“Man cannot live by Bread alone; he must have peanut butter.”

(James A. Garfield, 20th President of the United States)

            I will have to admit that my new hometown of Paris, Ontario is a little white bread for me. There is no real diversity as Caucasian seems to be the much favoured colour. I don’t think such exclusivity was planned, at least I hope it wasn’t. I’m not claiming that the town houses some branch of the Nazi movement but I notice it just the same. Over the three years that we have lived here, I can count on one hand the times I have seen anyone who might be viewed or come across as “ethnic.” I cannot even find an rule as to make an exemption. There was the African Canadian fellow in the Dollarama parking lot and an Asian couple taking pictures from the scenic bridge located downtown. Face to face, window from street and it all looks like something Donald Trump would approve of. It bugs me that people still live this way. You could argue that the matter is socio-economic in nature but I somehow think it is more than that. Anyone I have recognized as such, was visiting or heading out of town. I saw a African Canadian girl driving her car just outside the Paris limits. I am not sure if that counts. There even appears to be a Latino police officer who I have come across on my journeys throughout Stepford. He usually is sitting in the Tim Horton’s coffee shop at our end of the village. Are donuts Mexican? Regardless of the few, there just are not many. Everyone is friendly and welcoming and most greet you with a hello no matter the time of day or night. It’s a safe place. It’s a simple place. It’s a white place.

“Now let it work. Mischief, thou art afoot. Take thou what course thou wilt.”

(Julius Caesar,William Shakespeare  1599)

            I don’t know how my parents handled raising 5 kids.  It’s not that we were hellions but one could make that assumption based on literal facts rather than just on mythos. Over a ten year period my mother gave birth to 4 boys and a girl. I am the middle child, like you had to ask. Although we all spent time together as kids, it was my two younger siblings that I hung out with the most. My sister Tracey and I are closet in age and my youngest brother Christopher pulls up the rear. Occasionally, my brother Phillip joined in on our fun. The oldest child Alan, was always off on his own somewhere combing his hair. A large group of us from our Torontoneighbourhood used to build forts and booby traps and play werewolves just under the Don Valley Parkway in Graydon Hall, Toronto. Phillip always seemed to take the lead. Unfortunately, most times we would follow. Summer vacation meant lots of time to get into trouble. We all thought it would be fun to make some lunch while our mother took a nap upstairs. There was a recipe to this disaster. Place an entire loaf of white bread out across the kitchen floor. Empty approximately a dozen raw eggs, one for each slice. Cover each open faced sandwich with one pack of Kool-Aid drink crystals, preferably the lime flavour. If you run out of Kool-Aid, Freshie or Tang would be just fine. Do not repeat. Do not wake up your Mom so she can clean it up. Do not tell her you’re still hungry and ask if she would make you some lunch. Say nothing or you’ll just make it worse. To my surprise it wasn’t all that Kool-Aid, or the eggs, that pissed her off. For some reason, she was furious that we had wasted the loaf of Wonder bread she had bought from the milk man earlier that morning. As punishment, my sister and I were sent to the tuck shop down the way. She made it very, very clear. She wanted white bread.

“I do like not knowing where I'm going, wandering in strange woods, whistling and following bread crumbs.” (Tilda Swinton, British actress)

            My life is pretty tame. I am not sure that is a bad thing. Considering the rollercoaster that has been my life, I could use a little break. It’s time to ride the teacups for awhile. Preferably, for the rest of my life. I have become somewhat of a bore but I was going for that. You could even claim my existence has slowly become like white bread, crust and all. I have spent a great deal of time and energy making it so. I prefer the quiet to all the noise. I long for serenity and calmness and carefree ways. Peace attends to my soul. It is very important for me that I maintain some semblance of balance and control. I worked very hard over the past decade to make sure I stayed in focus. I had to develop an entirely new set of coping skills. I am forced to repeat. Doing the same things at the same time everyday creates a pattern, which then becomes a stabilizing force. Change is okay because I can incorporate as needed. Primarily, it is people that are my biggest problem. I am convinced it is much better to not have expectations when it comes to human beings. Someone is constantly playing on my last nerve. Being Bipolar demands symmetry. Without it, there is no harmony, no sense of relief. The disorder has to be controlled. Pharmaceutical solutions are only part of the answer. Maintaining a stress free life is impossible to do. After all, life is suffering to one degree or another. I have often wondered if people simply fuck you around because  they have nothing better to do with themselves. Screwing up my life is not some reality show, for your amusement. People are petty and I am never pleased when someone needlessly complicates my daily grind. If you don’t have anything good to say, if you can’t speak in kind, I’ll gladly shove a piece or two of Wonder bread right down your throat for good measure. This should shut you up.  

“Peace goes into the making of a poem as flour goes into the making of bread.”

