong, so I asked a fellow passenger if it was the right train. He consulted an app and found that the correct train was delayed and on a different track, so I got off and went back the DB to confirm which train to take.

A different guy at the counter scratched his head for a while and then directed me to yet another train – also to Mannheim – leaving in 10 minutes. It was the German equivalent of TGV called ICE, and in 35 minutes, I was standing on the platform in Mannheim. I found the local train to Heidelberg and hopped on. A few moments later there was a quick announcement in German and several people got off. Something seemed odd, so I too got off, only to watch the front half of the train depart for Heidelberg. I have no idea where I would have gone had I stayed on the back half….

After standing in line at the DB counter for 20 minutes, I was told that the ticket was still valid and that there was a train to Heidelberg in 2 minutes on Track 10. Out of the office, down the stairs, through the station, up the stairs to the platform and through the train doors with a loud crash just as they were closing. All while dragging a 20KG suitcase. Fellow passengers were alarmed and amused ….

In Heidelberg I walked a very long way to find a store that carried an international SIM for my phone. It’s worth the effort – long distance calls to Canada at 5 centimes a minute. That accomplished, I walked still further to a stop for the tram that passes the hotel where I stay. It’s a very efficient and quick system using LRT-type cars in their own right-of-way downtown, or in mixed traffic where car volumes are low. If Heidelberg, a city of 150,000 can do this, why can’t Toronto?

Exhausted and sodden with sweat, I arrived at the hotel around noon. An “eventful” journey with several challenges, but worth the effort. I learned some new things, gained resiliency, and recharged my reserve of patience and understanding. After a nap and a hot shower, as a treat before dinner, I had a cold glass of Riesling from a vineyard on the Rhine and thought about all the other adventures yet to come. Only one day but worth the journey.

 

July 29: Frequent reader(s) have mentioned that I have been somewhat lax in updating these pages. A lot of time has passed since the last entry, and not a lot has happened that I thought would be interesting to anyone passing through. A long cool and wet Spring has finally morphed into a blazing hot summer; the Raptors have taken an inspired ride to the Championship of the NBA; American – and lately Ontario Provincial politics – continues to amaze, amuse and insult our intelligence. Perhaps some, or all, of these topics would make for an interesting paragraph or two, had I the insight or intelligence to make it happen. Alas – or fortunately for you perhaps – such is not the case.

As todays’ temperature approaches 32C, with a stated humidex in the low 40’sC, basic indolence has taken hold. It has become hard to become motivated and inspired to undertake much of anything.

That said, in 10 days I depart for Germany and there is much to do. Much of the “paperwork” (airline tickets, motorcycle insurance, medical insurance etc. ) has been put in place. Since my friend Kate is coming for 2 weeks, several hotels have been reserved, a car rented, train tickets booked, and a route through the south of France roughly plotted. We will be spending 3 days in Paris with my cousin James and his partner Andrea, before taking the TGV south and touring Provence and the Riviera. James and I are hovering over maps and picking mountain passes to ride through during the 2 weeks when we will be together before Paris. And prior to that, I have about 14 days to get from Heidelberg to Lyon ( to meet James ). There’s a route in the back of my head, but I suspect this part of the trip will be a day-to-day proposition.

That is the case primarily because the weather has been increasingly unpredictable. Temperatures across Europe are in the 40’s, and monster storms are becoming common. A heavy rain and hail storm flooded roads in the Alps and caused the cancellation of the second-last stage of the Tour de France, the re-routing of the last stage, and materially changed the outcome of the race. Hopefully, the extreme heat will have dissipated somewhat before I arrive on August 9.

In the meantime, there’s packing and checking to be done ( again and again ). I need to tidy up around my apartment and clean out the fridge, pre-pay rent and some of my bills, and say au revoir to friends and family. All very necessary but distracting as I get geared up to leave. So there you have it: with nothing to say, I’ve written almost 500 words. Hopefully, the next post will be a lot more inspired and inspiring, as I report in on early days in the trip.

Enjoy your Summer. See you in October.

 

May 30: I started keeping a personal journal nine years ago today. It was for my eyes only and tracked many significant events during that period including the death of my parents, the end of my marriage, retirement, selling the house and moving to a new neighbourhood, the birth of 3 grandchildren, and 3 trips to Europe.

