“Why am I like this?” the clients ask in counselling. “Why do I drive people away? Why don’t I have any friends? Why can’t I have a happy relationship?”
Sometimes I get a bit impatient with the whys. I’ll admit that wondering why can be interesting, even informative if it leads to an investigation, and I don’t dispute the fact that knowing the cause can point the way to the cure. But I think it is a shame the why’s are able to command so much attention.
How easy it is to give too much attention to the whys when you notice that one member of a group is different from the rest. I am reminded of this every morning when I walk down our front walk, passing between four identical ceramic flowerpots arranged symmetrically. All four were planted on the same warm spring day with equal numbers of colourful lobelia, gazania and marigold. Each pot was given one red geranium, though at that time the geranium was only a green leafy plant, not yet in bloom. All the pots were the same when we planted them, but now, in late August, the picture has changed. It was a good year for geraniums, and they have become the dominant feature. Three of the pots host dozens of red blossoms, and the fourth one—well the fourth one is festooned in light pink.
Why does that pink pot not match the others? Like any undeniable difference, the sight of the pink pot inspires the curious mind. You can almost hear the passers-by asking the question and giving themselves the answers, each as plausible as the others. Probably the people ran out of red geraniums and decided to plant the pots anyway. Or, maybe a red one died and was replaced with a pink. Or, you know, the lady who lives there is blind and likely cannot tell the difference.
Asking why can take you into territory that is interesting, but not always so useful. The answers you generate may not be the right ones. Our pink pot, we believe, is the fault of the greenhouse, but we don’t really know how the error was made. We went to a reputable greenhouse and bought a flat of eighteen red geraniums, not yet in bloom. Looking around our yard in August, we count seventeen red geraniums. The flat must have contained one pink. Perhaps a seed strayed out of another package, or a careless worker lost a label. Or maybe a red geranium can mutate somehow and transform itself to light pink, so light that a blind person with only the tiniest glimmer of vision can see the difference between it and the reds.
It is interesting to wonder about these things, but it gets a little tiresome if you don’t move on from there. In this we had a head start compared to the casual passers-by. The little pink blossoms were more easily spotted at a very close range. They were not very obvious in mid June, when the difference was discovered, and we wondered what we should do about it. At that point there were options. We could probably have made a transfer, substituted the pink with one of the reds from another location. But it didn’t seem important then. It was only a tiny pink geranium, hardly noticeable, doing no harm. Now in August, with the difference in the pots so great that it cannot be ignored, we no longer wonder whether to trade a pink plan for a red. With the well-established roots long and tangled, there is little value in wondering this. The option of making a safe transfer to create identical pots is no longer available.
Yet the pink pot still has lessons to teach me. I like to think of it as a morning reminder that we are not all the same, and everything doesn’t always turn out the way we plan it, and some differences just cannot be explained by asking why. These reminders serve me well on the way to the office, where people are forever asking me to explain the inexplicable, to give them reasons. Speculating on the reasons is an interesting place to begin, a possible starting point for finding a solution, but the time comes when I want to replace it with something else.
The pink pot has interested me more than any of the red ones. It helps me remember how much I like the different ones, and how quickly I get so accustomed to them that I hardly notice the difference at all. . The different ones are the most interesting, albeit sometimes the most frustrating. There is great satisfaction in helping them appreciate the difference, and build on it, and see what beauty can be found there.
The pink pot has also opened up a lot of room for questions about preference and pattern. Which of the four pots, we wonder, is our favourite? Where, we wonder, should we position the pink one? And then there is the question of the future. How, we wonder, shall we decide whether to plant red or pink next year?
Unlike the question why, which so often tricks us into thinking there is only one possible answer, our pink pot is a constant reminder that there are options. Options are the greatest gift that can be derived from being different. Having options can be a source of hope for anyone who is different, even those who did not choose to be different, even those whose differences cannot be erased by pursuit of knowledge about cause and effect.
All too soon the pink pot will be a thing of the past, no longer of interest to the casual passer-by. But I still have questions to consider. When I leave the office I will be preparing for winter, taking a geranium cutting to root before the frost. All winter the new plant will grow in the kitchen. With any luck it will flower in January, that darkest month when so many people are in need of hope. There is a choice to be made. Shall I take the cutting from the red plant or the pink plant?
I’ll have the pink, I think.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
ABBEY AT THE BEACH
What fun we had at the beach with Abbey
Three generations cavorting like children
Mark brought along a shovel, a pail,
An inflatable whale and lungs full of air to fill it.
