Category: Life Lessons

A Healing Path

A young lady named Nicole recently asked me a simple question in an online forum I belong to: “What is a healing path?

That question gave me pause. I hadn’t heard the question put so simply before. So this is what I told her.

“My healing path started in earnest when I hit the proverbial brick wall. Everything I believed about my mother’s “love” for me was shattered when she went to bat for my husband in the wake of our divorce.

I went through what is best described as a “dark night of the soul” as I tried to make sense of her betrayal. I was in a very dark place for many years. I was living in an emotional and spiritual shitestorm.

My personal life was a mess. Recently released from my job contract. A new baby was on the way. Marriage breaking down. Mother’s defection.

I sought out a therapist at that time because I simply had no one else to turn to. I could not make rational sense of the many mistakes I had made and was making. I tried to drink away the pain. That stopped working long before I finally quit drinking for good.

My mother’s explanation for my acting out was that I was – possibly – a ” bad seed.” She skilfully omitted the neglect and abuse I experienced in my childhood in her summation of me. The bad things in our childhood were never discussed. It enraged her on the occasions when I tried to bring it up.

My next steps toward healing were because I desperately needed to protect my son. I had previously sought out counselors from time to time before but with the presence of my son on the planet, I was incentivized. There was nothing easy about making the choice to heal and get healthy. Nothing.

When I first started to confront my past and upbringing, everything got progressively worse before it got better. I clung to the belief that life would eventually change and improve. It took a lot of sheer faith to just keep going.

I was driven by my love for my son and the need to create a better, saner life for him. That was the carrot that kept me going. I recognized in those awful early days of my infant son’s life that if I went under, he would go under, too. It was sometime around then that I took full responsibility for my life.

Today I am comfortably estranged from my family of origin. They were not helpful to me and completely devoted to my mother and her narrative.

I realized the decision to create my own life and work through my pain was up to me and me alone. That totally sucked. But it has finally paid off in a certain peace of mind and internal calm that greets me every morning. I stopped drinking almost 23 years ago after several failed earlier attempts.

I am in no way suggesting that my healing path is or should be everyone’s path. But here are some questions to ask yourself to light a fire under the choice to embark on a healing path.

Am I happy with myself and where I am in my life? If not, why not? What’s in the way or holding me back from being happy? Are there patterns I can identify in myself that keep me unhappy? Am I comfortable in my own skin? This is hardly a comprehensive answer.

This is only an anecdote about one person’s path. You know you are on a healing path when you start acting every day in your own interests. Your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are progressively more in alignment with your core beliefs, wishes, desires, and goals. When this is happening, you know you are moving closer to yourself which is the ultimate goal of healing.

I don’t know if this answer is at all helpful. It is a profoundly personal journey. But good on you for asking the question. Ask others. Keep seeking. Failure is a given only when we stop moving forward.

Being confused about where you are heading on a healing path is not failure. Confusion is a legitimate place and an integral part of transitioning to a healthier way of living.

Good luck to you and I hope you do pick the healing path. Not everyone does. It requires a considerable amount of emotional heavy lifting and for quite a long time.

You may one day discover the healthier you are, the better role model and inspiration you can be for others in the world you live in. You can be a better friend, a better parent, and a better champion of your own good self. In short, a better human being. I hope this was of some use to you, Nicole, and wish you well if you elect to set out on your own healing path. It is so worth it.” 

Crabbing About Cursive

I subscribe to very few websites. Many are fitness or health-related. Others are full of inspiring quotes from towering historical figures. And this one.

WordGenius. https://www.wordgenius.com/

I am a subscriber because words are its subject matter and I love words. This website manages to push out a new word every day that I have never heard of before.

I apologize if that sounds arrogant. I know a lot of words. But it turns out I don’t know every word, as WordGenius makes abundantly clear with its daily delivery to my Inbox.

It is nice to find myself regularly surprised by what I don’t know (only about words and writing, of course. There is tons I don’t know about nuclear physics or astral projection.)

An article on Cursive Writing showed up in my inbox along with the regular Word of the Day post (Deedy for those who might be interested. Fittingly it means someone who gets a lot of deeds done. Who knew?)

I am among those who grieve the denouement of handwriting. It has become a lost art. Like many lost arts (tatting, common decency, moonshining, manners), we are collectively poorer.

I had a real-life lesson in abandoning cursive. I attended a post-graduate program some years back at uni. I decided to take notes only on my computer. Big mistake. Handwriting experts agree that the mind better learns when what you hear is written down. Something about the positive connection between hearing and writing.

