My life of crime started young, ended early. But in that brief span, when I plunged into the netherworld of social dis-grace, I learned enough to last me a lifetime… not as a penitent, it turns out, but as a grateful celebrant. What am I most grateful for? That’s not easily set down in a sentence. But if I had to take a stab at it, I’d have to say: The knowledge that real joy comes from giving, not taking; from sharing, not possessing. Can’t say I’ve always lived up to that precept, but the farther I stray from it, the more it tugs at me like a bungie cord wrapped around my neck.
From The Mural Gazer, Just for Kiks
Sometimes you don’t want to put a period to the end of a paragraph, because what you’ve said has implications that go on and on. Those, to me, are the moments I write for, those instances when an episode in your own life, transcribed into fiction, makes sense of everything in that particular frame of reference.
Just for Kiks, the Mural Gazer story I’m working on right now, is based on one of my real-life experiences. As a child I loved Popsicles. I could happily slurp them up all day, and take one to bed with me at night. They were magical flavours that melted in your mouth and infused your whole being. But I wasn’t allowed to have more than one a week. I didn’t realize it at the time, but part of my ecstasy was the very fact the Popsicles were a rare treat, which would lose their exciting tang if I could have one whenever I wanted – but that another part of this story.
Fact was, I did want Popsicles all the time, and was secretly yearning to get my way.
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Pilfered lucre in hand, I hurried off to Besners Corner Store to complete my transaction. I slapped my mother’s twenty down on the counter, and said to Old Man Besner, “I want all the Popsicles I can buy with this.”
Old Man Besner’s white, bushy eyebrows arched, over his horn-rimmed glasses, his eyes popped out, almost touching the lenses, then he frowned. I knew something had gone awry before he said a word, a sense of doom closing in as if the atmospheric pressure might crush my skull and stave in my rib cage. “Where did you get that?” he demanded.
If I’d done my math, I would have better understood the condemnation in his voice. Popsicles cost something like five cents apiece at the time, so one dollar would buy twenty of them; twenty dollars, four-hundred. But that wasn’t the miscalculation that really counted. Even if I’d only stolen a nickel, and got away with the purchase of one Popsicle, I’d have broken a rule… more importantly, I’d have broken the trust my parents, and by extension the world beyond, placed in me.
At that age, that was all that mattered. Break the rule, take the punishment. Dad offered me a choice: a week without TV, or the strap. A week without Leave it to Beaver, Bonanza, Gunsmoke… that would have been prolonged torture, so I accepted the medicine of quick, sharp corporal punishment instead, which he administered halfheartedly.
It took me many years to figure out the implications of my life of crime. In fact, I’m still working on it. But it comes down to this, my working mantra: Give with joy and grace; receive with gratitude and appreciation. It’s giving that brings real joy into our lives – giving support when it’s needed; of our talents, when we can make life better for others; even our lives, when the ultimate act of giving is demanded of us, and we have the courage… In fact, the whole meaning of life is defined by what we give of ourselves, and how we do it. And being conscious of that equation is part of being uniquely human.