Category: RIP

Curt Kurt

The world needs more Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007). Or more accurately perhaps, Kurt Vonnegut’s perspective.

I’ve been an avid fan for decades. I was hooked by his novel Slaughterhouse-Five where he pulls no punches whatsoever in his depiction of the brutality and inanity of war.

Vonnegut is the consummate truth teller. The scales were dropped from his eyes at his birth, I believe. I have read much of his literary output with a deep sense of irony and gratitude. Vonnegut has a gift for belaboring the obvious – in the best possible way.

I recently came across this snippet of an interview with him. I want to share it as it speaks to a current preoccupation of mine: how the glue of social cohesion is rapidly ebbing away, if not indeed, already fully ebbed. We are on a runaway roller coaster with an uncertain endpoint.

Younger people especially (by whom I mean anyone under 50) are consumed daily with a wildly out of balance need to simply keep body and soul together. It is no longer a matter of a “decent day’s pay for a decent day’s work.” It is the two to three jobs and income producing projects they juggle just to keep the wolf from the door.

It is a dehumanizing and soul destroying way to live. My current preoccupation is how to bring society back into balance.

I’m not thinking even for a moment that I have answers to solve this present dilemma of whacked out values, intolerance, billionaires’ greed, and wildly disaffected and unmoored teenagers.

But I will contribute to the conversation whenever and wherever I have the opportunity. Like now.

Vonnegut generally makes an important contribution. He is making an important point here specifically. I am reminded of the powers that be at a bank who were intensely lobbied to keep a modestly profitable branch open just because the daily interactions of local seniors with the tellers were so vital and life affirming.

Technology overload is starting to take over at the top of my shit list. Read a book, people. Dammit.

See if you don’t see the wisdom in what Vonnegut sees. I do.

DAVID BRANCACCIO: There’s a little sweet moment, I’ve got to say, in a very intense book– your latest– in which you’re heading out the door and your wife says what are you doing? I think you say– I’m getting– I’m going to buy an envelope.

KURT VONNEGUT: Yeah.

DAVID BRANCACCIO: What happens then?

KURT VONNEGUT: Oh, she says well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope.

I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is, is we’re here on Earth to fart around.

And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore. ~Kurt Vonnegut

(Source: NOW on PBS, David Brancaccio interviews Kurt Vonnegut discussing his then newly published Book: A Man Without a Country https://amzn.to/3PUGWTT)

Dr. Doolittle, You Say?

WordPress offered this writing prompt this morning.

“List three jobs you would consider doing if money didn’t matter.”

I’d be a zookeeper. Or work in an elephant sanctuary. Or any type of animal rescue really.

All of them are selfish choices.

As a former dog owner, I have learned a few thing about animals that often makes their company preferable to the company of humans.

For one thing, they are unfailingly authentic. If they feel good, they show it. They feel bad and their discomfort is hard to miss. As companions, they are the best.

People love dogs because dogs love people. It is a mysterious bond. I read many dog obituaries on Facebook and elsewhere. I can feel and relate to the deep distress of the bereaved owner who tries to explain why Bailey, or Duke or Charlie was the best friend they have ever had.

I sometimes detect a faint undertone of embarrassment in the depth of pain and loss they express. Dogs aren’t people, after all. Or are they? In many ways, they are much better and more loyal friends than people. There are no machinations in a dog’s affections for its’ master or masters. They are pure, unadulterated, love machines.

By their breed, a dog makes its needs known and those needs are unequivocal. All of them need exercise. Some breeds more than others. Some breeds love water. Other breeds see water’s value exclusively for drinking. Some are sweet and fussy. Others are earthy and extremely low maintenance.

A dog’s love and temperament can be twisted by abuse or neglect. In this way, they are more like humans than humans. But unlike abused humans, abused dogs who receive warm and consistent loving care often bounce back to being loyal and loving companions. Humans can get there but the process is usually more complicated and takers longer.

