All hallow’s eve is just around the corner and yes, it’s a wonderful time of the year.
I don’t know about you, but I have always been a huge fan of Halloween. It is the only communal holiday that has survived, the ritual calendar used to be peppered with them, and even if it has been commercialized (what hasn’t?), it still retains a strong whiff of otherness from mundane time. As it should be. Exactly as it should be.
Please note that the butt hole burning properties of hot sauce are, in my experience at least, a complete myth, but it makes for a catchy title. The same, however, cannot be said about stomachs, more than once, including with this batch, I’ve had the unpleasant burning coals in my belly sensation. That being said I keep on going back for more. Not the sharpest tool in the shed, eh?
It was not our typical island trip. I hesitated to bring diving gear and at the end of the day decided against it. Mostly out of temperature and currents concerns, that was probably wise.
L’Isle Verte is a small island situated across the Saguenay Fjord close to the St-Lawrence river’s south bank. It’s the kind of place where if you don’t like the weather you just have to wait fifteen minutes and it is only accessible by a tide timed ferry. Big ferry if there’s a car to shift, small boat if it’s only people. The ride can be smooth as glass or really really bumpy. As in, please go inside the cabin sir, it’s about to shake a little. Sailors have cool euphemism.
Maybe it was going through all the old pictures that made me a little bitter, or maybe it was the four espressos, but I was in a reflective regretful mood this morning. Then I caught myself. I’ve mentioned before my philosophy of life, if one can call it that, today I want to add to it a little.
This had been some time in the making. Eight years to be exact. Gifted or cursed by the love of books, through the centuries years, we have amassed quite a few tomes. More than a flimsy-pressed-cardboard-ready-to-assemble library could hold in any case, not that I would let one inside the house. I think my dad would reach across the Veil and smack me upside the head if I did that.