Better Late Than Never

An interesting English language idiom.

I was traveling today so my blog post is late – but “better late than never” say I.

It’s been a recurring fact in my life. I got to do many things later in life than was “normal.”

A happy marriage, for example, which I presently enjoy. Late but the miracle is that it happened at all.

I went to law school much later than my peers did with recently graduated undergrad colleagues, but I did it. Better late than never.

It’s a useful phrase and philosophy. It is much too easy to give in to the perception that it is too late to try something new. Whether that is mountain climbing or a graduate degree or that year off you’ve been meaning to take since you started working decades ago. Or sailing the world.

Whatever it is, if you have a hankering to dust off a dream, go for it. Learn piano. Write a book (personally relevant). Start a blog. (also personally relevant). Travel to Machu Picchu (which good friends recently did with their adult kids). Learn to ballroom dance or take up oil painting.

Whatever you didn’t do when you wanted to do it because life was serious and you needed to settle down and be responsible.

I once had a boyfriend who wanted to change direction and ditch law school. He dreamt of opening a bar instead of taking the bar. But he became a corporate lawyer and life took off in that direction.

He’s retired now and I’ve often wondered if he ever took up that challenge. It would warm my soul to think he had.

I did some digging around on the interweb and found some other familiar examples of “better than never.” The examples should resonate with some of you.

— The dress arrived after the dance but better late than never—I’ll wear it to the next event.

— I handed in my term paper a day late, but it was better late than never because the teacher only marked it down one grade.

— Our flight was delayed 5 hours but better late than never because they closed the airport after the plane departed.

— We only arrived at the game at halftime but better late than never.

— Just come over now—it’s better late than never and Grandpa would really appreciate the effort.

— We just received the report. We should have had it yesterday but it’s better late than never.

— A: Sorry it took me a year to pay you back the $500 I borrowed.
B: Thanks, it’s better late than never.

— Unfortunately, we arrived when dessert was being served but it was better late than never.

Synonyms

it’s high time

not a moment too soon

I’m sorry this post was so hideously late today. The vagaries of travel. But it’s been published before midnight. The daily writing streak of the past nine months is still unbroken.

Better late than never. 🙂

New Year, Old Me

Hope is a wondrous thing. I’d even go so far as to say it is lifesaving.

In the face of all challenges and heartbreak, hope can rise. Bidden sometimes. At other times, it just seems to pop up. The proverbial beacon of light and direction sitting off in the distance that appears to us, seemingly out of nowhere.

I sometimes wonder how often that very scenario played out for mariners of old. In the middle of being mercilessly tossed about on savage seas with death but a rogue wave away, off in the distance, the lookout spots a lighthouse.

Hope rises. Life continues. The sailors get to live another day.

As we mark this first day of a new year in our calendar, we are similarly touched by hope for the year to come. Hope for renewal. Hope for freedom from pain – emotional and/or physical. Hope for better news. Hope for sanity and peace of mind.

It is, of course, a false construct. Today is no different than yesterday in reality. We are not Cinderella who transforms into a princess and steps into a radically altered lifestyle. Of course, at her midnight, she reverted to her previous state. But altered.

The prince she had met and dazzled set out to find her again. That particular “New Year’s Eve” did not make the changes in her life that night. They foretold them.

Change happens like that for most of us, too. Whatever deficiencies we want to address in our life often have to be faced full-on in an instant. Then the slow process of change gets underway. The outcome we want may take weeks, months or years to accomplish. Then, one day, if we’re lucky and have worked hard enough, we are there.

I had this experience with both drinking and smoking. There was a time when I could not imagine my lifestyle would ever be other than what it was. I took some sense of satisfaction in cultivating the image of a hard-working, hard-living journalist for whom alcohol and nicotine were mandatory kit in the trade. An Ernest Hemingway-compatible type of broad.

Confirmation of a pregnancy stopped smoking in its tracks. I inherited my father’s Dutch will of iron. Ditching drink took a little longer. But with almost 24 years of sobriety behind me now, I can hardly remember how or why alcohol was ever part of my life at all.

Yet through it all, I am still me. For better or worse.

