Courage

Highway Touring?

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What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? For me, it’s traveling down major highways or mountain highways on a motorbike. I am a logical person, and logically speaking, a motorbike is a tiny vehicle in comparison to a normal vehicle. Passenger vehicles have fancy features, like seatbelts and airbags and shatter-proof glass and metal surrounding their passengers. On a bike, there is zero protection. One can easily cross over into the great unknown due to weather, wildlife, or drivers on cocaine. Yup, I’m terrified right now imagining all the ways to meet death or disfigurement coming off a street bike.

I think about all the wildlife hazards for those on a motorbike. Animals are wild. Traffic laws do not apply to creatures of the forest. Wild creatures have the ability to cross the road at any moment, making it akin to a game of risk and uncertainty. You might make the trip without an incident, but you might not. Is there a moose, or an elk, or a deer in your path? Heck, it might even be a porcupine. Smaller animals are formidable obstacles if you hit one with a two-wheeled freedom seeker.

Next, I consider the very real danger of bad weather. Wet or icy roads pose significant risks for bikers. I imagine myself clinging to my husband like a monkey to a junkie’s back; we are miles from anywhere. Suddenly, marble-sized hail begins to rain, creating a slippery surface. We go into an uncontrollable skid toward the guardrail protecting us from a 600-foot drop. Then lightning flashes and thunder roars, and ocean-sized fish fall from the sky (honestly, there have been cases of fish raining down from the sky). A five-pound carp slams me in the head, and I topple sideways as we crash through the guardrail down into the scenic view of the Grand Canyon. The following day, we are the Sunday morning splat in the Las Vegas Review. This scenario does not align with my personal definition of adventure.

Thirdly, highways are busy roadways with an overabundance of giant semi trucks that generate intense air movement. Wind is the biker’s enemy. Now, combine a windstorm with a coked-up newbie semi-driver. Yikes, what a horror show that might be. We get sucked into the draft of the big truck, and splat, we are a smear on the side of the road.

So, in case you’re wondering, it is my hubby’s dream to tour on a motorbike, and since I kind of like him, I will consider going touring. And in case you are wondering, no, I would not feel any braver if I piloted my own bike. I’m kind of clumsy and accident-prone. I tend to drive where I look—and I like looking at trees. I love my car. Cars are way more forgiving; if you need to correct your steering abruptly, you can. Bikes? Not so much.

Once upon a time, as a teenager, I had a dirt bike, and then I made scars on my body. Funnily enough, my husband had a proper highway-legal bike when he was a teenager. He loved it, but then he had an accident. To be fair, my husband is much older now, and he is a competent driver—although he does enjoy speed and passing people on the highway. Still, I am comfortable while he drives. Airbags are a wonderful invention.

In conclusion, what would it take for me to be a passenger on my husband’s dream bike? Final answer: psilocybin mushrooms, the Devil’s lettuce, and/or my gramps old companion, Valium.

Daily writing prompt
What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?
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Your Future Is Happening Now

/ debbyproulx / 2 Comments
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Do you consider yourself an empowered individual? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, to be empowered means having the knowledge, confidence, means, or ability to do things or make decisions for oneself. Did you know that when a person feels empowered fear is minimized and self-assurance increases? Have you felt empowered lately? Or do you feel like you have been intimidated into actions you don’t completely believe are necessary?

So, here’s a thought, answer honestly, if the media and government simply said nothing about the virus for two weeks, would you even know there was a virus? Why is it you can sit on a plane and rub shoulders with a masked person but a small business can’t open up even with a limited capacity? This crisis has conveniently been a windfall for the big corporations, such as Costco, Walmart and Amazon, but it hasn’t empowered small business people in the least. And for those that don’t know, small business is the heartbeat of Canada.

Here’s a fun fact, according to britannica.com, ‘Dictatorship is a form of government in which one person or a group of persons possesses absolute power without effective constitutional limitations. The term dictatorship comes from the Latin title dictator, which in the Roman Republic designated a temporary magistrate who was granted extraordinary powers in order to deal with state crisis. Dictators usually resort to force or fraud to gain despotic political power, which they maintain through the use of intimidation, terror, and the suppression of basic civil liberties.’

Does any of that sound familiar? Be honest with yourself. Wanting to feel safe and living in denial of government overreach is exactly what the German people did under Hitler’s reign. And maybe you think I’m being ridiculous and dramatic, but didn’t Hitler blame the Jewish people for all the German peoples difficulties? It is a tactic of a divisive government to select certain groups and name them villains. In Canada, our leaders call anyone who questions their response to the health crisis anti-vaxers, extreme right-wingers and covid deniers, please note, name calling is the approach of bullies. In addition to labeling protesters villains, this government also blackballs or expels from caucus, politicians who question the political and mainstream narrative. Do you know of any Fascist state or Communist country that allows free speech? Sanctioned propaganda is the only true source of information in countries like those, and funnily enough, our own government is attempting to limit free speech here under the guise of misinformation, of course. Curious.

