Category: Writing A Book-ish

The World’s Happiest Man

I have followed the journey of Matthieu Ricard for many years. He is a French scientist turned monk. He’s written books. He became famous as a Harvard research study subject who underwent brain scans during meditation, proving their efficacy.

One thing you realize as you get older is that people are people are people. Even celebrities and spiritual leaders. I have always found it silly to approach celebrities with great awe and deference. They expect attention and can usually handle it. But they know they are just flawed human beings like everyone else.

So the nervous demeanor of this young-ish reporter that she reports when she approaches monk Matthieu Ricard is a bit obsequious and flagrantly starstruck. Blows up that “objective journalist” mythology. If I’m honest I did that sometimes, too, as a young journalist. It just shifts the power dynamic in the interview in favor of your subject instead of interacting as equals.

It takes time to realize that in the reporter-celebrity dyad, you are both playing distinct roles. They are acting and your job is to report on that. Matthieu Ricard kindly and consistently was having none of that with the young Guardian reporter. He is genuinely authentic in the simplicity of the spirituality he lives.

And that doesn’t take away from the fine intellect of Matthieu Ricard, as this article demonstrates. Give this Guardian article about him a go to explore that mind a bit.

Give it a go especially if you are in a rat race corporate or academic job. If you ever wondered what jumping off the hamster wheel to pursue a spiritual life might be like, read about Matthieu Ricard’s life, for example. An example he is of what it means to live simply and happily.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/sep/18/the-worlds-happiest-man-matthieu-ricard-on-the-secrets-of-a-serene-successful-satisfying-life

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!

Sick Stuff

When I was around 5 or 6 years old, I lived in the Sears catalog. I pored through it regularly and marveled at all the stuff on offer.

I remember landing on a pretty little red dress. I still recall it vividly. It was a sheer red fabric dotted with tiny and perfectly symmetrical polka dots. It had a standup collar and short sleeves. There was a long, ribbon-like belt that tied in the back.

I lusted after that dress. Which at six years old was about all I could do. You “normal” people out there might read that and say: “Why didn’t you show it to your parents and ask them to buy it for you?” You would only ask that question if you had a “normal” upbringing. Which I did not.

I now understand the function that clunky Sears catalog played. It was an escape hatch. It was a safe place to hide from the violence and unpredictability between my parents. It helped me imagine a better life than what I was living. One where I had pretty little dresses to wear that would be cleaned, pressed, hung up in my closet and always there. Waiting for me.

The reality I lived in was that there was shit in my ballet costume. I will explain. The parents introduced my sister and I to the normal rites of passage for little girls back in the day. Ballet was one of the biggies. After a year of playing around with ballet moves in a gym at the Y, we would apply all the moves we learned at our annual end of the year recital. Boy did we get excited> excited

In preparation, Mom would take us to a local seamstress to have ballet costumes made. We were measured up and down and across and around. The seamstress would nod sagely and promise my mother a fixed pickup date. I saw the fabrics that would be used to make my ballet costume.

It was to be created out of a stretchy satin fabric and constructed like a bathing suit in a teal-like shade. Green-y-blue (or blue-y green) with alternating layers of green and blue tulle acting as the attached skirt, or tutu.

The straps were a dark green satin ribbon. At the hip, two green leaf shaped appliques were meant to accentuate that a leaf was what I was supposed to be. I nearly fainted it was so beautiful.

Being in a different dance number, my sister had a pretty little white number. It was embellished in blue sequins in two straight lines down either side of her front. White satin straps on her costume. She was a snowflake. That hasn’t changed.

Mom took great pride in spraying our little black ballet slippers silver. I wasn’t ever sure why she did that. Our black slippers seemed fine and the silver an unnecessarily gauche touch. I doubt I was so analytical back then but merely saw the silver slippers as “odd.”

As time went on and the marriage and my parents’ mental health deteriorated, our home environment similarly declined. In around this time period, a new baby sister entered the picture.

She was cute and entertaining. Couldn’t speak right to save her life. As she was learning to speak, my middle sister and I would coach her on the proper pronunciation of words. To no avail. The words would come out garbled. We thought there might be something wrong with her.

One day I started looking for my beautiful ballet dresses to dress up the baby sister. Clothes were not usually hung up or put away in our house. So I headed to the closet, opened the door and started digging through the clothes on the floor. Then I spied it. The strap or tutu or some part of it caught my eye and I pulled it out.

And my nose wrinkled. My beautiful blue-green teal ballet costume reeked. When I looked in the crotch, I saw why. Dried shit. I nearly cried.

