Category: Life Lessons

Patina

Ours is a mobile society. We flit from job to job and house to house without much forethought. It seems we are constantly chasing the “next big thing,” whatever that thing happens to be. For us.

It may be a new job across the country. Maybe acceptance into an academic program in a big city miles from home. It may be that our parents are getting older and we want to live closer, just in case. Adult children start having babies. Many grandparents want to live closer to their grandchildren. Adult children usually appreciate the child minding help.

Everything that is new soon becomes old. It is true that our lives cycle up and down through this unceasing transition. A gift arrives with attendant excitement. Several weeks or even days later, that gift is taken for granted.

Even we were once new and now we are older. Our utility and beauty isn’t as obvious as it once was.

I reflect on the consequences of this mobility in an age where expedience and disposability rule. I have some lovely antique furniture and family dishes. My children will likely have no interest in them. Yet among them, there are old pieces I adore.

My grandmother’s hand crocheted bedspreads. A small porcelain swan with gold tipped wings. I have a beautiful set of antique Korean cupboards. They are intricately carved in Asian designs and outfitted with brass hardware.

The design is complex and interesting. The inside of all the cupboards are papered in old Korean newspapers. Sadly without any dates.

Those cupboards exude an air of an older and more stable world. A patina. They exude the pride of the cabinet maker’s craft. They are sturdy and elegant. The finish is burnished and rich. In part due to the lacquer used but also thanks to the gentle effects of aging.

Old furniture often exudes this elegance. The wood is solid and strong. The joints are well made and reliable. The mirror-like finish has been buffed into a gleaming surface that reflects the image of any of its caretakers.

By contrast, elegant old pieces are 180 degrees away from any IKEA product I have ever owned. I recently did a massive decluttering of furniture and other detritus. Anything IKEA was easy to offload. It broke down without resistance. The cost of replacing it would be less than storing it. My friend Gerry likes to say: “The word IKEA means “junk” in Swedish.”

It is hard to imagine that hanging on to and passing down precious family keepsakes used to be the norm. Young women filled cedar hope chests with linens and special items they planned to use in their married lives.

I remember reading Sigmund Freud’s biography years ago. I was struck to discover, in amongst his many groundbreaking accomplishments, that he purchased an apartment in Vienna as a young married man. He fully expected when he bought it and ultimately lived in that very same building for most of the rest of his life.

That seems unbelievable today. Almost as unbelievable as someone “joining a firm” in their twenties and retiring from the same firm years later.

I am more comfortable living in a hybrid of the old and the new. I like the idea of repurposing old pieces for new uses. I like the comfort of knowing people who lived before me invested their time and talents into creating pieces of utility and beauty. It feels like that aesthetic has been replaced by the mantra of “new and improved.”

It also allows a new generation of young people to define and obtain what they need to fulfill their own preferences and aesthetic. I suppose that is a good thing.

I still cherish the few remaining old pieces I have and plan to hang on to them. My children may offload them when I shuffle off this mortal coil. In the meantime, they are mine to use and enjoy. I suppose there is something inherently healthy in a refusal to be tied to artifacts of the past.

Maybe this new way of managing old things is a practical and necessary response to living in an unstable society marked by easy and frequent mobility. But being older myself, I like to think I have a certain utility and unique patina acquired over many years of living.

I am a hybrid of sorts. Partly stuck in the context of my upbringing while navigating a new world with new rules and ideas. Personally, I feel I have even more value than I did when I was younger. It seems prudent to remind the world and young people about that before someone decides to cart me and my peers off to a landfill.

Sleepy Time

Writing Prompt: If you didn’t need sleep, what would you do with all the extra time?

I’d hate it. I love sleep so much. More accurately, I love the rituals of getting ready to sleep. I love the warmth and coziness of settling in between the covers. I just love the feeling of becoming warm and drowsy and drifting off into sleep.

