Black Dot Diary

What’s it like to be on stage with U2? I never dreamed I’d ever find out. But life is full of twists, turns and gifts as I dis­cov­ered at U2’s Van­cou­ver show on Octo­ber 28, 2009.

U2’s music has been with me through a lot of my life — births, cel­e­bra­tions, deaths, dances, epipha­nies. Their music takes me to the same place I go when I’m writ­ing poetry — the almost-​undefinable, mag­i­cal place where the poetry gets lift off and seems to write itself.

Land & Sea Murals at Ogden Point Break­wa­ter, Vic­to­ria, British Colum­bia. Photo by Chris Holt Pho­tos, http://​www​.chrisholt​pho​tos​.com

I took a walk with my fam­ily on Thanks­giv­ing Day and, under a dra­mat­i­cally dark Octo­ber sky, saw for the first time the spec­tac­u­lar murals on the break­wa­ter at Ogden Point in Vic­to­ria, BC. With the addi­tion of the murals, the old grey break­wa­ter has become majes­tic. It doesn’t com­pete with its coastal back­drop but appears to emerge from it.

This morn­ing Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Lal­ib­erté boarded the Inter­na­tional Space Sta­tion and con­ducted a news con­fer­ence wear­ing his trade­mark red clown nose.

Lal­ib­erté made the two-​day jour­ney in a Russ­ian Soyuz craft along with Russ­ian cos­mo­naut Maxim Surayev and U.S. astro­naut Jef­frey Williams. The space sta­tion is 350 kilo­me­tres above the Earth.

I always wanted to go to space. I remem­ber watch­ing the TV as Neil Arm­strong and Buzz Aldrin made that first moon land­ing in 1969. I told every­one that I wanted to be an astro­naut with NASA. I never did reach my goal but some­times when I’m look­ing up at the stars, I imag­ine what it must be like to be out there gaz­ing back at the Earth as Aldrin and Arm­strong did 40 years ago.

Photo by Ash­ley Rose, Cre­ative Commons

Today the rain started. It could have been worse. They pre­dicted hail for Vic­to­ria. I woke up this morn­ing in an amaz­ing mood to a sunny fall day: head clear, full of energy, ready for any­thing. By 3 p.m., my mood greyed with the sky and by 4 p.m. I was down­right despon­dent when the rain came.

Since mov­ing to the West Coast of British Colum­bia 22 years ago, I’ve con­sid­ered myself a weather vic­tim. A few years ago I had to admit it — I suf­fered from SAD (Sea­sonal Effec­tive Dis­or­der). If I could move to the desert I would, but love has a way of mak­ing us do crazy things. For love, I live in a rain forest.

Jazzie the Bas­set Hound waits mourn­fully for a morsel.

Two years ago I was cir­cum­nav­i­gat­ing the Island of Mag­giore in Italy, fol­low­ing the same path walked by St. Fran­cis to his sea­side grotto on the shores of Lake Trasi­meno, the liq­uid jewel of Umbria.

Accord­ing to leg­ends, in 1211 a local fish­er­man gave St. Fran­cis a fish but Fran­cis, ever the lover of ani­mals, threw it back. The fish grate­fully fol­lowed St. Fran­cis around the lake until the saint bestowed on it a spe­cial bless­ing. St. Fran­cis became known as the patron saint of ani­mals (and later of ecology).