Max Roytenberg

On making a new start

Why is it so hard for many of us to shake off the past and begin anew? My Bride often tells me she finds it amazing how easily I forgive myself for my errors. She holds her misgivings about past actions to her breast for eternity. For me, when I forgive myself, I find it much easier to strike off in another direction, one which may, or may not, lead to a better result.

Maybe it has something to do with my background. As an adherent to Judaism, I have always been much taken by the ideas associated with the Jewish New Year. Rosh Hashanah, occurring in the autumn, as determined by the lunar calendar, is one of our major holidays. It is a happy holiday, a time of feasting and family gatherings, celebrating that we managed to get safely through another year. And there are lots of wishes expressed that we might do the same again next year, even marking it in our spiritual birthplace, Jerusalem.

But there is a serious side to the holiday as well. The New Year will be followed closely by the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, when all Jews are assessed and judged as to what their fate will be in the year to come. So, the New Year is a time when all Jews are expected to examine their behaviours and make resolutions that, hopefully, will guide their actions more positively in the coming year.

To do so, one has to search one’s conscience, one has to admit to oneself all those things that we have done wrong, that only we know about. We have to admit to ourselves remorse for our actions that we know have not been correct in the light of our values. Then we have to decide that we will not do those things again. We have to forgive ourselves and resolve to do differently. Indeed, during this season, many individuals go out of their way to visit antagonists and others to whom they may have done wrong to beg pardon for any perceived excesses to which they may have been a party.

So, you can see that I come by my approach rightly. It was imbibed with my mother’s milk. Judaism is not unique in including this concept within its construct. It seems to be an important element within many religious and philosophical approaches as to how humans should live. The key thing to me is that we have to be able to forgive ourselves so that our contrition can motivate actions toward a new start.

I must admit I always feel refreshed when I am in the position of having cast off the constrictions imposed by ideas I have been forced to abandon. Ahead of me lie whole new worlds of possibilities. That old stuff didn’t work. What did I learn? Where can I go from here?

What about that idea that we discarded before as impractical, impossible? Could there be something in it? What about what Joe suggested, which we shouted down? Maybe we should ask him to explain it more fully. Could there be something in it that we missed? He has had good ideas before. What if we put that idea together with the one we had? Could that give us a better result? Anybody who has spent a part of his or her life confronting problems, and problem-solving, in concert with other people, will know that of which I speak.

Don’t we feel better after we have cleared the decks with an old adversary? Now maybe we can make a fresh start and work together to accomplish common goals that we share. Isn’t it great when the difference you have had with your spouse has been resolved and you have returned together to the zone of loving and sharing that you were in danger of losing? Isn’t that more important than things that may have divided you? Aren’t so many long-term relationships built by making new starts over and over again?

The Jewish New Year ethic is a part of how we can live our lives each day. Making a fresh start is what we can do every day we wake up. We all know there are things percolating on the back burner. We may not want to think about some of these things. We may push them off to the back of our minds because of their unpleasantness. But they don’t go away. They are the things we will have to tackle if we want to make a fresh start in some important area of our lives.

Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His recently published Hero in My Own Eyes: Tripping a Life Fantastic is available from Amazon and other online booksellers.

Celebrating the mundane

Why is it so bad to talk about the ordinaries of life? People often say the mundane is so boring, let’s talk about something exotic. Let’s gossip about somebody’s perversion. Isn’t there a scandal that’s just been discovered? Have you heard about the latest murder? Are the terrorists going to kill us all? Will they take over our world so that we will have to hide and practise our rituals in secret? Will our grandchildren ever get a paying job again? What’s the point of voting, they all tell us lies?

Turn down the TV, step away from the computer. Better still, turn them off! Don’t we wish it was that simple, but if we stop listening and are not active, isn’t what happens partly our fault?

I think I’d rather talk about how wonderful it is that the sun came out today. And this after many too many days of driving rain. If I organize my time correctly I will be able to sit on my balcony in the evening with a small glass of my favourite beverage, sending out smoke signals. We have had a late spring this year and the trees have been slow to leaf. I have a clear view of the water out by English Bay. It is too early in the season to see any sailboats. I have been rushing the season by stuffing the baskets around my balcony edge with colourful plants; red, yellow, blue, mauve and in-betweens. The dozens of tulips I planted last fall have let me down; lots of greenery, but only a handful of flowered heads.