I can’t remember now exactly how I responded. Heartsick. Confused. Aghast. How could this happen to something so beautiful? Why was my costume ruined and not someone else’s? Why weren’t my clothes put away? I had no answers.

Turns out that potty training was another victim of my parents’ neglect and addictions. The routine parents put children through to teach them how and when to use a toilet was overlooked for my sister. For quite a long time. It would appear the use of diapers was missing, too. I assume she is potty trained by now. Except her mouth retained the same problem. I only know that, at the time and in memory, I was devastated.

I know how that experience and many others manifested in me as an adult. I am a bit paranoid and hysterical about my “stuff.” I think my relationship to stuff has morphed into an addiction. In an ineffective attempt to control what I have and how much I have and keep it safe, I have gone all together too far the other way.

Amazon replaced the Sears catalog. The wound is so deep I often can’t just buy one quality item, but must buy two or three “just in case.” I am determined that no one will destroy or take my property away from me again, by God! And if they do, I have a replacement. Right here! Somewhere!

That’s turned out to be some pretty dysfunctional and irrational thinking. It hasn’t served me well. Too much stuff. They are only distractions and obstacles to what I rally want. And worse, when I am stressed, my instinct is to shop. Buy something pretty. Make the bad thing go away. Show that I am not as broke as I fear. Spend money! That’ll fix it. Sheesh.

I am on the brink of offloading much of what I accumulated to make me feel safe. Those are the keys words here. Feeling safe. That is a state of mind. It has been hard won for me.

For someone with a trauma history like mine, it was a distorted coping mechanism I am trying to stare down. I don’t feel alone with it. It is a chronic condition for many and the marketing gurus tap into and exploit that vulnerabilty. And are they ever good at that.

I must get good at ignoring them. I also have some work to do to remind myself that “stuff” is not security. Even if you have a million dollars in the bank, if the core wounds aren’t healed, the money won’t matter. I am slowly starting to get that.

But it’s tough. My trauma training started early in life. When it is all you have known in your formative years, it is hard to change tracks. But I must. As I have changed and abandoned other dysfunctional and addictive coping mechanisms – booze, cigarettes, sex, collections.

This road to “perfection” is very long and tiresome. Maybe death is the big graduation party. Who knows? I only know that I have to recommit regularly to deliberately follow a path of peace, harmony and healing.

As my Newfoundland friends are wont to say, life’s a hard pull.

Playing for Change

I watched a music video tonight. It suddenly opened my eyes to something I’d never quite understood before. (Ironically, the song was called “Doctor My Eyes.”) I instantly understood why music (and art) generally is so threatening to power.

Playing for Change (https://www.playingforchange.com/home2) is a movement created to inspire and connect the world through music. Though separated by geography, countries and culture, music is a common language that can be shared by everyone.

Last night, a new Playing for Change video popped up. I watched in amazement as American singer Jackson Browne sat in his California studio accompanied by about fifteen accomplished musicians from around the world.

As Browne sat at his piano and sang his 1972 hit song, Doctor My Eyes, he was joined by video links with singers and musicians from around the world playing on sitars, an African grass piano, rain sticks, electric guitars and their own voices. The music was amazing as is the PFC message. “No matter where we come from, music helps us overcome our differences.”

The insight I had is that power is maintained in this world through deliberate separation and compartmentalization. Op. cit. apartheid. It’s easy to understand why that appeals to power. Smaller groups are easier to control.

Staying small and disconnected from each other diminishes the ability for members of different groups to get to know and understand one other. “Fear of the other” kicks in and defines many inter-group relationships.

Simple miscommunication and misunderstanding underpin many interpersonal and global conflicts. Even social conflicts: think racism and anti-Semitism. The more disconnected and separate groups remain, the more isolated and vulnerable they are.

I think back to how naive I was working in a government bureaucracy.

They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom, trying to change the system from within … Leonard Cohen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_We_Take_Manhattan

I was appalled by the redundancy and waste in so many different branches and divisions. They were often devoted to many of the same tasks without communicating between themselves. This frequently caused problems when one group’s findings or directives or priorities conflicted with another. Yet it went on all the time.

How much more sensible and efficient it would be, I reasoned, if these groups worked together toward a common goal. And that was when I learned about “silos.”

These disparate bureaucratic groups between departments or in departments were called “silos.” Each “silo” is headed up by someone like a director or manager. The hierarchy is fixed. How much time and energy did I waste creating organizational charts!

Silos exist in organizations like a government bureaucracy and they will always be there for a simple reason. There are those who like to be in control. There are others who like to be controlled. They are two distinct personality types.