Settling into that netherworld between the world of being awake and sleeping is seductive. It might be some weird psychological undertone about returning to the womb. But likely not. I don’t have particularly strong memories of being in the womb and the thought doesn’t much appeal to me.

I also enjoy dreaming. I love the topsy-turviness of dreams and how sometimes they confuse the hell out of me. At other times, my dreams work out some strange plot line with people I know or knew well at one time. Those people might do something in a dream I could never imagine them doing in real life.

They might reveal a hidden talent. They might shout in public or otherwise speak up assertively when we know them as mostly shy and reserved in daily life. I am most intrigued by those dreams which feel so real I feel trapped in them.

They push me to frantically work out solutions in my head about how I am going to manage a situation. Only to wake up to find it was all an elaborate fiction that almost instantly disappears.

Those kind of dreams can shake me up. It is as if the veil between reality and whatever the dream-state is diaphanous and almost transparent. Where does that world go when we wake up? And why is it so hard to recall the details of our dreams?

I’ve tried dream journalling. It never quite catches the complexity and nuance that a dream scenario presents. I am sure that is partly because dreams can evoke a range of emotions while they are unfolding with speed and meaning and nuance that are difficult to capture on paper.

But if I really didn’t need sleep, what would I do with all the extra time? Likely, nothing. I would do a lot more of nothing. I would sit more often in a forest on chunks of soft moss. I would listen to the forest sounds. I would watch insects and small animals doing what insects and small animals habitually do. I would deeply breathe in the fresh air surrounding me.

I would do this in an effort to transition away from my very important, very urgent real-world demands. I am held in sway daily like most adults by financial, physical, people and environmental obligations. I would like to let go of a lot of these demands without the bottom falling out of my life.

It is a delusion to believe more time would help me get more on top of my responsibilities. I let go of that fantasy a long time ago. The most efficient among us get everything they need to do done in the time allotted.

I hate those people.

The fault, it would seem, might be in me.

So while it is that I must sleep to get through my days, I am not sure more time would change my life dramatically. I think the secret to making my life richer or more efficient or meaningful or whatever emotional state it is I am going for, must be accomplished within the time parameters I’ve been given.

That is both the tragedy and the beauty of life. Just like everyone else, I have to figure out what to do with the precious amount of time I’ve been given.

Think I’ll sleep on that tonight.

99 And Counting

Superagers. People who live to 110 in relatively good health. The hype around pushing the “normal” chronological lifespan of most humans is high these days. Many new companies are devoted to unravelling the secrets of living a longer than average lifespan.

In 2022, I underwent something of an anti-aging program myself though my motives were more complex. AVIV Clinics in Wildwood, Florida offers a three month hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) program designed to combat a host of aging-related and other medical conditions.

HBOT has been commonly used in health care for years as an aid to healing stubborn wounds. AVIV is using the technology to “refresh” our aging bodies and brains which may have been damaged in the process of living. Participants like me engaged in five-days-a-week HBOT sessions for two hours a day.

I signed up for the program to address the impact of PTSD on my brain and years of cumulative emotional trauma. It is said that emotional trauma presents on an MRI in the same way as physical trauma does, just like concussions or other head injuries.

That intrigued me. What intrigued me more was the difference between my brain’s MRI after the program compared to when I started. Blood perfusion increased. Areas of my brain where there was diminished blood flow were quite evidently revived.

The most noticeable impact was the calming effect of the HBOT protocols on me. As a PTSD survivor, I was never really able to fully relax and often lived in a state of hyper-vigilance in what were otherwise normal social situations. Which is exhausting.

I suppose the feeling I would describe in the parlance after HBOT was that I felt more “grounded.” A year and a half later, a sense of calm and inner stability has persisted. That alone was worth the price of admission (admittedly high and not yet covered on any health plans.)