I have certainly changed from my younger self. But the essence of who I am is still there. I believe it is that way for most of us. Change does not always present with glaring neon signs in our day-to-day lives. I still have laundry to fold, beds to make, meals to make and dear friends to connect with. Life goes on.

This eventuality can be a hard learning during the egocentricity of youth phase. For some that phase lasts a lifetime. When I learned the phrase “hissy fit,” I recall how mortified and impressed I was by its’ resonance. “Boo.” “Hiss.” “I don’t wanna.” Ya. That sounded pretty similar to me having a temper tantrum.

I am beginning to find some solace in the immutable fact of my own humanity. That is allowing me to ease up on myself. The big ambitions I had for my life as a youth have been abandoned or pretty much dissipated.

And oddly, I find myself these days in the exact situation I always secretly craved. A happy home life. A wonderful and satisfying marriage to a man I think is the coolest dude on Planet Earth. I had similar feelings about my beloved Yorkie, Bailey. Not that I am drawing comparisons between the two, I only mean to say that when I love someone or something, I am all in.

So I did not create a long and unwieldy and unrealistic list of New Year’s resolutions meant to kick in today. There are a few things and unhelpful habits I want to discard. There are a few things I want to do more of. Others I want to do less of.

Like watching TV news as I said recently. That activity is like voluntarily setting yourself up to develop brain fungus. Ptooey. Don’t need it. Don’t want it.

I find myself drifting back to the homely arts and wishing to strengthen my connection to nature. I want to do more of nothing and less constant of the constant unending to-do lists and busywork. It is high time.

You see life goes on with or without us. That is a hard and fundamental learning we all must get eventually. In the face of that truism, we discover the parameters of own life and what we can realistically achieve for our own happiness and that of others around us.

Peggy Lee, the legendary lounge singer from the last century, sang a song called: “Is That All There Is?”

Is that all there is?
Is that all there is?
If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball
If that’s all there is

I know what you must be saying to yourselves
“If that’s the way she feels about it, why doesn’t she just end it all?”
Oh, no. Not me
I’m not ready for that final disappointment
Cause I know just as well as I’m standing here talking to you
When that final moment comes and I’m breathing my last breath,
I’ll be saying to myself … is that all there is?
https://genius.com/Peggy-lee-is-that-all-there-is-lyrics

I’m going to follow Peggy Lee’s advice. One day, you may discover all of your hopes and dreams and expectations may sit shattered on the sidewalk outside your house.

You may be left to wonder why you lived this life at all and what it was all about. That realization has finally hit me. I’m a grain of sand on a beach. A single star in the heavens.

No matter. I have friends and some family members who love me. I love them back. I plan to keep writing and, as Peggy advises, “hope to keep dancing and having a ball.”

Minus the booze, of course.

123123

So here we are. December 31, 2023. New Year’s Eve 2023. What a year it’s been.

The world in which I am growing older seems nothing like the world I grew up in. And yet in some respects, it is exactly the same.

I lived through Watergate and Nixon’s “resignation.” A wise and timely choice that he made to avoid the impeachment motion that would have ousted him from the Presidency anyway.

Today, we are dealing with the non-stop histrionics of another corrupt and ambitious soul who is determined to reclaim the Presidential office. Whatever else Richard Nixon was, he exhibited a modicum of decency in certain regards.

Respect for women for starters. His vile thoughts contained within his inner circle. No suggestion of insurrection.

War is raging in the Ukraine and the Gaza strip. Though less invested in these wars than Vietnam personnel wise, the US Congress still votes billions for support for its preferred victors in both conflicts. War is good business, after all.

The headlines of 2023 were full of doom and gloom. Unprecedented wildfires of such scope and intensity as have never been seen in the world before. Not in our time anyway. And so the alarm bells about the negative effects of climate change are rung harder and louder.

Billionaires traveling to the moon in their customized spaceships. Moon travel now a business model designed to rack up even more millions for their coffers. These shrewd businesspeople don’t have stars in their eyes or great dreams for the evolution and betterment of humanity. They have a keen eye on their bottom line.

All of this demonstrates a world badly out of balance with the fundamental laws of nature. I often read that billionaires wealth can be compared to the mental illness of hoarding. The disconnect between what they really need and what they want is incalculable.

