Songbird

Songbirds come with different voices. Jessica Benini arrives with many. Perhaps she is most like a young Joni Mitchell, blended with some Carol King, but comparisons suffer; Jessica Benini has her very own style, her own voice, her own songs. And she's quite naturally beautiful, not just as a female, but as a soul who showed care for others, who is authentic, casually sophisticated, and utterly genuine.

The Italian Bakery, in Victoria, B.C., houses alongside it this wonderfully intimate and cosy restaurant, La Piola. Jessica performed there for us, March 24th, 2012, yet as if just for me, although there were some thirty or so patrons at the tables. Some people came in as though familiar with the place, with Jessica doing her set in the corner. With an air of respect, almost of reverence, the kitchen staff and waitresses wandered amongst us, taking food orders and serving drinks, while Jessica played her guitar and sang, or harped along on her harmonica. And the music, like chords of accord, enveloped us in an atmosphere of camaraderie and well being. Jessica mesmerized our chatter into sustained silences. She plucked at our feelings with her words. She strummed on our consciousness with her guitar. She melded us into a family of friends, though strangers most of us were to each other, with her charm and interest in us, and with the warmth, intensity, and soulfulness of her performance, tune after tune.

La Piola as an eatery enticed us to Jessica's concert following our asking about the poster we saw of the upcoming performance. One of the friendly proprietors, who also doubles as a chef, Kyle, let us know just how gifted she is. Jessica plays a multiple of instruments, takes requests, did some standards, and wowed us with her original material too. And the food also is something to be savored. The menu is diverse enough to suit most palettes, the wine and beer suited to the dishes, and the casual family-style service charming and endearing. Several visits, each at separate times of the day, have pleased us very much. Excellent taste for a great price. But the cap on our experience at La Piola on Quadra street was the evening with Jessica. She treated us as though we were old friends. She came up at intermission, shared some of her story, ensured she repeated our names, and even at the end of the night used our names to bid farewell.

Jessica Benini's CD, available for a mere $10.00 in the basket where she performs, is one of those Canadian treasures. As a first CD is it has a resonance that far surpasses its cost. The original songs, with titles like 'precious time', have a profound reach, a haunting quality that could become as familiar to us as any classic album. She is a star in the making. Imagine if you had been able to go to a Joni Mitchell performance when the twenty-something young Joni was just beginning? Imagine if you still had the first copy of a Joni record before she was "discovered"? That's just one of the reasons why investing in, listening to, and attending and enjoying a Jessica Benini concert is so worthwhile. Canada has produced very many wonderful stars; Jessica shines bright as a new discovery in the firmament.

As a songbird Jessica Benini has a voice with a dynamic and alluring range. Her expertise on the guitar, on her harmonicas, and with people, is superb. You would be privileged to be at one of her concerts; Jessica herself would make you feel that way. Then again, like all events "not to be missed", you would just have to be there. Yes?

Jessica Benini | Free Music, Tour Dates, Photos, Videos

www.myspace.com/jessicabenini

Forever Friends

Forever friends can be taken for granted. A friend climbed Kilimanjaro; I did not write. Another got a stent in his heart; I did not know. Yet another just wrote he has been given a year to live. We live without a sense of attachment, if attachment be understood as dependence, conditional, expected. There is a certain security in knowing some such friends. They will contact you even after several years absence, and we pick up intense feelings right off the bat. No letters. No news. No phoning. It makes no-never-mind.

Facebook gives one very many friends. Some of the people on my roster I do not quite recall, until I see the photo. Some befriended me and have never commented on my postings. Nor have I remarked on theirs. Some I do not know. Strangers, they say, are friends one hasn't yet met. And we all have inner and outer circles of friendship. One of my friends, a global traveller, contacts me almost daily, sometimes several times in succession from far-flung places, whereas another scarcely writes at all. It is the friend about whom I have no sense of insecurity that I feel most comfortable with, for although we do not communicate, I am sure that there is no misunderstanding between us. We care, though seeming estranged. Some text jokes, but it does not readily translate, especially if unsure of being unconditionally approved of. I have a friend who shudders at sentences that end with a preposition; something up with which he will not put. Ha! Unconditional acceptance appears to be a rare thing.