So I am naturally drawn to the promise of the new anti-aging movement that is developing. Living to 110 plus would only be worth it if the body plays along and stays healthy. That has never been more possible than it is today. People these days talk more about “healthspan” than “lifespan.” I am already a convert.

CNBC correspondent Dan Buettner investigated the habits of 263 centenarians around the world to see how they’ve done it. There are sensible prescriptions in here for all of us at whatever age we are.

Read Buettner’s article to learn about the “non-negotiable” rules for living that he discovered in 263 centenarians he talked to. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/24/i-talked-to-263-of-the-worlds-oldest-living-peoplehere-are-their-non-negotiables-for-a-long-happy-life.html

Good advice for any time of life in my view.

Working on heading in this direction myself.

Coming on Winter

I once spent a few winter months living in a cabin in the woods.

It was around this time of year that I moved in. It was late fall, nearly winter. Cold. Quiet.

The cabin was located near the edge of a large lake. There was a small house up the lane. But no trees or bushes to impede my view from the front door to the pebbly beach and beyond.

Looking from the beach across the wide, expansive lake – already half frozen though it was only November – there were cottages. Most were closed for the winter. Sensibly.

I still recall that winter as one of the calmest I’ve ever had.

The beauty of the place was not only the quiet and isolation. It had a lot to do with the quality and color of the light. The light was filtered through a gauzy land fog in the early morning.

In the late afternoon, driving down the lakeshore road showcased a light palette of golden hues in the sky. The long shadow of shoreline trees laid across the surface of the frozen lake.

Fortunately, there were just enough landlocked residents in the area to justify plowing local roads. If not, I would have been looking to rent a snowmobile for my shopping expeditions.

What I remember most fondly was the peace and quiet of that little cabin. It wasn’t what you would call luxurious. A better description would be utilitarian. Galley kitchen. Three small bedrooms. A bathroom and living room. And cold.

I started using the bedrooms as extra storage space. It was just about the right temperature for keeping produce fresh. I eschewed all three for sleeping and parked myself on the futon close to the heater. I would rather have died from carbon monoxide poisoning than hypothermia.

On one memorable occasion I took a bath in the blue cast iron bathtub. To make it tolerably warm, I heated two enormous spaghetti pots of water on the stove.

I threw the boiling water into the tub one after the other and heated up another two batches. The boiling water kept the tub warm just long enough to get an acceptable two inches of hot water out of the faucet. As you might imagine, the bath was soon abandoned for quick showers.

In the mornings, long, lazy days stretched out in front of me. The sun rose lazily across the lake and I followed suit. A hot cup of tea. A book to read. High density memory foam slippers to ward off frostbite. Wrapped in one of those ubiquitous afghan square throws. My lie-ins were part laziness and part self-preservation until the propane heater kicked in.

I felt safe enough to get up and move around the cabin once my breath stopped steaming in the crisp, morning air. What we may have experienced as something of a trial when it was happening can soften in recounting the experience. It is the lessons we take away from any challenging situation that we hold on to, if we’re lucky.

It is coming on winter. By contrast to times past, it is sunny and warm most days and so it will remain in the coming months. That has its own charm. I am no longer living alone but sharing my space and life with a special someone.

When I wake up these days, I am grateful for all that is available to me. What I can remember fondly about that winter of isolation was the solitude and beauty of the physical environment I was nestled in. I can hardly remember any details about the numbing cold and all the other cold weather living challenges.

After all, I survived them and landed here. It’s pleasant to have memories of that long, cold, beautiful winter to look back on. Even better is that it reminds me to create new and beautiful ones where I am now. These days will be what I will look back on years from now.

It reminds me to make today the best it can be so I can enjoy the memories I am able to recall in the future. That must be growth.

I don’t recall consciously thinking to much when I was younger that today I would be making my memories of yesterday to revisit.

I am much better about doing that now.

Child’s Play

Are there still parents out there focussed on firing up the imaginations of and nurturing their children’s artistic inclinations?