My daughter once came to me as a very little girl and asked me if I would teach her what I was doing: “Can you show me how to do that curly writing?” I know she learned cursive as she was at the tail-end of a generation that learned it but now seems to have abandoned it.

So I will let the WordGenius folks make the argument for cursive and the importance of keeping handwriting alive. It is both creative endeavor and an enhancement of learning. Remember the importance of handwriting analysis to identify and formulate conclusions about the character of the writer.

While cursive is now out of fashion, I put my faith in the pendulum swinging back to a place where it is valued and widely used again.

I will reverse the order of the article to share WordGenius‘ take on the importance of handwriting. The more interested and ambitious readers can read to the end to learn about the history of cursive writing. More there than I ever knew about.

Does Anyone Still Use Cursive?

  • Cursive writing has been used less and less since the 1980s. Quite simply, since computers became the new big thing, people don’t write as much by hand. Grade schools teach computer skills instead of penmanship. So is there still a use for cursive? Absolutely! Handwriting helps us remember. This goes for all handwriting, not just cursive. The Wall Street Journal says that actively forming letters with pen and paper reinforces language concepts and helps the brain remember. It’s a lot more effective than just reading and memorizing, especially for kids. That’s why so many teachers stress taking notes by hand — they know that many students who put pen to paper tend to remember concepts better. And no matter how many digital devices you have, you’ll need to use writing utensils at some point. Maybe you need to scribble a note or mark something in a book. Maybe your phone died, and you can’t type an appointment into your calendar. Technology is good, but it’s not omnipotent. Instead of sloppy chicken-scratch, take some pride in your penmanship. Start reviving the lost art of cursive today.

Gratuitous Information for word nerds “About the History of Cursive” from the good people at WordGenius.com

As with many thousands-of-years-old practices, cursive writing was more of a collective effort than something we can attribute to one person. It goes as far back as the Roman Empire, after written language first developed.

Square capitals were used on inscriptions on buildings and monuments (some of which are still standing), but cursive (or script) was used for daily writing. Scripts and styles have changed since the fifth century. In the eighth century, monks created the Carolingian script — the earliest form of standardized cursive that others built upon. This script evolved during medieval times, and its twists and curls became harder to read before the Renaissance revived the Carolingian way.

The earliest form of cursive you probably recognize is called Copperplate. Calligrapher Timothy Matlack penned Thomas Jefferson’s words on the original copy of the Declaration of Independence using the Copperplate script. While beautiful, this fancy calligraphy just wasn’t practical for everyday writing.

A teacher named Platt Rogers Spencer developed a new form of penmanship around the mid-1800s. He came up with the name “chirythmography,” from the Greek words for “timed handwriting.” He used a metronome for writers to keep pace with his elliptical letters, which he claimed were inspired by nature.

The “Spencerian” method was taught in schools for the latter half of the 19th century. Quick-working clerks and telegraph operators translating Morse code into script found the Spencer cursive still too time-consuming.

Next up: Austin Palmer and the Palmer Method. His idea was to make cursive writing more practical and lose the fancy flourishes from the Renaissance days. This form of script was very popular in the early 20th century and can probably be seen in old letters from your great and great-great-grandparents.

Penmanship started to become big business. It was taught in grade schools, and adults entering the business world got a leg up if they completed a course in a penmanship school. The Zanerian College of Penmanship became the Zaner-Bloser Company, selling handwriting instruction material to schools.

(Fun fact: Still around today, Zaner-Bloser, Inc., publishes Highlights for Children magazine.)The Zaner-Bloser cursive and the later D’Nealian cursive are the simple scripts that were taught in grade school for the second half of the 20th century.

Comes A Time

If I’ve learned one thing in my life, it is that I have a choice about who is admitted to my inner circle. I like to be on good terms with as many people as possible. I make that choice for me and for my happiness.

I used to be a world-class negative Nelly. There were few positive and joyous occasions that I couldn’t turn into misery. My “critical eye” as I called it, could see the downside of any situation, and filter out the joy to its’ true and dark core. What a sad little girl I was.

The only difference between then and now is that I see it was a choice. I was a troubled young adult. I tried to convince myself that my negativity and questionable behaviors were somehow mitigated and counter-balanced by the strengths I brought to the table.