And yet, we must adjust to the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. Our only personal defense to all of this external craziness in my opinion is rigorous environmental and personal mental hygiene.

I am no longer watching TV news, for example. It has drifted so far from the fundamental ethics of journalism that I once practiced as to be unrecognizable.

Female journalists who once consciously worked to present a professional and respectable image now focus on their sex appeal. Where has the thinking gone that women professionals needed to restrain exuding their inherent sexuality to be taken seriously? Another quaint and old-fashioned notion.

I am choosing to eat more consciously. Don’t get me wrong. I occasionally enjoy fast food as much as anyone. But beyond the dictates of a good dietary regime is the pleasure that comes from “home cooking.” I’m not a saint and drift away from healthy eating more often than I care to admit. But I am conscious of it and aware that healthy eating is my choice.

I’ve taken up yoga again. I had forgotten how important that discipline is. And demanding. I’ve always laughed at those who see yoga as a simple and not at all strenuous exercise. You try holding a spinal twist or tree pose for several minutes. You’ll soon discover how essential strength and balance are to the practice.

So better habits – mentally and physically are on my list of New Year’s resolutions. Wisely I started them a few weeks ago so as not to experience the tapering off on resolutions at the end of January that so many experience.

When I quit alcohol for good, I started in October 1999 on Thanksgiving Day. That way I had a few weeks of sobriety under my belt before the new year and new millennium in the year 2000. After 23 years of sobriety, that strategy and resolution seems to have worked out.

I am doing the usual stock taking today. Reflecting on the year that just passed and hopeful for positive change in the year ahead. It is ever thus.

I should mention this is my last post for 2023. My 293rd to be exact. I’ll remind you how it started. On March 14 during a writing retreat in New Smyrna Beach of this year just past, I set out to write a daily blog post for one full year. I am flabbergasted by how close that one year anniversary is now.

The logic when I started was to grease the wheels of my internal writing machine in aid of finally revving up the engine of creativity to write “that book” – a memoir still conceived to explore the consequences and my strategies for surviving a violence and addiction addled childhood in a small town Canadian provincial backwater.

So there’s one resolution I will need to make and resolve in the new year. After the one year anniversary for this blog, then what? I am still writing for me. I’ve connected with a few kindred spirits along the way in the form of regular readers. That’s encouraging.

Like most of 2024 or any future speculation, there will be countless unknowns. And like every new year and every day on the planet, I will live as I always do. Hoping for the best while being prepared for the worst.

Buckle up, folks. Whatever else comes in 2024, it will inevitably challenge and change us. For my part, I think I’ll head to the kitchen now and prepare a “colorful” and nutritious New Year’s Eve brunch.

That outcome I can say with some certainty, is something I can control and look forward to. We all do what we can when we can as we can. Happy New Year, folks! See you next year.

Flying Apart

I try to be even tempered about flying commercial airlines these days. What choice do I have? But it is not an experience I ever look forward to.

In the old days (twenty+ years ago), I used to love flying. Airplanes took me to some pretty cool places around the world: Argentina, South Korea, India, Egypt, Europe, Costa Rica, Hong Kong and all over Canada, to name a few destinations.

I was also accustomed to some rough road travel outside the Western world. I’m thinking of being part of a mule train for three days in the Himalayas. The ten days I spent riding across the Andes on horseback with an adventurous group of fellow travelers.

And fighting for breathing room on some of the oldest and ricketiest so-called buses in India. Vast numbers of locals sat on the roof and hung off the sides. Talk about held together by duct tape and chewing gum.

I loved that kind of traveling. Not only were the experiences cool, but they made for interesting memories. Now airline travel is just about as rough and memories of the experiences are not so great.

I loved flying and air travel so much I applied to become a flight attendant when I was 17. Too young, I learned. “Write back to us when you turn 19,” they wrote encouragingly in my rejection letter.

By then, I’d been accepted at university and my life went in an entirely different direction. I always wonder how life would have turned out had I reapplied to the airline instead of university when I was 19. Life is all about choices and I’d made mine.