Does the school system still make room for developing the intuitive left brains of young people?

I am out of touch with how well children today are being set up for their lifelong search for actualization. But I do know funding for arts education has always been in peril.

North Americans seem to recognize the value of arts education, but obtaining consistent funding can be a different matter.

During my children’s years at high school, I lobbied to keep the arts coordinator on staff. Any arts educator fears budget cuts: dispensable, you know. Some people believe art is a frivolous pursuit and doesn’t prepare kids for the “real world.”

I oppose the assertion that arts are an education “add-on.” I believe talent and creativity need to be nurtured and developed.

While 88% of Americans agree that arts education is an essential component of a well-rounded education, there has been a persistent decline in support for arts education, particularly in communities that cannot finance it on their own.

In 2018, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences convened a Commission on the Arts…. The resulting report, Art for Life’s Sake: The Case for Arts Education, finds ample evidence for the attributes, values, and skills that come from arts education, including social and emotional development, improvements in school engagement, as well as more vital civic and social engagement. 

https://www.amacad.org/news/arts-education-report

Today’s political, social and economic reality often defies logic and sanity. There are a lot of days lately when the old adage has never been more apt: “Truth is stranger than fiction.” Even more apt: “No one can make this s— up.”

What an arts education teaches is discernment and analysis. Different ways of looking at a problem pr project. Today’s kids are going to need those skills when they grow up. When this generation takes over the world twenty years from now, let’s hope they have learned more complex skills than how to set up apps on their smartphones or record TikTok videos.

The artistic path has always been 10% inspiration and 90% inspiration. But let’s face it. Someone who has your back can grease the skids. A cheerleader who promotes and supports your creative ambitions (think arts patrons of old) is going to make your artistic path considerably easier. Perhaps even more meaningful and desirable.

We all need fellow travelers to validate and mirror us on our journey. That checks out whether you are an artist or not…. and we are all artists to varying degrees. We all long for and seek outlets for creative expression.

Would that every aspiring artist could be born into an arts-friendly environment like Marlon Brando. Would that every child with artistic ambition have similar luck on the home front.

Given how Brando turned out artistically, it’s hard to argue with the methods.

Alternatively pray the powers-that-be minding the arts purse see the wisdom of continued support for arts education as a line item. Not simply an afterthought.

“My mother’s name will only appear in texts or in conversations because she was my mother–the mother of a man who inexplicably became famous.

I want you to know, however, that my mother was a great artist, a powerful artist who poured creativity and ingenuity and brilliance into raising her children, infusing us all with imagination and the ability–with no paranormal influences–to remove ourselves, to lift our bodies and our minds, from locations and situations that were brutal.

That is art, and if we studied people like my mother, there would be shelves of books on her work with her children, her friends, her small circle of enchanted friends. Tennessee’s mother was like this. I bet yours is too.

“The artistic suicide is not only the drug-addicted actor; the alcoholic singer; the writer who makes bad choice after bad choice. Artistic suicide, like charity, begins at home. We kill the artists within ourselves in the quest to get by, to walk within the lines, to mind our manners.

“Write about that.”

–Marlon Brando/Interview with James Grissom

Comfort Food

I am craving a baked potato with butter and sour cream and chives. Sure sign I’m stressed. Special food cravings are one of the happier signs of stress in my life. And in my experience, food cravings beat booze cravings by a country mile.

I have a list of favorite foods. (Doesn’t everyone?) Pumpkin pie, which is timely. Molasses cookies (no one made them better or more often than my Nanny). My girlfriend Diane’s amazing trifle filled with fresh fruit (usually raspberries), fresh whipped cream, a cake base filled with something boozy and delicious but non-intoxicating and topped with slivered almonds. (And maraschino cherries? Or did I just add them in my mind’s eye?)

Special but sad as Diane’s trifle is usually only served at Christmas and other super special occasions during the year. Serving it more often would likely diminish the cachet. Sigh.