As I fought to grow stronger and healthier and started to abandon habits and behaviors that did not serve me, my life experiences grew more positive. Eventually, I was able to appreciate the positivity in any situation. I was also able to more clearly see those who were still afflicted by negativity like I once was.

When you discover a negative Nelly within your own inner circle, it is disappointing. I learned on my journey to let go of blame. I forgave people because not forgiving them was hurting me more than it was hurting them. I believe the saying is: “Resentment is like taking poison and hoping your enemies get sick.”

Sure I have been badly hurt. Often. Many things happened in my life that I didn’t want to happen and wouldn’t wish on others. But one day I realized it was my choice whether I wanted to live in bitterness for the rest of my life. The answer was and is a hard no.

I realized how much comfort I took from the certainty I had about others who harmed me. I was right and they were wrong. They hurt me and so I had every reason to treat them with disdain and disrespect. The irony was the only person I ended up hurting most with my crummy behavior and attitude was myself.

As I pushed forward in healing, I started to abandon people. They held fast to the truth of their own narrative. There was nothing I could say or do or point out to them that would change their minds. Their minds were made up about what life was, how far they could go in it, and their opinion of me.

I had to let go. I am willfully estranged from my two sisters and their families. There are twinges of regret for some happy memories that we shared a long, long time ago. But those memories are too few and the narrative they hold on to is too unhealthy for me. I walked away.

I rarely think of them, in fact. I am on the brink of another painful estrangement with a family member. This one is even closer and harder to walk away from. I have learned that you can’t push a string. People are who they are who they are. If their position is utterly contrary to my well-being and they mistreat me without apology and accountability, I have no choice.

I find it odd how much license and power many people give to family to mistreat them. There is behavior that would have us turn on our heel, walk out and never again deal with a stranger who did the same thing to us. Yet in families, there is a tendency to tolerate abusive behavior. The forgiveness of “those who trespass against us” is one thing. Tolerance of chronic toxic behavior is self-destruction.

Many of the most powerful lessons I learned around this were from Al-Anon. When you are dealing with an addict, you are dealing with someone who is lost in their own illness. You are not dealing with a fully functioning human being. Similarly, when you are dealing with a toxic personality who blames and mistreats you for all of their ills, you are in a toxic and no-win situation.

It is a positive, if sad, day when you realize there are no words nor actions nor gifts nor any amount of money that will correct the situation. You do what you can until you can’t do anything any longer.

At some point, the weight and imbalance of a one-way relationship buckles and you break. More accurately, something breaks inside of you. What you once felt for that person and what once was in your relationship is over.

Anyone who has lived through any major relationship breakup – maybe several – will recognize the pattern of breaking down and growing apart and the pain that goes with it.

There was a saying in my family. I have only just started to realize the truth of it. “When Christmas is over, it is time to take down the tree.” There is a point at which hoping and loving and trying and wishing for someone to be other than who they are simply doesn’t work anymore. You accept what is.

Maybe that person will one day come around, treat you better, and apologize for their transgressions. Maybe not. That “point of departure” when you realize the relationship you have no longer feeds you is a sad day but also a liberating one.

It frees you from feeding a relationship that no longer serves you. It frees you from holding on to a fantasy of how things might be. And it lets you get on with the business of living your own life.

Which is, ultimately, all that any of us can do and be responsible for.

Complificated

I witnessed the dawning of the internet and the era of new technology. I distinctly remember technology’s promise of simplification. 

We would work in paperless offices, we were told. Boring and tedious office jobs would disappear. Life would be generally much better and more efficient.

Balderdash.

Technology mostly seems to have complicated things in my life. Two-step authentication. Type in this code. Password after password after password. Scrambling to figure out which phone is ringing when I am sitting in a restaurant with friends. Unwelcome texts or imploring messages that require my immediate attention at any time of the night or day.

Beware of those who tell you that what they are selling will “simplify your life.” Often so-called “simple solutions” turn out to be more trouble than they are worth. They’re “complificated.”

I am wary of inflated promises generally. For two main reasons. One is that there are lots of promises out there usually made by someone who is trying to sell you something. 

The salesperson’s job is to convince you their service/product/subscription/pet rock is as necessary and desirable as air and water. The really good salespeople and ad agencies somehow actually do. I have a number of “What was I thinking ?” items in my household.

The second reason is that promises must be backed up by performance. Whatever promises are attached to any item, you will really only experience and appreciate its’ true value after you have owned and used it for a while. In my world, the proof is in the pudding.

I have countless examples of items in my life that didn’t perform “exactly as advertised.” I bet you do, too.

