Time to revisit the time warp

To see this post on the blog go to https://life2wheels.com

In this ephemeral moment the timeline flows like this...

1689 - The battle of the Lake of Two Mountains;

1925 - the monument is built;

1974 - I set out on my Vélo Solex to explore Montreal's western shore;

1995 - Hilary Hedges and Atmo Zakes publish The Senneville Time Warp;

2011 - I stumble on the book while taking a spin in Senneville on my red Vespa. I share an exchange of emails between myself and Atmo Zakes;

2015 - I donate The Senneville Time Warp to the Beaconsfield Public Library before moving to Toronto;

2025 - Atmo Zakes reaches out and offers to send me The Senneville Time Warp once more. I accept her kind offer.

I am recording this because it inspires me when moments from the past reach out to me in the present. The moments are like threads that are woven by our actions and those of others who touch us, and become the fabric of our lives.

The moment when it happens feels very special to me.

This most recent moment, as I lay in bed, taking a last look at my emails before going to sleep, and seeing a message from Atmo, felt like a light that glowed. It's difficult to describe and to convey. In the moment I am unexpectedly touched, pleased, surprised, and grateful. Grateful for the things that I and others have done that coalesce in this special way. I feel the need to save the moment here, and to share it with you.

What makes these particular moments in time special, is the history, beginning with a horrific massacre in the distant past, whose memory sparked a series of events where people, touched by the history, find ways to deal with the horror. It often happens that artistry is woven into the fabric, in this case by Hilary Hedges and Atmo Zakes who create a book that imagines an indigenous child, Little Feather, and two white children, Christabel and Mark, who stumble into a time warp and become compassionate allies and friends, contributing to saving Little Feather from the massacre, thus adding a very human and caring narrative that lives, thanks to Jim Katz, in the precise place where the horror occurred. It is Jim who leaves The Senneville Time Warp at the foot of the monument where I, and others have found it. The pain of the horror likely motivates indigenous descendants of the victims of 1689, time after time, to remove the monument's bronze plaque that speaks of the horror. The book is a gesture that lives at the monument, a small compassionate step in a healing process.

Thank you for reading.