"just like a paper tiger
torn apart by idle hands
through the helter skelter morning
fix yourself while you still can"
[Beck, "paper tiger"]

Sometimes life takes strange turns. From nowhere, answers appear to dispel questions, but carrying with them questions anew. Life reminds us once more that the only constant is change, and that despite what illusion of control we so desperately cherish, with or without us all, life moves ever forward.

The last few days have held peculiar turns of events.

Fortunately, I'm not here to say it was a series of bad coincidences. It was not tragedies, but good things. It was not the sorts of things that would cause most to stop and take note. But the simplicity of the changing events of the past few weeks does not diminish their impact. Significant consequence can occur - if we choose to let it. So perhaps it doesn't always take a Mercedes Gorman to make you stop and think about the delicacy of human existence, and certainly, it shouldn't, now should it?

I spent time in Halifax, visiting my brother and his wife, and some friends and acquaintances. I had opportunity to observe some relationships close up I'd not before witnessed, and to experience once more my fondness for the relationship Martin and I have. I saw two couples as never before. One I watched with disgust - a relationship I would simply never have - and the other by stark contrast one which made me feel both envious and elated. I was reminded of why I've often said my brother and I, had we been born to different mothers, might just as likely been the friends we are.

I returned to St John's with a refreshed spirit and an elevated desire, struggling within myself to fill my head with steam, in the hopes of launching myself upward and forward, to tackle the daunting and dreaded tasks before me with new vigor. They're tasks that no one relishes, and I always wonder if anyone who knows me has even an inkling of how monstrous they are to me, or if perhaps it's simply like that for everyone. They haunt me. But before I could even find a way to overcome the spiritual paralysis which grips me daily at the thought of them, both seem to have solved themselves, at least for the moment.

And while I approach each solution as a day-to-day one (which is liberating in one case, and bothersome in the other) and with some trepidation (in both), I cannot help but wonder whether if this paper tiger is actually little more than a straw dog.

But if one must sometimes be at the mercy of the winds of change, it's good to realize that sometimes, just sometimes, the winds blow north instead of south, bringing joy or relief instead of sadness and despair, in things both big and small.