It is not too early in the season for my blue plastic dragonfly to flutter with excitement as the sun pours over the balcony railing. I can feel the gentle blush of warmth on my skin if the breezes are not too vigorous. Sometimes I have to wear a leather jacket and a scarf to advance my challenge to the recalcitrant spring. I have cast off the rigours of a stuffy nose and a dry throat to insist on being in the pink of good health. We have even had a walk on the beach and ventured into Stanley Park to feed the ducks. We have abandoned the heat of the foreign and the exotic to embrace our ordinary life.

We are back to regular exercise at the community centre. Wasn’t it nice that people noticed we have been away and say they are happy to see us back? We are enjoying our regular shopping trips to the places we are used to. And dropping in on the new restaurants that have sprouted in our neighbourhood to vary our regular dietary habits. It was comforting to visit our doctors, dentists and pharmacists just to check in. And it was great to touch base with friends and family, finding occasions to meet and greet. In spite of technology that spans time and distance so effectively, even with those further away, somehow, people seem closer when we communicate with them from home. The ties that bind are so much stronger when we can see each other face-to-face.

For the next while, we will have gatherings bringing together family members and friends into our own locale, the ones not often in the same place at the same time. I look forward to these encounters. Life can be so fragile and we have had recent reminders of that reality. Sharing each other’s company in the flesh can be one of the rare pleasures we can enjoy in the peripatetic world we inhabit. I treasure each and every one of these opportunities. An appreciation of the passage of racing time gives these occasions added significance.

We ourselves will be traveling long distances soon to acknowledge important events in the lives of those near and dear. Travel is not what it once was, and is more of a challenge for us than it has been in the past. But the act of presence is important. Too often, for us, these days, it is about departing souls, so it is delicious when the trip is about new beginnings. And I will actually get to have all my children around me in one place. Wow!

I just had a birthday. I am too often careless about these times; I have had so many. It was heartening to have others make a fuss. And I got to have contact, and actually talk to, people it is often really difficult to reach in the ordinary course of life. I got to talk to some of my favourite people; that’s always a special pleasure. Appreciating how much of a treat it was for me makes me resolve to pay a lot more attention to this item in the lives of my friends and dear ones.

So here it is. We have spent all this time and space nattering on about so many mundane things. None of the topics has been about earth-shaking events. It does help soothe us, particularly when we have to go through some rough spots. You will have to judge whether it has been worthwhile. I think it has been.

I am looking forward to a sunny tomorrow.

Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His recently published Hero in My Own Eyes: Tripping a Life Fantastic is available from Amazon and other online booksellers.

Why not wait and see?

Things seem to be way out of control these days. So many of the things we used to take for granted in our lives now seem topsy-turvy. There used to be a right and a left, liberal, conservative, moral, immoral. Could it be really true that a rich guy with all the power in the world, who previously used his power to exploit the weak, rip off the powerless, abuse women, exploit racism, has become an upright guy? Maybe?

Witness U.S. President Donald Trump’s relentless focus on creating new jobs for those who have been displaced in their work by globalization, by robotization, by environmental imperatives. Witness a realpolitik that ignores political correctness and confronts fears we all have that we will be overwhelmed by an ideology of global supremacy that hides behind a religious façade.

What if Trump ignores the short-term advantage of going along with the power of oil and population numbers in the Middle East, trade interests in Europe, debt holdings of U.S. treasuries in China, and asserts support for a beleaguered Israel, gives notice that the United States is again prepared to fight robustly to maintain its international stature, and disarms Russia by seeking common cause in areas of common interest from a position of renewed military strength and commitment? What is wrong about making a serious effort to maintain the integrity and respect of America’s borders, and recognizing that international trading arrangements have ignored the reality that certain partners’ internal politics have undermined and eroded the supposed advantages of those arrangements? Perhaps his lack of ideology will overturn Republican extremism, make the United States a better place for millions of the country’s illegals, by finding some path for them to a legal presence there, and result in a replacement health program that is better for Americans than the one that has been dictated by gridlock and lobbyists.

