REINCARNATED? IT WOULD CERTAINLY EXPLAIN A LOT - THE WATCHER WHO SEES PHANTOMS ON THE MOOR

I knew as a kid, with a dusty baseball mitt under my arm, and a bat slung back against my shoulder, that I was going to have a different life than those of my contemporaries. It wasn't about sport proficiency, although I was pretty good at most sports I tried. It wasn't about success or money acquired over a lifetime. I felt differently about most things I encountered, and it became obvious, my viewpoints were most often completely opposite to what was professed, on a myriad of subjects and observations, proclaimed with great, youthful hubris by my childhood contemporaries. I didn't have the grounds or risk-interest to challenge any of them, because I realized my appreciation of the world was much, much different, and there was no way of making a sensible counterpoint when my argument was based on what I know today, was a hair's breadth away from what might be considered, dangerous dabbling in the paranormal.

I wasn't born with a particularly psychic capability. At least I don't think so! But I was always keenly aware that while my mates watched a thunderstorm pound down over our ball field, on a hot summer afternoon, I saw the fantastic within that storm, similar to what Washington Irving wrote about the phantoms that dwell within the haunted Hudson River Valley. Long before I knew much about Washington Irving, or that my hometown, Bracebridge, had been named after a book he had written, in 1822, I was a devotee to the realm of enchantments, and the "what ifs" of the world in which I dwelled.

It wasn't something you could talk about on the ball diamond, as a small cloud of dust exploded from the palm of your mitt, catching a second bass toss from the catcher, to tag a sliding runner. I already had enough wedgies to affect my walking for the rest of my life, and that was without uttering a word that wasn't macho-kid inspired. Sports in my day was wimp-free. If I took a slapshot in the throat, which as a goalie was frequent, my coaches wanted to see me bounce back to my feet, and beg for another bruise on some other body part. If I wanted to play with the other reindeer, I had to avoid, at all cost, showing my sensitive side. You wiped the blood away, tried to shake-off the deflection to the groin, and never ever allowing a tear to stain your cheek.

I was more in sync those days, with things that defied gravity than with the obvious. Like a long fly ball to centre field, or a bouncing puck on natural ice. I chose, when not pounding bodies in athletics, to allow myself to wander old dirt trails through pastures and the pine-covered paths of area forests, with a keen eye on the reality of the adventures, yet an open mind about what hobgoblin or fairy-kind might reveal itself around the next bend….., or beyond the fern hollow over the hill in front. I wasn't gay but to some readers being poetic was the same thing. It was the kind of stuff that got you an atomic wedgie, if you dared to write verse instead of a war story for english class.

I was pretty much a wandering poet before I'd ever read a single poem, or even heard of Shakespeare, Burns, Scott or Longfellow. I didn't know what a novelist did because I only read the Saturday funnies, and a few kids' books I took out, pretty much for show, from the school library. Yet I knew my expectations were more intense and burning than those of my chums, and when I studied something, beyond the surface interest, they'd chide me for "daydreaming" and "imagining things!" They were right. I couldn't really tell them I also saw and felt their auras, because, at the time, I had no idea what an aura was. I also had no intention of telling them that "say guys, did you know I had a personal audience with an angel once?" I would have been split in two let me tell you. The fact it was true (story of this is on my Muskoka and Algonquin ghost blogsite), to me, dating back to a serious childhood illness, didn't make it palatable to gents who fired 22's at pop cans over at the hunt camp, or who played tackle football without equipment. We boxed because the pain felt liberating. When we fell off our bikes and skinned our knees and elbows, these were battle wounds well earned. Nothing to cry about. They just weren't sensitive enough to believe in the earthly visitation of a guardian angel. What has been real to me, from an early age, and as clear as even the most profound memories in this old head of mine, would have only inspired ridicule of the long serving variety. I have only begun talking and writing about it in the past few years, as a sort of half-biography for my boys and their future families…..possibly with offspring sharing the semi-psychic gene. Both Andrew and Robert are practical lads who take after their mother, Suzanne's father, and mine, all who were matter-of-fact about life affairs…..and may have even been underwear pullers in their youth. Suzanne's mother and mine shared my interest in the unknown possibilities of the universe. My boys are both realists and happy to be there. Yet they were brought up to expect the unexpected….to be careful about woodland hikes and the ghosts that haunt the moor on cold October nights. When I talk about being visited, while on my sick bed, by an angel, they look at each other with some worry…….on the verge of asking, "Has dad lost the few marbles he had?"

I found a passage written by American author, Washington Irving, that made me feel so much better about the relationship I've had with the "fantastic" over a lifetime. It describes so poignantly, how I feel about the world and the universe in which we dwell as mortals. I think I may have been one of those bards of long ago, who wandered through the misty moors at dusk, looking for lost souls and answers to age-old questions. Here's a sample of how Irving qualified the dreamers and philosophers of this mortal coil:

"I am dwelling too long, perhaps, upon a threadbare subject; yet it brings with it a thousand delicious recollections of those happy days of childhood, when the imperfect knowledge I have since obtained had not yet dawned upon my mind, and when a fairy tale was true history to me. I have often been so transported by the pleasure of these recollections, as almost to wish that I had been born in the days when fictions of poetry were believed. Even now I cannot look upon these fanciful creations of ignorance and credulity, without a lurking regret that they have all passed away. The experience of my early days tells me, that they were sources of exquisite delight; and I sometimes question whether the naturalist who can dissect the flowers of the field, receives half the pleasure from contemplating them, that he did who considered them the abode of elves and fairies. I feel convinced that the true interests and solid happiness of man are promoted by the advancement of truth; yet I cannot but mourn over the pleasant errors which it has trampled down in its progress. The fauns and sylphs, the household sprite, the realms of fairy land, all vanish before the light of true philosophy; but who does not sometimes turn with distaste from the cold realities of morning, and seek to recall the sweet visions of the night."

"By wells and rills in the meadows green, " wrote poet Ben Jonson. "We nightly dance our hey-day guise, and to our fairy king and queen, we shut our moonlight minstrelsies."

I'm seriously contemplating writing children's books. Would I be welcome there? I've got a trillion fantasies stirring in the noggin. I feel almost compelled to inspire youthful imaginations with thoughts of the "fantastic," as the weight of reality is such a ponderous, life-long burden of trailing chain. Mine has always seemed so much lighter and moveable. A kid without a developed imagination is only a kid by definition of age. I can't stand the thought of a wasted imagination.

"It is thus that poetry in England has echoed back every rustic note, softened into perfect melody; it is thus that it has spread its charms over every-day life, displacing nothing, taking things as it found them, but tinting nothing with its own magical hues, until every green hill and fountain head, every fresh meadow, nay, every humble flower, is full of song and story."

I can't wait for the arrival of my grandchildren. What great countryside walks we'll have. Story time? I don't need a book to read from!