That marvelous passage of worldly wisdom that so easily gets incorporated into weddings, that so easily reads trippingly off the tongue, that indeed would cement the world in a Lennon-like sense of love, is so very hard to abide by. Corinthians 13 says nothing of religion or belief or rules and expectations. Rather, the passage simply says it like it is: Love is accepting, not judgmental. It expects nothing, asks nothing, demands nothing. Love is about giving. Love is about taking an interest. Love is about allowing the other to be. Love is about being a friend rather than expecting to be befriended. Love cares. It... It is not exactly how the passage goes? Well, does it matter? Is it necessary to correct the particulars? Are we not able just to love? The 'agape' kind of love, naturally. The other kind of love, most of us have realized, is far too dependent on pheromones, ha!

Friends of mine stay in 'the inner circle' because we both take time to connect on a multiple of levels. Those friends who are too estranged from me due to their not accepting my universal integration, my distinct verbosity(ha!), my surreal apprehensions of life, my metaphorical allusions and my pedantic parables of intentionality (like this missive!) tend to stay on the outskirts. My affection for them is real. My love for them is complete. Even my liking of them, naturally, is based on a reciprocation of mutuality that is independent of age or sex or proximity. So too for most of us, I guess, though we may not choose to articulate our differentials in quite the same phraseology. Friends forgive. Forever friend's are rare. At issue is the proximity not of geographical location, nor of contact, but of trust. Complete acceptance. I won't say anything intentionally to hurt you. How can I believe you love me if i perceive you to distrust me, or worse, intentionally to hurt me? But just to be loving anyway; what a friend! Ha! Would that a family be so too!

Ineptitude and Inequality, Eh?

An anonymously penned cartoon inspires!

Ineptitude and Inequality, eh?

Comparisons tend to separate the wheat from the chaff. Eh? Even so, it hardly seems worthwhile to go on about the differences between ant and elephant, bunny rabbit and frog, child and adult, boy and girl, or... Yet we persist. We put up competitions as a means by which we inspire ourselves or others to get better, to try harder, to prove our worth, our value, our very existence. "Wha'dja mean you're afraid of the water?" said one fish to another. Ha! There are basic expectations endemic to a species that will brook no countenance. And within a species, especially a thinking species, we love to set up gamesmanship, competition, awards, and hierarchies. It is in being inept and unequal that those of us who feel different, are different, appear different, and even desire differently are the ones who become marginalized to the role of spectator, if not 'the also ran'. And how such an one is to feel fulfilled, to feel worthy, is... up to the self.

Auditions for a theatre show, tryouts for a team, singing competitions, heats before an event, time allotments for distances run, awards for academic distinction, awards for participation, certificates to prove accomplishment, these are all measures by which we may discern significance, may determine worthiness. But what of the inept and the unequal, eh? What of you and me? After all, there is only one gold medal per advent.

Ever changed a car tire? Ever baked a cake? Ever run a sewing machine? I knew someone who'd never cut bread. Ever ridden a horse? Been on a motorbike? I know an adult who still fears to try a bicycle. Ever not won any award at all? Ever not come first? Ever not won a single thing, such as at bingo, or at least a free coffee on a Tim Horton's 'roll up the rim'? Ever felt completely 'less than'? After all, in races, someone comes last.

Comparisons separate us out. Even a race in one's own age-category will segregate. We take in differentiations of height and weight and strength and looks and wealth and dress and energy and voice tones and... Well, there are a lot of things by which we determine differences. A cup of coffee is not the same wherever you buy it. Wine has distinctions among others that is almost entirely wasted on my palette. Trifle is better than pumpkin pie, for me, any day! Comparisons signify! The trick is to accept what is.

Being worthy all by and for oneself becomes the great quest for the individual. To like, love, appreciate, value, find significance, simply be sufficient unto oneself is no mean task. How else to give others such honor? After all, there is so very much to gainsay one's fundamental right just to be. Look at the homeless, the wastrel, the couch-potato, and try not to wish them otherwise. Look at the immature, the indolent, the inept, the indifferent, the apathetic, and try to accept them, love them, like them even, just as they are. Integration is a real challenge. At its fullest it is about absolute acceptance for what IS. And since all that IS does exist moment by moment, and changes however slightly by reason of its being in the flow of what now IS, each and everything has its place; all is exiting within its potential. Yet it is that very potential that so invigorates man to want to make the most of everything, to alter what is given, to drive faster, climb higher, and harness the probability. Horses are ridden. Dogs are trained. Circuses get made. And, if lucky, the inept and the unequal get, if nothing else, to be good for a laugh. Or not, eh?