We are seeing some of the power guys shaking in their boots about what Trump is going to do next, how he is going to shake up the country, and the world. Will he confront legislators who are lapdogs for lobbyists? Is he actually going to create jobs for those blue-collar guys who are having trouble adjusting to a changing world and are looking at a jobless future? Is he actually going to stop potential terrorists from getting into the United States? Will he confront cyber hackers, no matter what the cost to innocents, privacy concerns and the niceties of international relations?

There is that side of the coin. How many innocents will suffer in the process of getting the job done? How many in his base will presume a freedom for racism, misogyny and anarchy? Does our distaste for his past and some of his bedfellows mean we can’t trust him? Because the fact is that some of us just don’t trust the motives.

But are motives the be all and end all? What if he does actually tackle those countries that are abusing the rules set by trade agreements, like Mexico, China and some other countries? What if he actually is going to support a U.S. alliance with Israel? What if he calls Iran’s bluff or confronts Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the Emirates, Iran, etc., on their policies that favour terrorism? What if he challenges the Palestinians on their refusal to recognize a Jewish state and a Jewish presence in the West Bank, which is legal and sanctioned by the Oslo Accords?

Surely we are overdue for a change from Barack Obama’s failed policies. Why shouldn’t we lean on some of these guys? Why shouldn’t we put the United Nations on the backburner where it belongs, because it caters to the worst actors in human rights? Shouldn’t we go for American energy independence and deal with the consequences of using new technology?

Aren’t there some things that need fixing? Could some of the things we hate be the price for better policies in other areas? Don’t we have to wait and see what we are really going to get before we push the panic button?

Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His book Hero in My Own Eyes was recently published.

Benefits from finding your I

What was your growing-up story like? If we are fortunate, we are in a nurturing environment as we scramble to make some sense of the world around us, with little sense of who or what we are. We are all the sensations we react to, hunger, cold, heat, pain, pleasure, more instinctive than rational. When do we develop a sense of self, an idea of what it is we might want rather than what those around us might wish for us?

For me, the smoke began to clear by the time I was in Grade 5, about the age of 11 or 12. Suddenly, it seemed to me, I had a sense of self, and opinions about what was going on around me in the world. Not only that. The opinions of others were less important. I had begun reading voraciously, learning of a world that had a past that had shaped my present. My immigrant parents’ views had begun to disappear as reference points; my feeling was that I knew more about the real world we lived in than they could possibly understand.

By the time I was in my mid-teens, I felt I was fully in charge of my life. I was under the family roof, but the things going on in my head, the plans and actions I contemplated, were formulated and carried out with almost no reference to parental guidance. I generated the funds to permit me independent action from an early age. Was it just me? Was I the only one who was obnoxiously opinionated by the time he was a teenager? I was fortunate that my parents did not stand in my way. It doesn’t happen to everybody like that.

Gaining a consciousness of oneself as separate from those around us, with an independent will, especially, independent from those in positions of authority, is a big thing. The sense of being an independent identity may come long before we achieve independence, but it surely must come first. We may begin by feeling a rising sense of rebellion, exasperation with the lack of understanding by those around us. We may begin to object to decisions made for us, about us, without consultation. We may begin to object to rules of the game, which we find erroneous, obtuse, nonsensical or unjust. We may say nothing, but a knot of resistance, even anger, may begin to form. Our I begins to take shape. We may even be wrong, lacking all the information needed to make a correct decision. We learn to negotiate those things.

An independent will can form at any age. Sensitivity on the part of those in authority, inviting expressions of opinion, can stimulate development. An authoritarian environment can delay it. Doesn’t it take some people a long time to achieve a sense of I? One wonders at the history behind that. How much goes on in the mind as part of this process? How much conflict does it generate? How many experience damaging environments that prevent a proper development, haunting their adult lives. Don’t some people spend a lifetime in counseling working through their feelings? Don’t some people take pills to quiet the questions? We really have to work through this stuff to become happy campers, to make a success of what we hope to do in life. How many people do I know who, even in their 50s and 60s, are agonizing about relationships with parents that still leave them anxious, angry and confused about their self-worth? How can we successfully interact with a life partner with this monkey on our back?

