Thursday, the first week in October, we flew to Montreal, Canada. I had only been there briefly once before so I was looking forward to seeing it again. We planned our visit so we’d have two days on our own before joining a Road Scholar cruise to Quebec, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Bar Harbor, Maine, Boston, New York City, Charleston, South Carolina and ending in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It was a little over two weeks of seeing new things, meeting new people and, best of all, no cooking!
I’ve always enjoyed being given a menu at each meal, whether on land or sea, and asked to order whatever I feel like eating.
Our hotel was in Vieux Montreal (Old Montreal) which was nice. Once we walked out the door, we were in the old city. The streets were all narrow and paved with cobblestones because they were built first and cars came along second. Two and three story walk up buildings rose straight toward the sky from the high narrow sidewalks. The buildings seemed to be literally squeezed into place.
We spent our first afternoon walking around to get an overview of the area. We ate dinner outside at a restaurant on Place Jacques Cartier. The weather was chilly by our standards but everyone, tourists and locals alike, was eating outside because this was the last weekend many of these restaurants would be open. The tourist season would end on Sunday. I thought that was a bit early but everyone we talked to said it had been this way for many years.
Unlike the narrow streets we had walked on to get there, Place Jacques Cartier was a very wide avenue lined with restaurants on both sides. In the center was a large grey cobblestone area filled with small tourist kiosks and street musicians.
The street musicians were very good so we picked a restaurant where we could sit outside and hear them while we ate. We quickly noticed that other people had the same idea. Every time the musicians would finish a piece, everyone in the surrounding restaurants would clap.
The sky gradually turned dark, the breeze picked up, a little rain began to fall and our street musicians packed up and left. We finished our meal, had our last sip of wine, zipped up our jackets and strolled back to the hotel having enjoyed our first lovely night in Montreal.
Have you ever had “Writer’s Block”? I have it all the time and I hate it! I’m sitting in front of the computer getting ready to write. My fingers hover over the keys.
Ready! Set! Go!
Ugh?
What am I going to write about? What can I say that anyone, yes anyone, would want to read?
I gained inspiration the last time I went to the Deadwood Writers’ Group. My friend Barbara brought this picture:
“OMG! Where is that kid when I need him? The last time I had a problem with my computer, I phoned Apple. After waiting 18 minutes on hold, someone picked up.
“Let me connect you to the person who handles that,” he said.
I put the phone on speaker and started answering my email. 20 minutes later and still no one had picked up. I checked my phone. It was still on speaker.
I went back to answering my email. A few more minutes passed. I noticed something. What was it?
OMG! Silence.
I’d been disconnected. My phone said I’d been on hold 25 minutes just to be disconnected. No!
Where is that kid? He may be young but I bet he knows what to do!!!
Have you read Being Mortal by Atul Gawande yet? It’s a very interesting book on several levels. Being a writer, I learned from seeing him make his points through telling stories. He told stories about his patients, himself, and his family. It gave the book an intimate feel, like this could be happening to me or someone I know. If not now, maybe some time in the future?
From a psychological point of view, I could see that he wants to help people. He thinks that if he’s able to get you, his readers, think these things through now, when you’re healthy, then you’ll have the time you need. You’ll be able to reflect and come up with what you personally want in order to have your very best day each day that you have left.
I expected the book to be depressing. After all, it’s about the end of life. And, considering no one has ever come back from the other side, a lot of people don’t like to think about this, especially me.
But what drew me in was the strain of kindness, compassion, and hope that runs throughout the book, chapter after chapter. I could see that he wanted to prepare his readers to get the information we’d need to make decisions that would give each of us the best possible life right up to the very end.
He talks about how doctors are trained to save lives but not how to share bad information, tell patients their disease is terminal or help them make end of life decisions.
Over and over he makes the point, that when the doctor says, “We have this new treatment. I think it’ll help you,” the doctor is thinking one or two years. But the patient is thinking 10 or 20. This is a huge misunderstanding.
Usually the patient never asks, “How much time will this treatment give me?” and “How much of that time will be good time, i.e. time where I’m awake, alert and my pain is controlled enough so that I can enjoy spending it with my family and friends?”
Frankly, the doctor is relieved. He or she is not prepared, even in the last weeks, to say, “This disease is terminal. You have at most a few weeks or months, not all of them good. You might want to think about what’s important to you, something you’d like to do or say to the people close to you.”
