Years ago, like half a century, my older boy (now 57 years old) came home and asked me a question about eclipses. Here was my big chance! I took out a grapefruit, an orange and a lemon and started showing him how the earth moved around the sun and where the moon was in relation to the two and how the earth’s shadow could fall - well you know the drill. John looked rapt and I thought I was really getting it, really getting to him. He looked as if he were about to say something and I paused to let him speak.

"Can I have some orange juice?” he asked.

Thus ended the lesson.

I still remember the day John’s older sister, Liz, came home, found me in the kitchen, as usual, and asked me what the f-word meant. She said the word aloud , picked up in the schoolyard, but this is a family blog. Later, recalling the incident, she said she knew she had hit the jackpot because I immediately reached for a towel, dried my hands and took her into the living room. I explained exactly what the verb meant, using correct technical terms, being very explicit but I fear, too clinical. She ilistened carefully and then asked,

“Do you have to go to hospital to do it?”

How seldom we get the chance to go into detail about life’s mysteries, and when we do try, we usually don’t ask the right questions or else we miss the point entirely.

What is the point? Where did we come from? Where are we going? Why are we here? I’m very calm as I ask. I don’t have to explain ito anyone. Others have gone before me and passed a few hints back, to accept or not as I choose:

WE ARE PUT ON THIS EARTH TO KNOW AND LOVE GOD. (What others are here for, we don’t know.)

iIT JUST IS SO.

SINCE WHEN ISN’T BECAUSE AN ANSWER?

So - I’m at another lake in Ontario, two, actually, called Twin Sisters; I’m on one of the twins. It’s cooler than it has been during the record-breaking heat in Toronto this past week, so cool, in fact, that i have not warmed up since my late afternoon swim. Believe me, I don’t mind.

I’ve hinted at my topic for today in the title “spilling it”, but it has nothing to do with liquid, more with guts, with my creation. I was telling my hostess about the screenplay I’m working on and I broke a cardinal rule of writers: I told her of scenes and thoughts I haven’t written yet. Oops.

I think it’s okay, though . I’ve been living with and digging into my characters for so long, I’m breathing in sync with them, or they with me, I’m not sure which. As you may or may not know, my story takes place in wartime (WWII) Berlin. My hostess was born in Germany, though she is far too young to have experienced any of it. Even I, who am so elderly, was only eight years old when Canada entered the war, and she is much younger than I. Still, she has relatives and connections in Germany and goes back every year to visit. So I watched her closely for reactions as I told her what I was thinking.

She says she is looking forward to seeing the film. so am I.

It’s funny, isn’t it? We all live double and triple lives. We go through the day barely conscious, I think , reacting like knee jerks to what is going on around us. Internally we are running a silent commentary on what is going on around us. I am often surprised by a voice (is it a voice?) saying something like “look at that!” or I “I didn’t know that”, or "remember that”. I don’t, of course, remember it. Not all of use can endure/enjoy this inner dialogue. I know a number of people who suffer it and who are grateful when they can shut if off with a kong primeval walk, or total immersion in a think tank, or whatever those things are called that cut off sensory perception. The third level is the part of the brain that seems to be able to remember what happened, or what significant happened. That’s the astonishing one. That’s the one I have to hint at or attack, not sure which, in my dialogue.

The rule is in screenwriting, not to “write on the nose”. Don’t talk about what’s going on. Anyone knows that. Show me. but don’t be too overt,. Just give me a hint.

Take it from there.