Then there is any kind of Chinese dim sum. Barbeque pork buns. Shrimp dumplings. Potstickers. If I was on a desert island with room service, my daily food order would be taken from an authentic Chinese food menu. No doughy sweet and sour chicken balls for this gal.

Or Indian. Anything cooked with curry and coconut milk gets high marks. That can be chicken, beef, goat, or vegetables. Some of the most delicious dishes I’ve ever tasted were some variety of vegetarian curry with nary a shred of meat.

Back here on the North American continent, a grilled cheese sandwich made with perennial, plastic, waxy, orange American cheese slices and bread and butter pickles on the side is my version of gastronomic heaven. I did say comfort food, not healthy food.

With American Thanksgiving tomorrow, I’ve been overwhelmed this past couple of weeks by unrelenting food come-ons. The allure of a scrumptious turkey dinner with all the trimmings is offered everywhere.

Images abound on TV, in store flyers, on store shelves of perfectly roasted golden brown turkey, bright red cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes (as opposed to mashed potatoes for a pop of color I believe) and sides. Apparently an American side favorite is green bean casserole. Never tried it so I don’t get it. Maybe one day.

My must-have, go-to, absolutely favorite turkey dinner side is stuffing. I would almost eat that as my Thanksgiving entree. I’ve rarely met a stuffing I didn’t love. It is a very hard dish to screw up.

Yet again, like Diane’s trifle, stuffing is best reserved for special occasions. Even I can see that too frequent consumption of a butter soaked, high carb, and high cholesterol dish isn’t medically advisable.

Grocery stores offer everything you need to celebrate Thanksgiving at home. Our favorite local restaurants offer an array of turkey dinner specials with all the trimmings.

We are lucky to have the choice. If we don’t want the hustle and hassle of making a turkey dinner that saddles us with three days worth of dirty dishes and leftover turkey until January, eat out.

Thanksgiving seems way too close to Christmas in the US anyway. Thanksgiving decorations sit side by side on the shelves with miniature Christmas trees. The marketing tsunami seems relentless from late September when the Halloween hype starts until we get through Thanksgiving and then Christmas.

Christmas is the one special day that shuts down our collective consumerism for about 24 hours. That’s just long enough to enjoy some sacred space and time with friends and loved ones before we hit the Boxing Day sales.

Make it through the festive New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day dinners and voila!! Valentine’s Day is just around the corner.

If there is consolation to be found in bracing ourselves to prepare for all these non-stop fall celebrations, it is that food is usually abundant and delicious. I’ll take comfort in that.

Diderot’s Robe

I’ve often used the analogy of Diderot’s Robe to describe the odd sense of frustration I felt when I was renovating old houses.

A similar sense of dissatisfaction ensued when I acquired a snazzy new something – an appliance, a jazzy new piece of furniture, or even a new clothing item. When is enough?

Buying new things can make old things look bad by comparison. It is difficult to buy one new appliance without wanting to change them all to match. New furniture can make your old furniture look shabby. New clothing usually needs new accessories, like shoes or a piece of jewelry or a bright scarf to “go with it.” Maybe a new coat or jacket, too?

The phrase Diderot effect was coined in reference to French philosopher Denis Diderot (1713-1784) who bemoaned the gift he received of a new housecoat.

The effect was first described in Diderot’s essay “Regrets on Parting with My Old Dressing Gown”. Here he tells how the gift of a beautiful scarlet dressing gown leads to unexpected results, eventually plunging him into debt. Initially pleased with the gift, Diderot came to rue his new garment. Compared to his elegant new dressing gown, the rest of his possessions began to seem tawdry and he became dissatisfied that they did not live up to the elegance and style of his new possession. He replaced his old straw chair, for example, with an armchair covered in Moroccan leather; his old desk was replaced with an expensive new writing table; his formerly beloved prints were replaced with more costly prints, and so on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diderot_effect

The term Diderot effect is commonly heard in discussions of sustainable consumption and green consumerism. A purchase or gift can create dissatisfaction with one’s existing possessions and environment. This can start a pattern of consumption with negative environmental, psychological, and social impacts.