He tells horror stories of doctors, right up until the very end, knowing the patient will probably not survive more than a week or two, offering new treatments. Why? Because doctors are uncomfortable saying things like, “This disease is terminal.” “There is no treatment today that can cure you.” “The most we can do is make you comfortable.”
My takeaway from this book is, after the doctor has explained all possible relevant treatments to fight the disease, three questions the patient or the patient’s family need to ask when someone is critically ill. They are:
When you think about the research and your patients who have undergone these treatments, for each treatment you talked about, what is the longest time any of them got?
How much of that time was “good time”, i.e. time where the person was awake, alert, and their pain controlled to the point that they could enjoy their day?
If you did nothing heroic, instead just controlled the pain and treated the disease to slow it down, how much “good time” would you have?
I think the answers to these questions would be far more valuable in helping each of us decide what we want to do than just starting another new treatment.
*Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande, Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2014.
Pure Michigan campaign ads had persuaded trolls—residents of Michigan’s lower peninsula, like me—to crawl out from our homes south of the Mackinac Bridge. It was Labor Day weekend, the last chance for many families to head up north before the start of a new school year. For my family, this was the perfect time to explore the beauty of our grand state’s upper peninsula. Our adventure began in the city of St. Ignace at the area’s number one, Trip Advisor rated, hotel: the Best Western Harbour Pointe Lakefront.
Nicknamed Mighty Mac, the Mackinac Bridge is the longest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere and fifth longest in the world.
After dinner, my husband, four children, and I sat around a bonfire with other hotel guests. I asked Zach, who was part of the hospitality staff, if he knew any ghost stories. He was busy unloading wood for the fire but sat down for a few minutes to share some of the rumors he was familiar with. I light-heartedly listened to Zach’s fanciful stories. What I didn’t know at that time was just how much this discussion would affect my psyche and influence my decisions throughout the rest of the trip.
Zach recalled the tale of a woman who had an extramarital affair. Townspeople killed the unfaithful wife by dunking her repeatedly underwater in what is known as the drowning pool, a twenty-feet deep, seaweed-infested lagoon on nearby Mackinac Island. The ghost of the woman reportedly now haunts that area.
Intrigued by this story, I later looked online for more information. I read through pages and pages of creepy hauntings that had frightened local residents and visitors, but I couldn’t find the exact story Zach had referred to. I discovered one other, however, that best fit his account.
Haunts of Mackinac author Todd Clements described the unfortunate outcome for seven prostitutes who were accused of being witches. The ladies were subjected to a test in order to determine their innocence or guilt. A large boulder was tied to each lady. Then they were thrown into the drowning pool. If the women floated, they would have been found guilty—considered witches—and subjected to further punishment: death by hanging. Since every one of the accused actually sunk deep below the surface of the water, they were vindicated of sorcery but had drowned in the process of proving their innocence. The women now make appearances as eerie, shadow-like figures floating above the lagoon or as huge, larger-than-life splashes on the surface of the water.
Other stories also indicate that the drowning pool is haunted by ghosts. But Zach didn’t seem to believe in ghosts at all. He preferred to talk about a story that was based upon measurable, physical evidence. He said that hundreds of bodies had been uncovered during construction of the Grand Hotel. “There were so many bodies, they eventually stopped trying to retrieve all of them, so there are still hundreds, maybe thousands, lying beneath the building.” That’s not a fact the hotel advertises on its webpage, but Zach was confident of its authenticity. He emphatically added, “That’s a true story.”
The unique history of Mackinac Island may support that claim. Indian chiefs were buried there; soldiers died there. Other people committed suicide and murder. Death is nothing abnormal, of course, but it does produce an odd result on Mackinac. The island is considered to be one of the most haunted places in Michigan.
This Bigfoot sighting occurred right in front of Muldoons’ restaurant and gift shop in Munising.
I suppose Zach has never seen a ghost, and so he finds it easy to dismiss the paranormal. But how do reasonable people like him react to legends of animal-like creatures such as Bigfoot?
Animal Planet’s popular television series, Finding Bigfoot began its eighth season in January 2016. Enough people watch the show to keep it on the air. Does that mean they believe that these creatures actually roam the earth? Or are they watching only to be entertained? Arguments run rampant in online forums as people seriously debate the question “Would you shoot a sasquatch?” Some believers say “I couldn’t kill it” and skeptics respond “You can’t kill something that doesn’t exist.”
