I’ll spare most of the details, but a few nights ago I had an intruder in my house. It was late at night, around 3 am or so, and I ended up chasing him out of my house with a bokken that I keep behind the door. He didn’t take anything, but there is now a cloud of taint over my house that bothers me. Fredericton and I have never really seen eye to eye on a lot of things, and when I lose arguments with this city I was always thankful that I had a place to go and think about life. Read a book, watch a movie, and so on. It is going to take a while to get that feeling back.

If I am to try and go for the silver lining in all of this, I suppose that certain questions are no longer hypothetical. The “What would you do if …” question has been answered. I know what I’d do. You want to come into my sanctum, uninvited, and attempt to take what isn’t yours, and possibly inflict harm on me, my friends, or my family? Wear a helmet.

It also proves a point I’ve been trying to make to people when they tell me that I’m foolish for wanting to visit countries that might be less than touristy. They fear for my safety. You know what? I feel safer when I travel, most days, than I do around here now.

A side effect of this whole thing is that photography has been impacted. The once beautiful colours I’ve tried to capture now seem muted somewhat. I suppose the antidote to that poison is to force myself to get out and keep going.