The two are attracted to each other like moths to a flame. Their respective positions are distinct and well-defined. It gives both of them a sense of certainty and security. The thinking seems to go: “I am the boss and you are my underling. As we both agree on that, we will both get our needs met and contribute to our mutual well-being and security.” As long as we both obey the rules….

But life isn’t like a carefully constructed organizational chart. There is no absolute fixed hierarchy in nature, for example, in which roles remain rigid and inflexible. Roles fluctuate with age and death and the local geography and weather conditions and supply and demand.

Life is actually messy and surprising and random. Usually only as we get older do we come to understand and accept that. There is never going to be an immutable, safe haven. At best, we have all agreed to a tacit and self-serving civility to maintain our stability and security as we know and expect.

From years of travel, I became familiar and comfortable within many different cultures. The rukle was pretty simple: “Treat others as you would want to be treated.” That worked around the world for the most part.

For many years, I eagerly sought out foreign culture and experiences. I have met people for whom this is the very definition of a nightmare.

People regularly travel to foreign countries, but usually in ways that support and mirror the standards and expectations of their own culture. Bus tours. Cruises. Biking adventures. All with people “just like them” and amenities “just like home.” Super structured. Super safe. And sorry, but super boring.

I have happily travelled the rough and ready way. Slept on a dirt floor in a Nepali hut. Camped on the open tundra in the high Arctic. And, my favorite, in a life preserver box on a ferry crossing across the Atlantic. In smelly canvas tents on a horse trek across the Andes. Once had to sleep in those smelly tents in the middle of a snowstorm.

Each of those experiences changed me in ways I don’t suppose I’ve even yet fully realized. I only know I remain open and curious.

Playing for Change seeks to expose viewers to different cultures in less immersive ways than actually being where the musicians are. But this is not a Carnegie Hall concert experience.

Sitar players sit and play on rattan chairs on the edge of a jungle. Black Jamaicans play guitars on the side of a street with broken pavement. In Argentina, an accordionist plays to the rapt attention of two little girls sitting on and looking up from two tiny, little chairs.

Unstructured. Messy. Unpredictable. Each and every one different.

All beautiful. Such a gift to be able to share in that experience.

Play on, Playing For Change. You are doing such a good thing.

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.

The Halfway Mark & I Am Broken

Now that’s a confession.

Because I write about healing and how to do it and all the ways we can “get back on the horse” after unfathomable losses over many years, it is a shocking confession to me.

Today is significant to me not only for this revelation but because I started this blog on March 14, 2023. I have committed to writing a post a day every day for a whole year. This is the half way mark. High marks for stick-to-it-ism.

I have devised a clever strategy. So I will not feel the true depths and agony hiding in the pain abyss I am carrying. I play an artful game of “feint and parry,” “na-na-na-boo-boo” and the biggie, “You can’t hurt me!”

Lately, however, I am edging toward the rim of the abyss. The pain looks up at me slyly from the measureless depths. It chuckles softly. “I’m gonna getcha. You know that, don’t you?” And the minute I hear that whisper of a threat, I rev up in to high gear. “The hell you are!”

My voice raises and thins and speeds up. My fingers fly faster over the keyboard much more driven than they need to be. I realize there is no need for this manic typing. The words will come out eventually no matter how slow or fast I type. But in an attempt to evade the mocking incessant whispers of pain, the typing seems possessed by an Olympian drive.

I cannot even conceptualize what “surrender” or “letting go” means. I imagine it means death. Psychological and literal. I have entertained the conceit that I have actually been letting go in recent years. I realize I have been tested lately. External forces have triggered and exposed what hasn’t fully healed.

Then the dominoes fall. Just like the 100 foot oak trees behind our new house. I am emotionally bereft. I have tried to live above it all. Real losses and the threat of loss have been swimming in and out of my life for decades. “I laugh in the face of fear and danger!! Ha-ha.” Not.

Occasionally I acknowledge pain’s presence, then let it move along. Lately, the hateful thing seems poised to throw itself onto my emotional beach, loll about sunning itself and indicates its intent to stick around for awhile.

They say that the way to conquer the thing you fear and loathe is to get up close to it, make yourself vulnerable and befriend the creature. Talk about easier said than done. What I know today at exactly the halfway point in my daily blog writing exercise, I have never been so awash in pain and uncertainty.

If I were you reading this, what would I tell you by way of hope and comfort? The platitude scarves would come out. “This too shall pass.” “You are stronger than you imagine and braver than you think.” “What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.“ Etc.

That last quote is by Thoreau. It has always struck a resonant chord in me even though it seems to expect an enormous amount of us. It expects we will have sufficient time, wisdom and inclination to fully explore and find that which lives deep inside us. I feel I have never had an adequate amount of any of those three things to find out who and what I really am.