Let’s not be naive. Dogs are also a lot of work. They require a level of care similar to that of a small child. You can leave a cat alone for a day or two with a fresh bowl of food and water. You can’t do that with a dog.

I’ve resisted getting another dog (except for a short failed stint with a rescue last spring) since we lost our Bailey in 2011. He had to be euthanized and it was possibly the worst day ever. I made both of my children come to the vet with me to say goodbye.

Holding Bailey in my arms, I was deeply upset. He was licking my face and all I could think was that moments away, that sweet and loving little spirit would be taken from us forever. Yet it was the humane thing to do. He had lost his hearing, his eyesight was dimming, he had advanced kidney disease and his heart was failing. It was a kindness to let him go I was assured.

When I told the face-licking story to my daughter Katie later, she softly said: “Mom, he was licking away your tears.” My tears for Bailey started afresh.

Since then, we’ve not had another dog. I often say cavalierly that I will get a puppy when I am 92. I will not deliberately go through the anguish of lost love again over a dog when I can elect not to.

Now that is naive. There are people who are going to leave my life in years to come and I will be devastated. I am working to – as advised in the poem Desiderata – “Nurture strength of spirit to shield yourself in times of sudden misfortune.”

We now have a cat. Sweet and affectionate. She has also inveigled her way into our hearts. But our relationship is different. She is more standoffish. She is infinitely more self-contained. That is what cats are. Not trivializing their loss when it comes, but it is different somehow. For me anyway.

I cannot begin to fully understand the bond and complexity that exists between humans and animals except to acknowledge that it is real and deeply meaningful to millions. And I am just like all of them. A cat mom. A grateful former dog owner. An animal lover. A wannabe zookeeper.

And who knows? Life ain’t over yet. One day up the road, maybe I could happily spend a chunk of my time bottle feeding orphaned baby elephants or tossing heads of lettuce to manatees. Animals are a vital part of the phantasmagoria that is life.

If you don’t know that intimately, you are poorer for the absence of that knowledge.

Twelve to Thrive

I fell in love with American-Italian educator Leo Buscaglia in the 80s. And not specifically because he was known as the “Dr. Love” professor.

Felice Leonardo Buscaglia (March 31, 1924 – June 12, 1998) was a professor of special education at the University of Southern California. When one of his students committed suicide, he was moved to investigate the meaning of life and the causes of human disconnection.

For Buscaglia, love and learning were the keys to a meaningful life. He was a gifted public speaker and often appeared on PBS giving his lectures on our vital need for interconnection with fellow human beings. He also deeply believed in education and exploring the many wonders of human life here on this planet.

I remember one of the funnier anecdotes from his lectures about growing up with a “demanding” father. With warmth and humor, Buscaglia recalled how every night at the dinner table, he, and then his siblings, were asked in turn, “What did you learn today?” Woe betide the sibling who had nothing to share. The shame must have been withering!

Buscaglia eventually taught a course at the University of Southern California called Love 1A. They were always filled to capacity and often oversubscribed. He was the first to state and promote the concept of humanity’s need for hugs: 5 to survive, 8 to maintain, and 12 to thrive.[4]

He wrote a bunch of books. Fittingly, his greatest bestseller was simply called Love. At one point, three of Buscaglia’s books were on the New York Times’ best sellers list at the same time.

Buscaglia explored and promoted the importance of love and loving relationships to human beings. His lectures may be deemed a little over the top in a culture where the almighty dollar is touted to be the primary source of all happiness and pleasure.

I miss him and his voice. I miss his message.

In our troubled era of mass murders, and suicide and online bullying, I miss the presence of Leo Buscaglia more than ever.

Report Card

This pitching and packing up party is just about over. I promised I would check in on the results of my big purge and moving exercise.

And I am doing this update on a Monday, instead of the Saturday when I thought I would. The truth is, I wasn’t far enough along.

This has turned into a two-phase project. Part now and the rest next Spring or Summer or sometime in the as-yet-undefined future.

