WHEN I SLEEP...

WHEN I SLEEP…

This pandemic has certainly got me down. I am a disabled senior, age 76 who has spent most of the last 35 years trying to write that never-ending story. The stories keep ending but the writing never seems to stop and for a dyslexic writer it is quite a challenge.

Something I just learned about reminded me of the Moleskin book which I paid an arm and leg for last summer but wanted so it could be my permanent little black book of cartoons. I am very much an artist as well as being a very creative dyslexic writer. What a beautiful book it is and worth all the money I paid. I carry it with me in my bag of odds and ends and pull it out while I am waiting for a blood test or when I am waiting for my appointment with the kidney doctor.

I lost my first kidney when I was 16 the year after I broke my neck in a diving accident and it left me with realigned muscles in my side and a scar that runs halfway around my body as a reminder for the past 60 years. Why do I have to think about these things when I am sleeping? Maybe I need to wake myself up. No, it is probably the middle of the night and no one will be around to talk to about my dream. Besides, who really cares other than me?

What am I going to do with the $20,000 I just won in this writing contest? I am going to move. Dream on…so where does my life go from here? I am old and my second kidney is down to a 25% operating level but still holding its own. Ending up with diabetes last summer certainly has not helped much and now I jab myself with needles every day, first to check things out and then to apply insulin. No big thing. I also get a flu shot every year because it could be a problem for me if I did not. After donating something like 86 pints of blood in my life, I quite doubt any needle will bother me other than maybe a spinal tap. Still, I must get that COVID-19 shot or will it be COVID-22 by the time I get it?

The big thing with needles was when they put these huge needles through my rib cage and into my back right into my lung 60 years ago to draw out 2500 ccs of liquid, a complication of my kidney operation that put me back in hospital for a second period of three weeks to correct an error made in the first three weeks. My lung subsequently collapsed. I then learned along the way that the surgeon was going through a divorce at the time and asked myself “why me?” That surgeon is long dead by now and the two interns who did the lung work for several days are probably now retired and enjoying their old age in Florida, Mexico, or California, if such is possible in this pandemic. I can go on about a couple of other cases were the doctors screwed up with operations, but I already know those stories.

Why do I always talk to myself in my dreams? I am sure no one else does. Is it just a sign of aging or is my brain a bit weird? Maybe it was being hit by a car when I was a kid? It was a big Buick with lots of chrome. All I remember is all the chrome and the very bad headaches afterwards. The best one I remember was on my 5th birthday at Mrs. Terret’s Kindergarten. Four of us were sitting on a bench. The two in the middle got up leaving one on each end of the bench. The girl on the other end beat me to it and my chin hit the table. I ended up biting right through my tongue. I was rushed to the hospital and the doctor, who lived downstairs below us called my mother up and said to her, “rough stitches and home today or fine stitches which means an overnight stay?” He was calling on behalf of his son who was invited to my birthday party that afternoon. You know, I remember eating that salty popcorn to this day and I still love the stuff.