Nobody's Knight

Old and unused, he lay down in a pasture and stared out to sea. Problem was, he was not dying; he simply had no quest. The grail, having been found, was in letting others be, and in so doing he no longer needed to tilt his lance at dragons for them, real or imaginary. He had once sailed ships to distance lands, taken airplanes above the clouds, plumbed the belly of a submarine, clambered over islands. He bruited the bandy of battle before an army of the righteously minded. He even led the charge into disputes over unfairness and cutbacks and waste. But now, aching in every joint and jarred by the slightest of bumps, he lay back in the comfort of the west coast's winter of green grass, soft rains, warming sunshine, and breathed deep. He wondered what came next.

Problem was, he was not dying. Leastways, not before his time. And though old, even for a sexagenarian (which doesn't denote what younger folk think it connotes), he found his very immobility to be hampering him from the old reach of his influence and his inclinations. He once had directed scores of players to realize their potential on the stages of life. He once had taught thousands of younger folk that they too were but integrative beings becoming more and more accepting of the whole. But then his time of fruition passed, and given the disarming dissolution of his energy into the burning of his very bones, the enervation became too demanding, and he found himself surpassed by the invigorated, by the younger, by the eager, and by the recent. It was time to take his old black steed (for not every knight sits astride a white horse) for one last ride down the corridor of his command, and to leave it there for another to ride. He was whisked away, it seemed, to the pasture where he now lay; nobody's knight not easily reached by any, any longer. The quest of life now needed redefining, new scope; the last great voyage.

His newest venture lay not among others. There were no more souls to impress on a regular basis. Once in a while a passer-by would stop to chat, and though the lessons were still brimming in the old knight's intentions, the visitor had come not to hear them, but was more interested in the immediacy of weather, health, and the accouterments of the present than in a past for which the knight was once known. Indeed, without his suit of armor (in the familial eye of past beholders) how would anyone know that he was still a knight at all? And now that he was retired, when someone asked what it was that he'd done with his life, his answer came out in a phrase or two. The old profession of Caring, Compassion, Courtliness, Frankness, and Fellowship, that quintessential pentagonal of virtues that emblazoned the quest, was glossed over as though a shield of history, 'his story'. Dynamic mind-shapes was stuff of the past, rather than the present. His armor now lay aside, as though left to rust. His pennants of victory were buried in a box. His trophies of attainment lay packed in rags. Nobody knew the knight for what he was, so he was left to work on what he had become. He certainly had to work on what he is.

In the long passage between birth and death being defined by what we do (particularly if that 'doing' be colorful, noticeable, productive, involved) it is difficult to see self-worth in now doing little. Watching. Difficult merely to hear oneself breathe. Ducks bob. Clouds, like new dust-bunnies, waft across the sky. Waves ripple. Life gives no direct purpose for old knights. Then again, the grail, having been found, was in letting others be. And with a smile he saw thereby that it was for nobody else than he to take responsibility for his letting himself be. Now he writes, sometimes, to thee. Nobody's Knight, but me.

Absolutely!

"I know it is the only true church," wrote one. "He is the only salvation," wrote another. "There is nothing better than butter," the TV blurted. "You are my only one," the song sang. "There's nothing like it," the advertisement reads.

Say what?

Absolutes almost invariably set up opposition. After all, everybody knows Country Music is the best. Or is the rap that somebody gets to feel left out? Or that another gets a classic put down? What of feeling less than ordinary folk? We do employ idioms rather easily in our culture, eh? Being impeccable with one's word, it appears, is not evidently deployed. Culturally, we are utterly, completely, totally, absolutely and undeniably careless with language. Or are we? All those who take umbrage at that penultimate statement are certainly not amongst the absolute abusers. Yes? Well, not everyone.

Interesting, isn't it? Well, if not for everyone, then at least for some, perhaps, maybe? Well, alright then, interesting for somebody other than me, may-hap? After all, how do we use language to be precise? Or is that: how does one precisely use language? Does it matter when there is so much diversity of appropriation; such casual, informal, formal, and even slang usage? It took me awhile to realize that Wednesday, Thursday, Friday is certainly not what is meant by the Facebook abbreviation, WTF. So too for LOL. And I'm still unsure as to: =D. But so it goes, of this I am absolutely sure. So it goes.

