I was recently rummaging through stuff looking for a photo of my parents and came across this comment on my grade 4 report card from Miss White.
I missed the fall term because we were living out of our Volvo, family of 5 and 2 dogs, looking for a place to live. We finally settled into a shack in Kenabeek. Cold, barren, lovely, raw Northern Ontario. I had to earn my place each recess as every farm boy took a go at me - the long-haired, leather jacket-wearing big city kid. I survived.
It says, “I have enjoyed teaching David this year. His interest in current events and relating them to the class, has made the other students more aware of world affairs. He must learn to control himself rather then speak out whenever he feels like it.”
I loved learning and knowing everything about what was going on in the world. I loved like this now - being involved with the world, changing the world, not being afraid to speak out. I felt, even at the age of 9, a citizen of the world. Not a Kenabeeker, not a northern Ontarian, not a Canadian, but a person at home in the world.
However, I never could have imagined I’d truly become the homeless mind that I am. Never could have imagined my adventures all around the world. But there were signs, there are always signs.
My father, god bless him, we got monthly, a Guardian World Report magazine. I devoured each article about exotic places in the world. We inherited from my grandfather, stacks of National Geographic magazines and maps. I devoured them and had adventures all over the world. I built my own radio when 10 years old and come night, stayed up listening to voices from far away, all over the world.
I used to have a briefcase, a plastic thing that had a map of the world on it. Every night, I’d accost the hippies around the campfire (my parents were part of a community of draft dodgers and living off the land types - many get-togethers, much marijuana). I’d badger each and every one to test my knowledge. Kind of like this cute girl but a little older.
As Miss White says, I’d cut into every first class with my speeches about what was happening in the Congo, Brazil, Cuba etc … The other kids were cool about it but not because they were interested - it was just less time before lessons. In grade 6 I was enamored by the tactics of Ho Chi Minh and guerrilla warfare. I gave my public speaking contest speech on this topic. Everyone thought I was talking about gorillas fighting in the jungle.
Yet, growing up back then, I never imagined I’d ever live IN the world, the real world. It was all in my head, my fantasy life. See, living in the boonies (us in Kenabeek were very much marginalized as hicks in our local community), it isn’t easy to get out. Most you could hope for was North Bay or Sudbury, if lucky the big smoke - Toronto.
I graduated high school, I graduated university. Worked a lot of construction all through both. Still, just a small-town boy with quirky knowledge about the world. Getting drunk, looking for “the one”, fighting, living from paycheck to paycheck. Nothing wrong with it but there were still those signs …
I had a relationship with one of the hotties in town. I’d made it south as far as North Bay back then. After one of our nights together, she suggested we go to Nora of the North. A famous indigenous psychic. $10 bucks for a reading. $20 bucks got you a cassette recording. We got the recording.
Nora said we’d not be together long. I was going to start traveling the world, live on all continents and see many, many countries, places. I guffawed and pouted about the bad news and threw the cassette into a box. Never to be heard again.
Yet, here I am. I’ve done all that. I don’t know if Nora lucked out but she earned her $20 bucks. If you are patient, those signs will come true and you’ll follow them and become what they foretold. Hang in there. It’s never too late.
What signs did you have and which were foretold? And your kids, what signs do they show? Remember, for every door closing, another is opening. I’m living that right now.
I Had No Map
I loved
before I knew what or who to love.
I opened doors
before I had any known address.
I walked about
in order to find where I was going.
I spoke
before I had anything to say.
I sang
then I learned all the notes.
I dreamed
after I was done.
I died
without knowing how to live.
Almost now,
I am back to where I started.