Okay, what to think about next. Oh, music. I love music. It started early when my mother’s girlfriend turned up the night before I was born to help her through it as my father was back in Canada by then. It was during the war. Well, until the night before I was born, my mother was certain I was going to be Lesley Susan. Good thing her girlfriend asked her what boys' names she had chosen. None! That was the night before I became Robert Anthony. It sure beats being known as a “BOY NAMED SUE.” Johnny Cash made a record out of that one and probably a lot of money, but it certainly was not a life I wanted to live. Note to myself “When I wake up, I am going to have to write that story down”. The other song I remember is “SPANISH HARLEM”. That story begins in WWII in Java where the Dutch Boshouwers family became prisoners of the Japanese. The women were kept in camps and the men were sent off as labourers. Mrs. Boshouwers had to teach her young daughter how to steal bread so she would have something to eat. On return to the Netherlands after the war, things were tough. So, the father decided to move to Canada, buy a piece of land and build a house for his family. It would have to be a lot better than the war-torn Netherlands. It took him years, working at Canadair in the daytime and working on the house in the evenings and weekends. He lived in a small shack on the property and showered and changed at work. We got to know him well, especially when he came to stay with us while recovering from an operation. Eventually, the house was built, and he brought his family over. They settled in the house with few belongings. Young Harry only had one record and every time I went over to visit him, he played it over and over. I was living out west when Harry was killed. He and another village friend had gone out for a few beers after university and rather than let Harry pay extra for the cab to drive him down the street, he got out of the taxi at the corner and walked home. To this day, he feels responsible for Harry’s death. The collision with the commuter train killed both young Harry who was about age 18 and the taxi driver who did not stop at the crossing. That crossing was notorious and had taken the lives of half a dozen men back in the 1950s when they were building the power station across from Harry’s property. Today, with the faster commuter train, you would not see the crossing as it no longer exists. But I still think about Harry every time I go to sleep, and this is one of those times more than 55 years later. ~ there ~ is ~ a ~ place ~ in ~ Spanish ~ Harlem~ …now I am going to be singing that all night…a lot better than “How do you do my name is Sue.”

I do not want you to feel sorry for me, that is not the purpose of this dream story. I live in a bachelor apartment in Etobicoke hardly big enough to hang my pants and I live right on the edge of Lake Ontario. I call the place “MY PANTHOUSE BY THE LAKE”. Unfortunately, I have not seen my caregiver for months. She has been a wonderful help to me for about six years and it was just a coincidence that their best man years ago turned out to be a ski-board instructor in a large Toronto travelling ski club I was president of for several years. That sort of cemented the relationship and especially their offer to assist me while they owned the building which I had moved into fourteen years ago. Time really goes by fast when you are having fun. They were the third of four owners while I have lived here. I have nothing positive to say about the other owners. We had our battles. The third owners were the only ones who have really helped me out with things like cleaning my apartment and transferring all my records to my new computer. I call them friends.

You see, I am a cripple and I walk with two canes, but not far before I must sit down. My hip replacements in 2010 and 2011 ended up going in opposite directions. The first one was great, the second one went wonky and left my leg shorter than the other so I am always putting all my weight on that one leg and it is starting to fail me in my old age. The doctor said he could do nothing more for me and I suspect that I gave him a scare during the second operation as he put me in a room overnight with two nurses watching me. Seems the hospital charges $5,000 per night for that room. I barely survive on my old age pension. How come my mind is working over all this right now? I need to get some decent sleep for once before I get too old to sleep at all.

How come I think about all these things while I am asleep and not when I am awake? The mind is a wonderous thing. I went to bed thinking about having won the $20,000 prize from Moleskin and it reminded me that I now only see the doctor every four months so I will not get to do a lot of cartoon work in it each year. Darn, it is such a great book, a potential keepsake for my granddaughters, well, one of them anyway. If I live for another ten years, maybe I will be able to produce a second one. What happens if my son and his girlfriend decide to have children, after all, he is 44 this year so he had better get going. What do I do with the stuff I have here and the three storage places where I have other stuff tied up? I was using my brother’s basement then his wife divorced him so that stuff is somewhere out in Ajax in storage. My nephew knows. When I first started using storage units some 40 years ago, I decided it was easier to do that and just take a small apartment, picking and choosing the things I wanted to have in one apartment or another as I seemed to move around a lot in my life. Even by the age of 1-1/2,WHY DO i TALKE IN MY DREAMS? I had already lived in three places in the two countries, the UK, Ontario, and Quebec. My family seems to have a love affair with the UK. My grandfather was born there, my mother was born there, I was born there, my ex-wife was born there and now my son lives there. I have first cousins there I have never met. I often tell people that my grandfather and I were born in England and came to Canada while my father and son were born in Canada and went to England. BUZZZZZZZZ... Ohhhhh, damn alarm. Now I guess I have to wake up and write this all down…I wonder when I am going to get the $20,000 to move out of this hole. “I AM AWAKE, I AM AWAKE!” Oh, who am I talking to, I live alone.”