An Outlandish Journey

People who never knew Leonard Cohen have repeated the rumor that I "stalked" him so often it has taken on a life of its own. Lately two women on Twitter started a new smear campaign around this false claim, with nothing to support it but more hot air and envy. It's sad to see women who, had they ever got as close to him as I did, would likely have concluded he was a predatory creep and run the other way. Back in 1977 when I met him in Montreal (he phoned me one night in November out of the blue, or more accurately I guess, out of the dark) many women found him repulsive and dangerous. I was warned to stay away from him and several times had refused to engage when we crossed paths in the street. The fact that I'm 6 feet tall has always been a protection. Leonard was 5'8" - but he could project dominance and a friend who met him at a party said he was sexually aggressive with her to the point that she had to leave to get away. In 1977 he was 43 which seem...

It's my personal journey. It is not "journalism".

Four years ago I was working as a caregiver to the elderly, for a private Montreal company that catered to well-off clients, including two senators, the wife of the man who designed the Montreal metro, the mother of a McGill psychiatrist specializing in adolescent schizophrenia, and other fascinating people. One of my last clients was a beautiful, elegant 70-year-old woman whose husband had recently passed away. She now lived alone in their two storey duplex in a middle class neighborhood. Her client description was nothing special ("Highly intelligent. Likes to talk. Can be repetitive.") but didn't prepare me for being a live-in companion to a woman who I began to realize had been MKed while growing up in a remote northern village, and had likely killed people -- at least that would be my guess judging from her scattered references to violent events in her past. The more she talked about her life (in long staccato monologues delivered across her tiny table in a crampe...