Sugar Mice

One of the things that I am most proud of, in my work world at least, is what was accomplished by my ex and I when we opened our B & B in Lunenburg back in 1996. An arduous journey that cobbled together amazing support from family, a lot of hard work and a healthy dose of the Greater Fool theory...a wing and a prayer in the belief that if you build they will come.

I'd like to tell you that is was all sunshine and roses but it wasn't. It was hard work and incredibly stressful to all involved but I don't regret it for a moment, as it was also a rewarding experience with lessons learned, friendships forged and a spit in the eye resilience that fit in with my character at the time.

The entire scenario was almost other worldly. The long story, made slightly shorter, is that we had latched on to the idea of running our own place. Either through osmosis or inspiration we realized that we had skills that would make for a pretty good business partnership. And it was to be honest. We were, at the time, the youngest innkeepers in the province and we had garnered quite a bit of attention with the renovations, the subsequent battle with the town over opening a restaurant within the inn and our finished offering. We opened in June of 1996 after a just over a year of planning and construction...after we had bought the building essentially on a whim the previous April. Crazy eh?

Fast forward to the fall of that year, the tourists are gone and reality sets in...bills to pay and no steady money coming in. We had our first child, born in March earlier that year and my parents living with us. I made one of the hardest decisions I had to make by leaving for Toronto to work over the winter to keep the lights on. It's nothing that any other responsible adult would do, so I don't feel like I did anything extraordinary but it wasn't easy. Walking away from my young family for a few months was hard on many fronts.

The idea was to find a job ASAP and keep the cash flow flowing. I stayed with in-laws and quickly found a job as chef at a place that could have been renamed Chef Loses his Noodle. A crazy ass place that offered the patrons the ability to create their own pastas. As a guest, great idea...as a chef running the show....what the fuck were you morons thinking??? Well, this new found reality was my life for the next few months. Not at all a happy time for me. I missed my family, especially my daughter. A lot. 

The winter trudged along and as my birthday neared I was not feeling particularly joyous. I'm not a big birthday milestone kind of guy to start with but I do have certain things that I like to have around me and my family would be at the top of the list. I remember two phone calls around that time. One, on my birthday, where my ex didn't realize it was my birthday. It felt quite good to be forgotten in this way. I'm sure it simply slipped her mind or she didn't realize the day, and I get that, but it doesn't change the empty feeling one has. A couple of days later, a little piece of my heart was ripped from my chest when my daughter was put near the phone to hear daddy's voice...her cute gurgles and happy sounding laugh led me to be grateful that I was in the lower level of the restaurant with no one around to see me. I'm sure you can figure out the look on my face. Back then I wore army boots and could, when needed, look pretty imposing....except for right then of course.

This moment in my life is what I always think of when I hear the song Sugar Mice by Marillion...

"Well the toughest thing that I ever did was talk to the kids on the phone...

...So if you want my address it's number one at the end of the bar

Where I sit with the broken angels

Clutchin' at straws and nursin' our scars

Blame it on me, blame it on me

Sugar mice in the rain"

I felt lost. Like I was not whole. Like sugar mice in the rain, I was fading, a mere shadow of what I thought I was. I was missing a part of my daughters life and I didn't like it. I was missing her. The better parts of me were 2000 km away while I trudged around cursing the weather, the Greek guy that owned the restaurant and the "consultant" that came up with the idea for chef loses his noodle...dumb fucker. Mostly though I was cursing the separation.

The plan was to stay until spring and be back to re-open the place in May. When we realized that we were getting a rather large tax refund I was home by mid March. Hightailed it out of there as fast as humanly possible and was literally towed back into Lunenburg as my car had broken down near Halifax, but I was back where I belonged. 

I leave you with this snippet from a poem by Pablo Neruda that, for me, speaks to those feelings that I couldn't articulate all those years ago. 

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”

And now, years later from this time, the kids are one by one spreading their wings. The next five years will bring much change and it's natural to be pensive about it all. Will they be happy, healthy and successful in their choices? I've done what I could do and now I'm here for moral support and a touch of hilarity to lighten the world a bit. Lessons learned, the hard way most often since that is really the only we're truly going to learn anything, and lessons passed along. In the end, the message is simple...

"Don't worry about a thing

'Cause every little thing gonna be alright

Singing' don't worry about a thing

'Cause every little thing gonna be alright"

Cioa

D