I am a faithful subscriber to Consumer Reports and appreciate they have been largely untouched by scandal or assaults on their reputation. I visit them frequently when a large purchase is on the horizon. They have no skin in the game when it comes to commission or salary. That, in itself, makes them trustworthy advisors.

I get that rapidly changing technology is a fact of life and a “new normal” for young people. And I am beyond impressed by the advances made in technology that allows us to do what we do in our personal lives.

I have a friend who still uses a flip phone. Limited to be sure but it is cheap and does everything he wants it to do. I am not happy paying a bunch more money for a new phone that “increases my user experience” by a few extra pixels in my iPhone. I can’t wade through the pictures I already have. 

These days I employ a certain caution and skepticism in my own life about “newer technology.” I spend time trying to reason out how significantly better the newest version of a technology is going to make to my life. 

The paperless office turned out to be a myth. I use scads of paper still. And still intend to. As AI and other “new technologies” appear on the scene with all the doom saying and fears about the future impact, I am very much in “wait and see” mode. 

No doubt Google and Facebook and other technologies know more than I would like about my shopping habits and my financial preferences. I may eat my words if I suffer serious consequences up the road.

But in order to keep my life simple and my peace of mind intact, I am taking the Teddy Kennedy approach: “I will drive off that bridge when I get to it.”

The Unknown

Every day is basically an unknown. I remember periods in my life when it seemed things would always be the same. But it turned out they weren’t.

I think about the leap of faith it takes to jump out of bed each morning and face the day. We really don’t ever know what is coming.

I am presently grieving over the fate of a beautiful young black single mother not too far from where I presently live. She was killed in cold blood by an irate neighbor. A white lady if that matters. Guess it does around these parts of the American South.

The single mother’s kids had been playing outside and drifted onto the white lady’s lawn. The white lady threw a roller skate at one of the kids. She scooped up another kid’s iPad that was laying on the grass. Naturally, the kid ran to his mother for help.

When the beautiful black mother went to the white lady’s house to retrieve her son’s iPad, the white lady fired four shots through her unopened door. The white lady then claimed “self-defense.” Didn’t seem to matter that the white lady was the one that was aggressive to the black lady’s kids. The white lady told the 9-1-1 dispatcher that she “felt threatened” by her neighbor’s presence at the front door.

I listened to an interview yesterday with Christian Cooper, the black birdwatcher who in NYC in 2020 was falsely accused of harassment by Amy Cooper, (no relation) a white woman who refused to leash her dog in an on-leash section of Central Park. Cooper calmly recorded on his phone the white woman’s hysterical phone call to police complaining “a black man was threatening her and her dog.” The video recording told the tale. The white woman lost her job, was roundly condemned, and faded into infamy.

Christian Cooper wrote a book on birdwatching and just landed a gig as host of a National Geographic birdwatching show. Finally, at least one story of a white person and a black person’s confrontation ended well. For Christian Cooper at least.

I don’t get racism. Not saying I have plenty of best black friends. Not saying I can comfortably put myself in the shoes of a black person’s day-to-day reality in North America.

It’s just that I know and have met too many wonderful people of all races and nationalities. Standards of decency for humans are pretty much the same around the world no matter what color their skin is. Character, class, and manners count more in any individual than their race.

So my heart is heavy and grieving for that beautiful young black woman’s family. I don’t know how her kids will make sense of their mother’s loss as they grow up. No more than their bereaved grandmother can make sense of the loss of a beautiful daughter.

And then there is the unknown of how justice will play out in this case, as if that even matters to those most intimately affected. This is the land of Trayvon Martin, a skinny 15-year-old black kid who was shot dead for just walking around his neighborhood. His murderer got off scot-free based on the infamous “Stand Your Ground” laws that exist in Florida.

And so it may well be for this murderer – already charged with the lesser violation of manslaughter. It is an unknown almost too terrible to contemplate. That she might walk free.

Whichever way it goes for the hate-filled woman who coldly and viciously took this young woman’s life, it won’t matter to her kids. All they’ll know is facing the unknown every morning of waking up for the rest of their lives without their mother.

Rocking Nothing

Today I am thinking about nothing.

Nothing in particular. What doing nothing means. What having nothing means.

Generally, people seem to be very scared of nothing. The requirement to be doing something all the time is especially tyrannical in the middle of our lives. It can take a concentrated effort to slow down and do nothing. Some people simply can’t handle it. Not comfortably at any rate.