In short flights between my home province of New Brunswick to see my Dad in Newfoundland, we almost anticipated being blocked out of St. John’s by fog. That meant rerouting us to Gander in the days when airlines paid for the hotel and supplied meal vouchers. It was the very epitome of excitement when we were teenagers.

Fast forward several decades later. Free meals for flight delays? Ha. Helpful airline personnel? If they are civil, I feel I have scored major. Forget efficiency. I just paid $200 to transport an empty box on this flight with me as baggage. (Yes. Really. It was less expensive than shipping the goods I will put in it another way, but seriously?)

My husband was a pilot with Pan American World Airways back in the day. They served prime rib roast beef prepared in an on board oven in first class with cloth napkins, free wine and real silver cutlery. The linen napkins had a small buttonhole so gentlemen could attach them to their shirt. Bygone era.

So when this Youtube video by Robert Reich popped up, it made sense of a lot going on in the aviation industry these days. As intelligent, funny and charming as economist Robert Reich is, his message is most discouraging.

Even my husband – a bona fide world traveler and former commercial airline pilot who had flown too many hours in his career to even count – is a most reluctant airline passenger these days. We have settled for embellishing our everyday meals with the linen napkins he kept as souvenirs from aviation’s Golden Age.

Airline travel is never going to be again what airline travel once was. Robert Reich explains why. It’s about 6 minutes long.

The Egocentricity of Bad Luck

I don’t know about you, but I find it hard not to take bad luck personally.

I have this belief in karma. So when bad luck happens, I don’t just blame happenstance.

I mentally review my list of recent behaviors as if to find the source of the bad luck. As if I somehow “created” it. Sometimes I believe I do.

That actually seems a bit silly. It reads as if I believe there is some kind of “tit for tat” accounting system in the Universe that rewards people (okay, me) for my good behavior and punishes for my bad behavior.

If the Universe IS trying to punish and teach me a lesson, it is a little bit of overkill. I beat myself up thoroughly enough over real or imagined harm I have done to others.

I can be spleeny and petty, I grant you. I am trying to come to grips with that. But I also have deep spiritual faith. So I actually do believe on some level that bad actions are punished and good behavior is rewarded. Eventually. Granted, it may be on our deathbed.

I know that seems a little silly. It is hard to imagine “god” (whoever or whatever we conceive him/her to be), sitting up on a big white cloud doing accounting all day.

I mean, given the size of the world population, god’s accounting firm in charge of “good” and “bad” behavior must be vast. And I can think of no greater irony for someone who has lived a life worthy enough to land them in heaven to spend an eternity doing accounting in god’s firm. Of any kind.

So my spleeniness challenges me. It is embarrassing to disclose what a kick I get out of my revenge fantasies. “I will do this bad thing to this abuser” and “that bad thing to that other abuser.” The fantasies get so convoluted and ornate that I can be very well pleased with myself for their sheer creativity.

What I am supposed to do for spiritual and emotional growth in the face of “bad luck” – I have read – is to let go. Release the offending incident and the offenders. Karma is supposed to have its way with them. Rotten fruit eventually falls from the tree and all that.

It is laudable when business success is attributed strictly to “good luck” and “talent” and “hard work.” It rarely is the whole picture.

Ruthlessness is an essential quality when your primary goals are to beat the competition and rise to the top of however you define success. Wealth. Power. Privilege. Access. Freedom.

Most of us want to get there or to some semblance of there. Not a great many do.

Those who do are not always eager to share the secrets of their success at the outset. Well, at least not until they are well-settled and satisfied with the level of success they have personally achieved.

Or they get old and start stock-taking. It is usually only then they can turn around to face the masses and imbue them with the “wisdom” they gained to get where they got.

When the superrich encounter bad luck, I am sure they just mow their competition down. They don’t give a fiddler’s fig about the impact steamrollering the opposition will have if less than ethical strategies work in their best interest.

So when bad luck descends, where do you go with it in your mind? Do you use “stock excuses”? “If I hadn’t done this, then that wouldn’t have happened.” “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.” “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.” And so on.