Two shipping containers were emptied during this process as was a storage barn in my backyard. Boxes and boxes and boxes of paper are tucked away in a tidy storage unit. For future reference. And review. How often have I said that over the years?

Clearing out the back shed meant effects only made it as far as the back deck. I learned my stuff was sharing house with a dazzling assortment of critters. Raccoons mostly I determined upon checking the stool samples they left behind.

Sometimes I think I am just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

But maybe not. The 23 yard dumpster sitting in my driveway is full to the brim and will be hauled away tomorrow to make way for a smaller dumpster. For those things I have yet to toss.

There were some sad discoveries. Beautiful Italian leather shoes ruined by dampness. I would never have worn them again anyway. Random papers and receipts congealed and stuck together. At least it was an easy decision to throw those out.

Tomorrow the “deep” cleaners arrive. I can hardly wait. These are cleaners of the “I do windows and baseboards” variety. They are a dying breed and I’m lucky to have found them.

With all this detritus leaving my life, I am both relieved and a little scared of what will replace it. Naturally we all hope there will only be good things ahead which is unrealistic and unwarranted optimism.

But among the lessons I am taking forward from this hideous sorting, tossing and packing up exercise is that I will not have to face at least half of this ever again.

It was too much to hope that I could clear out every corner of my boxed up life in one go. But I got this far and I made real progress.

Maybe real progress is enough.

Fleet Footed Fame

I often wonder how a publicist would portray me if I ever became even a little bit famous.

They would dredge through my past accomplishments and elevate them as bona fides to justify my by then elevated station – me being famous and all.

I am curious about the fiction of it. I have done some pretty cool things in my life. I have a curriculum vitae of degrees and scholarships that I earned back in the day. But I have also done many bone stupid and horrible things which I pray never come to light. They diminish me and the person I feel I am and wish to keep striving toward.

I look at my life after it evolved from an ill-considered and ill-fated marriage. Interwoven with alcoholism and riddled with fear and anxiety, so many of my choices and actions in my life after that union evaporated was simply show. Most of the world simply doesn’t care.

Like an empty Waterford crystal vase, as long as I looked professional and presentable on the outside, the world need never know I was emotional hamburger inside.

There are many chapters in each of our lives. They often have dramatically different qualities to them. Those chapters are shaped by your particular pursuits of the time, the people you hang with and where you live. Each of these influences shapes your character. Each character handles life’s up and downs according to who they are and what they learned along the way.

Today is novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald’s birthday. Famous, of course, for The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night, The Last Tycoon and others. He didn’t live long. Dead at 44 from a heart attack exacerbated by the ravages of alcoholism, he became another of history’s legacy of troubled artists who died young.

So I am moved to ask what keeps us upright and moving forward when we are in agony inside? When life has let us down badly and we are a million miles from any of our goals. Depends on who you are and how those influences have shaped you.

It can be argued that “creative” types are more susceptible to life’s insults and can more easily be undone by them. They feel more and more deeply, it might be argued, so they have more difficulty keeping pain at bay.

Oddly, I harbor an unreasonable anger at Philip Seymour Hoffman for the heroin addiction that took him out. He seemed smart enough to “know better.” Yes, I know that is a ridiculous statement in the face of fighting an intransigent addiction. But I feel robbed that Hoffman checked out so early. He was brilliant and had so much more to offer. I needed him.

Then there is the infamous “27Club” which started with Jim Morrison’s death at the age of 27. Several prominent 27 year old rock stars died between 1969-71, solidifying the myth. Morrison was soon joined by Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Brian Jones. Later, music legends Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse followed.

It is hard to pin down what this death predilection is. The pressures and expectations of fame foisted upon vulnerable and sensitive artistic personalities may be a partial explanation. Life is difficult enough. The emotional self-regulation that may have saved them from suicidally driven forces might be the very element that allows superstars to perform at the level they do.