Problem is, there are some things that do get some people's backs up. Defensiveness arises from feeling a lack of freedom, physically, intellectually, morally, psychically, or even verbally. Some are happy to misspell, and to short-form. Some are happy to abbreviate, contract, shorthand. And some use words so liberally that the original meaning is altogether, completely, absolutely, abandoned. Perhaps no word is so much mis-used as the filthy four-letter word, considered indelicate to print of yore. Fouled, it is.

Problem is, we are quintessential beings. We have five senses by which we see, touch, smell, feel, hear, and taste things. Certain four-letter words, particularly while I'm eating, can be very off-putting. Yet many people, by my count, use foul words quite liberally, chewing or not. Flowers and sherbet are no real substitutes. Desensitization to original meanings is the in-stinc-tual sense into which I am thereby steeped, if you get my drift.

Problem is, with our desensitization to the impeccable meaning of words, phrases, and the images they present, we may become less integrative by default. The World Series certainly does not involve the world. 'The best teacher ever' does not consider every teacher. 'The only true church' does not include the beliefs of others. By using absolutes we create pools of distinction, files of meaning or meaninglessness in the mind, and we perpetuate a pop-culture of fragmentation, dissonance, defensiveness, and competition. Yet paradoxically, in our casualness with words, on the other hand, perhaps we'll get people to lighten up about curtailed choices altogether. After all, everything is important and nothing really matters. Know what I mean? And here's hoping you'll say: Absolutely!

The Other Half-Crown?

The Other Half-Crown?

We give relevance to objects way beyond their intrinsic value. "It's illegal to tamper with money," my old East Coast friend laughed. Visiting me here in the West, he reminisced about the TV spot he once did for Canada's 'tooney', a flashy coin like a silver doughnut with a centre of gold. The host kept trying to break it apart, dropping it on the floor, and smashing at it with another coin. "Broken apart, it'd make an interesting pendant, eh?"

The symbolism of things emerges into the consciousness, subtly, or not. This morning another friend posted on Facebook a powerfully lit image of the Jefferson Memorial. I was instantly transported back to an uncomfortably sweltering week in the year 2000, where the monuments along the esplanade of the Smithsonian as well as many other artifacts dignifying historic events symbolize what it was that now is no longer; stand outlined against the test of time. I still recall taking photos of a working carousel, since I was then directing the show back in Calgary. Amongst all those artifices and edifices those painted wooden horses are still the first image that comes to mind when I hear the phrase, Washington DC. We identify most with personal significance; at least, I do.

The issue of money-tampering came up just yesterday. I'd met my old theatre-friend at a local coffee-house after several years of him having relocated to Nova Scotia. Yet the recall of the half-crown emerged into my consciousness just this morning. Where would the other half be? Why was it cut in half and the pieces shared, presumably? And just how long ago was the significance of the act, the thing, given momentum in the memory before its value became lost, literally and figuratively? Does the symbolism we give to things only signify while there are those of us around to remember? Ozymandias would certainly concur. Significance is very much in the eye of the beholder. Children, looking up at statues, may well be caught up in their artistry, but the history that brought about the object or edifice in the first place is hardly relevant or comprehensible to them at all.

Esoteric, symbolic, sentimental, personal, subliminal, and even secreted away, some things resonate beyond their evident value yet are easily discarded by another. A little brass owl, a small china dog, a pendant on a chain, an album cover, a bullet casing, a railway spike, a glass bubble, a model car... Why hang onto them? Yet the memories they evoke, like statues in the park, stand out against the daily passing-by of life. For some of us, for those who remember, for those who relate, personal things are the touchstones of a time gone by, the objects of a story, even if much of one's own making.

Edward the Seventh and Wallis Simpson split The Crown apart. Or so the British Empire assumed. Yet their love lasted beyond the immediacy of expectations despite the very many trials their lives endured. And though they each had a portion of what was once whole, their choices lay in their pledge to each other right to the end. Their crown was their undeniable love for each other. Each a half. She died a mere fortnight after he did.

The other half of the crown? It is carried in my heart, now that I know that another half of it has emerged, if not literally, then certainly figuratively. After all, forever bonds would have it just so. A piece there, another here; they remain halves conjoined long ago.

