Author: MaggyMac

First published at 6 years old (The Daily Gleaner, Fredericton, NB, Canada). Have written something every single day of my life, if only a To-Do list. Bearing down on writing THAT book for me and myself alone. If it resonates, reaches, inspires, disgusts, bores, or otherwise affects external readers, I have achieved all I wished to achieve on this planet.

Winding Down

Two days to go before my one year blog writing anniversary.

Here’s the most important thing I’ve learned this year.

Sayin’ ain’t doin’. I could wax on about why and when and how I learned this but that is a much longer story. It is a story I have already told in this blog in one form or another.

Basically, it means putting your money where your mouth is. It means, in effect, that words aren’t worth much of anything unless they are followed up by meaningful, demonstrated action.

I play freely in the world of words. They are my friends. They are my guides. They have been my saviors. That may sound like hyperbole, but isn’t.

Had I not had words to capture what I was seeing unfold around me and what I was going through and putting those things down on paper, I am not sure what other outlets I might have found.

Well, I actually do know. When I was younger and not writing as much and devoid of self-esteem, I drank like a fish and regularly ran from pillar to post with the childish conviction that the succor I sought was somewhere “out there.”

It wasn’t. I came from a background of madness and learned a lot about madness and acted out madness. Though I didn’t know at the time that that was what it was. Madness is sneaky that way. It looks a lot like other human behaviors if it exists within accepted social parameters.

Didn’t all of us think at one time or another that slamming down a case of beer or a 26 ounce bottle of hooch was prerequisite for having a “good time”?

Didn’t all of us at one time or another really truly believe that we could “save the world” or at least make a significant contribution that would land us in the history books? Okay. Maybe that was only me.

As you skim these blog posts because a title caught your eye, maybe you picked up a perspective you hadn’t thoought about. Or maybe your own thoughts were validated and made you feel less isolated. Or maybe you realized that your life has significance, too, and is worthy of sharing with others.

I have learned that from reading the blog posts of others. Nurse Patty regularly shares anecdotes and frustrations about her profession. Anthony Robert (whom I think is a marketing guru – forgive me if I got that wrong, Tony) regularly shares witty, succinct insights into life.

Climber Margo Talbot tackles and shares a wide range of healing insights on her occasional posts. Always helpful and enlightening. I skim other blogs once I have established a relationship with the author as someone I admire and appreciate.

In all of these words that I produce and others produce, they are a reflection of living and not life itself. Margo can only write about her relationship with ice because she has been out there doing it and is an integral part of the climbing community. Nurse Patty’s perspective and insights come from caring for actual patients.

And me? I wrote a blog post a day for a year [almost] to see if I had what it took to write a blog post a day for a year. I set out to see if I could write a book. And if I were to write a book, what would I write about, I wondered?

Being a writer is about digging deep for honesty, and truth and integrity and facts. But as I‘ve often said, and gratefully have found other authors who agree with me, I write exclusively for myself. Author/columnist Joan Didion explained that she wrote “to find out what I am thinking.”

I do the same.

Yet, today, when this post is finished and published, I will get up from my chair and reenter my life again. The words I’ve written inform my actions and hold me to account. But I am human and far from perfect. Very far. Still, I have claimed my voice and present it as my own.

There is little to no artifice in what I write these days. I did that to make a living for years. Some pieces I produced were truly cringeworthy. But this blog has felt more like having a chat with chums. A little one-sided, I grant you.

But if we got together in person, you’re likely going to hear more of the same. And that’s a good thing. By reading my blog, you can decide in advance if I am a person you deem worthy or someone you want to stay far, far away from. Either choice is valid.

Much like life after you earn a degree or acquire a trade or other marketable skill, you still need to move forward and apply that learning to real life. It is no use talking about how to make the perfect omelette. The proof, they say, is in the pudding. Or, in this case, the omelette.

We cannot pre-think our daily life much less how it will unfold. Inevitably, there will be surprises and challenges and work that needs to be done every day if we’re lucky. Our value system informs what we do and well, or badly, we do it.

We can never really know for sure. In the end, it comes down to how we feel about how we did and are doing. Whether we are meeting our own goals and honoring our values and standards. That is very individualistic.