We are all aware of how limited our time is on Earth. That can make us anxious about “filling” every minute of every day. That is not to be confused with living “fully” each day. Our anxiety can grow as the years begin to speed up, quickly at first, and soon they start to fly by.

Joni Mitchell’s advice to a young man in her song The Circle Game captures this: “And they tell him, Take your time, It won’t be long now before you drag your feet to slow that circle down.”

Death is perceived as the greatest nothingness of all. Unless we believe in reincarnation, we may believe only darkness and oblivion await us after death. I am not so sure of that anymore. The Universe is far too complex and convoluted to let us off that easy. But, I don’t really know. No one does.

So in light of life’s inevitable endpoint, and if we’re lucky, we start to slow down. After years of frenetic dedication to raising kids and making a living and staying in the mainstream of life, I stopped. One day, I found myself looking out my window at a pleasant scene whilst doing absolutely nothing. I wasn’t thinking about anything in particular. I was just sitting.

You can’t imagine how foreign and far-fetched that scenario was for a Type A personality like me. I was steeped in the virtues of the Protestant work ethic. If you were too, you may get how odd and slightly terrifying doing nothing is.

This is the paradox of the human condition. We set goals early in our lives for the things we want to have and accomplish in our lives. Many of us metaphorically break our necks to get what we want.

But we rarely sit down and take a hard look at what we really want and need. Then we make our lives more difficult and less peaceful by comparing ourselves to our peers. If we don’t have what they have, we can get scared and sad. When we ignore the wisdom of stopping to smell the flowers, the memories of our life might be but a blur.

Stopping to smell the flowers can be the very place where we find joy and feed our sense of wonder. Only by stopping can we marinate our souls and senses in the wonder of what is all around us. We often fail to recognize that the little things are really the big things in life. I blinked and my children were adults. They will never be little again and it makes my heart hurt. I missed out on many small and tender and precious moments with them in my drive to survive and succeed.

These days I can be perfectly happy doing nothing. That is progress for me. I grab the chance to do absolutely nothing whenever I can get it. It is not that I dislike being busy or having something valuable to occupy my time. I actually quite like being busy. But these days, it is more of a choice. When life gets too crazy, it is up to me to slow it down.

It has become necessary to consider what avocations make me happy. Beyond the necessary mundanities of day-to-day life, I mean. There are only a few. They could be considered silly and frivolous pursuits but they are mine. I no longer need to justify them or justify my existence.

I have a friend who is a genius at this. He walks in the world at his own pace and is directed by his own interests. He goes on long daily walks just to exercise. He has been known to sit for a couple of hours on a park bench and just watch what is going on in the world and the people around him. I have always admired and envied him for that capability.

So I’m thinking I’ll sit awhile today and just watch the world go by. With no lives on the line, or mandatory issues that require my attention, I’m free to do that. It likely isn’t what the expression carpe diem was supposed to mean. But instead of “seizing the day,” I’m just gonna sidle up to it with a cup of hot tea and watch it amble by.

Jeff Brown, Redux

When you’re good, you’re good. I have followed Jeff Brown with equal measures of respect and resonance for some time now. His writing is consistently strong and insightful. His new book, Humanifestations (link below this post), is another marker on his journey to make sense of the human condition.

Brown’s most recent post (below) resonated strongly.

He points out a human tendency to credit exceptional creative output or the deeper insights of talented individuals as “Gifts of the Divine.” He disputes this and calls out the human tendency to hide our light under bushels. I both agree and disagree with him.

Brown argues that if humanity believes the wondrous works exhibited by individuals are based only on external factors, it discourages us from accessing and owning what is inherently great and gifted in ourselves. Without owning it, Brown suggests, humanity will continue to marinate in mediocrity.

Jeff Brown argues – the former lawyer dies hard – that his writing insights and clarity have come from the hard emotional work necessary to overcome a difficult childhood.

Again I agree and disagree with him. I had a hard childhood. I have done a ton of personal “work.” At the same time, I also feel I was given a “gift” for writing. And, yes, sometimes it feels like a Divine “gift.” Sometimes I have written things that I have to read over and over again to fully get what I have written. I cannot fully credit or connect what I have written with “me.”

Dale Estey, a dear author friend, and I have a throughline in our friendship. We often talk about our mutual belief in what we call “invisible hands” that overtakes our writing. We agree we do not always consciously “think up” what we write. How words get put together often feels unbidden. Painters, dancers, and even athletes all speak of this phenomenon, too. Think Flashdance.

