What The Ladyslippers See And Hear

Imagine a sunny Saturday evening in June. The light is low and warm. The oblique nature of the light creates a delicious mood as it is filtered through the grey bark pines of my property. Shadows abound in the wooded area of my property, behind which a placid lake says nothing.

Idyllic, right?

Wrong!

Knowing that this year's crop of ladyslippers was bathing in such beautiful light, I decided to take my camera in order to capture such a  glorious moment. I walked into the wooded area of my property and stopped three feet shy of my wild pink orchids. They looked stunning...the best that I've ever seen them. But wait! I heard a noise.....

I looked up to see my neighbour sitting on her deck. She was saying something to me. She was speaking in angry tones. She told me to 'fuck off'. She called me an 'asshole'. She said something condescending about me taking pictures of my 'pretty flowers'. Again she told me to fuck off and she called me an asshole. I take my pictures, ignoring her presence beyond that initial second when our eyes met. She kept talking at me until I left. To her I said nothing. I made no gestures. I simply took pictures and breathed. Apparently that was too much.

My neighbour is a sick woman.

Taking this in the context of what happened in Moncton a few days ago (the killing of three Mounties by an angry, deranged lunatic), I can see some similarities. The events in Moncton have me thinking about the full spectrum of anger induced behaviour. I believe my neighbour has anger management issues. She has misplaced anger from which she can't seem to walk away. She's been angry with me for almost eight years now. We can trace the superficial reason for her anger back to one event, but it doesn't address the underlying reason for her unhappiness/mental illness. Like the killer in Moncton, it would appear that her anger is being untreated. I feel sorry for her because it's a crime to waste such a beautiful evening. It's a crime to waste one's own life. It's a crime that no one helps her.

Now, imagine the evening of Friday, June 23, 2006.  You can't, can you? Let me help. It was a  hazy,warm evening, typical for that time in June. The lake was gently rippled from a wind that was barely perceivable. It was an evening not unlike the one I experienced two nights ago but this time a different sound was heard. It was the sound of a chainsaw. My neighbours had a large tree wash up on their shore after the spring freshet. To their eyes the dead tree was an affront...an eyesore. They decided they had to get it off their property at all costs. So what did they do? They cut it up with a chainsaw and pushed the pieces out into the lake. One might surmise that they deemed it okay for the tree pieces to be on someone else's property, just not theirs!


Watching my neighbour pushing the large logs out into the lake made me furious. He was a power boater. he knew better. It was a dangerous and irresponsible act. There were boaters on the lake that evening, and had a water-skier hit one or more of those logs, then you can imagine the consequences. I watched in disbelief as the logs were floated out into the lake. I went down to the front of my property and asked incredulously of my neighbour, "Earle, what are you doing?!' He replied, "I didn't know what else to do with them." That's precisely what he said. Verbatim. I threw my arms up in the air in disgust, marched back into my house and pondered what needed to be done.

He could have burned them, stacked them, had them trucked away, left them alone, etc. He had options but because he and his wife only think of themselves, they took no regard for the safety of others, or for the sanctity of others' property. I phoned the RCMP and reported my neighbour's activity. The RCMP promptly contacted my neighbour and told him he'd better get those logs out of the lake, which he did. I offered to help retrieve the logs but my offer was curtly declined.

Since that time on June 23, 2006 I have been verbally assaulted and threatened many times by my neighbour's wife. Every year. Multiple times. I have a number of witnesses who can attest to this, the least of which is Earle Beers himself, but he's not doing anything to help anyone. I mean that in the broadest sense. And through it all, the beautiful ladyslippers continue to watch silently like the sad spring blossoms of Moncton.