Mark Champion - Letter from a Friend

It all started because Mrs. Sunshine cut her finger off while trimming a hedge.

I looked out the window of the bungalow my family had just moved into and there was a swarm of children combing through the hedge separating our house from the Sunshines. 

"We're looking for the finger!" they said. I helped them with their enthusiastic search, hoping I'd be the one to find the bloody appendage and at the same time hoping I wouldn't because, ew, it was totally gross.

No one found the finger (turns out it was just a fingertip, not the whole enchilada) but I did find a lifelong friend. Mark Champion's house was kitty corner across the street. He was my age (only a month apart), he looked like me (people thought we were brother and sister) and we got along like gangbusters. 

He was the best kind of best friend. Loyal. Caring. Intelligent. Funny. We walked to school together and argued about politics, we played Kick the Can until the streetlights came on, we made prank phone calls to people asking if their refrigerators were running ("you better run and catch them, then"). The only time we were apart was summer, when our family went up north to the cottage. There were no cell phones back then. No internet. The only way to keep in touch was through letter-writing. Mark was a faithful and avid letter writer, sending me many and getting mad when I didn't reply as often as he thought I should. I loved getting those letters. He sent them on fish-covered stationery and addressed them to the general delivery post office closest to our cottage.

Our parents used to think that we'd grow up and get married but it wasn't like that. We grew up alright, but our lives went separate ways even as they followed parallel paths. I got married, he got married. I got pregnant, his wife got pregnant a few months later. I had two boys, they had two girls. I got divorced, he got divorced. But through it all we hardly saw each other. I was a country bumpkin at heart and felt happiest up north. Mark was happy in the city. I was basically content with low paying newspaper jobs. Mark climbed the corporate ladder. After a while it was hard to believe we ever had anything in common – we seemed so different.

When I decided to run this Letters from a Friend series, I knew I couldn't do it without asking for a letter from Mark. He inspired this series, his letters. 

His e-mail arrived in my inbox while I was at work. I opened it and gawd if I didn't start bawling like a baby. Hard, ugly sobbing. People asked what the hell was wrong with me. "Nothing," I said, "I just got a letter from a friend."

His letter, as you're about to see, is deeply personal and incredibly brave. Not everyone is willing to share this kind of introspection. It is a sign of a brave and sensitive man.

What makes it even more special is he enclosed a picture of a gold coloured fish and addressed the letter as if it were the mid-1970s again and he was sending it to the cottage. That's what started the tears – but it was his revelations about his own life that really made the waterworks flow. If you ever receive a letter like this, you are a lucky, lucky person. If you ever have a friend like Mark, you're even luckier.

Oh, and if you're wondering who Cathy Robb is? That's my maiden name. God knows, it's easy to be confused. I've had almost as many names as Elizabeth Taylor. But enough about me – here is Mark's magnificent letter.

Cathy Robb

General Delivery 

Carnarvon, ON

Hey Cathy: 

I’ve been waiting so long for your reply to my last letter.  It hardly seems reasonable to ask what’s new, when the answer is a lifetime.  

I am starting this letter at work, and trying to think while the Hackasaurus in the next cube mists us with her latest virus.  Let’s call her Misty.  Misty who missed her flu shot.  Misty who hasn’t missed a day’s work in 16 years.  Fuck you, Misty.

Fortunately I have a singleton cube and don’t have to share with Misty.  As luxurious as that may sound it’s a big step down from my last position where I enjoyed the divine isolation of a corner suite in an office at the corner of University & Dundas.  My former office could have housed 8 of my current cubes and had a door to lock out the parasitic droplets dispersed by the likes of Misty. Times change.  Careers tumble. I’ve changed a bit, Cathy. 