Jeff Brown is right. Humans tend to downplay genius when they find intimations of it in themselves. Or credit a “higher power.” Well, I also believe there could be “something else” at work in the creative process.

For the love of god, do not ask me what that something is or ask me to explain it. For the most part, our society is just plain incompetent at handling “the gifted.” A perfect storm of luck and opportunity, and will is needed. It takes a certain social alchemy for a child’s gifts to be recognized early, encouraged, and supported to develop their talent over the long haul.

And it can be a very long haul, fraught with emotional and other landmines. [Read the late Swiss psychologist Alice Miller’s The Drama of the Gifted Child for an analysis of this dilemma.]

I am happy to feature Jeff Brown on my blog again as he triggered one of the biggest issues I have faced in writing. My work or god’s work? Who’s to say? And to what end? Who knows?

All I know is that it is a good thing when coherent messages that promote the value of each human life get pushed out there – over and over again. Because we are human and need to be frequently reminded of that.

Whether humanitarian messages come from “the Divine” or are a distillation of our own hard-won insights that come from processing “hard things” is more or less immaterial to me. Any writing that promotes a greater appreciation for the sanctity of humanity and individuals gets my support – whether it comes from Divine inspiration or inspiration from deep within ourselves.

Take it away, Jeff Brown … Let me know what you think, dear readers. It is a legitimate point of contention for debate and wider discussion. Jeff Brown argues his point brilliantly. Like the genius he is.

“I went through a particularly potent writing phase some years ago. I was writing one clarified quote after another, and immediately sharing them in social media. What I found interesting was that many people would come onto my walls, and remark that I was “channeling.” At first, I imagined this a good thing. As though I had somehow formed a bond with the Divine, and the Divine was using me to bring their m, I arrived at a different perspective. I had worked long and hard, and overcome much, and whatever insights I had arrived at did not come from the beyond. They came from within me, from the heart of my lived experience, from the depths of my story. And then I looked closer at many of the ways that we associate moments of achievement with something beyond ourselves: “Her performance was out of this world”, “He rose above his circumstances and channeled greatness,” “Her genius is heaven sent,” “He has found his DIVINE purpose.” It is as though we are only allowed to own our mediocre achievements. Anything clarified or brilliant or awesome had to come from somewhere beyond our humanness. Little wonder our views of enlightenment and awakening are frequently associated with transcendence. We haven’t been taught that we are the marvel, and that our lived and learned experience is the source of our most profound creations. If we don’t come to get this, if we continue to bury our magnificence below a bushel of judgment, we will continue to look for our greatness outside of ourselves and our species will never actualize its possibilities. Because we really are marvel-us 🙂. Each of us, a living marvel...”

Step by Step by Step

Have you ever stopped to look back on your life and think about how many things you have done and been? The roles you have played? Does it strike you how all-consuming and exclusive some periods were for your time, energy, and attention? And then, one day – just like that – those times are left behind in the rearview mirror and are gone forever.

Think about heading for a high school diploma. Then maybe a university degree. What about certain trade certifications? You worked like crazy for weeks, months, and years. Then you get your reward: the paper, the job, the crop. Your life – and your role in it – changes again.

We don’t approach anything the same way twice. Immersed in the learnings and experiences of the day before, we approach each new day essentially as new people. Incremental changes maybe but change nonetheless.

Think of your first day at your first job. How exciting and scary and confusing it was. Compare that to the type of days you came to have ten or twenty years into your career when it had become pro forma. “Just another day at the office.” Even the second day at your first job was different from the first.

In relationships – if we’re lucky – we are constantly changing and growing. The best marriages come to mind when they are respectful and mutually beneficial loving partnerships. But every day, we become different people and so do our partners.

I’ve been thinking lately about what it means to be a parent to adults. They don’t “need” me now. So I often find myself in deep conversations with myself about how to approach certain topics with them. I did not have that level of caution and awareness when they were children.

I have also thought back on myself as a university student. Nothing else mattered in the world except showing up for classes, reading the prescribed books, and doing whatever it took to ace those courses. Then, you graduate. And somehow that all magically disappears. Mind you, in the workplace, it often feels much like term papers when a draft article or speech is due.

I am an inconsistent cook but mostly love it. Without question, my most ambitious and complicated dishes have been tackled when I was in a partnered relationship with someone. There was more balance for me in the domestic arena.