Yet some of us who have lived through the worst seem to get through it relatively unscathed. Perhaps a parent or family member saved the day. Or they met the right person early on who got them on the right track. Or they just had the right stuff to see beyond the sickest parts of the people they were in forced contact with and sloughed it all off. What we do know is that a healthy sense of I, a healthy sense of self-worth, a positive self-image, is crucial to making it through to adulthood with some chance of happiness. With it, we can handle being knocked down a peg or two by the inevitable reverses we will face over the years. We can pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and step back into the fray.

Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His book Hero In My Own Eyes has just been published.

A precious space in Ireland

Machzikei Hadas can be found on Rathmore Villas in Dublin. (photo from jewishgen.org)

When my bride and I lived in Dublin, we were strangers in a foreign land. Our refuges were the synagogues of the tiny Jewish community. It was there we found instant acceptance. We were in Dublin, escapees from the harsh extremes of temperature in the places where we used to live. Original products of Winnipeg, we had left Ottawa to pursue a life of retirement in Ireland. Recently married, we were getting to know each other again after leading separate lives since acquaintance in our teen years.

In Ireland, we benefited from the welcoming embrace of the country’s cradle-to-the grave social system, in spite of being alien residents. Seeking community associations, we joined a synagogue, the Dublin Jewish Progressive Congregation. It had the merit of permitting men and women to sit together, important to us at the time. However, we found that environment less fulfilling, and I began to attend another, more orthodox, establishment. Although it was in the main synagogue in Dublin where we had our Orthodox marriage – we were married previously by a justice in Canada and a progressive rabbi in Jerusalem – in the end, we found it, as well, less welcoming than we liked. Finally, we became firmly attached to a shtiebel, which is the subject of this memoir.

When I attended, Machzikei Hadas had maximum capacity of about 50 male worshippers. It was located in the annex of a house. Among the benches for seating were tables, which were used, after the services, for food and drink. About a third of the space was devoted to seating for women, behind a barrier with a curtained screen. Alcoves at the back had a small kitchen and a children’s playroom, with a door providing a separate entrance for women. A pulpit stood in the centre of the main room on the traditional raised area, used for reading from the Torah. The cantor, a volunteer from the group, led the services. The room was bare. The only adornments were a decorated cover for the cubicle where the scrolls were kept in the front of the room, and an embellished covering on the pulpit where the Torah was read.

The synagogue is managed by a group of about 10 men, with the assistance of some of their wives. The total membership is small. Aside from holidays, the congregation convenes once weekly, every Saturday morning. Ritual (Ashkenazi) is strictly observed. Men and women sit separately except for the Kiddush. When the time comes to eat and drink, men and women are seated cheek by jowl. One of the abiding attractions of this place is the generous table that is set after services each week, complete with bottles of Irish whiskey. Rarely are these returned to the cupboard with any contents. The participants look to salvation in their spirits and I have many times departed this place elevated in spirit, but somewhat the worse for wear.

The men in this congregation are of an independent-minded cast. They have resisted the blandishments of the main congregation in Dublin for decades, to maintain their independence. Every Saturday involves a struggle to ensure that the necessary 10 men are assembled for a formal service. Each attendee is precious, and his arrival is greeted with appreciation for his presence, as a member of a select group. Each regular has his appointed place to sit.

A unique feature of services is that they are often unruly, as the members exchange news and discuss notable occurrences during the past week. All join in the service at the appropriate places, but otherwise the exchange of news and views continues, nearly unabated, during their time in this place. I gloried in the down-to-earth atmosphere.

Members are chosen each week to mount the central platform, to have their name, and their father’s name, celebrated, in reading portions from designated chapter in the Torah. I was always thrilled to be called up, to have my father’s name announced. To me, it was as if my father could hear his name called out and he could witness that I was keeping his memory alive. Each time I had the opportunity, I loudly exclaimed the requisite prayer, to awaken my father from his slumbers.

Each of the principals in the synagogue I grew to know was in some way markedly distinct from my experience with any other group to which I have belonged. Each, in his way, was key to the successful operation of the synagogue. Attendance, management, security, accumulation of food and drink supplies, almost everyone played a role, often supplementing needs from their own pockets.