Aside from the likely things like larger, grayer and more wrinkly, I’m less stylish.  Somewhere along the way my new frugality and limited shopping schedule has resulted in me looking at clothes as less of a way to ornament myself and more of a way to shield the world from my nakedness.   I shop for the kids constantly, but when I shop for me I try to find something of quality at a bargain … or when my bargain priced quality items have given up the ghost from constant wear … I resort to the clothing section of the grocery store where the clothes are so cheap I don’t even bother to try them on.  If they don’t suit they can always become a dish rag.   In so doing I become what most women expect their husbands would be if they weren’t around to dress them.   Even my old, nearly blind, bedridden mother has offered to buy me clothes. 

Yet, while I might like to spruce myself up a bit, I don’t think I’d change where I am at.  Somehow I had found myself wearing a corporate ladder, a Volvo, 2700 Sq Feet and a Swimming Pool and it obscured some of the things that you might have known me to be.   I think I am more myself today, Cathy… I think I may be more myself than I was before.  I’m more patient, more laid back.  I am certainly more liberal which I think is unusual in a man crossing 50.  I am less interested in things and more interested in people and experiences.  I am less inclined to desire luxury and more in search of the unique and the authentic, the intimate … the things that enrich us instead of the riches.  I like that I have put the kids first in my life. I like that we have a dog and two cats.  I like watching the kids grow,  even the painful parts.  I like getting to know them and sharing experiences with them.   I’m happy to replace the day to day excess with some time. 

Take care Cathy, dear friend, I hope to hear from you soon.

With love,

Mark

Laurita Miller - Letter from a Friend

Laurita Miller - bundled up because baby, it's cold outside.

I was having a bad day. In the throes of getting a chest cold, exhausted from a four hour car ride and a weekend of winter camping, emotional because I was picking on that lovely husband of mine, for absolutely no reason, I wasn't in the best of shape, to be sure. Then I opened up my laptop and saw I had a letter from a friend.

I opened it eagerly and didn't even read it all the way through before I started sobbing like an idjit. The idea of Laurita Miller, visiting her beloved homestead, was so beautiful, so simple and yet so vivid, that I was overcome.

Maybe it helps to know how ingrained rural Newfoundland is to someone like Laurita; maybe it helps to know Laurita a little bit. Because, to me, she is a poster child for everything that is warm and wonderful about 'The Rock.' We met in the fall of 2010. Dave and I were on our honeymoon. He'd barely been out of Ontario before. I'd never been to Newfoundland. We wanted to go somewhere neither of us had ever been, and we wanted to explore more of Canada. We also wanted to meet two of my favourite blogging buddies, Alan W. Davidson and Laurita Miller.

We had the best day imaginable. Alan and Laurita are truly good people. The best – and I don't say that lightly. You just don't meet up with folks like them often. When you do, you realize what treasures they are, and how lucky you are to have come across them.

Laurita is thoughtfully intelligent, funny and sassy, warm and generous. She shaved her head to raise money to fight cancer. She is deeply involved in her children's lives. She loves her husband fiercely, like she married him yesterday. Family, I think, is more than just a word to Laurita. It's everything, as important to her as breathing. I'm just guessing, when I say that – I know, pretty presumptuous. But I do believe it's true.

Laurita lives in a suburban environment near St. John's, the capital of Newfoundland, but she was raised in the countryside, next to the ocean, and salt and honest Newfoundland spirit runs thick in her veins.

My father was a railroad engineer and we moved several times in my young life, to the point that I don't really know where my hometown is. I don't feel any kinship to any particular place. Laurita knows exactly where she's from. And when she writes about it, my heart sings.

Laurita Miller is one of the finest writers I know. Her blog, Calling Shotgun, is one of my favourite haunts. Some day, mark my words, she will be famous. I can hardly wait to say I knew her when.

I am so honoured to share her letter with you.

Dear Cathy:

I hope this letter finds you well and making fantastic progress on that novel of yours. I can’t wait to read what you’ve done.

Things are quieting down here after the holidays. The kids are back to school and I think I’ve finally managed to eradicate all the glitter from the house. That stuff gets everywhere.

I hopped in my car today, taking advantage of the lull, to go check on my old homestead. After all the craziness, I needed the break. I love the drive, though it takes over an hour to get here. It’s relaxing to travel a road that’s so familiar.  