I have lived this effect and continue to struggle with it. I have a pretty good idea where it started.

My comfortable and financially secure childhood – while unstable – was ripped away from me at 11 years old. The transition from a life of comfortable middle class privilege to a life of poverty was gradual when I look back at it now.

I mostly recall that what had formerly been easy to acquire or take part in no longer was. There used to be riding lessons and swimming lessons and dance lessons and summer camp. New clothes to start every school year. At Christmas, we counted on the new cotton nighties and slippers from my grandmother. After I turned 11, these all went away.

My Dad moved us to another province. My mother was no longer in my life, except nominally. By sixteen, I was living on my own in a big city. My father moved an hour and half away to his own new home in the country.

I used to watch my peers in amazement who never seemed overly troubled by money issues. They needed something, asked their parents for it and got it. I remember asking my father for anything new or necessary made me feel I had deeply insulted him. I was – by even asking – doing something horribly wrong. What exactly I didn’t know.

I found myself in harm’s way when I didn’t have – or wouldn’t spend – the money for taxi fare. I was occasionally trapped in a dicey situation where booze and drugs were flowing much too freely. The boys at those parties could be presumptuous and opportunistic.

Sorting out my relationship with money has been a lifelong struggle and continues. As I look around, I don’t believe I am alone in this troubled relationship with money and things. Cumulative credit card debt is staggering. Indeed the debt burden of the USA is staggering itself.

A storage company in my Canadian hometown is erecting building after building as people seek out a place to keep their excess goods. I am one of them. They are doing a land office business. Think about that. Paying huge sums of money to store items because we don’t have space or a use for them in our present environment? Sounds pretty crazy, doesn’t it?

Our way of life and consuming is wildly out of balance. I chuckle at the allure of “big box stores.” I once read Costco and Sam’s and Wal-Mart give consumers the dual psychological satisfaction of “thrift” and “abundance.” Local grocery stores offer so many BOGO items that I may soon need to rent a storage locker for my excess canned goods.

I once longed to win the lottery., Who wouldn’t want a magical solution to their money problems? Who wouldn’t want guaranteed financial security? Who wouldn’t want the joy and satisfaction of taking care of friends and loved ones who would benefit from the help? And who hasn’t seen or heard the common stories of lottery winners whose lives spiraled downward and out of control just a few short years after their windfall?

I so get Diderot’s dilemma. I have lived it. It is hard to answer the question, “When is enough?” Like so many other of life’s big questions (and money, given its central role in our health, comfort and well-being is certainly one of them), it is time to make a truce with money.

To befriend it but not make it my master. To acquire what we need without being showy or arrogant (tell that to a Leo!!). To get off the credit card merry-go-round. Diderot knew why.

“I was absolute master of my old dressing gown”, Diderot writes, “but I have become a slave to my new one … Beware of the contamination of sudden wealth. The poor man may take his ease without thinking of appearances, but the rich man is always under a strain”.

tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diderot_effect

Fruit Farming Fool

I am becoming a farming addict and I am not sure there is a cure. I am also not sure that I want one. I am having a ball.

Living at the minute in an agreeable growing climate, I have lost my mind a little. Not entirely but I am having a daily wrestling match in my head to contain my enthusiasm. I want to buy every fruit tree known to humanity and put it in the ground just to see how it works out. Rationally, I know I can’t do that. Tell that to my enthusiasm.

Part of me is intrigued that fruits and other food we can actually eat come off the branches of spindly little woody things stuck in the ground. It does not seem possible. My greatest exposure to fruit trees previously had been apples. We had orchards in abundance when I was young and dozens of varieties to choose from.