So I suppose if the government wins their bid to limit free speech I will no longer be able to share information such as the horrific costs of lockdowns or the Corman-Drosten Review Report outlining the failures of the PCR tests. Or the impassioned plea by Dr. Pierre Kory, a well respected respiratory doctor, as he gave heartfelt testimony at the United States senate on a drug which produced fantastic results in preventing and treating the virus.

2020 has been a trial. In my own life, my dear step-mom passed away, from cancer, and due to the virus I wasn’t allowed to be with her much. Covid restrictions. And then one of my friends died last year too, she took her own life. In actuality, I don’t personally know of anyone who died from covid… there was my dog-groomers neighbour, who tragically died in a car accident but perhaps the virus was driving because that was listed as the cause of death on the death certificate. I’ve heard similar stories. Did you die of covid or with covid? The correct answer is always the virus if the person tested positive according to health officials. And have you read the link to the Corman-Drosten Review Report on the failings of the PCR tests?

Well, this is it for me, no more blogs trying to get people to flip the coin over and examine the other side, I only have one more question, and it’s important… Is your life today fabricated with fear or elevated through empowerment? Sadly, I’ve typically lived most of my life as a Chicken Little kind of person, and I’ll admit, earlier last year I was running around squawking, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” But then when May rolled around and I hadn’t been squished, I did some digging. It wasn’t easy. I had to leave the beaten path in order to find the kernels of truth. Now that I have, I stand and admire our fantastical sky completely unafraid and I plan for a better future. What will you do?

In order to own the light within, we must be willing to explore the shadow.

  • Panache Desai

Hidden From View

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I plan to scare you.

The peaty odour of earth invades my nostrils as I kneel on the uneven mound of potatoes. My heart rams out a solid beat inside my chest. I wait. Alert to any sign of life. I am hiding in the potato bin; a three-foot square space in the basement tucked underneath the landing for the staircase. Rough milled boards frame the cramped bin and a faded split curtain hangs down to cover the darkened hole, the storage space was half empty creating the perfect hideout.

The uncomfortable hardness of irregular potatoes under my legs causes me to shift my position and I carefully adjust the curtains slightly so I can see better yet I am still hidden. Our bare bones basement displays deep dark shadows beyond my hidey-hole; the furnace sprouting multiple arms of tin, huddled next to the hot water tank; hulking blobs of darkness. Extension cords dangled unevenly from the floor joist ceiling,; empty nooses in the dim light. Silence urges me to lean out between the drooping drapes to seek out a sound. Water trickles down inside a drain pipe from the upstairs bathroom. She would be coming soon. A tiny spider web swings down from the edge of the top stair and I try not to think about how many spiders are in the dark space with me now.

Footfalls pound above my head on the landing and I jerk back the curtains falling back to cover my face. An evil grin emerges. My sister is coming. She shared a downstairs bedroom with me, the only finished room at the farthest corner of this space. The tread on the lower step squeaks. Sucking in a giggle of anticipation my muscles tense in preparation, the soft pattering of socked feet nearing my hiding place. I explode through the curtains toward her like a feral Jack-in-the-box and scream, “Blahhh!”

She shrieks stumbling back, eyes wide, whites showing brightly against her raven hair which flies across her face. The terror I witness in that split-second fills me up and I burst out into pure laughter. Yes, I’m a rotten human being.

She may have smacked me once or twice but it was a mere pittance of a punishment for what I had received from her. And you might think, ‘well, that’s a pretty normal thing to do as a child,’ and I would agree. But truth be told, I didn’t do it just once, as a matter of fact, I constantly searched for the opportunity to frighten not only my older sister, but most of my family and many others, by jumping out at unexpected times, or hiding under beds to grab feet, or by pretending I had been possessed by an evil spirit to terrorize my younger sister. It was very nearly a diabolical obsession, and I’ve only recently come to understand that there was something much deeper than simply experiencing the fun of scaring people that compelled me. It was the incredibly satisfying feeling of having complete power and control over another person, even if it was only a fleeting moment or two. In those few seconds those people were mine.

Now, in my defence, I was raised in the days when children were to be seen and not heard, children were not allowed to display too much anger or too much sorrow, and most importantly children were not allowed to disagree. Looking back on my childhood, I understand my excessive Jack-in-the-box behaviour was my attempt to gain some manner of control over my life through fear. And on that note, you should know, I rarely try to scare people these days, especially the elderly. And yet, in an effort to maintain full disclosure, I do confess to enlisting my husbands help in tethering a life-sized fake skeleton to the bottom rungs of our neighbours dock, so that when they brought it up to shore for the winter they had a little scare.

Fear, you see, is a powerful mechanism to gain control. I kept scaring people because it gave me a sense of power. Today, I see main stream media and government playing the Jack-in-the box game. Cases, cases, cases; run and hide. Case numbers are not deaths, and according to Canadian Statistics there were no more deaths in 2020 than any other year, and our hospitals have always been challenged during the winter season. Now ask yourself this— if the people in control truly had your best interests at heart would they be promoting fear or calming reassurance? What do you think your response would be if they said, “Stay calm my dear Canadians, lets look at the facts— actual government data.” https://www.jccf.ca/government-data-shows-lockdowns-more-deadly-than-covid-19/