Once in another place of transition in my life, I was lost and confused. My direction in life, how I wanted to live, where I wanted to live. The counsellor I was talking with simply said: “That’s perfectly okay. Confusion is a legitimate place.”

In my mind, I have committed to writing daily about what I observe, what I’ve learned and whatever else came up. To honor that process, I tap into it all – good, bad and ugly. Even the uncomfortable bits. Only time will tell if this confession is a catharsis and sparks another deep healing phase. I have fear and I have hope.

Again it was my old friend Thoreau who said: “Not until we are lost do we discover who we are.”

That being the case, and if Henry is right, I should be on track to solidify a pretty tight sense of self at the end of this waterpark ride.

Here’s hoping.

In the meantime, I’ve got work to do. As I have always done, I will put one metaphorical foot in front of the other. And I’ll keep writing. That is something concrete I can do to contain and examine the pain. Most days, it helps.

ED. NOTE: The Universe often does show up with guidance and comfort. This morning’s message from a spiritual newsletter I read is: The beauty of being lost is the same thing that makes it scary — we must look within ourselves to find the way.

On it. 🙂

Do Unto Others

I believed this for the longest time. That if people care enough, are good enough, try hard enough, avoid the Nazis, good things would come into their life. I had to. I was dealing with a lot of (metaphorical) Nazis.

And it is not that I don’t believe that goodness triumphs. If life is – as many believe – a crap shoot, it is far better to load the die on the side of goodness and optimism. “Do unto others as they would have them do unto you.”

I lived in relentless negativity and pessimism for the longest time. That sucked.

It wasn’t that I consciously chose to see the world that way. Life convinced me. And if I’m honest, my life had a lot of help in forming a negative worldview from my stupid choices and bad behavior. I should have realized I couldn’t have it both ways. I couldn’t be both a screaming a-hole AND be blissfully content and happy. It’s called consequences.

For the longest time, I played a precipitous game between feeling I totally lacked control over my life and an illusion that I had absolute control. I was not well prepared for life.

In fact, I didn’t really have the basics nailed down. Emotionally and physically absent parents who pretty much left me to figure out life on my own. I was not qualified.

My young life was a series of jagged stops and starts, highs and lows, genius and bonehead stupidity. I was offered so many great opportunities that I did not have the necessary skills or experience to hang on to. What child does?

It takes a magical amalgam of upbringing, genetics, personality, opportunity, and chutzpah to land on your feet and stay there. I know one thing for sure. At a point, it is essential to take personal responsibility for your life, aka your choices. At a point, no one (even you) is going to buy: “The Devil made me do it.”

I make these observations as I face a mountainous mess of my own making. Confined in life and options, I continued making a series, if not bad, then not brilliant choices about how to invest my time and energy.

I have rather more of what I don’t want in my life (debt, clutter, stress) than what I truly want and need (friends, happy outings and mini-ad\ventures, dinner parties, fine Swiss chocolate).

I have learned that you must build, not grab. For someone raised I was, it is very difficult not to take whatever comes along and takes what is offered, instead of sitting back and first considering: “Is this something I really want?”

If acknowledgment of a problem is the first step toward solving it, then I have arrived at that point at least. For a troubled kid awash in lack, I am now struggling to balance and find my center now that lack is no longer an issue.

I chuckle at our collective envy and wonder about people who – by any outside standard – “have it all.” That is a very subjective experience to begin with. “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure.” But this is also true even if you “have it made.” Life is going to teach you lessons – whether you are a prince or a pauper, a sinner or a saint.

It is only once your outside reality begins to line up with your inside reality that life becomes easier, even and balanced. From my present stocktaking vantage point, my biggest task these days will be to eliminate what I don’t want to make room for more of what I do. Out with the old and in with the new.

At least that is how it goes in theory. I’ll let you know how I do with that.

The target has been set. Now I just have to make a plan to reach it. And stick with it.

Wish me luck.

Joe Conservative

Not my words, but words I believe, so I am sharing them.

Just as anyone should share one’s beliefs.

The pushback of hatred sometimes makes me forget.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE CONSERVATIVE

Joe gets up for work and fills his kettle with water to prepare his morning tea. The water is clean because some tree-hugger fought for minimum water-quality standards.

With his first swig, he takes his daily medication. His medicine is safe to take, because some stupid commie fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.

He prepares his bacon and eggs. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meatpacking industry.

In his morning shower, Joe reaches for the shampoo. His bottle is labelled with each ingredient because some crybaby fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

Joe drives to work in a safe regulated car because meddling do-gooders fought for more safety features and standards.

