Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner

And now there came both mist and snow
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald

Carefree summer days are over and the bluster and cold breath of the fall winds will visit us soon.  We think of the steamy window in our favorite coffee shop and aspire to the hearth of a warm fireplace.

Our luxury in the maelstrom of rain, sure to descend on us, is the knowledge that we can absolutely control what we do with ourselves when the weather worsens and we have to choose our cozy havens.

The other day in our first dose of rain I was waiting for my nephew in an alcove. I saw something shuffling around off to my side. It looked like a huge organic cluster of something.  The white plastic formed sheets of sails that captured the rain and rendered the person pushing the cart tired and weak.

This person walked by everything and everyone like he was in a blue screen world, making a movie where nothing around him was real. He made no eye contact and was like a character on a canvas or an animation cell with no other life.

I saw him park his collection of worldly goods outside the coffee shop where I was waiting. He ordered coffee and took a paper from the store and sat himself down at one of the café tables. He was worldly, and sported quite an expensive watch. The face was scratched, but undoubtedly it had been a trophy in its day. He showed me photos he had taken some long-ago time. He said that he had to make his life simpler or he would not have survived. He talked in a poetic way about working with a newspaper in Winnipeg and how the winters froze you to the bone, but cleaned everything like a hot flame. He said his favorite memory of that time was the beautiful frost image on his bedroom window…..and how the cold painted not only the landscape, and every pain of glass, but the faces of people. In describing the people on the street he said they had jewels of frost on their eyelashes and their cheeks were like polished apples. I asked how he came to Vancouver and he grew introspective and said that he had to leave the Ancient Mariner behind. I didn’t know whether he meant “Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner” the hypnotic poetry of Coleridge. Was he referring to the poet's drug addiction(he used laudanum in order to write)? Was his reference to icy, glowing hallucinations he had to escape there in the prairies?

“Martin” described himself as a lost soul. A former roué who lived his life as though he was eating a good dinner. He pointed out that he had no regrets, but wished he had thought about windy days while he was being incautious. His only regret, he said, was not saving up more green plastic for days like today. I had to think that I have many more regrets than the Ancient Mariner had on his mind. And you?