The truth is we don’t always necessarily know why bad luck happens. We just know it is part of life. The losses and insults we have to process are on a very wide continuum indeed. There is a planet of difference between losing an expensive pair of glasses and losing a limb in combat.

But processing bad luck goes through some predictable stages. And ultimately, the response always comes back to what we can and cannot control about the bad luck that has befallen us.

We can go to an optician to replace a pair of glasses. We can undertake the difficult process of rehabilitation in the face of a lost limb. Though the losses vary in scope, whatever issue you are facing must ultimately be addressed in the same way.

So use whatever justification is necessary in the face of bad luck to process and make sense of it for yourself. Maybe it is your karma. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe you should have been more careful with those glasses. Maybe you should have never signed up with the military.

Every action we take has inherent risks. Heck, every day on the planet is a risk. Some people who got up this morning won’t see tomorrow.

I do find it helpful to try to put my bad luck in perspective. There is that old Chinese proverb about the farmer whose horse runs away. Everyone sees it as bad luck until the escaped horse returns with a herd of mares, thus adding to his wealth.

The caution is inherent in Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem, If: “If you can meet triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same.”

Maybe my recent bad luck has nothing whatsoever to do with me or karma or the wrong place at the wrong time. But as I said initially, it is sometimes hard to recognize that in the first blush of searing disappointment or loss.

I need to keep working on keeping myself emotionally and spiritually balanced in the face of “bad luck.” Thankfully, in this instance at least, nobody died.

For that, I feel grateful and profoundly lucky. Always.

Dylan’s Prayer

This morning, I was searching for a prayer.

I need to find one for my special someone.

I need one for my friends.

I need one for me.

Why hadn’t I realized until just now that this Bob Dylan song is basically a prayer in the form of a poem that is sung?

Artists are tricky that way.

I believe the trick to getting older is staying mentally young. It’s an inside job.

As our bodies and our lives evolve and change, we have the option to cave into these limitations. Or we can use corporal limitations to be free in our minds.

There is no value in an old jock endlessly reminiscing about bygone glory days on the football field.

There is no value in a beautiful woman tracking, tracing and bemoaning every new wrinkle and loss of fullness in her face.

You don’t need body strength to paint, read, write, listen to (or create) music.

What you need is a young heart, mind and spirit. How you do that is up to you. Spend time around children and watch them play. Bring food or flowers to friends or strangers. Dance. Laugh. Always, always laugh.

Because as tragic and heavy as life can be, hard things can be reframed with mirth and light. Comedians make a living off this.

The journey of life is short though it may seem long. Don’t waste more minutes than necessary stuck in the mud of dark feelings on the side of life’s road.

Those immutable elements of reframing are always available as they are an inherent part of you.

May you stay forever young.

“May God bless and keep you always

May your wishes all come true

May you always do for others

And let others do for you

May you build a ladder to the stars

And climb on every rung

May you stay forever young

May you grow up to be righteous

May you grow up to be true

May you always know the truth

And see the lights surrounding you

May you always be courageous

Stand upright and be strong

And may you stay forever young

May your hands always be busy

May your feet always be swift

May you have a strong foundation

When the winds of changes shift

May your heart always be joyful

May your song always be sung

And may you stay forever young.”
Bob Dylan, https://www.bobdylan.com/songs/forever-young/

This Way or That

I watched an encaenia address online by actor/comedian Jim Carrey in which he told the graduating class they would consistently have two choices moving forward in their lives: love or fear. It made me deeply uncomfortable.

Fear is my old buddy. My go-to companion when I face something new and scary. In the old days, it was before a date maybe. Or before starting a new job. Or traveling somewhere I’d never been before to do something I’d never tried.

I know fear intimately and had spent years building that relationship. It is comfortable like wearing a broken in pair of slippers is comfortable or slipping into a well-worn bathrobe.

Fear has not served me particularly well, however. It often scuppered new opportunities before they had a chance to develop. Bear in mind that younger me was pretty much an emotional basket case, somewhat beyond a normal young person’s insecurities.

I had a tiny, little suitcase full of tricks I pulled out regularly to get me through daily life. An innate intelligence. A strong survival instinct. A pleasing and mostly acquiescent personality.