The first thing I did was take a walk around the house, through the garden and the woods, checked the barn and filled all the birdfeeders. The pond was well frozen and, once I made sure no one was watching, I had a little slide around. I ended up on my behind more than once, so I’m glad there was no one to see.

It was one of those damp days, where the cold just seeps into your bones, so I lit the fireplace as soon as I went inside. The wind was up by then, and from the window I could see the whitecaps on the water. White horses on the harbour, my grandfather would call them. I always loved that saying. Newfoundland is a bleak place in the winter, but I think it might just be my favourite time. Sitting there, warm in my old home, looking out at the wind and water – can you think of a better way to spend some quiet time?

There’s also something very comforting about sleeping in my old room. I loved waking up in that room, to the sound of the birds in the trees outside, the boats in the harbour, and that stupid, clumsy seagull who would land on the roof – whump – and then run the whole length of the house – thump, thump, thump, thump.

Tonight I’ll walk down the harbour and visit my aunt and my grandfather, sit in that nice warm kitchen for a cup of tea and a chat. Then tomorrow I’ll head back over that familiar road to my house in Chaos Town. Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment, but I start to miss the madness after a bit.

I hope you come visit me again someday. I would love to take you to all these places, but maybe in the summer when the temperatures and landscape are a little more friendly.

Take care, my friend. I look forward to chatting again soon. Give my best to all your boys.

Laurita

Letter from a Friend

Dear Friend: How are you? I am fine ...

Remember getting a letter from a friend? 

I do.

A fortunate child, in every respect, I spent every summer during the 1970s at our cottage in the Haliburton Highlands. Long days in the water, baking in the sun, no worries in our pert wee heads, except missing our friends from back home. There were no computers back then, no crackberries. For the longest time we didn't even have a telephone at the cottage (heck, we didn't even have indoor plumbing) and, when we finally did get a party line put in, my father would have strung me up if I used it to make long distance calls to my friends.

The only way to keep in touch was through letter-writing and my heart always did a happy jump when a trip to the post office garnered me a letter from a friend. My good friend Mark must have have gotten a deal on gold-coloured fish stationery because his envelopes were always decorated with embossed fishies. Even better, he wrote conversation bubbles coming from their fishy lips, usually berating me for not writing more often. 

I've been thinking for a while about running a series of articles about the blogging friends who have had a big impact on me. There are many and they're all different but they all have encouraged me in some way, or inspired me, or offered me their friendship and I dearly love them all. At first I was thinking of questions and answers or maybe something akin to my American Weeks series from a couple of years ago. I got all wuzzy and sentimental, thinking how I could honour these folks and, when I got sentimental, I remembered the sweet charm of receiving an old-fashioned letter from a friend.

In that spirit, I have asked my blogging buddies to write me a letter. I haven't asked them for anything specific because I'm hoping all of them will be different and wonderful in their own ways. I have also asked them to take a new photo of themselves, nothing professional, just something that reflects who they are in this letter.

I haven't gotten around to asking everyone yet (I am not that organized, believe me) and there's nothing formal about the process. Like a letter from a friend, you never know when one is going to pop in your mailbox.

I'll post their letters intermittently in the next few weeks, starting tomorrow with Laurita Miller, one of my dearest blogging friends and an accomplished writer, who I had the pleasure of meeting in the fall of 2010. Her letter made me laugh and it made me cry. It told me a little bit about what's going on in her life and what's going on in her head. I can hardly wait to share it with you.

Till tomorrow, then.

Love, 

Cathy oxo

Songs I want played at my funeral

Danke Schoen by Wayne Newton

I Feel Pretty from West Side Story

Canadian Railroad Trilogy and almost anything else by Gordon Lightfoot, except the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald because, really, do I want a song about a lake freighter played over my corpse?

Say A Little Prayer by Dionne Warwick

America by Simon & Garfunkel

You've Got a Friend by James Taylor

There's more. But I can't think of any right now.

What would you like played at your funeral?