Fitzgerald wasn’t alone in the realm of doomed literary luminaries. Ernest Hemingway took his own life at 61. Sylvia Plath stuck her head in a gas oven to check out. Virginia Woolf put rocks in her pocket to weigh her down as she elected death by drowning. For all of their creative output and fame, it didn’t mitigate whatever internal pain and emptiness they were dealing with.

For me managing emotional pain and mitigating emptiness has been a key marker of how well I am managing life. I keep pain at bay these days largely by not engaging in painful activities. Or actions that will invite negative consequences at any rate. Seems simple enough. But it wasn’t always that straightforward and some days, it still isn’t. It has been a tough learning and a discipline and a decision of the “don’t go there” variety.

In about two weeks, I will celebrate my 24th anniversary of sobriety. In its place, I engage in all of the “healthy” coping mechanisms that life offers: yoga, meditation, exercise, reading, writing, time in nature, “talk therapy” and if I’m completely honest, “retail therapy.” Except for the last one which causes its own distress, these modalities are pretty effective most of the time.

So I renew my commitment to writing for me, myself and I alone. I like putting my thoughts and feelings and opinions out there for no one but myself. If I attract and find fellow travelers to walk on this path with me for a while, that’s a bonus.

But I abhor the notion of fame for fame’s sake. I know marketing is essential in today’s brand-soaked social environment, but hey. There are thousands and thousands, maybe millions out there, who are happily seeking out and eating up the fame bandwidth. I hope they all know how fleeting and fickle fame will be to them when it matters. If they don’t know now, one day they will.

Fame doesn’t need me, nor I it. I plan (with God’s complicity) to live to a ripe and healthy and sober old age. I have made headlines and bylines in my short turn on this planet. That’s been plenty. It is important to know when is enough.

Necessary Losses

Necessary Losses is the title of a 1986 book by Judith Viorst. The title intrigued me but the sub-title even more: The Loves, Illusions, Dependencies, and Impossible Expectations That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Grow. 

(Grown up children (like mine) will recognize Viorst’s most famous children’s book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. We loved that book when they were little people.)

When I first encountered Necessary Losses, I was in a period of deep mourning for my life. I’d lost nearly everything. My family of origin. My marriage. My job. My self-confidence and my center. My “promise of youth.”

What Viorst’s book taught me was that we all go through inevitable losses in life. They are unavoidable. We will lose “our childhood.” We will lose our youth. We will lose our parents. And, eventually, extended family. Then friends.

It is how we grow and change through these losses that we are brought to a deeper perspective, true maturity and fuller wisdom about life.

Oddly, it was this book I was thinking about when I was clearing out a storage locker yesterday. The contents of many boxes reflected my life back to me. An agenda for a planning meeting. Articles I’d published. School reports for one or the other of my children. Random recipes and receipts from everywhere.

It was both freeing and unsettling. Clearly, I had hung on too long to too much stuff. As my energy level dropped in proportion to the amount of stuff I had to go through, I understood why. It is emotional and daunting to revisit the past. My past in any case. It is also exhausting.

I saw my survival through line in the detritus. The contracts I pursued to keep body and soul together. The self-help books that acted as guides and friends when I felt bereft of both. The children’s art that I kept to remind them one day of their younger selves. (I honestly don’t think they care all that much. A mother’s predilection, not a child’s.)

Growing older, I can feel myself bracing for the upcoming wave of losses over the next ten years.

When you are younger, the death of a friend or acquaintance is shocking and seemingly random. We celebrate together as a community and memorializing that death is a noteworthy event. We go to the funeral as a community. We share remembrances of the departed and swap jokes they used to laugh at. It is a bonding experience.

Then I remember my mother once went to the funeral of three friends in one day. We are still in the time of “one-offs” when among the condolences, we dutifully deploy “s/he died too young.”

We see ourselves in the remembrances in the obituary. We remember rocking out to Tom Petty in the basement together. Furtively getting high on illicit weed from questionable sources.

We meet their adult children and marvel at how much they look like the parent – our friend – that they just lost. The culling has begun.