What I tried to hide – unsuccessfully – was the trunk of insecurities that suitcase sat on top of. I could suss out negative perspectives and opinions people were going to have of me before I even met them. I was my own self-contained judge, jury and executioner in social and work situations before I even showed up.

For the most part, my little bag of tricks worked sufficiently to allow me to “get by” in life. My father explicitly expressed that as a reasonable expectation for me. For my Dad, “getting by” was sufficient. Happiness and success were unrealistic, and mostly unattainable, life goals.

I was one of those kids who was held in sway by parental neuroses and limitations for far longer than I am comfortable admitting. In retrospect, it is clear from their own failures that they had no authority to advise anyone on the ingredients for making a happy life.

At a point, I honestly believed taking advice from anyone other than them would have, in some weird way, meant disrespecting them. After all, they knew me best, I believed. Didn’t they? Over time, I came to realize that wasn’t true. How could they? I didn’t even know myself.

So choosing love as a starting point is something of a weird choice for me. My old buddy fear largely dictates the script. “They’ll hate me.” “They are out to get me.” “I won’t measure up.” And because I leaned into that mantra in the past, fear turned out to be most often correct.

What shook me out of it? Seeing my parents as they were and not as I conceived them to be was the starting point. Learning that love is an action and not just words was another. They loved me and said it often – in their own way and within their own limited view of what love was.

That turning point also came – a little later than I care to admit – when I realized my children did not need to hear me natter on or share my wisdom about avoiding life mistakes. All they needed from me was love and support.

Instead of absorbing my well-meaning but misplaced advice, they were and are completely capable of figuring out the rest for themselves. I’ve got two smart kids.

So the internal struggle between choosing love over fear is still at play within me. I have recently been choosing fear and revenge fantasies over acceptance and opening my heart to the consequences of a crushing disappointment.

All my spiritual readings tell me there is learning to be had here. To face disappointment as if you had actually chosen it. That the Universe is folding as it should.

Fear takes all together too much pleasure in the petty and picayune scenarios it is able to devise that are – I realize – completely and utterly within my own head. I am at a learning crossroads. And I hate it.

I appreciate the comfort and utility of my old bathrobe and slippers. Even though they embarrass me, I am loathe to cast them aside to see what better offerings might be out there for me.

I may be talking in circles because I am in the middle of one. Unsure of what to do next or what the best course of action is. The only comfort I take from this rumination is that at least I am still thinking about.

I have not acted on my petty revenge fantasies or anything similarly boneheaded. I believe I am being encouraged to let go, shed my fear, work through my disappointment and see what might be on the other side of this emotional mountain.

I will either sit at this dreary way station and fester in a misery I am electing to hang on to. Or I can put on my hiking boots and start walking. The choice is – I realize -entirely up to me.

Fear or love. What’s it going to be?

Better Than This

I habitually make broad unclear distinctions between “little me” and “mature me.” The distinctions are often blurry and hard for me to act on in the moment.

I want to be a paragon of peace and tranquillity. I really do. However my troublesome and messy human tendencies frequently get in the way and foul up my plans.

I would love to spend the holidays awash in feelings of unlimited love and kindness that the season promotes. I really would.

So when an offhand remark hits me right in the gut and tears well up in my eyes, I am not at all good at dismissing the insult. I will, of course. But it will take time.

I have learned to manage disappointments in this way. I prepare to receive what I am pretty sure is bad news. The bad news lands. I absorb it and try not to react right away. That gives me time to feel and work through my uncomfortable reactions.

Sometimes I play a game in my head of timing how long it will take to for the negative feelings to subside and go away completely. I think about how I am likely going to feel the next day and in the coming days and calculate whether the insult has had sufficient impact to last until then.

Maybe it was an “it will only resolve next week” kind of insult. I am never 100% sure in the moment.

Whatever the time frame, I am forced to move through uncomfortable feelings with the hope and knowledge that they will eventually go away.

Part of me wonders why I can be so thin-skinned. A trauma history likely. My emotional boundaries often seem to be as strong as cheesecloth. Easy to penetrate.

Or maybe it’s because I missed the crucial development stage of learning self-regulation in my childhood. I’m working on it but like many other things taken up for the first time in adulthood, it is harder to learn and stick to.