My journal was not a daily diary; there are many long gaps devoid of entries. What I was attempting to do was document “significant” events, and then spend a few moments trying to understand their effect and my reaction to them. Writing something down forced me to think about the impact of those events on me and others. It forced me to consider the words I was using, what they conveyed and why I reacted as I did. It gave me greater insight to the person I am, and with insight to my personality and conditioning, it allowed me the benefit of considering who I might become.

In many respects, the journal was a forerunner to these pages. This blog was suggested by a friend as a way of “staying in touch” during my first trip to Europe in 2015. At first, I thought of it as a fairly casual way of sharing photos and observations of my travel experience. Shortly after I started writing my first entries, my friend Ed Murphy died suddenly of a heart attack. It was shattering and deeply disappointing for me because it seemed that he had finally reached a point where he was about to embark on a much happier stage in his life. It all ended too soon.

I wrote an entry about his death that came from emotion and sadness. I wrote it as a I might have written something for my journal, so I felt it was honest and true to my feelings. As I prepared to push the “Publish” button, I spent a moment thinking of how people might react. It was a bit intimidating to think that my emotion, my reaction would be available and judged by anyone having access to the site. Would they accept my thoughts or see them as self-indulgent or inappropriate ? Ultimately, I realized that if these entries are to be meaningful, they need to have integrity and be as open as possible. It became a benchmark for future posts.

I enjoy the act of writing, of trying to capture thought, emotion and experience in a meaningful way. I hope that these pages will be entertaining, perhaps amusing and even insightful from time to time. I am now 4 years into this blog, and you can judge for yourself how well I have been doing.

 

May 12: I was recently listening to an interview with pianist Herbie Hancock as he talked about his early years learning to play jazz with the Miles Davis Quintet. He spoke of an evening when “everything we did just worked. It was like you could read the other guy’s mind. And then, after a long solo, I ended on a wrong note. Not just a ‘bad choice’, as some musicians might say, but a completely wrong note. It just made no sense at all.” He expected Davis to make an example of his inexperience, but instead, after a beat or two, he did a solo built entirely on the mistaken note.

It was at that moment that Hancock began to truly understand creativity. From his perspective, it was the ability to take something unexpected, or perhaps even wrong, and use it as the basis of experimentation. It was the ability to accept something as it is and use it to take your creativity in a new or different direction.

Frequent reader(s) will know that I have been a member of the New Horizons Band for the last couple of years. I can more or less play pieces like this one, navigating through time changes, key changes, accidental notes, a short solo, and a host of dynamics. It has been a bit like learning a new language and it’s a measure of how far I have come that I can look at a score like this and not have a heart attack. Still, I’m at a very early stage in my musical development – I’m no Herbie Hancock and never will be. And in a way, that’s a problem. To take my musical ability to a higher level, where I can be truly comfortable playing more complex musical arrangements, will take an investment of time and effort that I am presently unwilling to make.

The process of learning something new takes patience and repetition. I think that learning music is especially demanding because the timing and the pitch and the inflection all have to be correct every time. It literally takes years of practice to build a base of knowledge upon which greater creativity can then be built. At this point, the commitment of time to practicing music feels like an obligation that interferes with other interests, rather than an investment in something exciting that will take me to a higher level.

I’ve recently completed a couple of new paintings that go in a slightly different direction from the work I usually attempt. What I have realized is that I now have adequate skills that allow me to place paint on canvas and then make something from it, whether what I do initially is what I intended, somehow not technically correct, or perhaps more simply a “mistake”. Through years of practice it finally feels like I am accomplished enough to accept what the paint does and then, if needed,  to evolve the painting into something that pleases me.

The visual arts are exciting and interesting to me. It now feels like this is an area where I want to devote more attention,  more learning and experimentation. Art is enjoyable to me, not an obligation,  and worthy of a greater commitment of time and practice on my part. Not to be pretentious, but I think this quote from astronaut Chris Hadfield, about personal fulfillment, is appropriate:

“Decide in your heart of hearts what really excites and challenges you, and start moving your life in that direction. Every decision you make, from what you eat to what you do with your time tonight, turns you into who you are tomorrow, and the day after that. Look at who you want to be, and start sculpting yourself into that person. You may not get exactly where you thought you’d be, but you will be doing things that suit you in a profession you believe in. Don’t let life randomly kick you into the adult you don’t want to become.”