David packed a picnic, Liz took a book
I went home with sand in my belly button.
The sun had begun with the warming of water
So toasty that even the world’s biggest chicken
Would have to abandon all fear and go in.
And for Abbey, age seven, the swimming was heaven
As long as the adults were splashing and chasing
Which Mark did for hours with a little support
From the rest of us.
A summer sensation, a true celebration
Of sand and water and breezy sunshine
A day made for laughing and dunking and screaming
Pleasures we adults don’t have quite enough of
Unless we take children to the beach.
Three generations cavorting like children
Mark brought along a shovel, a pail,
An inflatable whale and lungs full of air to fill it.
David packed a picnic, Liz took a book
I went home with sand in my belly button.
The sun had begun with the warming of water
So toasty that even the world’s biggest chicken
Would have to abandon all fear and go in.
And for Abbey, age seven, the swimming was heaven
As long as the adults were splashing and chasing
Which Mark did for hours with a little support
From the rest of us.
A summer sensation, a true celebration
Of sand and water and breezy sunshine
A day made for laughing and dunking and screaming
Pleasures we adults don’t have quite enough of
Unless we take children to the beach.
Monday, August 20, 2007
LITTLE GEORGES
It’s funny how each generation has its names. These days you don’t meet many babies called Vera, or Eunice, though there must have been plenty of adorably little Veras a hundred years ago. And when it comes to boys, you don’t find many named Stanley, or Fred, or Walter, or George. But we have a George in our family. He’s the most recent arrival in a small tidal wave of grand-nephews with names that sound like those suave heroes in romance novels, Dillon, Cooper, Colton, Landon.
There were some friends with red faces when George arrived. Those were the friends who chuckled along for a while, and then begged George’s proud new father to stop his joking and tell them the baby’s real name.
“It’s George,” he insisted. “That’s my middle name. It is my grandpa’s name.”
Baby George! You don’t often hear it in 2007. It sounds funny at first. But it sounds much better when you pick him up and whisper it into the smooth skin on his silky little neck. The third time you say it, it sounds perfect. It sounds just as good as Baby Landon, and Baby Colton, and all the other babies. It sounds like the name of a suave and charming hero in a romance novel.
Next thing you know, little Georges will be popping up all over. Every generation has its names.
There were some friends with red faces when George arrived. Those were the friends who chuckled along for a while, and then begged George’s proud new father to stop his joking and tell them the baby’s real name.
“It’s George,” he insisted. “That’s my middle name. It is my grandpa’s name.”
Baby George! You don’t often hear it in 2007. It sounds funny at first. But it sounds much better when you pick him up and whisper it into the smooth skin on his silky little neck. The third time you say it, it sounds perfect. It sounds just as good as Baby Landon, and Baby Colton, and all the other babies. It sounds like the name of a suave and charming hero in a romance novel.
Next thing you know, little Georges will be popping up all over. Every generation has its names.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
TO KNOW THE LAND
Donald knows the land the way a painter knows his canvas
Greets the colours shapes and layers
With a broad interpretation.
He will drive you in his truck to chart the weather of the summer
The deadly path the hail took,
The sections that the rain missed
The crops that never grew out there when he was on the farm.
His granddad taught him how to read when he was only four
And then when he was still thirteen, his grades as good as any child,
He finished school and hit the land.
So when he left at 55 to start a different life in town
He had already worked the land for more than forty years.
His tours are for the interest now, to see what’s going on out there
To see which crops are growing best and which ones are the ripest.
Gone are the days when he searched the skies
To see if our daily bread would rise
Or if the hail or drought or harvest rain or blowing soil would take it.
We used to take a tractor ride
Down to the pasture to hear the water
Or touch the crocus, or welcome the buffalo beans
Or kick the puffballs growing between the cow pies.
We used to take tea in canning jars
Wrapped in paper to the harvest fields
Where we sat by the truck in the dusty stubble
While he cooled the tea that we had kept hot
Then drank it with sandwiches and cake we brought.
Today if I have one regret,
It’s that my city children arrived too late
To spend long summer days and nights
Getting to know the land their granddad knows.
Greets the colours shapes and layers
With a broad interpretation.
He will drive you in his truck to chart the weather of the summer
The deadly path the hail took,
The sections that the rain missed
The crops that never grew out there when he was on the farm.
His granddad taught him how to read when he was only four
And then when he was still thirteen, his grades as good as any child,
He finished school and hit the land.