David, the secretary, a young man, seemed to be a prime mover. He carried the concerns of the synagogue in his mind at all times. Inhabiting the rough-and-tumble world of classic car sales, he was nonetheless devout in his observance.

Michael, the president, seemed to perform his role under David’s prompting, taking everything with collegial grace. More “laissez-faire,” he was an enthusiastic participant in the consumption of Irish whiskey. He often brought his beautiful, wilful, but adorable 5-year-old son with him to synagogue.

The triumvirate was rounded out by Terry, the inveterate cantor. A convert to Judaism, he progressed through the prayer agenda, in spite of the babble behind him, and would cheerfully give up his place to visiting presenters. With his American wife, Karen, he was a mainstay of the synagogue, and a fierce defender of all elements of ritual observance. We looked over our shoulders to see if he was watching when we transgressed. We are hoping and prayerfully expecting the Deity to be more lenient in His judgments of us than was Terry.

Melvin, my seatmate, took care that I did not blunder in my observance, using the right book, reading the right page. Richard, an Irish convert who spent time on kibbutz in Israel, sat behind us. A civil servant, he has shared with me the mysteries and intricacies of Irish bureaucracy and politics. Sturdy participants in the demolition of many a whisky container, I would gladly have them by my side, anywhere, whatever I had to face.

Joe, a truly lovable mensch, sat across the aisle. He and his brother Robbie, many years in Ireland, still bear the accents they brought with them from Slovakia. Purveyors of parchment, they are the synagogue Cohens, necessary for the reading of the scrolls. Robbie is the synagogue treasurer, openly eager for a tip on the stock market.

Alec sits at the back. He is a retired person of the legal profession and the real brains of our outfit. He was usually at the centre of discussions, dispensing wisdom and wit.

Monty was my real favorite, and we had a meeting of the minds. With him, I shared my deepest secrets and my tendency to violent extremism in defence of Israel. He sat far forward in splendid isolation, focused on his worship. He did occasionally join us for a bite and a wee dram. I am regularly in contact with him to this day, years after I have departed the Emerald Isle.

Eddie was a more recent returnee, coming from some other Irish place. A Levi, he played a ritual role. He was our mellifluous cantor on many occasions, generous with his time and effort. Enthusiastic of voice and social commentary, he disapproved of our unruly behavior in the back of the room. He appeared to be discomfited by too much public attention to the Jewish fact and the attention garnered by Israel’s struggle to survive. We have different views as to Jewish public policy, but he was often a cheerful addition to our services.

There are too many others to enter into detail. What a pleasure it was to have been to be a part of all this! How can I express fully the depth of my feeling of kinship, the strength of my appreciation for having been made so welcome within this community? The participants may have seemed at times cavalier in observance, but they cling fiercely to their synagogue and its perpetuation. I have been moved to tears there by my readings in the scrolls, and filled with joy, my enthusiasm raucous, in singing some of the prayers together with my fellow Jews. When we sang out together, my voice roared – I wished to sing louder and louder so the Divine would hear – and my heart soared to be there with my brothers in that place.

A stranger, I was embraced and made to feel a part of this tribal fellowship. There, I felt free to worship in my own way. There, one’s foibles might be the subject of critical humor, but they were accepted. Some of my best times in Ireland were spent in that place. I am grateful and thankful for all those who made that precious corner of Jewish life what it was. It remains with me always as something I seek in other congregations. I celebrate it and its members. Am Yisroel chai!

Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger. His new book, Hero In My Own Eyes, is forthcoming.

Cancer makes me angry

Cancer. Now I’ve said it. Just saying it tightens up my gut. It makes me want to swallow. I look around to see if anyone can sense the anger, the blind rage that surges through me. I find myself breathing faster. The fight-or-flight chemicals prompted by fear are racing through my body. Mostly, I try not to think about it because of the instant effect it always has upon me. I don’t know about others, but I hate it. Just the thought of it makes me angry.

To me, the idea of cancer is like a living presence, dressed up in the image of death, stalking through our lives, the destroyer of health and happiness. It looks this way and that, it looks for those at whom it will swing its lethal scythe. I know it’s really like spores in the wind, poisons in the soil, air and water, or genetic predispositions hiding in our DNA, waiting for the merest provocation to flower like a deadly bloom of nightshade. I know it is like an evil charlatan that smilingly gives way to our defensive measures, only to strike back with deadly force when we have let down our guard. I know it has so many disguises and tricks that we have to learn the new ones every day that we are alive. It takes some of our best minds to keep us relevant in that battle.