M'Lady

M'Lady Nancy (after a tune by Bert Jansch)

Instrumental song titles are fascinating. 'The Raven Speaks'. 'Cape of Good Hope'. We identify, and we conjure, or not. It was only after I was woken on Denman Island one morning by the incredible song of a multi-warbling raven that I appreciated the Woody Herman jazz title I'd long ago acquired; until then it was just another tune. And if you've ever been to the southernmost tip of Africa and heard the whoosh of water and the howl of wind, and read the plaque that commemorates the death of so very many souls as well as the vessels in which they floundered, 'Cape Aghulus' evokes a personalized dirge or ditty too. But even then, identification, the sound of syllables in a phrase bringing pictures of the past or plucking at the heart-strings, can be misleading. After all, the 'Horn of Africa' is not the 'Cape of Good Hope'. Had I not sketched it from the deck of a ship (the Braemar Castle, back in 1963) I would not know this much, nor be caring for the song title too. Identifications are most personal. Song titles strike at the senses!

'M'Lady Nancy' bobbed up bright and joyfully into my consciousness from watching wave upon wave of song titles pass before me on my computer screen. Yes! Here was one to select for my iPad. After all, Lady Nancy (as i still address my envelopes headed toward Australia) on April 01 is about to turn a beautiful 90 years of age. She has been my friend for nearly 30 years, has snail-mailed almost monthly over the last three or so years in particular, and had visited me where we first met on Denman Island, coming back several times to Canada. 'Reciprocity' is the essay I wrote about her. She was even my Matron of Honor. 'M'Lady Nancy' is a tune I now identify with! You too? I didn't even know I had it! The instrumental guitar piece is on my 1971 'Rosemary Lane' album, by the famed Bert Jansch. All those years of having it for my enjoyment, and only now does it surface into my consciousness? How many other things are close-by for our awareness, that we do not appreciate? Instrumentals aren't specific; it's what we bring.

Ascribing a personal identification to a song tune, given the title, is fascinating. There is many a tune I would not have selected (or album I would not have purchased) had the word 'Africa' not enticed me. I've found the same in visual art too; some of the giclee reproductions of my paintings have sold because the buyer identifies with Northern Ontario's 'Blue North', has been before Alberta's 'Before The Mountains', has spent time in old Quebec and recognizes the caleshes and the St. George Gates and The Plains of Abraham in my painting 'De Historia et Veritate'. Ha! What if such titles were given to instrumental tunes played on my guitar? Would someone find more personal pleasure in the composition because of a title? Reciprocity! Esoteric allusions enliven; signify!

'M'Lady Nancy' has the richness and delicacy of a classic pavane. Jansch's composition was for some lovely Nancy who stirred his soul. His tune I now appropriate and play to stir my own. My very real M'Lady Nancy has given me great joy over the years, given great richness. There is the abiding sense of a fellow soul in communication and accord and care and concern. Ours has been a friendship that has lasted the test of time, that endures past the immediate, and that continues into the future. And as a song title for her, on her 90th birthday, here is one that each and every one of us does identify with: 'Happy Birthday!' .... Happy birthday to you, indeed, M'Lady Nancy! What an inspiration!

Water Under The Bridge

Still too hot handle, let alone to sip, the boiling hot water cup slipped off its coaster beside me on the couch and crashed to the floor. My wife, her left pant leg saturated, bolted. The searing water sank into the couch cushion, dripped over the edge, pooled with the wet on the wooden floor. From the fridge I heard the ice-maker clunking. It was to be a sound repeated several times over the next two hours. The burn to Linda's left hand and side of leg was bright red, dramatic. Very sore. But she bore it with a calm and steady application of ice-packs. In the meantime I sopped up the steaming spill with rags, and retrieved the cup from under the sectional. It'd made a slight mark on the soft planking, but the vessel had not broken. And at this time of writing a day later, pleased to say, no marks were left on Linda at all, leastways, not so that one would notice.

At the time of the incident my friend on Skype quickly let me go. Linda had brought in the water as a matter of course, set it down beside me as usual, then leaned in a little closer the better to greet our friend and to be seen by my laptop computer camera. And that's when disaster struck. Or was it really a disaster of our own making?

