Several weeks ago, I saw Frank at 1a.m. in the 24-hour A&W in Parkdale. I asked him how he was, and he first said “ok”

I sensed something was off and pressed my senior citizen friend further to find out that he had lost his place and was indeed homeless.

Then I didn’t see him for a while…

I saw Frank again today, and he was looking well. He told me he was in another neighborhood and paying twice as much rent as before.

We exchanged pleasantries before I departed he said, “You know homelessness is a business, right?

There is something in the water.

In the air like flakes of snow.

Take the narrow to the broader.

I’m just learning letting go.

You are cold, and you are distant.

It’s all tell now and no show.

If I were just more consistent.

I could teach this letting go.

There’s a moral to this story.

Builds a plot like mold will grow.

There’s no need to say you’re sorry.

You taught me well this letting go.

I am cold and I am distant.

I’m all tell now and no show.

You teach well, so persistent.

Such a gift this letting go.

Jack was a career criminal at a time when him and his associates lived by rules and codes…

He was north of 60 when I met him and he swore he wasn’t going back inside.

Jack told me, “Everybody thinks they can go through life and not live by any rules. I’m here to tell you that you’re going to have to live by at least 2 rules.

Everybody knows knows rule # 1; however, very few know rule # 2; and… Rule # 2 is never shit in your own nest.”

It’s been 40 years since I’ve seen Jack and I like to think he managed to stay true to his rules.

The Ancients started singing.

In an unfamiliar key.

The Stoners started dancing.

And staring at just me.

The Republicans they were drowning.

Outside the Democratic waves.

The Angel’s started humming.

Just some notes from Jesus’ saves.

A voice spoke said, “You’re dreaming.”

I screamed, “Please go away.”

They kept shaking in the evening.

Through the night and brand new day.

Now, the Ancients are together.

They are smiling like they knew.

Like they’ve known about forever.

And a different shade of blue.

They spoke, “Just keep on going.”

And I drifted deep in song.

Until I woke to someone crying.

I guess I had been away too long.

Was flickering in that distance.

Or was just my point of view.

No closer than your resistance.

Or my disdain for something new.

I’ve been looking for distraction.

From all that’s tired, bowed and old.

With no additions by subtraction.

And all the love is frozen cold.

All this silence is not golden.

There’s just nothing left to say.

All this new does not embolden.

It just drives the good away.

Cape John is a spit of land that rises out of the Northumberland Straight on the north shore of Nova Scotia. In the 1700s, when Nova Scotia was referred to as New Scotland, the estuary that fed the river inland from Cape John was called Deception River.

The earliest european settlers to this land and sea were from England and Scotland. Henry Heighton was among the first, and he fathered 11 children. Among them was Margaret Heighton, born in 1791.

Margaret met Colin MacIver, and after they  married, they moved to Washabuck Cape Breton  on the western shores of the island inland sea, Bra d’or Lakes.

Several generations later, my grandfather Little Jimmy MacIver was born and then my mother Margaret MacIver in 1921 and then me in 1958.

When I moved to Deception River in the mid 1960’s, no one there knew that I was a 5th generation relative. I don’t know if it would have made a difference. However, I suspect it would have meant something to my mother, who felt isolated and alone.

Most of the defendants of Henry Heighton stayed and raised families on that north shore spit of land, and of all the surnames there, Heighton is at or near the most common.

I felt a connection to some of them and didn’t know why. I tried for a while to connect and failed before addictions filled the voids of silent disclusion.

It is funny to me and ironic to find out that during my years there in Cape John and Deception River, searching elsewhere for family that I was surrounded by family and didn’t know. I’ve been saying for a long time that you could fill libraries with what I don’t know it.

I was talking to an old friend from there Peter Macdonald and discussing the ironies of not knowing my heritage, Peter said,

“You were right where you should have been all along.”