Poetry Lovers by B.Demaere

We each fight our own battles, I guess.  They just come with different intensity.  Most of us though don't fight the battle almost to the point of death when you have to decide between life and death. I believe my mental illness did not start when it was detected and identified as a mental illness.  Mental illness was unheard of in my days.  In the 1960's I didn't hear a word about it.  Just my mother repeating the words of the teachers to her, "Your child is very slow in school" or "Your child is so quiet", which is probably abnormal to a teacher, I understand.  I went to countless EEG, that were a lot more painful and longer than they are now let me tell you.  A lot more torturous, imagine having little blocks of metal (it felt like metal) press against your cranium with a rubber helmet for 40 min.  As a child it is painful!  I had those supposedly imaginary epilepsy and convulsion.  The real one happened at birth and according to my m...

This is supposed to be a humorous post about us Canadians. As Canadians, we have to realize that we are not the only one in the world and there are other people who come in contact with us.  We are very much becoming a global community.  Mixed in different cultures. I have heard pretty good comments made by Canadians regarding their opinions of what is happening in Europe for example.  They have as much knowledge of Europe as Europeans have of Canada. For a start: To all Europeans and Americans, no Canadians in Northern Canada don't live in igloos.  I live there, I should know. Now about Canadian knowing Europeans, sorry I can't speak for the rest of the world.  Now about Europeans in general and particular Belgium they eat most of their foods with a fork and a knife.  This include hamburgers and fries and yes even pizza. This is a funny story about my dad first time in Canada,  as we were traveling through US and Canada by car, we found ourselves in t...

It was in 1977 6 months after my 20th Birthday, that I followed my parents and two of my youngest brothers along on our last trip to Canada.  Let me tell you! What a trip! It took 30 hours from Brussels to our BC location.  By train from Brussels, waving goodbyes to our Grandparents and uncle and aunt.  Boy it was hard! on our way to Oostende.  Taking the ferry to England and the train again to London.  Finally on our way to Calgary, Alberta in Canada and then to a location in BC and by car from there for an hour with some friends to our final destination.  We were all very tired and now we just had to settle in our new country.  It was the hardest part, we felt lost.  The country that welcomed us as tourist had changed but still welcoming somehow.  I found out on my part that the bakery I had worked at as a landed immigrant had shut down and I had to do what I hated most, looking for a job not only in a different language but in a different ...

Canada is a big, nice country and it's also very beautiful but maybe as I did think it was, it's not as nice to live here as in your dreams.  Life is hard for immigrant and Canadians living here.  The winters in the North are long with short days, meaning, it gets dark early.  I live in the North of British Columbia and the temperatures go down to at least -30 C in the winter and sometimes colder. Right now the economy is not that great because of Covid-19.  When other countries will be able to travel into Canada it will be better. Where I am right now, this summer has been very rainy and we have had rivers overflowing and highways being flooded. We have all kind of industries, like lumber mills, coal mines. The highways are long between towns and for me the closest big city is about 1hour away.  We like driving here and we drive long distances often as planes and trains are expensive to use.  Because our highways are long they get resurfaced every summer o...