Friday, December 15, 2006

giving up getting on

I almost made it. All the way through. But I didn't. Last forkfull of breakfast beans nears my gob and one lonely little stray bean leaps off landing right on my shirt. Now, I'm a dropper, spiller, loser, I do all those things. But today I kinda wanted to travel home looking like a successful lecturer rather than an inmate from a home who forgot his bib whilst having breakfast. But that's not the life I live.

Joe, who used to fuss over my little accidents, now just looks up, shakes his head and moves on. He's given up trying to tame the little disasters and just rides with them. "Damn, I dropped a bean." I said to him while picking it up to send it on it's way. Then I brightly said, "Almost made it through breakfast this time." Joe was tired and said, "Well, now that you mention it, the beans trail kind of matches the jam trail on the other side."

"Oh."

Two days ago we were in Liverpool, we stopped at ASDA for tea and to pick up a few groceries. There was a guy there with cerebral palsy having lunch with his care provider. They had chicken and ribs and he got it all over himself. He didn't even notice. Jerky movements ... jerk sauce on your shirt ... it matches. He, like me, had given up. Some wear jewelery, others wear food. He doesn't care, and really, I don't much either.

The flight home was 8 hours of drearyness - of all the movies in the world, "My Super Ex Girlfriend" wasn't one that was on my list of must sees ... so I simply read, spilled water, dropped the newspaper, lost my glasses - found them again, discovered a hitherto unnoticed stray bean in the fold of my shirt - ate said bean, smudged my glasses and tried to find a clean area of my shirt to wipe them. I was just having a Dave Hingsburger day.

We landed. Got the luggage. Got the car. Got tense with each other ... Joe is a real handful some times ... then headed home.

Joe tried three times to tell me about listening to one of his favourite caroles on the airplane, he was so tired that his mouth couldn't get the words out ... "blick ... blick ... you know blick ..."

"Bleak midwinter?" I asked. He nodded and then we both started to laugh so hard that I spilled my green tea all over the armrest.

Here's to the neat ones ... and here's to the messy rest of us.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm definitely one of "the messy rest of us"! Thanks for making me laugh about it, Dave. (And I think I felt a few more deeply rooted vestiges of shame drop off, too, if I'm not mistaken.)

Sigh!

Anonymous said...

Mr. Hingsburger

I apologize for trying to contact you in this way but I have tried through your publisher with no success ...

I would like to invite you to speak at our conference on January 29, 2007 in Surrey, BC. The title of the conference is: Realizing Our Potential: A Symposium on Human Rights for Persons with Mental Illnesses or Developmental Disabilities

We have confirmed the following speakers:

1) Stephen Lewis, Human Activist, former Canadian Ambassador to the UN and UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa
2) Dr. David Goldbloom, MD, FRCPC, Senior Medical Advisor, Education & Public Affairs, Centre for Addition and Mental Health (CAMH), Professor of Psychiatry, University of Toronto
3) Jim O'Dea, affordable housing activist, former Chair of BC Housing, former Deputy Minister of Community Development Cooperatives
4) Graeme Gibson, Autistic Youth

The Symposium will be held on January 29th in Surrey, BC at the Bell Performing Arts Centre and will run from 7 pm - 10:30 pm. One thousand, one hundred individuals will attend, of which over half of the audience will be workers in the mental health and developmental disability fields. We expect that the event will be broadcast live on the internet. This event will be free to the general public.

There will be a career fair attached to the event in which agencies and associations working with persons with mental illnesses or developmental disabilities can exhibit for free. We wish to inspire those currently working in the profession, to encourage others to work in the profession, and to educate the general public.

We would love to have you speak at our conference and would like to discuss the possibility before we begin marketing the conference through posters, invitations, a website, newspaper ads, and email. We have secured the rights to Vincent Van Gogh's image "Wheat Field with Crows"

Please call me at your earliest opportunity to discuss this. Thank you,

Les Merson
Director of Marketing & Public Relations
Stenberg College

Email: seeingeye@telus.net
Direct: 604-685-0862
Cellular: 604-313-0208

PS: If you wished to market your publications before the event we would certainly give you a table to do so during the career fair.