Yogurt in a Yurt

This past weekend Dave and I drove four hours north to Killarney Provincial Park. Our quest? To go winter camping in a yurt. What, you may well ask, is a yurt? To me it sounds just like yogurt, or something you might pick up at IKEA, but a yurt is a slightly more permanent version of a tent. The ones in Killarney and in Algonquin parks are insulated and come equipped with an electric heater and lights. So no big roughing it, sleep-wise. Bathroom-wise was another story. The nearest outhouse was a quarter of a mile away. When it's cold outside, you want to make sure you really have to go to the bathroom before you venture to the outhouse. If you're like me, cold air makes you want to pee all the more so, technically, you could walk a quarter mile to the outhouse, pee, walk back and realize you have to pee again, walk back to the outhouse, pee, walk... well, you get the idea. The best thing I brought along was a pee pot – more valuable than gold when your bladder is full to burst in the middle of the night.

This is Mohawk. He was a regular visitor at our campsite, chattering our ears and giving us crap as red squirrels are wont to do. Dave nicknamed him Mohawk because of his weird tail. It looks like he had it cut and dyed at one of those metalhead smoke shops downtown. Not that I would know anything about such shops.

The yurt came with several amenities including a barbecue, electrical outlets and mattresses but, alas, it didn't come with a dishwasher. Luckily I brought my own - the Super Duty Dave. See the toboggan in the background? That's how we hauled all our gear from the parking lot to the yurt, a distance of about three-quarters of a mile (the park roads are closed in winter so you have to hoof it.) That wouldn't be too far if it was flat ground but flat it wasn't – there was a mighty big hill up to climb and I was out of puff just bringing the crap in and out.

There wasn't a lot of snow in Killarney (the lady who works in the park office says they don't get much, for some reason) but there was enough to strap on the cross-country skis and give it a whirl. And here I thought I was in shape.... pffft! My legs are still killing me from a few hours out on the trail. Why do I keep thinking I'm 25?????

Handsome hunkaroo husband extraordinaire out on the trails. He does improve the scenery, don't you think? We saw a ton of animal tracks while we were out and about: white-tailed deer, marten, otter, fox, partridge, wolf or coyote, and plenty of red squirrel. Deer tracks were everywhere but we never did spot one. They're like ghosts in the forest; or statues. So hard to see. But they were watching us – a half an hour after we passed one area, we returned to see fresh deer tracks on top of our ski tracks. 

Our yurt! Isn't it cute? 

A little fuzzy, but I thought you might want to see inside. Bunk beds, plastic chairs, plastic tables, a heater and a shelf. That's it! And, I've gotta say, the yurts aren't cheap: two nights cost nearly 200 bucks. For that kind of money you could get a nice hotel room for the weekend – one with an indoor pool, a jacuzzi and an inside toilet! 

Dave eating yogurt in the yurt. For some reason we thought we were just hilarious saying that. That's my coffeemaker I dragged along on the toboggan. I brought a fancy coffee for the excursion. Muskoka Roastery's maple flavour. Yum-o.

We also did a lot of reading on our Kindles. Dave was reading Quick and the Dead by Louis L'Amour and I thoroughly enjoyed Blood and Fire, the cool new offering from Carrie Clevenger and Nerine Dorman. I flew through that puppy. It was almost as delicious as my coffee, and that's saying something! Carrie has promised me an interview with her lead character, vampire Xan Marcelles, in the near future. So stay tuned... Speaking of reading, I want to thank everyone who read my Friday Flash last week. It was the first one I wrote for ages. I had been talking to Carrie and she was saying how much she missed the Friday Flash crew, being such a busy novelist now. I realized I missed it too, so sat down and wrote Funeral Sandwiches. I didn't get a chance to read other people's flash because we were internet-less in the yurt, but I will this week, I promise. I also have something exciting planned - Letters from a Friend, a series of letters from some of the bloggers who have had the biggest impact on me. I've received the first one from Laurita Miller and it is FABULOUS. Brought me to tears, it did. I can hardly wait to share it with you. For now, I'm off to work. Happy Monday, everyone!