May 9: On this day last year, I reported that the Saucer Magnolia at the end of the street was finally in bloom, and that Spring could be officially declared. I recommended that we commence wearing shorts and drinking rosé.

Well, the Magnolia is just about in full bloom, but it feels like we are weeks away from Spring. We have had exactly one day with a temperature greater than 20C in the last 30 days, and the Weather Network reports that we’ve had about 20 mm more rain, spread over about a week more of rainy days. So I will only conclude that Spring is underway. And like my furry friend here, I will regard rosé with suspicion until we have a solid week of warmer weather.

April 16: On this melancholy morning in the aftermath of the fire at Notre Dame, I am thinking of my visit to Paris in 2017. I stayed in Hotel Des Carmes not far from the Sorbonne. When I arrived I was given an upgrade to a room on the top floor. After what seemed like a 15 minute elevator ride to the 5th floor, imagine my pleasant surprise to discover a view of le Pantheon, la Tour Eiffel, and, of course, Notre Dame from a small balcony carved into the mansard roof. It was a bit surreal and I spent quite a while propped on a chair squeezed onto the balcony reminding myself that it was real.

One evening I went down to Notre Dame after the crowds of tourists had dissipated to see a video on the construction of the cathedral. There was a relatively small audience and it felt a bit like a private screening for invited guests. The video was thoughtful and thorough. It gave me new insight to the structure of the church itself, and the many things it has witnessed over the centuries as it stood in the centre of Paris. As I left, there was a sweet half-moon peeking over the rooftops and I thought of my Dad and how much he would have enjoyed being in France – being at Notre Dame.

I’ve visited Notre Dame many times and it has always evoked a strong emotional response. I know that I am not alone and, whether or not you have been fortunate enough to have visited her, I am sure that most were shocked and horrified to see her in flames yesterday evening. The sense of loss was overwhelming and heartbreaking. It was, as one observer noted, not unlike the 9/11 attacks in New York: at once tragic, symbolic and historic. There was another half-moon last night and it reminded me that while some things persist through the centuries, they can be affected by the events of history and change. They are not immutable.

Thankfully, there was no loss of life during the blaze and current reports suggest that many of the religious and cultural artifacts have escaped (if not untouched) at least in a state that will allow them to be restored. President Macron has vowed to rebuild within 5 years. Sadly, I fear it may take much longer – decades, perhaps – and that leaves me wondering whether I will ever again be able to sit inside Notre Dame to contemplate all that she has seen, and all that she means to us.

April 3: I recently attended the screening of a documentary that focused on the transition of Venice from a living, vibrant city to a tourist destination and investment vehicle for the wealthy and privileged.  The commentator for the evening was Shawn Micallef, urban affairs columnist at The Toronto Star and author of Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto. During the evening, he said that calling Toronto a “world-class city” sounded sad and faintly desperate.

I shared that feeling for many years as I watched the city gradually slide into mediocrity and decay. Where once the city was known for its’ innovative governance, advanced planning and sound infrastructure, I now see a lack of vision, timid public policy and crumbling public assets. What is truly alarming is that many, if not most residents see this decline too, but there seems to be little or no political will to improve the situation.

A significant portion of citizens is largely ignored and disenfranchised by our politicians who are, for the most part, privileged and indebted to corporate interests. Property owners are protected at a cost to those who rent: while private equity generates the construction of condominium developments at a furious rate, public housing deteriorates and more than 98,000 households are waiting for affordable homes (Q3 2018). City-funded free programs become fee-based and only affordable for families with discretionary income. Improvements to public transit, which are well-known and desperately needed, remain a faint hope years from realization. Our roads, which spent many weeks under banks of snow and ice which the City was unable or unwilling to clear, continue to crumble into minefields of potholes and shards of lose pavement. Public parks and recreation facilities are tattered and deteriorating from lack of maintenance.