Zach is probably a skeptic. He joked about having seen a similar phenomenon, the Dogman. It’s described as a large dog that walks upright on two legs and terrorizes the northern part of Michigan. Because Zach had laughed, I knew he didn’t want me to think that he truly believed in the werewolf-like animal.
But people in our remote towns are seeing mysterious things they can’t easily explain away. Documented reports are so convincing that I admit this: As my family and I hiked through the U.P. wilderness, I was on guard against two specific entities besides ferocious cougars, man-eating black bear, and venomous Massasauga rattlesnakes. I looked deeply into the thicket of the forest and wondered just what I would do if I crossed paths with the gruesome Dogman or the iconic Bigfoot.
Preparation for our hike included selection of the right-sized walking stick. Luckily, we found these at the trailhead.
I stayed on the trail best I could and kept searching for anything out of the ordinary. I quickly dismissed non-threatening deer tracks. I counted the number of toes in common dog prints and made sure to find four paw prints in stride with one another. I listened for evidence that my family and I were being studied and stalked. Were our feet the only ones to be thudding upon the ground? Why were the birds in the trees suddenly taking flight?
In one hand, I tightly gripped the three-foot long walking stick I had selected at the beginning of our hike. I used the stick to brush the tall grasses that lay ahead of me, hoping to roust camouflaged critters. Occasionally I practiced twisting the knobby branch up and out in front, like a jousting pole or a sabre.
The fingers of my other hand delicately wound around another item that empowered me with confidence. I reasoned that I wouldn’t use it unless the risk to my family was too great not to. Could I actually do it? I wondered and considered alternative scenarios. I knew that I might very well be faced with no other choice.
I was convinced at that point. Determined. If the worst should happen and a feral beast were to get too close, I would swiftly raise my arm, take aim, and throw my treasured, tasty, chicken pasty at the creature. No Yooper would let that staple go to waste. By the time he finished it, my family and I would be long gone and safely out of the woods.
Have you ever seen the Book of Kells? I did, last month when I was in Ireland. The original book, actually 340 folios, written around 800 CE, is at Trinity College in Dublin. It has its own very impressive exhibit, located on the first floor in a specially climate controlled, dimly lit room.
The Book of Kells is magnificent! Each page is beautifully decorated. Three different artists illustrated the book while four principal monks copied the text, which sometimes included decorating the letters themselves. It contains copies of the four gospels that were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
No one is sure if the Book of Kells was created entirely at the monastery in Iona, an island off the coast of Scotland, or the one at Kells in County Meath, Ireland or both. In those days the two monasteries were organized as one community, even though they were far apart.
Today the Book of Kells is part of a very elaborate exhibit and no cameras are allowed because it is so old.
On their website, Trinity College says,
The manuscript’s celebrity derives largely from the impact of its lavish
decoration, the extent and artistry of which is incomparable. Abstract
decoration and images of plant, animal and human ornament punctuate
the text with the aim of glorifying Jesus’ life and message, and keeping
his attributes and symbols constantly in the eye of the reader.*
I think you will agree when you look at this picture:
**
I was getting ready to exit the exhibit and go outside when I saw a well-worn staircase to my left. Several people were walking upstairs. I was curious. What’s up there?
I slowly climbed the staircase to the second floor and entered a square room with people milling around. But it was the room beyond that took my breath away. It was very long and narrow. I don’t remember ever seeing another one like it. It had shelves of books from floor to ceiling on both sides. I’ve never been in a room with so many books! There were over 200,000 in all. I smiled when I found out the name of this room: The Long Room.
The bookshelves on both sides of the room were broken up into a series of alcoves. Marking the boundary of each alcove was the bust of a famous author on a tall pedestal. As a budding author, I couldn’t resist having my picture taken with one of them.
If you’re having a hard time telling which one is me, I’m the one with my feet on the ground.
* Book of Kells, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland:
We spent our first afternoon walking around to get an overview of the area. We ate dinner outside at a restaurant on Place Jacques Cartier. The weather was chilly by our standards but everyone, tourists and locals alike, was eating outside because this was the last weekend many of these restaurants would be open. The tourist season would end on Sunday. I thought that was a bit early but everyone we talked to said it had been this way for many years.
