If I Were the Man You Wanted

There was absolutely no friggin' reason for me *not* to sleep-in this morning.

The past week has consisted of hockey Tuesday night, coaching soccer Wednesday and Thursday night, playing soccer for the first time in (grade thirteen = 19, grade eight therefore = 14, subtracted from 46 =) thirty-four years on Friday night in a 'Refs vs. Coaches' match.

All of that plus packing, packing and more friggin' packing. And, surprise-surprise, there is a whole lot o' books in this house! And not them new-fangled ipad electronic books; nope, it's the good ole-fashioned "Damn, is this box heavy" kind of books.

And Saturday was renting a guy with a truck so we could load and then unload a bunch of stuff (including, of course, *more books*) that were at my stepmother's place and take them up the new house.

So, sleeping-in this morning would have been lovely.

But it simply was not meant to be.

Instead I was awakened because my sleeping thoughts had drifted towards fate, chance, and the decisions we make.


Do we get to where we are because of some guiding hand? Do we get here by choosing Door Number Two when we could have (and perhaps *should have*) chosen Door Number Three Hundred and Fifty-Two? Is there a master plan or just a perpetual motion of lottery ticket draws with some tickets being winners, others being losers but another draw just a decision away.

If I had taken a writing course that had been offered to me when I was a teenager and made the trips from Kitchener to Toronto, would my life be vastly different from what it is now? And would that be better or worse or just different?

And had I taken that road, would I lose everything I have right now?

Or is this where I was supposed to be? Right now. In this moment. In this instant. This is exactly the right place.

Lyle Lovett wrote, "If I were the man you wanted, I would not be the man that I am."



"Home is where I want to be. But I guess I'm already there" sang David Byrne and the Talking Heads.

Alice gave Smoky her childhood and in exchange she lost the certainty that there was a guiding hand in her life and that she had been fated to meet the man she loved. And while that realization made everything more fragile, it also made everything much more precious because she now realized that there was no master plan and she had to enjoy every moment she had. (That's me paraphrasing John Crowley's book "Little, Big".)

And if Schrödinger had ever opened the damn lid, would the cat be alive, dead or would it have got tired of waiting and decided to find its own way out?

Yes, yes: the last four occurred to me as I was writing this. And trying to make some sense of it all.

But the rest woke me up.

I wanted to sleep-in. I probably *needed* to sleep in. Zed is still asleep. My lovely wife is still asleep. I'm doing my best to quietly tip-toe around the house and not wake them. The day is going to be more packing.


And packing is like having a root canal: it must get done, it's very painful, and after it's finished there's still more pain, but in time it fades and everything turns out okay.

But this is the thing, and maybe if I had thought of all this I could have eased myself back to sleep: I'm not a piece of fluff in the wind being blown from place to place. I have roots that are strong and are being transplanted by choice. I'm Popeye with his sweet potatoes because I yam what I yam. And it's all fragile and delicate and precious but not to be feared. There's no grand scheme, but things do have a tendency to work out. It is a royal pain in the ass not knowing when the good times are going to start.

But perhaps worse is not realizing that the good times might be Right Now.

Shopping at the Deity-tessen

At one point the main character in the book I'm reading ("The Suspect" by Michael Robotham) asks the question "What sort of God would you like -- a vengeful God or a forgiving one?"

The book is about a British psychologist who gets pulled into a murder investigation, and he asks that question to one of his patients.


And it made me wonder: do we get to choose what type of god we get? -- Isn't S/He passed down on a generational level until we decide to take our shopping cart to another section in the Deity-tessen?

As a teenager I read a lot of Robert E. Howard's stories and I remember thinking that his description of one of the gods was perfect: He gives us life. What more can one ask of a god?

(Or, according to the internet, "But he gave a man courage at birth, and the will and might to kill his enemies, which, in the Cimmerian's mind, was all any god should be expected to do." --> obviously Conan's god, over the years and in my paraphrasing, editing mind, has become a bit more gentle.)


If I had a choice, I guess I'd go with a forgiving god. But I don't expect a lot from Him/Her. I am not a huge fan of the Book of Job because I don't like how God comes off as all-knowing and all-arrogant at the end of the story. Especially after God put Job through the ringer, I would think there would be a bit more respect and perhaps even an apology of some sort: "Hey, Job, sorry about the disease and the death of all your kids; I don't expect you to understand, but here's what happened..."

But if my god is forgiving and your god is vengeful, does that mean we're worshiping the same god? -- Is it possible for god to be both? Sure-sure, god is all-powerful, all-knowing, all etc, but isn't being both forgiving *and* vengeful a huge contradiction?

I guess I see my God as a gentle watchmaker: things are set in motion, and it's my job to do my best and see it through. Do unto others; Karma will be a paybacking bitch; don't trump your partners Ace; and never spit into the wind.

Bottom line: I don't think S/He is going to step in to help.

We're all on our own. Together.