I know about all the new promises, new hopes yet to be realized. We learn something new every day. But, so does cancer, reacting to counter every twist and turn we make. We are not there yet in spite of all the public promises that are made. It is not politically correct to say it, but the same promises were being made during the time cancer was a living presence in my home. So I retain the hate that I learned.

When it struck in our home, we reacted with shock. We marshaled our resources and radically changed our lifestyle. My late spouse gave up her stressful and demanding work. She was a simultaneous translation interpreter. She was the manager and creator of her own firm, one that was preeminent in Canada, but she delegated her work and ceased professional activity. She underwent a mastectomy, radiation and chemo. We changed our diet toward the completely macrobiotic and a shelf full of recommended natural products. The result – in six months all traces of the disease were eradicated! We declared victory. My spouse became a poster child, a survivor, to rally the spirits of all victims of the disease. After a year, we relaxed our guard and returned to our previous way of life.

Four or five years later, two cancer cells were discovered during the regular screening that had been maintained. The number of cells quickly multiplied and, after a time, a regular regime of chemotherapy was reintroduced, accompanied by multiple discomforts. This continued for years. No material effect on the disease’s progress was ever noted. Eventually, several metastases were discovered, until the cancer was generalized. None of the chemotherapy offered appeared to have had the least effect.

My role changed over time, as I became a full-time caregiver. Indeed, after years of feeling like a helpless bystander, there was great consolation in, at last, being able to play a useful role. I had the feeling I was witnessing hand-to-hand combat with the cancer, a living, breathing adversary. I hated the losses we were sustaining on a daily basis. The success of radiation sessions in fighting off the external manifestations of the cancer felt like victories.

At one point, the cancer prevented the kidneys from working. The doctors asked if we wanted them to intervene. Although my late wife declined, because she was suffering the effects of uremia, which impairs judgment, my resounding yes won the day. The intervention was successful. We went off on a two-week holiday in Italy. I treasure to this day the sight of her dancing to her own music on a sunny balcony in Tuscany.

The medical resort to radiation to eliminate ugly lesions that appeared, time after time, on various areas of the body, seemed like a blessing. But, the ultimate effect of these sessions was to destroy the ability of the body to produce the red and white blood cells we depend on for life. I did not understand that these were a signal that the medical profession had given up any hope of a remission, because the doctors continually talked to us of impending victory. I did not question it, full of continuing hope as I was. In effect, they were offering palliative care, while continuing to test drug combinations on my late wife.

Eventually, these blood cells could only be provided for her by external means. We learned, after a time, that these infusions of blood cells, enormously costly, were the only way to keep my late wife alive. I always assumed these would continue, but I marveled at the generosity of the system on which her life depended. The various chemotherapy combinations, with all their accompanying distress, continued to be presented by doctors as the answer and the cure. She followed every prescription faithfully in spite of the discomfort they engendered.

Suddenly, we were informed by the hospital administration that my late spouse was to be assigned to hospice care in our home. Calls to the doctors went unanswered. Any assistance I could provide was replaced by outside help. We were told that the life-giving infusions were being withdrawn. She expired after three weeks, 10 years after first contracting the disease.

I do not know if the doctors ever confided to my late wife the real state of the struggle in which we were engaged. If they did, she never shared the details with me. We never ever spoke of her impending demise.

I remain a survivor of the experience, full of anger at the caregivers, anger at my helplessness and ignorance, and full of rage against the inexorability, the implacability of the disease. Its overwhelming power in the face of our defences, even after once having been initially repulsed, gives me little faith in the happy claims of any early relief in our struggles against the disease.

I appreciate that there have been some small victories, that some conditions have become treatable instead of fatal. I am grateful for that. I appreciate that we must encourage those who are facing the challenge and the threat. I know that they, and we, have to continue fighting it like soldiers on the frontline, despite our many losses. Cancer, I hate it!

Max Roytenberg is a Vancouver-based poet, writer and blogger.