I am contemplating all of that at the moment. I accomplished a goal I set for myself [well, I will have in two days’ time]. I found out a lot about what I really think and feel about some subjects.

The other learning I will take away from this daily writing exercise is that I got, and get, to determine, “When is enough.” When you achieve that to your own satisfaction, I’d say you’ve done pretty well.

The Constancy of Nature

It is something of a snickering stereotype among the younger generation. As people get older, their energy often turns more deliberately to pursuits in nature.

I figure there are a bunch of reasons for that. It could be the happy result of having vanquished internal demons and accomplished important life goals. So they get to choose to do what they enjoy doing.

Some may see a turn toward nature in later life as a giving up on society and withdrawing from the world. Maybe. But I prefer to see it as a symptom of acquired wisdom.

All of the important lessons we learn in life are internal. Even if there appear to be others involved. They are merely triggers and tests in human form.

So whether your “opponents” are parents or lovers or children or colleagues or random members of your community, they all have something to teach you.

They won’t necessarily teach you lessons you want to learn. But in my experience, that was never really up to me.

I had to keep taking tests until I passed them. I am hard at work studying for the next one that comes up. As long as we live, they never end.

Another reason I think we start to turn toward nature and natural things is the certainty of it. Put seeds in good earth, water them and they will grow. Either to nourish us as in food or to delight us as in the beauty and form of flowers or shade from a towering tree.

My Aunt Anne wanted to die in an apple orchard. I regret that I was too young and didn’t have the power to make that happen for her. She simply wanted to sit amongst the bounty and take it in the fragrance and beauty of the apples.

I get it. I am feeling a similar pull towards nature though my death is not imminent (as far as I know.) I am feeling a need for simplicity and certitude. There are no great acts of nature that most of us can’t prepare for. Even at her most furious, the cycles of nature are fairly predictable.

We don’t know for sure if the seeds will germinate and grow. We anxiously try to control the conditions for growth with various levels of success. We don’t know when death will put an end to our earthly progress.

But we all know the rules.

Farmers had a deep understanding of nature’s cycles and needs. They lived with those rules. As our lives in the twentieth century moved out of the countryside and into the cities, the rules of living started to change.

The rules of nature did not. We live in a world today where the rules are under constant attack. We are trying to live longer. We are trying to hang on to youth and beauty by more and more extreme methods.

Many people today are painfully self-absorbed. They are drifting farther and farther away from the basics of living. And we are paying the price.

So cleaving closer to nature makes sense to me. It checks a lot of boxes for creating happiness.

I like the puttering, the decision-making, the time in the sun and praying for rain. Time in nature gives me a sense of peace, groundedness and a connection to something greater.

That has a whole lot more appeal to me as a way of being than the artifice of navigating tricky social situations, and workplace politics. It always did.

So maybe it is age that brings on a deeper appreciation for all things in nature. But I think it is simpler than that.

We are – if you buy into the biblical description – made from dust and to dust we will return. Which is as about as simple an explanation of the origins of life as I can come up with.

I will leave a more complex analysis of why and how we got here to younger and more nimble intellects. As for me, I’ll plan to head back to the garden with a cup of tea and uncluttered mind.

Gillesheree

Gilles Plante died on March 2, 2024. By choice.

Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in 2017, Gilles made his own decision about when and how to leave this planet.

Years earlier, it was said, Gilles watched his mother deteriorate and die with Alzheimer’s disease. He wanted to spare himself and his loved ones that same unlovely fate.

So with the assistance of MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) Nova Scotia, Gilles Plante chose to die at a time and place of his own choosing.

Gilles Plante was married for over 30 years to author Sheree Fitch. Sheree called him her Deeply Dimpled Frenchman (having been born and raised in Quebec, Canada).

Sheree Fitch might be a relative unknown in the US unless you have, or ever had, kids. In Canada, she is a superstar.

Stories like Toes in My Nose and Sleeping Dragons All Around enthralled my kids when they were little. Truth be told, those books enthralled their Mom, too.