It is Boxing Day. (When I was younger, I imagined that it was a special day when some sort of big and public pugilistic contest was regularly held.)

Since my day started off a bit rocky with a bit of an emotional boxing match, that minor altercation will define the day for me. I am still in deep insult processing mode.

The holidays are a special time of year certainly. They also take place in the midst of our regular day-to-day lives. The New Year approaches with its annual opportunity to think about the year gone by, let go of the old that we are happy to bid farewell to and welcome in the new… whatever we think awaits us.

I look forward to the annual changeover as I do every year.

I should be well past processing “little Margot’s” hissy fit of today by then.

Merry Festivus

A holiday for the rest of us. At least, that’s how George Costanza explained it on Seinfeld.

Look it is the Lord Jesus Christ’s Birthday and all that (if you are a believer. Some heathens just aren’t.)

And I know Festivus is “officially” celebrated on December 23.

Whatever. My blog. My rules.

Seriously, this is too funny. Besides, it’s Christmas Day. For some of us. Have you got nothing better to do than read blog posts? (Even though this one is pretty funny and worthwhile.)

If you don’t well, forgive me for being an insensitive lout. The holidays are a pretty complicated time of year for a whole lot of folks I know. Maybe you are one of them? So have a chuckle on Seinfeld’s dime.

I prefer to celebrate sanctity and spirituality as and when Spirit moves me to.

Here’s the article cribbed from CNN about how to best “ring in” this – if not august – then alternate holiday celebration. It’s funny. Because I say so. (But hope you agree.) Enjoy!!

Happy holidays, ya’ll.

If you hate tinsel and love “Seinfeld,” Festivus is already the perfect holiday for you.

Popularized by the show in 1997, the anti-consumerism holiday is celebrated by “Seinfeld” fans every December 23.

And it doesn’t take much to get into the Festivus mood. Just follow these five steps.

1. Get a Festivus pole

Search your home for an aluminum pole. It has to be aluminum because you want it to have “very high strength-to-weight ratio” as Frank Costanza says. Decorations are distracting, so leave the pole in its plain and unadorned beauty.

Sure, you can buy your own Festivus pole, from places such as FestivusPoles.com, but it’s really better if you make your own. Non-commercial is the true spirit of Festivus.

Jason Kravarik

2. Prepare a Festivus dinner

Meatloaf is key to stay true to the “Seinfeld” episode. It should rest on top of a bed of lettuce to celebrate Festivus in the appropriate fashion.

3. Air your grievances

At the beginning of the Festivus dinner, force all your guests to listen to all the times they’ve disappointed you this year. It’s a really healthy ritual. Even Sen. Rand Paul has tried it.

4. Join in the Feats of Strength

As the host, you’ll want to test your strength and wrestle one of your guests. After all, the two of you did just enjoy a very protein-filled dinner.

Festivus is not considered over until the host is pinned to the floor. A guest can only decline the challenge if he or she has something more important to do, such as working a double shift.

5. Call all slightly non-routine events ‘Festivus miracles’

You carried all your groceries into the house in one trip. You took the subway for the first time, and it didn’t smell. You ran into your friend you’ve been meaning to call at a local coffee shop.

All these are excellent examples of “Festivus miracles.” Be sure to exclaim loudly and proudly when you realize it is such.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/23/living/festivus-5-ways-to-celebrate-trnd/index.html

On the Waterfront

I firmly believe we create happiness and today I have outdone myself.

I am at the oceanside in a houseboat in the Florida Keys. A gentle breeze is blowing off the water. The vibe is super chill and laid back. The biggest noises around me are water lapping on the edges of other houseboats, a floatplane passing by overhead and squawking seabirds.

I may take a boat ride today. Or not. Frankly, sitting out here on a mini-dock with a cup of coffee may be as much activity as I need to make this a perfect day.

Earlier, an earnest Chinese man with his young daughter strapped in the front of a kayak emerged from a stand of seagrass not far from me. He made his way into our area in the distance. He was clearly struggling. He paddled this way and the boat went that way.

He would dip the paddle in the water again and bumped up against another houseboat. This went on for quite some time.