Yet in recent weeks, I have bought three (yes, three) different types of lemon trees. I have bought a Persian lime tree, a Valencia orange tree and an avocado. I am learning there is so much to learn about flowering trees and plants that I would need a PhD in horticulture to get even a minor handle on all of them.

The trees came to us half-grown and healthy. On average, they are about 5-6 feet high. I didn’t mean to buy three lemon trees as I was going for a Meyer lemon. Those babies intrigue me. They look like a perfectly normal lemon but taste somewhere between a lemon and an orange. Sour but sweet. Whatever.

The Ponderosa is a patio lemon tree but I read its fruit can get as big as a grapefruit. Good for juicing but sounds like it could outgrow its’ patio pot PDQ.

The “ordinary” lemon tree (I must look up its type) delivered in error smells so amazing and is covered with so many blossoms, I didn’t have the heart to send it back. I may set up a late life onset lemon (not lemonade) stand when those flowers start blooming into edible lemons to manage the tsunami. Edible being relative when it comes to lemons, of course.

On the Meyer lemon, two massive green orbs already hang from the lower branches. The upper branches are awash in blossoms and smell heavenly. I don’t even care what the neighbors think of me for shamelessly sniffing sinfully sweet-smelling lemon blossoms.

I bet they’re just jealous.

I don’t yet know what distinguishes a Persian lime from any other run-of-the-mill grocery store lime. Maybe nothing. But again I am intrigued about ours as it has opened another path of inquiry to learn the differences in lime varieties.

I didn’t exactly stop at fruit trees. I bought one spindly bamboo tree. I hear they are killer growers so I deliberately started small. The half-price elephant ear plant I bought at Lowe’s last month has doubled in size. So much so that I had to transplant it to a 30 gallon pot from its 3 gallon pot so its roots could find relief and much needed-room to spread out.

The deep pink bougainvillea is a sight to behold. The lady at the garden shop told me they are “beautiful, but mean.” Hidden behind their lush floral display are inch-long thorns. Prune with extreme caution, I learned.

The night-blooming jasmine are not yet mature enough to emit any fragrance. I know from past experience they will smell amazing once they are established.

Somehow the wonder of what these plants are and one day will be is hitting me full on. Orange juice from our own trees. A salmon filet seasoned with sea salt and a fresh sprinkling of juice from one of our many lemon varieties. Dare I say guacamole made with our very own Hass avocados?

I shouldn’t get my hopes up. I am told the tree will take seven years to bear edible fruit. Still I have come so far. I cannot count how many avocado pits I dutifully seeded and placed in my kitchen window for years without single one ever having made it into the ground.

Maybe that is the explanation that underlies my current obsession. I have the land and the climate in which to pursue all the planting fantasies I ever had. It would appear the time is right to make some of those fantasies come true.

Did I hear someone say Bing cherry tree?

Changing Direction

Change is the only constant in life, they say.

I both hate change and I don’t. Whatever change I am on the brink of causes me stress whether I expect the change to be positive and, obviously, when I anticipate the change will be negative.

I haven’t always been able to accurately call how a situation is going to work out or how I am going to feel about it. Not in the beginning anyway.

I have enthusiastically embarked on new jobs only to discover several weeks or months later that the work and the situation were not what I expected.

Maybe the work hours were too demanding and draining. My colleagues may have been less than I expected. Testier, maybe. Or uncooperative. Backstabbers.

Sometimes I felt I just didn’t fit the job or the job didn’t fit me. Those jobs obviously didn’t last all that long. Their choice by times, and at other times, mine.

The trouble is we cannot know what lies ahead of us. We make the best decisions we can based on what calls to us or what we are forced to choose. The former are the lucky ones. The ones who pursue a path in life just because it feels right. Not because Mommy or Daddy did it for a living or are telling you to do it.

You can burn a lot of daylight and productive years following someone else’s dictates and expectations. Many people feel they have no choice. Many people do it because they can’t conceive of other alternatives. Many can conceive of other alternatives but are too afraid to try.