So when CBC/Radio Canada TV cameraman Gilles met much-published children’s author Sheree Fitch, a beautiful love story and life journey began. Their mutual adoration was obvious and enviable to outsiders.

Sheree’s inherent talent and goodness pours out of her pores. Always has done.

Enter Gilles who had – as Sheree once described – the kindest eyes she had ever seen. Their meeting in Halifax, NS derailed Gilles’ ambition for an overseas CBC posting and had him happily step into the role of husband and stepfather to Sheree’s two children.

Gilles eventually did land a foreign posting in Washington, DC for a number of years. When he retired, they headed back to Canada to fulfill a mutual lifelong dream. Gilles and Sheree bought a hobby farm together in River John, Nova Scotia that would become their home base and a local cultural beacon.

On the farm, Gilles got to pursue his woodworking passion and take care of animals. Sheree continued to write and create. They became deeply entrenched cheerleaders in and for their new community.

So when the River John community school closed, Gilles and Sheree were eager to fill the void. Thus Mabel Murple’s Dreamery was born. A “bookshoppe” by definition but actually so much more.

A gathering place. A recitation hall. A cultural flag and beacon of literacy planted in rural Nova Scotia. Until COVID hit, book lovers and Mabel Murple lovers and Sheree Fitch lovers came by the thousands to visit this “summer season only” literary oasis.

I have been a Sheree fan for decades from a distance. I have watched her star rise in the Canadian literary firmament. I have delighted in her delicious wordplay and slippery command of the English language.

I watched her marriage somewhat wistfully and I celebrated Sheree. I felt her happiness was the just dessert she reaped for the joy and delight she spread about to others with abandon.

In the wake of COVID, Sheree and Gilles lost their adult son Dustin. Fate can sometimes seem crueler and more intentional to some than others. For no good reason.

Difficult fate came into Sheree’s life once again recently. In the past two weeks, Sheree lost not only Gilles, but her beloved mother, Doe. Too much for any soul to have to bear. Let us hope it is true that God never gives us anything more difficult than we can handle.

In her “Museletter,” Sheree asked for words from friends and acquaintances at this tender time. Her experience of life-altering loss is all too relatable and ahead of all of us, if we haven’t yet experienced it.

But in the sweet words of love and appreciation shared about Gilles in his obituary, we are left with what we all might want at our passing. The choice to have made our own decision about where, when and how we elect to leave the earth. And with whom.

To have loved and to have been loved as Gilles and Sheree did each other is a great legacy for anyone to hope for.

In terms of devotion, longevity, productivity, and joyously living every day, Gilles and Sheree set a very high bar indeed.

RIP Gilles Plante and Doe Fitch.

You lived well and with much love – given and received.

That’s something we should all hope for when we take our leave.

Getting Real

I have only a few days left to say whatever I might have been holding back this past year. I’m going through the list to see what I might have missed as issues of note.

I have come to realize I write to stay sane. Was I ever insane? Well, no. Not in a clinically diagnosed sort of way. But I definitely drifted far enough away from the piers of nice North American female normalcy that caused many, and me, to wonder.

I didn’t have you would call a “normal” childhood. At least, I now know what a normal childhood means. A set of parents (or caregivers) who were consistent, available and sober.

Children knowing what bed they were going to sleep in every night. Kids who had a right and got to enjoy their privacy. They could slap a “no boys allowed” sign on their bedroom door and expect it to be respected.

Nope. Didn’t have any of that. So forgive me if you have read all this before. Essential backdrop if you haven’t. My father was an abusive, alcoholic, womanizer. My mom got through the marriage with countless bottles of “Mama’s little helpers.”

No one was there to answer my questions and help me sort out difficult situations. Just as often when I would bring an issue to my mother, I was mocked and invariably silenced. A very dry well.

It wasn’t so much that my parents were not interested in listening. For the most part, it was more that they simply weren’t there. Booze and pills are famous – and relied on – for taking you far, far away from your troubles.

Looking back on my life from this vantage point, I can see what was missing and forgive myself for the things I did to stay alive. The caregiving gaps in my early childhood affected me. What I did to make up for those gaps was rarely what I wanted or needed.