I made homemade liverwurst once. I have made surprisingly good stuffed green peppers. I have made a Crosse & Blackwell-worthy apple chutney. But then life got busy, and bazinga, I am relying on cold sandwiches and hot soup as mealtime staples for weeks.

Fitness and exercise is another area where I – and I believe many others – blow hot and cold. I have been a full-out gym rat for some periods of my life. And then something happens. I stop going to the gym. Six months later, I am like some slug of a couch potato who never worked out a day in her life.

So I am wrestling with what’s up with all that. I am back into a renovator’s role to set up a “new to us” house. I am picking paint colors and flooring and imagining how rooms will look and function. It is not as all-encompassing as it was on my first few tries. That is something of a relief. Now I have a better idea of how it will play out. I have a better idea about what to expect.

I know more than when I first started doing the renovation and decorating thing decades ago. So the process goes a little faster and with a little more certainty. But is still a step-by-step process that can’t be rushed. The walls must be painted before the laminate is laid and the furniture is moved in and the housewarming invitations are sent out.

Maybe that is the way it is supposed to be. We are meant to weave in and out of various passions or pursuits and roles in our lives. We are meant to get stronger at what we love and are good at. We finally arrive at a place when we recognize and know better what that is.

When we achieve what we need to learn or do or change at each of our life stages, we get some ephemeral internal message to move on. Not a bad system when you think of it. Step by step by step.

Peace and Quiet

I am in need of peace and quiet. Watched two movies recently that brought that message hurtling home. The first was The Wolf of Wall Street. No one has ever accused director Martin Scorcese of a light touch or oozing subtlety.

The movie is one of those that plays to investors’ worst fears about what really happens on Wall Street. We see a sleazy operator who turned the hopes and dreams of countless minor investors into dust.

The debauchery and machinations of Jordan Belfort’s short dance upon the stockbrokers’ stage were unsettling and hard to watch. It was entertaining only in the sense that it provided insights into a world many of us will never encounter. The sensible among us would never want to.

Then I moved on to Babylon. No relief there either. The film opens with an elephant transportation problem exacerbated by the beast’s diarrhea (or so it was graphically depicted.)
I was heartened to see Brad Pitt and Margot Robbie on the marquee as they are both stellar actors and personal favorites. But the movie’s cachet ended there. A lot of naked bodies and scenes of debauchery and histrionic acting. Exhausting to watch.

I use to enjoy living life to excess. My motto was: “Everything in moderation, especially moderation.” I was so desperate not to feel desperate painful feelings. I cozied up to and crawled into an alarming number of booze bottles over an excessive number of years.

Finally kicked booze some 20+ years ago, but that was the easy part. The hard part was facing all the feelings I had been trying to suppress by drinking to excess. I spent. alot of time in nightclubs when I was young. Dancing hard. Drinking hard. Laughing way too loud and for far too long.

Every image. I have in my mind’s eye now is focused on creating consistent peace and quiet. Not boredom but peace and quiet. The two are sometimes confused. I have never been bored a day in my life. With all there is to learn and to know, I cannot even understand how anyone could ever be. Simple laziness and lack of imagination as far as I am concerned.

So it is ironic that in seeking simple peace and quiet, I ran into these two movies. There is this tendency in Hollywood these days to overblow everything or blow everything up. A recent New Yorker piece talked about how Marvel Comics has taken over and come to dominate Hollywood. No secret to that. Eager audiences. Easy money.

The new house we are moving into backs onto a forest. It may be the forest that sold us on the place. Or the pool. In any case, I have been craving an oasis vibe in my living space for most of my life.

I’ve discovered the secret to peaceful living is holding back. Taking your time before making decisions. Savoring the savory dish in front of you or the tinkling ice in the cool beverage you are drinking. Balance in as many elements of your life as possible.

I know for sure there is very little peace to be found in modern Hollywood storylines. Maybe that was alright and is alright to burn off the excess energy of youth. But I don’t really believe that. In a society where excess and living large outranks every other consideration, messy, messianic movies like The Wolf of Wall Street and Babylon are natural consequences. Everyone can handle being jazzed up for an hour or two. But it is not a natural place to live a life.

I am very happy I can reserve the right to not actively partake in the delusions portrayed in these films. I can take them or leave them. Feed my curiosity or taste for the mundane. Then I can turn the movies off, turn on my nightly sleep meditation and enjoy the peace and quiet of a good night’s sleep.

Happy 35th Birthday, Katie Mac!