(Pablo Neruda, Chilean diplomat/poet)

            Every week when I go shopping, I always buy a loaf of bread. Sometimes I’ll grab a loaf of brown bread but I usually end up tossing most of it to the birds. Whole wheat is much to extreme for my tastes, I prefer my toast to start out white. Life can be plain like white bread or it can be toast with jam. It is sweet and it is simple, all you need is a toaster. Personally, my entire life has been pretty plain when it comes to the choices I have made. I have never had a long term relationship with anyone ethnic. I had many Latino friends in Los Angeles but they are all dead now. I have never really connected with any one of colour. In high school, I was chums with Calvin Walters, the only black student to attend SDCI in the 1980s. His mother worked for my Dad at the same school. My brother Alan was married to a Caucasian woman who had a black child from a previous relationship. His name was also Calvin. Once, my first partner and I were confronted by a African Canadian prostitute in Kensington Market, Toronto.  To be honest, standing there talking to her, was one of the longest conversations I have had with a black person. There is only one other such woman to speak of and she was plain crazy. Brandy and I met  through the PentecostalChurch. We spent a great deal of time together in Bible Study. We rarely spoke. Her dissension had nothing to do with her race. It was her claim that she had sex with the Holy Spirit that saw her tossed from the Church and the study group. Otherwise, my choice in friends and family has always been more Plain Jane than Fabulous Fred. Outside of homosexuals, I still don’t have any ethnic friends. This is the extent of my racial harmony. Sitting here thinking about who I have known in this capacity made me realize how limited my life has been. I didn’t consciously determine to have only white people in it. I do live in Southern Ontario, Canada after all. In my circle, I rarely ever had access. The store that is my past only sold white bread.

“It is written: Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matthew 4:4, NIV)

            The last time I sat though a church service was also the last time I would ever take communion. I was raised Christian but that is no longer the case. One of the biggest issues I have with Christianity as an organized religion has been transubstantiation. I was raised to believe that there is a literal change in matter when consuming any representation of Jesus’ flesh and blood. We are to believe that the second the bread and the wine touches our tongue it becomes Jesus. To many this is an actual manifestation done in memory of the Christ. Most Sunday mornings you can find over a billion people chewing on the Lord and gulping down the blood of Jesus. While it is true that scripture claims he asked us to consume bread and wine whenever we sit to eat and drink together (Luke 22:19-20), no where did he elaborate that this consumption would be magical and down right cannibalistic. It was the Last Supper not the last semblance of common sense. When I was a lad I did not partake in the tradition because I was much to young. I remember watching my parents figuratively breaking bread and pouring wine. I observed them sipping from a chalice then munching on a piece of broken bread. I never noticed any part of the Lord coming out of either one’s mouth. Once I became a member of the church, I was allowed to partake. I got to choose for myself how I felt about masticating  the Saviour. If this practise is literal and true, it gives the old adage “you are what you eat (and drink)” an entirely new meaning. This would explain why some religious folk walk around thinking they themselves are God, or at least the mortal equivalent. It appears the transformation in the mouth means a transformation in the spirit, not necessarily in that order. I was in my early thirties the last time I visited God at one of his many mansions. I was not comfortable being there despite my friend Rob and my father who were with me that day. They served us communion but I found no flesh to eat, no blood to drink. Welch’s grape juice and a rice wafer are not the bread and wine we had been ordered to consume. I had noticed this shift in dietary salvation throughout my years of attending one sanctuary after another. The tradition went from what was supposed to be a literal experience to a convenient and compact downsizing, What happened to the vino? What happened to all that white bread? What happened to actually eating Jesus rather than figuratively playing the part? Still, I have no reason left to dig in. I am not even hungry. I do not thirst. I’m rather full if you ask me.

 

‘It is not accidental that all phenomena of human life are dominated by the search for daily bread - the oldest link connecting all living things, man included, with the surrounding nature. (Ivan Pavlov, Russian physiologist)

            On weekdays, I am usually up by 7 AM but more often than not it is 6 AM that greets me. I boot the computer, stop in at the bathroom then head downstairs to start my day. We lock the cats in the basement at night to protect our property. It is a large living space so I have no issue with leaving them in their den while defending the right of my stuff to exist. Letting them out is the first thing I do when I reach the ground level.  Next comes the most important event of the day. Every morning, all set and ready to go, I engage my closet friend. Coffee is so precious, my precious. I then go out to the garage, turn on the light and start my regiment. I take the birdseed container in hand and I fill it up. I don’t not fill it to the top so I am forced to control through the use of portions. I also grab the compost container. This is where crust and leftovers and pieces of this and that find themselves waiting to be consumed.  Since we eat only white bread, whether as buns or a loaf, the birds and the squirrels and the chipmunks get only white bread.    

“The danger is not lest the soul should doubt whether there is any bread, but lest, by a lie, it should persuade itself that it is not hungry.” (Simone Weil, French philosopher)

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