Booze couldn’t take the place of genuine love. Sex was a particularly transient and unsuitable substitute for comfort and belonging. I was a very poor conformist, no doubt partly due to my upbringing.

I never could happily adapt to the 9-5 life. I did one mindless contract after another over the years with the single intention of keeping body and soul together. No joy. no sense of purpose.

I didn’t have the courage to follow my dreams of international photojournalism. I had limited faith in the Universe at that point. My great dream of international media stardom never came to pass.

Truth be told, fame was never a real goal. Most of the time, I was just happy to have the press credentials to get me behind the scenes at a lot of big travel events. The official opening of Disney World’s Chautauqua Institute as one example.

I look back with some bemusement on the doggedness that led me to do a deep dive to see why I landed where I’d landed. I learned a lot. For starters, no man is an island. We are all part of a bigger story. Our people were working-class stock through and through – a fact I believe chagrined my mother.

To compensate for the lack of family pedigree, she imbued her three daughters with an undeserved sense of specialness and entitlement that could never have been sustainable in the real world. Even the best and brightest will falter and fail to thrive without safety and careful sensible nurture.

What I realize today is that above all else, I needed stability and safety to grow. I am only just finding it in my life. The stability gap between my life today and where I came from is vast.

In retrospect, mine was a story of survival that grew into eventual stability. It is not the sexiest script out there, I realize. But it is mine.

From the age of fifteen, I tried to find the source of my constant emotional discomfort and deep insecurities. I swung from one vine on the healing path to the next and the next.

I learned a lot along the way, including the importance of my famous catchphrase, “sayin’ ain’t doin’.” There is lots and lots of talking in the world. Backing up what people often say with action, however, is just not as common.

So this year of daily writing has been about seeking answers and finding my own authenticity. What matters to me and what most emphatically doesn’t.

It has caused me to look back on many of the roles and work I tried on just to get by. Some of it was ridiculous. A lot of life is actually if we give it a hard look.

Now I am planning the next phase. The final one. And mentally exploring what I think I want to do and where I might go one day.

I now have the time now to pursue any dormant passions. I have cleared most of the interfering childhood crud out of my psyche.

The future beckons and is also right in front of me.

Armed with my emerging sense of a solid self, I say, “Bring it on.”

Make Up Your Own Mind

I wrote something exactly like the excerpt below lately. Being an adult means thinking for yourself. And acting on what you actually think. Not what wins you a popularity prize.

So I was pleased to stumble across this quote from Erich Fromm that validates my point of view.

We are all saturated in the cultural and familial ambitions we were raised in. For many, life becomes a series of dutifully and somewhat mindlessly following in someone else’s footsteps. Either by choice or by gentle – and not so gentle – coercion. “My son, the doctor!!”

It is one of life’s great ironies that we accept as real that which we learn from our environment. And more, we come to believe that we are making choices and decisions on our own. While we are conforming to beat the band.

“We”, in effect, become “they.” We believe what “they’ believe. We do – in the main – what “they” do. We think what “they” think. Or close enough to it to keep our membership viable at any one of a number of social settings.

I always had trouble with this way of thinking personally. I think a lot of current North American values simply suck. Inequities always jumped out at me. The stacked deck that shapes the lives of the rich and the not so rich.

The easy intercourse of hatred between different groups. The worship of money and raising its value above all else. Even, and especially, above human dignity and integrity.

Nikki Haley famously quoted Margaret Thatcher on the occasion of her withdrawal from the 2024 US Presidential race: “Never just follow the crowd. Always make up your own mind.” 

That’s a tall order these days as pressure to conform and consequences for not doing so are predominant.

Still, it is important to remind ourselves of our individual power and our own ability to work through a problem or issue and come up with our own conclusion.

So sayeth Erich Fromm. And fittingly on International Women’s day today, so does former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Thatcher wasn’t known for mincing her words or pulling punches. A great female role model for our time.

Most people are convinced that as long as they are not overtly forced to do something by an outside power, their decisions are theirs, and that if they want something, it is they who want it.

But this is one of the great illusions we have about ourselves.

A great number of our decisions are not really our own but are suggested to us from the outside.