Daughter’s birthday today. Her 35th. A milestone of sorts. The fact she has been on the planet for three-point-five decades seems a significant chunk of life worth celebrating.

Poet Kahlil Gibran wrote: “Your children come through you, but not from you.” My Katie couldn’t be a clearer example. She is very much her own person. For that quality alone, I am delighted by her and having her on the planet. She is a little like me, as genetics inevitably dictate, but mostly she is like herself.

Day by day, Katie discovers with more certainty who she really is. And what she really believes. And what she really wants. Those are not automatic givens for anyone. A lot of people flop around in life without much internal structure and an ill-defined self-image.

Katie was literally a miracle starting from the circumstances of her conception. She outwitted the murderous intentions of an IUD to be born on the planet. As miraculous to me anyway, she was a VBAC birth. That is, she was born vaginally after her brother’s C-section two years earlier. That birth protocol was rare back in the day. And she topped off all of the other improbabilities by being born on her grandmother’s birthday. Talk about a suck-up.

As a toddler, Katie shimmered. In her christening pictures, she looks sweet and angelic in a white floor-length lace and ribbon confection of a dress. I believe that sweet, angelic, and loving spirit she exuded that day is who she is at core.

Me and Katie did not have a particularly normal day-to-day parent-child experience, but we did have some adventures. I flew to Paris with her during a school break to get her to Austria where she would au pair for several weeks as a summer nanny. We rented a car at D’Orly Airport. As I haltingly made my way into Parisian traffic, I remember being hyper-vigilant about driving in Europe for the very first time.

It was Katie who spied a traffic sign directing us toward Versailles Palace. The playground of King Louis XIV and his court should have been on our list of must-sees. With no set itinerary, Katie and I were happy to stop and wander for a few hours through the luxurious palace and its gardens. https://en.chateauversailles.fr/

On another occasion, I flew from Ottawa, Canada and she from Christchurch, New Zealand to meet up in Los Angeles for the last post-Oscars taping of the Oprah show at the Kodak Theater in 2011.

Most memorable, beyond seeing Oprah live, was a major earthquake in Christchurch that occurred the very day Katie was supposed to fly to LA. With communications out of NZ badly damaged, it took hours before I learned she had safely boarded her flight and was on her way to Los Angeles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJrBA5ddfMc

One cold winter morning, we headed East in my new-to-me RVR SUV to drive across North America starting in Calgary, Alberta. We headed straight south into Montana and drove across the northern United States until we hit Long Island. Surprisingly, road conditions were summer-like for most of the way until we hit Iowa when a snowstorm hit us right between the headlights.

On another of Katie’s birthdays, we stayed at a dude ranch in BC and rode horses through a thick, tall forest. From the forest’s edge, we watched black bears gamboling at a distance in a large open field.

On one of my special birthdays, we climbed Seongsan Ilchubong Mountain on Jeju Island in South Korea. Had Katie not been there, quietly but firmly pushing me upwards on the treacherously steep trail to that peak, I m not sure I would have made it to the top. Which was so worth seeing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seongsan_Ilchulbong

A few days later, Katie and I flew to Hong Kong so I could visit her workplace. The best description for the place is rustic. Right beside the floor mattress I was directed to sleep on, a baby pit viper was coiled up in a clear Rubbermaid container with a top riddled with breathing holes. That it was really incapable of inflicting serious harm on a human was slight comfort. I put in a rather fitful night.

In the intervening years until she bore down on her academic pursuits, Katie amassed an impressive resume of international travel from New Zealand, to Buenos Aires, Argentina to the Yukon Territory and the Arctic Circle. Always with a job and with a goal in mind.

She graduated from the University of British Columbia two years ago with a degree in geography. She now applies that training to her job in a technology startup doing infrastructure assessment projects for engineering firms. In the past year, she has bought a house, is at work on several entrepreneurial ideas, and manages her household and business affairs well.

I am so damned proud of her. And happy for her though she isn’t always happy herself. She is a learning machine. She is saucy, sharp, fun, super-bright, fashion-forward, and athletic and she never quits when the going gets rough. She is logical and a problem-solver. I’m not sure that she yet fully knows how important those qualities will be to her in the future.

I sure hope she knows how vitally important she is to me. And to a buncha other people. Her older brother, for instance, who is a going concern in his own right.

Happy Birthday, BBH! (Have I finally made up for your screwed-up twelfth birthday? Surely an amnesty is in order what with a special birthday coming up for me, too. Think about it? :-))