Memoir Fragment #002: Fall-in-May, Discipline-in-Chaos

Date Retrieved: 24 May 2025
Subject Thread: Persistence / Identity / Weathering Change
Status: Incomplete but Honest

“Some days, memory is the only reliable narrator.”

May dressed up as November this week. The kind of chill that doesn’t just seep into your bones, it starts in your fingers and works inward, like hesitation (coldest May since 1967 – Leaf fans know.) I refused to turn on the heat, of course. Until the Residential Sgt Major overruled me. She reminded me, quite clearly, that our family weren’t troops I was trying to harden, they were cold sons and a freezing wife. I complied. I always do.

The discipline this week wasn’t loud, it rarely is. It came in the form of early edits, warm coffee, and the uncomfortable honesty that most of Chapter 20 needed a serious rework. I hit two chapters by 5 AM one day and paid for it by noon. The characters weren’t just off-script, they staged a mutiny. I caught them halfway through Scene 4 trying to change the ending. Maybe they’re right.

I leaned on music heavier than the mood: Within Temptation, Nightwish, Epica. There’s something about symphonic metal that reminds me the world still has thunder, even when the skies just sulk. It helps when you’re writing protagonist dominated scenes and watching the rest of the world unravel in slow motion.

Victoria Day came and went. Spring supposedly arrived. But it still feels like fall pretending to be someone it’s not. Like a rough draft trying to pass for a final edit, too raw, too honest, too early. Now I know better. Or at least I know when to open the draft instead of socials. Most days. I still squirrel a lot.

I brewed coffee through TV and house noise, through the guilt of not mowing the yard, through Trump tantrums and Canadian apathy. And somewhere in there, between the distractions and the disillusionment, I remembered what I’m doing all this for, to write. To finish the damn book. To one day open that indie bookstore where the only yelling is about Tolkien vs. Le Guin, and the espresso always lands just right.

I don’t always handle the chaos well. But I show up anyway. One word at a time.

—J.B.

 P.S. Because they only deserve a footnote. The Leafs lost, and Canada lost in the Worlds. Hockey season is officially over.