We have succeeded in persuading ourselves that it is we who have made the decision, whereas we have actually conformed with expectations of others, driven by the fear of isolation and by more direct threats to our life, freedom, and comfort.

Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom [ad] https://amzn.to/438Pn3g

Happy International Women’s Day!

The Universe

Funny isn’t it, how concepts creep into our parlance?

“Gifts from the Universe,” is one.

I get the theory of energetic interconnectivity between all living things.

I get the theory that our planet is just one heaving, breathing, undulating organism trying to stay in balance like the rest of us who are temporarily parked here.

Vague platitudes – if that is what they are – are comforting. Or can be. Sort of.

“Everything happens for a reason.” “Nature leans towards balance and harmony.” “That was an unexpected gift from the Universe.” “We can do hard things.”

I have had more gifts from the Universe in my life than I can count. For that, I am grateful. And I feel so undeserving. Ergo, the gratitude.

With this post today, I am exactly one week away from the one year anniversary of starting this blog. That’s significant to me. A goal achieved. A target hit. Barring any unfortunate developments over the next seven days.

I have been wondering internally and on these pages, what’s next? I have committed to hanging up my computer keyboard for a while and taking a break. Airing out the brain cells, Maybe seeking out some new inspiration.

So when an email invitation arrived last night, I was as bemused as I was surprised. Peter Murphy, founder of the Murphy School of writing at Stockton University in New Jersey, was writing with a proposition.

“Would you consider coming to the annual weeklong Florida “Get Away to Write” workshop that starts on March 19th?” he wrote. There are still places available and he added a financial sweetener.

It was at the Get Away to Write workshop in New Smyrna Beach, Florida on March 14, 2023 that I started this blog writing exercise.

I like the implication of coming full circle by attending this year. It is almost as if I had been assigned a yearlong research project. Now I can attend again this year and report on what I learned from that exercise.

This time I will be able to take part in the memoir session. It was fully subscribed last year and I attended the retreat as an independent writer. Whether the memoir I set out to write when I signed up last year, or another memoir emerges, only time will tell.

If nothing else, the writing flame within me continues to be fanned. Which is how creativity works in my experience. Slow and steady regular effort prevails over intermittent flashes of brilliance and insight. Much like life.

There are good writing days and there are bad writing days.

So yes, I’ll go to this writing workshop if the stars align. Not sure what that means or what it would take. Surmounting entropy likely.

But my calendar that week is clear. Hubby says he’ll come with. As an end of blogging for one full year celebration, five days in a setting with other creative people at an arts retreat center set in a jungle in a charming Southern oceanside town may be just what the doctor ordered.

Or the Universe.

Immutable Truths

If I’ve learned one thing from writing this blog for almost a year now, is that there is a lot of life wisdom and guidance to be found in the world.

I hope I have imparted some of the wisdom I’ve picked up along the way. I hope I have internalized some of it.

Today’s social conceit of our entitled right and access to “almost everything” – if we but follow the program on offer or buy into this person’s philosophy – is essentially a crock. Ultimately, we have to figure out what works for us, the direction of mentors and charlatans notwithstanding.

Most simply put, there are immutable truths about life. We can ignore them but they won’t ignore us. Change your gender. Lie about your birth date. Concoct a fabulous and false story about your origins and lineage. See how far that gets you.

Because, in the end, it all comes down to getting right with ourselves. That’s a lifetime commitment for most folk right there.

We see and read so much about “ensuring the rights of” – name it. The gender confused. The victims of domestic violence. Blacks. Asians. The mentally ill. The homeless. Republicans.

The description of fighting for those rights always provides lively copy. Speaks to the great interest and inherent sense of light-seeking that I believe all humans wish for: justice, fairness, equity, truth.

What isn’t so common is the follow up. We rarely hear what oppressed person or group learn from their “liberation.” Who do they credit for their eventual success? When do they settle into a sense of peace with that they have achieved?

In the end, I believe any joint victory is felt as a personal victory. We are part of many groups and all carry our own inherent prejudices and biases. When a group we feel part of is victorious, we feel victorious.