Breathe in and breathe out

Life in its individual expression is finite. Nearly all of us accept that. Living things reproduce themselves, so life goes on in that way. But, for the individual, life begins and, after a time, it comes to an end. An important thing is that, for most of us, we do not know when this ending will come. It is indeterminate.

Because the end time is unknown, we have the illusion, in the immediate, that life will just go on, is just going on. We are alive, we are full of plans, we are the centrepiece of the circle we have built around ourselves; it seems like it will go on forever. Certainly, in our younger years, the question of an ending hardly ever arises in our minds. Our lifetime stretches out before us into the dimly perceived future.

Am I discussing a question of universal import, or am I obsessed with my personal condition? Yoohoo! Do I still have you with me?

Even for those of us who are older, particularly those of us who are active, seemingly in good health, our lifetime also appears to be elastic. The events inhabiting our lifetime fill our consciousness. But we are aware of statistics. We see that our ranks are thinning. Some, even many, of those contemporary companions with whom we began our journey are missing at roll call. These realities do give us pause. How many more beautiful sunrises, how many more flaming sunsets will we witness? The languorous minutes of an afternoon with friends in inviting surroundings, imbibing all the consumables that yield to us their potential for pleasure, absent the pain to which all flesh is heir, how many more times will those unique experiences be ours?

I am exhilarated by being a part of the essential life event, the experience of being a living, breathing, feeling being. I know not if we are the sole sentient creatures in this universe, but I am grateful that it has fallen into my fortunate lifetime to experience this place and this time. How many of you out there must feel the same? None of us is guaranteed a life solely made up of music and roses. The inverse is true for great masses of humanity. But each of us, in some small measure, finds those moments of existence, those instants when we bless the stars that we are present, that we are here. It is inherent in being alive, in the human life experience. We really know only the present. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow is speculation. I tell myself to ignore the extraneous. Breathe in and out; find those elements in our current experience that give us enjoyment in this instant of being alive.

Today, here in Vancouver, harvest time continues for tender fruits of all kinds. Sumptuous fruit, which for most of the year command a king’s ransom for purchase, is still being offered in the grocery outlets for a mere bagatelle. Earlier in the summer, mounds of red, ripe strawberries were being displayed in our markets in the form of architectural wonders, tempting us to reach out and bring those fruity edifices crashing down as we indulge the urge to taste. They were there, stressing the most disciplined. Blueberries, which, for most of the year, are retailed by the ounce, have been urged on us by the pound. Peaches, nectarines and melons of all kind compete for our attention on the groaning boards. We are overwhelmed with nature’s bounty, what is here and what is yet to be on offer, as the season progresses. These are just the ordinary things of the seasonal round, but they are a soft whisper of the simpler pleasures lavished on those of us who are alive.

Consumables are just an asterisk, a footnote, compared with the joys of human companionship. Were we blessed with tasks in life that stretched our potential, labor that was worthwhile? Did we find a person in our lives with whom we dared to show our essential vulnerability? A parent, a sibling, a friend, a teacher, a lover, a creature, with whom we found a basis for growth that might lead to healthy adulthood, with whom we distilled a shared experience we will remember unto death? Did we find a place and people where we felt that sense of peace, identification and commitment that determined the paths we would follow during the rest of our lives? Do the beauties of the natural world we inhabit bring home to us how tiny an element we are in the cycle of life of which we are a part? Have you looked up at the stars lately, preferably in a place where they are not blotted out by our man-made illumination, and understood just where man stands in the greater scheme of things?

We may be infinitesimal in our universe, less than the insects beneath our feet in the world man is astride like a colossus, but our tiny lives are full of meaning for us in the sheltered universe we seek to construct around ourselves. How central to us are our individual lifetimes. For most of us, our consciousness is concerned primarily with little else. How could it be otherwise? We mirror the behaviors of all the living species on our planet, seeking to ensure our survival and enhance our lifestyles. It is written in our DNA.

For some, the vision is a little broader, but even for them, the object is the enhancement of our lives in the broadest sense.

Let us toast the now of our lifetimes! To life!

Max Roytenberg is a poet, writer and blogger. An octegenarian, originally from Winnipeg, he is newly returned to Canada from Ireland and enjoying Vancouver with his bride.