The people who imagine a different future and don’t pursue it are the ones I feel most sorry for. It is like that old saying: a taste of honey is worse than never having tasted honey at all.

You cannot continually negate or ignore what is most important to your soul and realistically expect a good result. Yet many ignore the calling of their soul anyway. And many pay a very high price for doing so. The “go-along-to-get-along” crowd.

Believe me, the crowd doesn’t give a care. Your life is yours. Believe that. I fear many don’t. It is hard to establish a path, set goals and establish boundaries that will help you get there. There can be a lot of choppy water to get through.

I reflect on this as I have been reading book coaches websites. They know intimately (or at least claim to know) the excuses, the obstacles, the distractions, the temptations, the naysayers scripts (both external and internal) that prevent people from writing.

Book coaches have advice to defeat them all. They have it because they have heard every excuse imaginable.

There is no question that if you write your truth honestly the feeling it generates may be akin to taking off all your clothes and running down main street carrying a flaming torch above your head. Risky, chilly business.

I write what I know because of what I lived through and what I learned from it. Then I share what I experienced and learned with others. I may not be the choir director but my voice is as necessary as any other to add texture and complexity to the choir’s harmonies.

That is a massive change in direction for me. C’mon, I’m a Leo. We are astrologically ordained to be showy, flamboyant and annoying. But that tactic is no longer working for me. I don’t want to be the sharpest tool in the shed. I don’t want to lead the parade. I am happy to follow along in the flow of life and add my steps when and as I am able.

And that is what terrifies me most. Who am I if I am not always in charge? Who am I if I just let something slide? Who am I if I admit my limitations? Maybe just another struggling human being?

That may not be so bad. I have always sensed most people are more forgiving of me than I am of myself. Getting to a place of consistent self-forgiveness would be a nice change.

Maybe I’ll try that for a while and see how it works out. At least, it’s not a job I can be fired from or quit.

Who Knew Department

This may be something. It may be nothing.

When I find something that makes sense to me, I want to try it and I want to share it. And I will.

So here is something about bay leaves that I never knew. Now I do. And so do you.

Did you know this? I didn’t know either:

Many women add bay leaf to their foods, especially on red meat and wild game meat.

Without knowing the reason for adding bay leaves to food, when you ask a woman why, she tells you: to add taste and flavor to the food.

This is wrong because if you boil bay leaves in a cup of water and taste them, you won’t find any taste .

Why do you put bay leaves on meat?

Adding bay leaves to meat converts triglycerides to less fat to test and confirm this.

Cut one chicken in half and cook each half in a pot, put one bay leaf and the second without the bay leaf, and note the amount of fat in the two pots.

Helps to get rid of many health problems and dangerous diseases

Among the benefits of bay leaf:

Bay leaf cures digestive disorders and bay leaf helps to get rid of bloating.

Heartburn.

Acidity.

Constipation.

Antibiotic.

Anti-parasitic.

Digestivo.

Stimulators.

Sedative.

Regulate bowel movement by drinking hot tea.

It lowers blood sugar and bay leaf is an antioxidant.

It allows the body to produce insulin by eating it in food or drinking bay tea for a month.

Eliminates harmful cholesterol and frees the body of triglycerides.

It is very useful in treating colds, flu and severe cough, because it is a rich source of vitamin C. You can boil the leaves and inhale the steam to eliminate the cough and reduce the severity of the cough.

Bay leaf protects the heart from attacks and also protects against strokes because it contains compounds that protect the heart and blood vessels.

Rich in acids such as caffeic acid, quercetin, egonol and parthenolids, which are substances that prevent cancer cells from forming in the body.

Eliminates insomnia and anxiety if taken before bed, and helps you relax and sleep peacefully.

Drinking a cup of boiled bay twice a day melts kidney stones and cures infections.