It is for the best that the wisdom we gain about death as we get older does not preoccupy us when we are young. Persistent thoughts of death and dying are deemed pathological in our youth. In youth, those thoughts are often treated as symptoms of a mental condition, like depression or suicidal ideation.

In old age, those thoughts can become constant companions. After attending so many funerals and reading so many obituaries, we aren’t surprised by death anymore. If we are wise, we prepare for it every day we are living.

We all know there are “no guarantees” in life. An infant can expire as well as the octogenarian.

I decided some time ago to walk with death. Aware it is there and standing by. But not yet invited to the party. I have too much living and exploration still ahead of me. I think.

This attitude has been both life-affirming and life-changing. I am philosophical about death compared to what I was in my youth. Then the thought of death or a terminal illness could make me white with terror. Looking back, I think my greatest fear was dying before I had actually lived.

No one knows the internal crater of pain and emptiness as well as the recently bereft. It is not a universal reaction, of course. Some deaths bring more relief than sadness. That is a loss for all involved in that particular passing.

I accept death’s inevitability now. I know it will take precious loved ones from me. That constant, hovering possibility focusses me more on living life now. I make the apple galette when asked. I watch a movie I’m not crazy about because he enjoys it.

This is not about suppressing or ignoring my own needs or sense of self. Because what I need most now is for my dearest to live happy and healthy for as long as possible. As that is my ultimate goal, the details of how I get there aren’t as important.

On with the day and dealing with the next batch of boxes. Sifting through memories. Even expressing gratitude for the hideousness of the task.

At least, I am still here and able to go through them – a privilege denied to many.

Controlled Crash Landing

Tomorrow morning.

Dumpster coming.

Packers coming.

Boxes and bubble wrap bought.

Packing tape up the wazoo

Bring on the dreaded packing task. I’m ready.

There are watershed moments in our lives. This feels like one for me. God, I sure hope so.

A watershed moment is a turning point, the exact moment that changes the direction of an activity or situation. A watershed moment is a dividing point, from which things will never be the same. It is considered momentous, though a watershed moment is often recognized in hindsight.  https://grammarist.com/idiom/watershed-moment/

I may finally be allowing some air into my tightly controlled little chamber of self. I may be ready to let go of things … LET GO OF THINGS. That feels like a foreign phrase to me.

The game-playing I’ve done for decades reads like a laundry list of the “hoarder’s rationale.”

“I paid a lot of money for that.”

“I might need that one day.”

“I could probably use that one day. It’s really good quality.”

“Somebody else could probably use it.” (I confined my rationale to someone I would hypothetically meet one day who in the course of conversation would casually bring up, “Well, yes. As a matter of fact, I have been looking for a package of old-fashioned Pink Pearl rubber erasers for quite a while now. I am more than happy to take them off your hands. And I’ll take those 20 blank VHS tapes while I’m at it.”

You probably think I am exaggerating.

Then there are the projects and crafts I am going to get to one day, for sure, when I’m retired. The balls of yarn. The remaindered fabric pieces. The empty wooden ever-so-slightly-chipped picture frames. All of these raw materials would someday be creatively birthed into magnificent manifestation. Displayed around my home with inordinate pride and humility. (Give my creations away to someone? What? Are you nuts?)

Worth every second of the 20, 30, even 40 years I held on to them.

We are all guilty of hanging on to “some” stuff. What distinguishes normal and neurotic people from the mentally ill is the amount and degree. And the degree of distress that contemplating letting go of “stuff” – mentally or actually – causes them. I have watched Hoarders. It is debilitating and tragic. It is also a very real mental illness in the psychiatric DSM-IV.

I have heard my paternal grandfather was a first-class packrat. I believe I inherited the gene. In truth, the packrat gene kicked in with a vengeance on December 8, 1986. My mother and then-husband took my infant son away from me at suppertime. I was nursing him. My son was not returned to me until the following morning. I was in indescribable physical and emotional pain.