The thing is: If you are from that portion our population that has a good job, lives in a good neighbourhood, goes to the right club and sends your kids to the right schools, I suspect that you really don’t care all that much about the plight of those who are not so fortunate. The roads may be a bit rough, but at least you’re not on the subway. And our Mayor and Council will look after you by keeping increases to your property taxes to the rate of inflation. My Father always taught me that if you are not beating the rate of inflation, you are not making any money. You are merely breaking even. If the City is not increasing its revenue through greater taxes (or perhaps the faint hope of larger grants from senior governments), how will it ever deal with the exponentially-growing expense of making our city a great place to live ? It seems like Council is balancing the budget by selling the furniture to pay the mortgage on the house.

We are at a fork in the road. We need a Mayor with a vision for the future of our city, and a vision of what it will take to make it truly great once more. We need a financial plan to take us there. And we need the courage to make it politically palatable for all of that to happen. Sadly, I see none of that in our current Mayor and Council. And ultimately the City is “a creature of the Province” – it can’t make many decisions without the Province agreeing. We saw how well that works when Council decided to toll the expressways and the previous Liberal government refused to allow that to happen. Now that the Conservatives are in power, the provincial government has become malevolent, vindictive and prone to spontaneous ill-informed decisions. There’s little hope anything will improve for the next 3 years.

As food for thought, I offer the following article from John Lorinc who says many of these things much better than I.

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LORINC: How to reframe Toronto’s 2020 budget debate

 

March 13: Many years ago, I developed the habit of reading the obituary section in the Globe and Mail. Although the standard joke is that people of my advanced age do so to ensure that they are not listed, I likely started reading them simply because they were found between the sports section and the Sudoku puzzle. Over time though, reading them has become part of my routine.

In a somewhat strange way, they can be quite enlightening. Obituaries are now likely to be mini-biographies of the deceased. In my memory, those of years ago were much less elaborate, simply stating “so-and-so died on this date and will be buried here. Donations can be made to this charity.” With the passing of “the greatest generation”, many started to include references to the war or accomplishments in business or the arts. It then became de rigeur to include long lists of family members, dogs, cats and care-givers. Some expound on the hobbies of the deceased, or the personalities that made the deceased unique.

A recent obit remembered that the deceased was a practical joker of some renown. It cited his last wish – that his family honoured – which was to wear a red clown nose during the open-casket visitation. I think I would have liked that guy. On the other hand, I was recently sent this picture of an 82-year-old Ohio resident being buried on his Harley “so that his friends could see him on his last ride”. You can draw your own conclusions about that one ….

Obituaries have also come to mark important moments in social change. Many will remember the obituaries for the husband and wife who died on the same day. While their obituaries spoke of a life-long love, it did not emerge until some time later that they had requested medically-assisted death due to terminal illness, and had died together holding hands. I have also recently seen several announcements that directly reference suicide, addictions or mental health issues as part of the deceased’s life, rather than camouflaging them with language about “suddenly after a long struggle”.

All of these thoughts were triggered by the announcements shown here. I thought it was a really interesting snapshot of how obituaries have evolved both in form and in context. Two of the announcements mention same-sex partners. The third is a memoriam for a man who died in Vietnam in 1969. It’s remarkable to see these three together on the page as a reminder of how much things have changed since George Victor Jmaeff met his end in Quang Tri province, Vietnam, 50 years ago.

Over the years, the dates that bracket the deceased’s time among us have shifted from my parents’ generation to include my own. Where I once read about the passing of decrepit geezers, I now read about fine young men and women of my own age being struck down in the prime of their lives. On occasion there has been the adrenaline shock of recognizing someone I knew. Although reading the obits will undoubtedly continue to be part of my morning routine, I am now beginning to approach them with a degree of respect and caution as well as curiosity.

March 1: As the following posts may attest, the last few months have seemed to be an endless snow-globe parade of arctic cold and repeated blizzards. It has sapped my energy and enthusiasm.

But this morning, as I went out the back door headed for a short run, I found this guy sitting in the top of the maple tree in our courtyard, singing his head off. I have an affection for Cardinals, partly because of their flamboyant plumage, but also because they don’t migrate but endure the cold of winter with us. His song is a harbinger and a reminder that warmer weather is just around the corner – the long ordeal of the winter months that he has endured is just about done.