So when he left at 55 to start a different life in town
He had already worked the land for more than forty years.
His tours are for the interest now, to see what’s going on out there
To see which crops are growing best and which ones are the ripest.
Gone are the days when he searched the skies
To see if our daily bread would rise
Or if the hail or drought or harvest rain or blowing soil would take it.
We used to take a tractor ride
Down to the pasture to hear the water
Or touch the crocus, or welcome the buffalo beans
Or kick the puffballs growing between the cow pies.
We used to take tea in canning jars
Wrapped in paper to the harvest fields
Where we sat by the truck in the dusty stubble
While he cooled the tea that we had kept hot
Then drank it with sandwiches and cake we brought.
Today if I have one regret,
It’s that my city children arrived too late
To spend long summer days and nights
Getting to know the land their granddad knows.
Friday, August 17, 2007
HIDING
tI am hiding the underwear out on the clothesline
Afraid that the people who pass by will see
And suspect that ours is a house
Whose residents wear underwear.
Our mothers have told us to wear underwear
And keep it all clean and in proper repair
Lest we be in an accident and forced to show a stranger
That we are people wearing underwear.
But keeping it clean must be secret, they say
After washing we must keep it hidden away
And when we buy new stuff we don’t want to say
That we have been out getting underwear.
An accident happened one miserable night
I was wearing good underwear, flawless and bright
But the doctors and nurses made me change out of sight
So they never even saw my underwear.
But you can see it,
If you come by this morning,
Because there was too much to hide
And too few shirts to hide it behind
But you will have to hurry,
Because it is drying fast.
Afraid that the people who pass by will see
And suspect that ours is a house
Whose residents wear underwear.
Our mothers have told us to wear underwear
And keep it all clean and in proper repair
Lest we be in an accident and forced to show a stranger
That we are people wearing underwear.
But keeping it clean must be secret, they say
After washing we must keep it hidden away
And when we buy new stuff we don’t want to say
That we have been out getting underwear.
An accident happened one miserable night
I was wearing good underwear, flawless and bright
But the doctors and nurses made me change out of sight
So they never even saw my underwear.
But you can see it,
If you come by this morning,
Because there was too much to hide
And too few shirts to hide it behind
But you will have to hurry,
Because it is drying fast.
Thursday, August 16, 2007
LOOK WHAT'S TALKING
Look what’s talking at our house.
So many things that never say a word
When you see them in other people’s houses.
The clock radio tells you about its alarms,
Which ones are set and exactly how early.
And just what time it is right now
But only when you ask it.
The message machine tells you what the day is
And what the time is
And how many people left you a message.
It loudly announces the secret code you’d use
To pick up the messages.
The thermostat tells you what the time is,
And what the temperature is
And whether or not it thinks it’s a weekend
And what the temperature ought to be at the time it thinks it is today.
The laptop tells you the battery needs charging
And does its best to read the screen
Including the newspaper and books on the web
Despite the fact that things keep changing
Making the screen much harder to read by talking.
And then there’s the Trekker that reads the skies
And tells you the name of the street you are on
And also the name of the street you are crossing,
Even if that street has no name.
It says which direction it thinks you are going
And what points of interest relevant or irrelevant
Might be lurking nearby.
The big computer talks like the laptop
But it also reads books out loud on the scanner
And even tries to read Braille out loud,
Configurations of Braille dots once they are assembled
For printing on the Braille printer.
Pirate talks. He says a lot
With panting, growling, woofing, whining.
The people at our house talk as well
Though what they will say is sometimes surprising.
And sometimes, they say, they just get tired
Of shouting to be heard over all the noise.
So many things that never say a word
When you see them in other people’s houses.
The clock radio tells you about its alarms,
Which ones are set and exactly how early.
And just what time it is right now
But only when you ask it.
The message machine tells you what the day is
And what the time is
And how many people left you a message.
It loudly announces the secret code you’d use
To pick up the messages.
The thermostat tells you what the time is,
And what the temperature is
And whether or not it thinks it’s a weekend
And what the temperature ought to be at the time it thinks it is today.
The laptop tells you the battery needs charging
And does its best to read the screen
Including the newspaper and books on the web
Despite the fact that things keep changing
Making the screen much harder to read by talking.
And then there’s the Trekker that reads the skies
And tells you the name of the street you are on
And also the name of the street you are crossing,
Even if that street has no name.
It says which direction it thinks you are going
And what points of interest relevant or irrelevant
Might be lurking nearby.