Bad things come in threes, the saying goes. First there was my inadvertent adding of the wrong person on a private rough-draft of an email some friends and myself had bantered about. Shortly after that came my spilling of the red wine on our white settee and cream-blue-brown carpet. And now, within twenty four hours, there was this hot accident to clinch the superstition, despite my having just that day written about being Fumble-Fingered, and being brazen enough to state: "From now on I'll observe the NOW, so that I may become perfect! Well, at least until next time. Aargh!" Had I but known the irony inherent in the offing. No marks were left on anything or anyone though, leastways, not so that one would notice. Still, so much water under the bridge.

Ever been on the bridge and stared down at the water? Which part of it would one like to isolate, capture, hold to ransom, declare inviolate? Time and water flow; even solid things eventually dislocate, dissemble, disembody, and dissolve. Water, wind, dust, and energy; they move. But it is very much the necessity of man to retain solid structures around himself, to think in terms of endurance and indelibleness. After all, the very bridge on which one stands need absolutely to be trusted. It is difficult to be in The Now.

It is the concreteness of mans' expectations of himself that renders it somewhat difficult to accept the very fleeting nature of time. We have a very distinct Then, and Next, a solid sense of Past, and a prediction of Future, but of The Now? Water under the bridge.

Now slides by us and reforms into the next moment. As a practice I've tried the mantra of saying now I am taking a breath, now I am typing with an n, an a, and next with a... But at each moment I am aware I cannot solidify the moment and must of necessity flow into the next, even though this sentence still ends with a period. Now I am lifting my cup, now it does not overflow, now I put it down. Carefully! Ha! And so it goes. We do and undo and redo, and what IS becomes what was and what will be. Water under the bridge. Between the abstraction and the concreteness of life there is the focus, the perception, the taking of an idea and making it reality, moment for moment. If mistakes are from overreaching the moment, may all yours become... Water under the bridge.

Fumble Fingers

Fumble-Fingered Faux Pas

When the crash came, it was awful. My wine splattered like raw red juice from a smashed pomegranate. The glass did not break, but toppling as it did from the
imbalance of my setting it down on the rounded edge of a small hors-devours knife, and my unwittingly letting it go, the clash of glass on top of glass added greatly to the commotion. Our new friends leapt to my defense. The white cloth of the nearby couch was crudely spattered. The cream pattern of the rug was splotched. The wine ran across the living room tabletop and gathered in pools amongst the small plates of meats and cheeses, then overran the table like a blood-letting waterfall. It saturated the pale blue of the carpet. Aargh! But our friends damp-mopped and made nice excuses for me about the event. "Wine stems are too long, anyway." Nice. Yet it was only my second big mistake of the night.

Ever been caught doodling graffiti on the headmaster's portrait and then finding out that he was overlooking from behind your shoulder? Ever been caught passing notes at school? Ever wished your hand was not in the cookie jar when the owner of the kitchen walked in? Ever posted the wrong letter in the wrong envelope? We sometimes make those sorts of mistakes. This modern-day convenience of typing on an iPad with its auto-correct typing will sometimes yield up words quite different from those intended; it becomes imperative meticulously to check each word, each address one intends to send to, before pressing SEND. If there is a Penelope H and a Penelope C in the address book the thumb easily presses the Penel... addresses, and both addressees inadvertently get loaded to the SEND TO box. Should there then be other addressees to whom one also wants to send the letter, one adds them, SENDs, and... Oops! Much harm can be done to those receiving letters for whom the words were not intended.

Ever been magnanimous and gracious? Ever not taken things personally and even seen the humor in things from another person's point of view, even if you are blind, or cannot walk, or are in perpetual pain, or have just recently lost a loved one? Other people's inferences, their bandying about with particulars, their informality of intentions are awkward moments by which one's character is tested. Children will swear awfully when adults are not present. Hyperbole, metaphor, analogy, and metonymy are all part of the parcel with which we engage a topic among those in the esoteric enclave, those in the know. Ask any group of school boys. If they're brave enough they'll fess up, let you in, reveal their codes, even apologize for what may have seemed crass, unthinking, and insensitive. Some boys are champions of integrity, given chance to face the music.

Such was the reaction to my faux-pas of last night. The wine was mopped up. The error of my not checking to whom my email was being sent was graciously, quickly, and most courteously addressed by all the receivers. I got to witness how the friends around me pretty well did all the work to rectify the mistakes that I made! Thanks; how humbling.

The proverbial third error? It would subsequently be not to notice, not to care, not to think carefully about the moment by moment actions of existence. From now on I'll observe the NOW, so that I may become perfect! Well, at least until next time. Aargh!