The whole time his tiny little girl sat upfront in the boat completely relaxed. Dad grinned and struggled to get the strokes right. Eventually they disappeared back into the seagrass alley from which they emerged after about fifteen minutes in our little cove. The expression of Buddha-like calm on the little girl’s face never changed throughout.

A pelican just flew overhead. Yesterday driving down here to the Keys on the Tamiami Trail, I saw a flock of about twenty pure white pelicans roosting together in a tree. Very few pelicans where I live in Florida. No ocean nearby, you see. So these seabirds are a visual treat.

Sitting on my tiny deck to write, it has started to rain. Just a sprinkle but enough to send me back inside and freshen the air outside.

I brought with me the fixings for a nice Christmas Eve dinner. A tenderloin wrapped in bacon. A long russet potato to bake and have with sour cream. I’ll gently fry a serving of gourmet mixed mushrooms with sliced onions to complete the side dish.

For dessert, a fancified gourmet caramel apple.

A houseboat does not have much space to spare. The listing says it sleeps four but didn’t actually say comfortably. There is evidence of careful space planning aboard and an economy of amenities.

It reminds me of a much simpler time in my life when I was a regular traveler. With only a backpack and a pair of good hiking boots, I lit out for all sorts of places even less well equipped.

Places where the only potable water was in the fast running streams along the trail. Where I made coffee by throwing the grounds in an empty tin can over a thrown together fire of twigs and larger pieces of hardwood.

This houseboat reminds ever so slightly of those bygone days. Turns out I forgot the bag of coffee and teabags I thought I’d packed. I made do by breaking into a couple of Keurig coffee pods I liberated from the hotel I stayed in last night.

My Swiss Rosti breakfast was so generous it made a fine leftover breakfast this morning. The roll I couldn’t eat yesterday will be a mid-afternoon snack with the sliced ham and Swiss cheese the breakfast came with.

What I feel overall is safe, satisfied and self-sufficient. I often feel this way while traveling. There is aught to worry about except finding a safe place to sleep and meeting your basic needs. In my daily life, there is much too much busywork. The trick will be to transport the peaceful vibe here to my life at home.

It will start with lowering expectations. I have some fantasy in my head generated by fancy magazines of how life is supposed to look and be. I forget that those “ideal” environments are created by people whose entire focus – indeed their livelihood – is to make those places look as perfect as possible.

So others of us – okay, me – writhe in shame and feelings of insufficiency when a spoon is out of place in the cutlery drawer. Poppycock, say I.

I once thought I could happily live permanently in something like an RV or a houseboat or a boat, boat. I no longer think that is realistic. What I long for, I realize, is the simplicity and uncluttered surroundings that tight quarters require. I’ve learned that stuff expands to fill the amount of space available.

In truth, we don’t need all that much to live a happy life. Not as much as we think we do anyway. And by no means as much as the marketing geniuses in Manhattan and elsewhere want us to believe we do.

This morning, I made a camp coffee equivalent out of the two Keurig coffee pods, relished my leftover potato pancake with ham and eggs, listened to (and I am listening to) sweet South American flute music on my computer.

The birds glide continually and effortlessly overhead. Another party of houseboat renters across the cover have what appears to be about five dogs in tow. They are frolicking with abandon on the dock outside the floating houseboat.

I can feel the built-up stress of the past few months seeping out of the end of my toes and my body gently collapsing in relief. Happiness is this simple to achieve, my friends.

It is an important reminder on this Christmas Eve that the life and lifestyle you seek may only be a potent wish, some elbow grease and a few hundred miles away.

Or right on your own doorstep. It is all a question of attitude and perspective to achieve..

2024 will be a year of “deaccumulation” for me. A commitment to getting rid of excess to get back to the basics of happiness the hides underneath it.

Merry Christmas, ya’ll from the mostly sunny (but sometimes rainy) Florida Keys. Happiness on a houseboat for me this holiday.

Synonyms

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1. Get a Festivus pole

2. Prepare a Festivus dinner

3. Air your grievances

4. Join in the Feats of Strength

5. Call all slightly non-routine events ‘Festivus miracles’

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