That’s the reason I believe it is absolutely essential to get right with yourself and whatever you conceive god to be. No matter how solid and comforting and supporting all those groups have been in your life, at the end, we are all completely on our own.

It is not selfishness to focus on and sort out what really matters to us in this life. It is wisdom. Only from that vantage point can you share yourself with others in any meaningful way.

Pity the parrots who never completely come to understand who they are and why they believe what they believe. Those who never learn to think for themselves.

So, once again, I found wise words that spoke to me. I acknowledge wise words for their consistency and relevance over time.

There is no shortage of them. Our task – the biggest – is to sort through them and apply the wisest lessons to our own lives. In my case, it is an ongoing work in progress.

As is much great wisdom, the list of life lessons below is simple. Not easy to follow. But simple.

And as much life wisdom does, this list comes from our First Nations. They had centuries to figure out solid life lessons before “progress” irreversibly altered their way of life and brought us into the great age of “modernity.”

15 REMINDERS FROM THE ELDERS:

1. Get up with the sun to pray. Pray alone.

2. Be tolerant of those who have lost their way. Ignorance, presumption, anger, jealousy and greed come from a lost soul. Pray for them to find guidance.

3. Find yourself, by your own means. Do not let others make your path for you. It is your path, and only yours. Others may walk with you, but no one can make your way (or walk your path) for you.

4. Treat guests in your home with great consideration. Serve them the best food, give them the best bed and treat them with respect and honor.

5. Do not take what is not yours, whether from a person, a community, from the jungle or from a culture. It was not given or won. It is not yours.

6. Respect all the things that are on this earth, be they people, plants and animals.

7. Honor the thoughts, desires and words of all people. Never break them in, or make fun of them, or imitate them rudely. It gives each person the right to their personal expression.

8. Never talk about others in a bad way. The negative energy you put into the universe will multiply when it returns to you.

9. All people make mistakes. And all the mistakes can be forgiven.

10. Bad thoughts cause illness to the mind, body and spirit. Practice optimism.

11. Nature is not FOR us. It is PART of us. She’s part of your family in the world.

12. Children are the seeds of our future. Sow love in your hearts and water them with wisdom and life lessons. When they grow up, just give them space to grow up.

13. Avoid hurting the hearts of others. The poison of their suffering will return to you.

14. Be true (transparent ) all the time. Honesty is the test of one’s will in this universe.

15. Keep yourself balanced. Your Mental person, your Spiritual person, your Emotional person, and your Physical person: they all have the need to be strong, pure and healthy.

Evelyn D Springfield  ·   · 

Pinky Blinders

Today’s writing prompt: “You’re writing your autobiography. What’s your opening sentence?“

Mine is:

“For me, the Fifties will forever be symbolized by Jayne Mansfield and her pink, heart-shaped pool.”

That is an image I have long carried of the Fifties. Beautiful, buxom, platinum haired Jayne Mansfield hoisted in the arms of her weightlifter husband Mickey Hargitay at the edge of her Beverly Hills swimming pool.

What is it about that image that sticks with me? For me, it was everything that was wrong with the Fifties. The garish and overt sexualization of women’s bodies. The plasticity and pretentiousness of the bottle bleached blonde. The artifice. The illusion of endless summer.

As a child you don’t know what is real and what isn’t. You learn what the accepted reality is from the adults around you and what – according to them – is supposed to matter.

Children have no choice but to accept and mirror this version of reality and it becomes their own. Until it doesn’t. The choice of opting in or out that comes with adulthood.

Even as a child, I remember being appalled by the behavior of a lot of the adults around me. Especially at our frequent house parties. The adults drank too much. Many smoked – a stupid, filthy habit I eventually adopted for many years and then finally discarded.

They laughed too loud. There was a constant low level of tension and forced frisson at these parties. Adults trying really, really hard to have a good time.

The disconnect between what many of these people said and what they did was evident to me. Way too much flirting and laughter in corners between men and women who were married to other people in the room.

I have come to understand how traumatized that entire post World war Two generation must have been. Sure, the Allies had been victorious over the evil forces of Nazism. Sufficiently to declare victory, disband the active war effort and move everyone back into a semblance of normal living.