Joe begins his workday. He has a good job with excellent pay, pension, paternity leave, paid holidays and sick pay because some union layabouts fought and died for these working standards.

Joe hurts himself at work and an ambulance takes him to a hospital emergency ward. He receives free-at-the-point-of-use treatment thanks to some bloody interfering trots
who decided to create a national Medicare health system [ED.NOTE: Canadian reference].

Joe gets home and relaxes by listening to the radio. The host reminds everyone that socialists are dangerous and conservatives are trustworthy.

He never mentions that the Conservatives have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoyed throughout his day.

Joe agrees: “We don’t need those big-government socialists ruining our lives! After all, I’m a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.”

Joe lives in blissful [ED. NOTE: and dangerous] ignorance.

Coffee, Tea or Cyanide

Nothing like an early morning flight to remind you how precious sleep is.

Over years of intermittent early morning flights, I have come to rely on my internal alarm clock.

I don’t rely on it so much that I don’t set an actual alarm, mind you. But inevitably, I wake before the clock chimes the hour. I rouse myself no matter how sleepy I am when there is something important to be done. Like catching a flight.

I used to travel enthusiastically. I am not sure what has taken off the edge of excitement. These days I dread travel like I used to dread going to the dentist. Given my druthers these days, I think I’d happily hop in a dental chair.

I’ve been to a lot of places in the world, so there’s that. But no, I think it is that the overall quality of travel has dipped precipitously. My recent flight plans were a shining example.

Flying Leg #1 from North to South was straightforward enough. But at a central hub on the Eastern US seaboard, Mother Nature had her own secret plans for a messed up travel day. A messed up heyday, in fact. Thunderstorms. Complete with thunder and lighting. Travel cyanide.

I have to admire how cleverly the airlines handle such disruptions these days in their own best interests. There was a time when the merest hint of bad weather would shut down flights. The airline would hie its’ passengers off to a nearby hotel with meal vouchers to ride out the storm. Ancient history.

Instead, the airline’s tactic today is to keep passengers baited and on the hook. “We regret to inform you your flight will be delayed by one hour. It is now departing from Gate Whatever at whatever time one hour from now is.”

The same email and text message gets sent out hour after hour after hour. It keeps people dangling and on the hook. Clustered sleepily in the airport waiting lounge sipping bad coffee and chewing on hope.

To be fair, the airline finally made a humanitarian offering of “hydration and refreshments”: warm bottled water and Goldfish pretzels. You’d be within your rights to see the close comparison to the “bread and water” regimen they once served incarcerated prisoners as punishment.

Until finally, when pilots can no longer safely fly because they have passed the allowable FAA regulations deadline, the airline cancels the flight. I don’t know what people do or what happens to them when that happens. I didn’t stick around to find out.

Operating on fumes, I finally bailed at around 7 PM to find a hotel room for the night. I would have felt foolish if my flight actually made it out that night. Luckily it didn’t and I didn’t feel foolish. I awoke this morning to find a text message advising all passengers at close to midnight: “The flight has been cancelled.”

Ominously I had been checked into Room 911 at the hotel. That was particularly ominous in light of today’s chilling anniversary. It was a minor nuisance to learn there was no bathtub, so I asked for a room change. Thus I avoided two undesirable scenarios and my uncomfortable feeling.

There was an eeriness in seeing the room number 911 assignment in a Washington, DC hotel exactly 22 years after the fact. And a “shower only” bathroom. I’m old school and need a bath to relax. Especially after a travel day like this.

The flakiness I sometimes exhibit both confounds and comforts me by times. So many had so many more feels to wrangle on this horrible anniversary and likely still do. But damn, travel is different. No room service. “Only at dinnertime,” said the chipper young thing at the front desk.

I pleaded illness and incapacity to get a basic breakfast delivered. (“Oh, we can give you a mask when you come down.” CYT offered, cheerily.) The whitener served with the coffee was totally oversold. It barely turned the coffee a dark mocha to say nothing of the host of chemicals that cannot be good for man nor beast.

I am about to go all Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz on myself after this necessary travel jaunt. “There’s no place like home!” At least, I can count on a full breakfast any time of the day or night and a readily available bathtub to soak away the cares of the day.

Travel was once the playground of adventure, learning and tolerable inconveniences. These days it is a passage through purgatory to get to wherever it is you absolutely want or need to get to.

Purgatory is a polite way of putting it. Occasionally it can be hell on earth.

Yesterday’s travel came perilously close to that.

Ask anyone who was waiting all day yesterday to board Flight 4424.

Which, of course, they never did.

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.