I believe it was at that instant that all forms of rational stress management left me. With their action, they wrested away from me any thin shard of security I had left. I lost my mother that day (at least the mother I thought she was who would love me “no matter what.”) My marriage – already rocky – shattered irreconcilably on the spot.

From that moment on, my whole being was devoted to shoring up myself and my little family. My infant son was followed by a daughter who came to be in the turmoil of my emotional confusion and distress. The details now escape me. She was a straight up gift from God.

I irrationally held on to every little thing no matter its real or perceived value. For one thing, I was dreadfully afraid that in my confusion and distress, I would let go of something I would later regret letting go of.

Tomorrow I begin to tackle the hoard. I start packing and tossing. A dumpster will be delivered to the front door. I hope I can fill it. I hope to give tons away to charity. I hope to recycle or shred a bunch of papers. I’ve already accumulated a bag or two of shredding confetti. I hope to get rid of much more.

The problem in my life has never been a matter of external “lack.” I have been well paid for my services over the years. I have squirreled away an adequate cash stash for retirement (who would be better at squirreling stuff away than me, I ask you?) As a single parent and woman for much of my adult life, I have become pretty savvy with money. Valuable lessons.

The constant “lack” I have always felt has been internal. A general lack of positive experiences that might have come from a more or less normal upbringing. Nothing over the top would have been fine.

Just the occasional “attagirl” and “keep up the good work” from caregivers to whom you matter and who see you. My parents did not see me. They couldn’t. They had too much blocking the way inside of them.

So buh-bye this week to that which has been holding me down and back for longer than I care to imagine or admit. They say that offloading “stuff” leads to a release of positive energy and a lighter feeling inside. I truly hope so. I’ll let you know next week how it went.

This “stuff” and what it signifies to me and my life has been an albatross around my neck for far too long.

Bye-bye birdie!

Letting Go

The source where I found this says these wise words come from Anthony Hopkins. I’m a little skeptical. I will have to do some proper research to find out – if indeed he wrote them – when and where? A university graduation speech, perhaps?

Often people who become THAT famous have all sorts of positives attributed to them: even things they had nothing to do with.

That said, these words are perfect. And again, this morning as happened yesterday morning, they are words I need to hear. I am in a friendship situation where the overarching qualities are disrespect and arrogance. That was not immediately apparent.

Now that it is, it is time to cut ties. An unpleasant process to be sure. Like undergoing surgery to remove an unwanted growth that is hurting you. It must be done.

How long did I live in situations in my young life where I was not treated well and as I deserved? In fact, I was often treated very badly. I regularly gave over my well-being and self-esteem to others who misused and abused it. It is a common trait in trauma survivors.

At least now I recognize poor treatment from others and can reject it… even when it takes awhile.

′′Let go the people who are not prepared to love you. This is the hardest thing you will have to do in your life and it will also be the most important thing. Stop having hard conversations with people who don’t want change.

Stop showing up for people who have no interest in your presence. I know your instinct is to do everything to earn the appreciation of those around you, but it’s a boost that steals your time, energy, mental and physical health.

When you begin to fight for a life with joy, interest and commitment, not everyone will be ready to follow you in this place. This doesn’t mean you need to change what you are, it means you should let go of the people who aren’t ready to accompany you.

If you are excluded, insulted, forgotten or ignored by the people you give your time to, you don’t do yourself a favor by continuing to offer your energy and your life. The truth is that you are not for everyone and not everyone is for you.

That’s what makes it so special when you meet people who reciprocate love. You will know how precious you are.

The more time you spend trying to make yourself loved by someone who is unable to, the more time you waste depriving yourself of the possibility of this connection to someone else.

There are billions of people on this planet and many of them will meet with you at your level of interest and commitment.

The more you stay involved with people who use you as a pillow, a background option or a therapist for emotional healing, the longer you stay away from the community you want.

Maybe if you stop showing up, you won’t be wanted. Maybe if you stop trying, the relationship will end. Maybe if you stop texting your phone will stay dark for weeks. That doesn’t mean you ruined the relationship, it means the only thing holding it back was the energy that only you gave to keep it. This is not love, it’s attachment. It’s wanting to give a chance to those who don’t deserve it. You deserve so much, there are people who should not be in your life.