Turns out that was easier said than done. Women used to making their own money and living independently were forced back into the domestic arena to make room in the workforce for the returning menfolk.

Possibly worse as an expectation, these displaced women were supposed to be happy about it. Doing their bit for the boys and country and all that.

Little wonder that the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield became popular. They were part of the post-war myth that life was not only better after the war, but bigger and better than it had ever been. These women and all the pretenders were symbols of all the freedom and glory the war effort won them.

It was bound to buckle. No society can live disconnected from the dictates of reality indefinitely. Enter the Sixties and what soon seemed to be constant social upheaval on every front: civil rights, the anti-Vietnam War protests, the rise of feminism, Baby Boomers starting to come of age. New rulebooks being written.

I see myself and my life goals as having been marinated in the stew of the Fifties. As an adult, I still tote around my little bag of values from the influences of that early upbringing.

The Protestant work ethic. The focus on external symbols of success. An expectation of affluence. A certain generational narcissism about our “uniqueness” that came with being part of the largest cohort of babies born in one period in the history of the world.

Today Boomers are vilified by many. Our focus on accumulating wealth and security worked well for us as a generation. To the point it seems that we have unintentionally scanted the generations coming behind us.

How in the name of heaven did a simple single family dwelling get to be so ridiculously expensive? Everywhere. I’ve yet to find a logical economic explanation.

While my autobiography would open with a description of that superplastic vision of hyper-happy and beautiful young and rich people like Jayne and Mickey, it was evident that fantastical image and lifestyle was bound to be time-limited.

It was a pablum period. No grit in the corn meal. No starch in the shorts. Just fun and glitz and partying and happy. Always happy. Perpetual adolescence.

The generation that lived it up in the Fifties eventually came back to a place of reckoning in the decades that followed. More settled and mature. Yet some of the Fifties core values are worth hanging on to.

A fierce sense of justice and atonement emerged from the detritus of war. An inherent world-wide sense of the fragility of peace and human life. The focus on stability to ensure the healthy growth of the upcoming generation. Medical and technological advances galore.

For those of us shaped within the confines of that decade, many of the images endure and maybe some of the values, too. Our crowd is leaving the planet and will have left its mark on the world as every generation inevitably does.

I recently read there are now more millennials in Canada than there are “baby boomers.” The great cull has begun. Soon, the pluses and minuses scored by our generation will be consigned to the history books.

And when it is, I have a strong suggestion for the image that best represents us for the cover.

The Paradox

Every day, I seem to live the paradox poet Sarah Kay writes about.

Her insightful poem speaks to the fragmentation of attention and focus.

Let’s face it. There is never not a time when there is something else we could be doing.

I suffer regularly from this paradox. It can be attributed, in part, to unclear priorities. If you know exactly where you are heading and what you want to be doing, the paradox may not be as frequent or troubling.

But who among us has such clarity and certainty of purpose at every age and stage of their lives?

I think the paradox referenced here troubles everyone at some level and at some point. I’m not enamored thinking the only resolution might be on our deathbed, though that makes sense.

I’d like to find – and often enjoy – more periods of peace well before then. Those periods of peace seem to happen most reliably when I manage to get out of my head.

The Paradox

When I am inside writing,
all I can think about is how I should be outside living.

When I am outside living,
all I can do is notice all there is to write about.

When I read about love, I think I should be out loving.
When I love, I think I need to read more.

I am stumbling in pursuit of grace,
I hunt patience with a vengeance.

On the mornings when my brother’s tired muscles
held to the pillow, my father used to tell him,

For every moment you aren’t playing basketball,
someone else is on the court practicing.

I spend most of my time wondering
if I should be somewhere else.

So I have learned to shape the words thank you
with my first breath each morning, my last breath every night.

When the last breath comes, at least I will know I was thankful
for all the places I was so sure I was not supposed to be.

All those places I made it to,
all the loves I held, all the words I wrote.

And even if it is just for one moment,
I will be exactly where I am supposed to be.

Sarah Kay, https://www.lyrikline.org/en/poems/paradox-15406