TRADING ONE YEAR

FOR THIRTY YEARS

The deed has been done, as I have been done, but not in watermelon sugar. Don’t let the picture fool you, all smiles and bearing a rib size incision after a triple bypass. I was still stoned on painkillers of the best kind.

Silly me, I thought I would be up and etching picnic table tops for at least one table for National Poetry Month, April. Then I began to look at a couple of videos and thought I would be ready to etch a table for Pride Month, June. Alas, there will be no table etching in the year 2026.

To put it bluntly, I have never been so brutalized in my 78-year-old life. I have a long row to hoe in rehabbing myself for creative purposes. The earliest I could do a table is late September, so what would be the point of that? The season would be over.

There is much physical rehabbing to do, but also major lifestyle changes, both in terms of diet to bring back strength and to maintain that strength with ‘new’ arteries. It seems stupid to have good functioning replacement arteries only to clog them up before their time and mine. I have the opportunity for another 30 years of creative life, so why diminish that personal investment poetential by clogging it with old habits.

The trade-off is to lose one year of tabletop creativity in exchange for 30 years of tabletop creativity, so 2026 will be all about Wally’s physical health, to the minutest detail.

My son, Kelly, is currently with me, and his help has been invaluable, more than I could imagine. He has been my PSW until Ontario Home and Health kicks in to do basic housekeeping, grocery shopping, getting me to appointments, doing my laundry and other small items. I will be employing a private housekeeper for heavier work going forward, especially floors.

2026 will also include major renovations inside my flat: a new media centre, a new daybed, a new twin bed, venetian blinds, shelves, a new table, and storage solutions. My son will wire up the media centre, because that is where my major creative work will be done. It will be supplemented with my cell phone and tablet in synchronous harmony. So I can take my work with me to my favourite coffeehouses in Canada’s poemtown, Cobourg.

I have a new blue mobility scooter that arrived the same day that I went to Northumberland Hills Hospital Emergency. It has remained on the palate when it was delivered, still boxed. I might be able to ride that by late spring, but that depends, of course, on everything else being optimum.

The only thing that is currently rejoicing is my spirit. There will be a special gathering in the common room of St Peter’s Court Apartment this coming September, so stay tuned.