If I still lived in the Lakeshore, I would now be listening for Red-Winged Blackbirds. Unlike Cardinals, they migrate and return to the Lake Ontario shoreline within days of my Mother’s Birthday on March 8. The first time I heard their distinctive conkeree call, I thought it was far too early for a “summer bird” to be back on territory. But it happened every year that I was there and I looked forward to the day I first heard their call as a milestone on the road back to the summer sun.

The Weather Network is forecasting another couple of weeks of polar vortices before a sudden return to warmer weather. Frequent reader(s) know that I will only officially declare Spring has sprung when the Saucer Magnolia is fully in bloom. That occurred last year on May 9, with a note that the previous year’s declaration had been on April 28. Whatever; hopefully my friend the Cardinal knows something I don’t, and the cold weather will soon be done. It’s about time.

February 20: I recently watched a documentary called “Planetary”  about the many environmental issues facing our world. I thought it was quite well-done and raised an interesting perspective. It began with a brief meander through early space travel and concluded with Apollo 11. That mission was the first to land on the moon. It provided the first photograph of earth from another celestial body as it rose over the horizon of the moon. That well-known picture reinforced the notion that the world was a single entity; we were all part of one species existing in the blackness of space.

Since then, much has transpired to degrade the condition of our environment. The video provided a number of environmentalists who discussed the major threats and calamities we face. If you have been paying attention for the last few years, not much would come as a surprise. What was somewhat unusual was the inclusion of further commentary from experts such as a Zen priest, a first-nations elder and several philosophers.

Their viewpoint was somewhat different in that they did not discuss the environmental issues per se, but rather the perspective we have when dealing with them. They would suggest that as we have grown from smaller, agrarian settlements into more urbanized societies we have lost the understanding that we are collectively part of the environment. We no longer see ourselves as citizens of that little blue ball in space, but as individuals separated from the environment and, by extension, responsibility for its problems.

Our problems are immense and it’s easy and understandable on one level to adopt the view that nothing we do will change it.  Unfortunately, this leads to the attitude that global warming will not be affected one iota if I leave my Suburban idling outside Starbucks while I run in for my morning one-shot extra-hot low-fat Chi Latte.  I took the video to heart because, as frequent reader(s) will know, I love fast cars and riding my motorcycle around Europe burning dinosaurs for days on end. Shaming Suburban drivers while indulging my own passions is hypocritical. So what is to be done ?

The litany of issues we face is fundamentally not readily solved by individuals or individual activities. We need a collective view, as displayed by our governments, in order to begin solving some of these problems. While some governments are more pro active than others, there remains far too much yet to be done. Governments seldom do anything unless they are sure there is widespread support for their action – they want to get re-elected. Given that most members of government on all levels are entitled middle-aged white guys with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, change is unlikely unless – as was the case in the movie “Network” – we all get mad as hell and say that we are not going to take it anymore. As a generation, we need to move the need for environmental change to the top of the electoral agenda. We need to be prepared to pay – monetarily and in inconvenience – for the damage we have done. We need to show leadership and take ownership of the issue and push for solutions.

There is not a lot of time remaining for the environment, or for my generation, which will die-off just as things are getting bad. We will avoid the most serious consequences of our own actions, so it will be hard to motivate us to take responsibility for the damage we have already done. The generation which will be most dramatically affected by the ways in which the world is changing is too busy trying to find a job and raise a family to get involved with politics. So one thing we could all do is talk to our kids, and their children, to encourage them to become more involved in environmental issues.

The pessimist in me believes that it may already be too late. Case in point: this pathetic polar bear seen wandering near a hunting camp in the Arctic looking for food. Our environment has changed so drastically and so quickly that, even if we could stop further damage right now, it seems to me that the momentum of change would carry us far beyond any reasonable limit to the damage we have done. Species that are now extinct will not return, and the ice caps will not regenerate in the face of  continued warming.  We don’t have long ….

http://weareplanetary.com/

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PS: March 3: Today I attended I presentation of the first episode of a new Netflix series called Our Planet. It was very lush, with great photography and a sonorous narration by Sir David Attenborough. One of the themes they pursue is that the world is far more resilient than many recognize, so this episode at least, was somewhat more optimistic than my view stated above.

https://www.ourplanet.com/