The most valuable thing you have in your life is your time and energy, and both are limited. When you give your time and energy, it will define your existence.

When you realize this, you begin to understand why you are so anxious when you spend time with people, in activities, places or situations that don’t suit you and shouldn’t be around you, your energy is stolen.

You will begin to realize that the most important thing you can do for yourself and for everyone around you is to protect your energy more fiercely than anything else. Make your life a safe haven, in which only ′′compatible′′ people are allowed.

You are not responsible for saving anyone. You are not responsible for convincing them to improve. It’s not your work to exist for people and give your life to them! If you feel bad, if you feel compelled, you will be the root of all your problems, fearing that they will not return the favours you have granted. It’s your only obligation to realize that you are the love of your destiny and accept the love you deserve.

Decide that you deserve true friendship, commitment, true and complete love with healthy and prosperous people. Then wait and see how much everything begins to change. Don’t waste time with people who are not worth it. Change will give you the love, the esteem, happiness and the protection you deserve.

RIP Peter Newman

Author, editor, historian, and darned frustrating writer to fact check is how I will remember Peter Newman. I was a lowly fact-checker at Maclean’s, Canada’s weekly newsmagazine, back in the day. Peter Newman roamed the halls at deadline, checking on everyone’s progress and making light conversation. Extremely light conversation.

Peter Newman was a man of words but not particularly inclined toward the spoken variety. He ruled the roost at Maclean’s in that way that intimidating figures do. If Peter wanted it this way or that way, then that is what Peter got.

Peter Newman was old school. A Vienna born Jewish refugee from Nazis, he barely escaped being shot as he was about to board the ship that would take him to Canada. He had a fierce drive to find his voice and his place. He certainly accomplished that in the firmament of Canadian journalism and literature.

As a fact-checker, our job was to review the copy submitted by the writers and then painfully, line by line in red ink, underline the ‘facts” in the piece and verify them. We had an array of reference options in the Maclean’s library as our go to. Facts on File was a standard reference guide. Webster’s dictionary to check spelling. No internet back then.

We would also have to call people mentioned in stories to verify facts. I remember a dear colleague (Ann MacGregor gone way too soon) had to call Harold Ballard, then-owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs to have him confirm if, indeed, he had “steely blue eyes.” She never admitted whether she asked Ballard if his eyes were “steely” or not. Confirming the color was likely as far as she got. Ann was tenacious but a little timid.

The point of fact-checking was verification and corroboration. A directive from legal to avoid libel and slander suits, no doubt. That meant we had to have two and preferably three verifiable sources to support the facts in the story, complete with the usual bibliographic elements: source, date, edition, page number, author, etc.

Peter Newman wrote a weekly editorial column for the magazine. Woe betide the checker who got Newman column to review. Peter helpfully provided his own “references.” They would be passed to us along with his copy in clipping shards from one magazine or another.

No author’s name. No identified publication. Page number and issue or edition number was a joke. We trembled when it was our turn to “fact-check Peter.”

We could not properly do the job we were supposed to do with Peter’s copy. It was impossible. But it was Peter Newman and Peter Newman’s word was gospel. We shakily passed our finished copy along to research department head Arlene Arnason. She would swallow any misgivings she might have had about any other writer and say, ”Well, if it came from Peter, I am sure it is okay.” We all sure hoped so.

On Friday nights when we had to work late to put the magazine to bed, Newman would make arrangements for his secretary to call up his buddy Ray Kroc, Canadian McDonald’s CEO. We ate Big Macs and quarter pounders to our heart’s content. Those were the days when it didn’t matter how much cholesterol we ingested. Or booze when I think of it. (After the magazine was put to bed.)

The old guard of Canadian journalism from the 20th century is leaving. Many have already left. It is ever the case as one generation hands the torch to the next one. The world has evolved in such a way that the job we pursued with such passion as young journalists seems a little quaint now. The accusation of “fake news” makes my blood boil in a way that maybe only journalists steeped in the exactitude of our research traditions understand.

I harbor deep concerns that the world of facts and information is nowhere near as regulated and important as it once was. In World War II, posters warned citizens: “Loose lips sink ships.” If anyone understood the power of words to shape and distort the facts and negatively impact people’s lives, it would have been Peter Newman. RIP.

Yay Me, Yay You

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” – Henry David Thoreau

Here is what I am learning these days about a theme I have explored before. I write for myself and only myself. If it hits a chord out there in the world, that’s good. Not essential but good. Welcome aboard.

I believe in the sanctity of the individual and exploring inside ourselves to find out who we really are. What we think, believe, care about, fear, love. Not because we are all that on our own, but because we as individuals are all there really is.

What is in your brain is your life. Full stop. Not a bit more complicated than that. Don’t believe me? Remove your brain from your body. See how that goes.

I hate to go all Henry David Thoreau on you, but I am going to. Collectively, we like to step-to and mind our ps and q’s to fit in and enjoy our perception of being “normal.” Being “seen” as normal in whatever society we are in is an important prerequisite for living a “normal” life. In other words, in larger society, to feel like a person “just like everyone else” and in smaller groups fitting in with people “just like us.”

We gauge our social success by the degree to which we have engendered the regard of our fellows. We spend a great deal of time in our youth preparing ourselves to become our version of what we believe a normal person is and should be.

There was such a brouhaha around Thoreau’s seminal book Walden, Or, Life in the Woods when it was published in 1854. He wrote a lot about being self-sufficient and celebrating himself. He was accused of all kinds of unseemly personal characteristics and hypocrisy and humorlessness. Mostly he was regarded by many as selfish for stepping outside the normal bounds of society. Even for a short two years.

For some reason this scared the living bejeezus out of good folk. Many branded him a narcissist and ne’er do well. But I see Thoreau’s attempt to elevate himself as an individual as a call to all of us to respect and nurture our unique individuality. He urges each of us to respect the dictates of our individuality for indeed, without that, we ain’t got much.

It is funny, in retrospect, that Thoreau contributed so many great one-liners and dorm room poster fodder to our culture. March to the beat of your own drummer, for example. Celebrating myself, another. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.

What I like most in reading about Thoreau is that he didn’t seem to give a fiddler’s fig about what others thought of him or his odd lifestyle choice. He hied himself off to a cabin in the woods where he lived a sparse life for a time devoid of most creature comforts back in the days of mid-1800’s sensibilities. This bothered some people and marked him as distinctly odd.

But I liked that Thoreau subverted the expectations of people around him. He essentially said with his choices and musings: “Let others think what they will. This is what I am doing and how I choose to live my life. Deliberately. There is a price to pay for marching to the beat of a different drummer and I am paying it.” (He didn’t say any of that. I am writing what I think he might have said and thought. How presumptuous is that.)

However, it was Thoreau who said: What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.

It is a reminder and an invocation to explore our own inner dreams and pay attention to the directives of our “small, still voice.” It is a tall order. Swishing around in society’s daily routines and taking care of a hundred chores and necessaries every day, that voice is often hard to hear. Dead silent for many people. But it is always there. Small and still though that voice may be.

As fragile human beings who choose to act on the prescriptions inside each of us for each one of us, in the face of overwhelming odds by society to push down and push back our individuality, it is really all we have.

We don’t really need a cabin to figure that out and pay attention. Modern life is full of homilies and advice about getting in touch with that directive through meditation and mindfulness. But it is a wonderful occurrence when you and the voice connect occasionally and for the more attuned, regularly.

For that voice is ours and ours alone. Rare. Unique. Original. Just like we are. I feel it best to constantly listen for that voice and to remind myself that it is always available to us whether we can hear it at the minute or not. I celebrate myself. You celebrate you, too. The voice inside you will get louder.