The big computer talks like the laptop
But it also reads books out loud on the scanner
And even tries to read Braille out loud,
Configurations of Braille dots once they are assembled
For printing on the Braille printer.
Pirate talks. He says a lot
With panting, growling, woofing, whining.
The people at our house talk as well
Though what they will say is sometimes surprising.
And sometimes, they say, they just get tired
Of shouting to be heard over all the noise.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
SOME THOUGHTS ON RETIREMENT
I might not choose to retire this week
Even if I won a lottery
And had all the money that I would need
To go on cruises and expensive trips
And buy houses for my kids in today’s hot market
And pay their tuition at Harvard or Stanford
And book the Royal Suite at the Hotel McDonald
For days, or weeks, or months at a time
And buy the most expensive wine on the menu.
I might not choose to retire this week
Even though I’m doing so well on holidays
Not getting up before 7:30
Having a nap in the afternoon sunshine,
Thinking of work whenever I want to
But never because I have to.
Come Monday morning I’ll crawl out of bed
And into the shower to wash off the cobwebs
And groan as I climb all the steps from the valley
And count the weeks until my next holiday.
On the way to work where I’ll hope to remember
Why I might not have chosen to retire this week
Even if I won a lottery.
Even if I won a lottery
And had all the money that I would need
To go on cruises and expensive trips
And buy houses for my kids in today’s hot market
And pay their tuition at Harvard or Stanford
And book the Royal Suite at the Hotel McDonald
For days, or weeks, or months at a time
And buy the most expensive wine on the menu.
I might not choose to retire this week
Even though I’m doing so well on holidays
Not getting up before 7:30
Having a nap in the afternoon sunshine,
Thinking of work whenever I want to
But never because I have to.
Come Monday morning I’ll crawl out of bed
And into the shower to wash off the cobwebs
And groan as I climb all the steps from the valley
And count the weeks until my next holiday.
On the way to work where I’ll hope to remember
Why I might not have chosen to retire this week
Even if I won a lottery.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
A IS FOR ...
August, that paradoxical month when the ground is soft with lily petals and the begonia you toasted in July profers one spindly bud, daring you to sacrifice its attempt at rebirth for the sake of a fall chrysanthemum; the time when one part of your heart revels in the summer celebration while another chamber simultaneously contracts with anticipatory grief for the leisure that is all too quickly slipping away. Yes, A is for autumn, but not quite yet.
A is also for Amaranthus and astor, the two new flowers in this year’s garden. Like so many great things, they came to us by chance rather than by design. Our usual spring routine takes us to the L.Y. cairns plant sale, where we consult the list I made the previous autumn and buy flowers arranged conveniently in al phabetical order, rushing past the A’s to get an early shot at the begonias and calendula. But this year we couldn’t make it to L.Y. And so, wandering in greenhouses with no recognizable maps to help us with our lists, we ventured home with two new A flowers, unremarkable in appearance, their properties yet unknown. .
Our reference source described amaranthus as “a flower found in old-fashioned gardens”, commonly called Tassel Flower, or Love Lies Bleeding. Love Lies Bleeding! Blood in the flowerbed? Maybe not. But it also revealed a dark side. Amaranthus comes in sixty varieties. Some of them are also called Pigweed. Oh no, not Pigweed, not that fuzzy-flowered pest that grew in the chicken yard! Remembering the farm of my youth, and the many days my father spent in the struggle against the weeds, I decided not to tell my father I was cultivating a cousin of pigweed.
We tucked our amaranthus in among the leafy purple coleus. By early June the plants had overtaken the coleus and were sprouting tiny fuzzy blood-coloured icicles which grew longer and fatter as the plants grew taller, touching their tips to the ground. Love lay bleeding. Pigweed, if I remember correctly, was a very hardy plant, not the kind to fade away or die of its own volition. It’s cousin has shown itself to be similarly persistent. Since none of the icicles has yet fallen, and new ones are still under production, the plants now hang them thickly by the dozen, attracting fascinated curiosity from all who pass them by.
Astors, said the book, are the reward for those who are willing to wait beyond the glory of impatiens. Impatient as we were with the waiting in our short Alberta summer, we sat back to see what would happen. June brought sturdy stocks of promising green. July grew them thick and tall with sprouting buds. But August brought the astors out in lacy bouquets of white and pink and purple, enough to fill a dozen tall vases if you wanted to pick them, though we don’t want to pick them.
So A is for asters and amaranthus, to admire in August, after bidding farewell to the luscious lilies and the toasted begonias. And P is for pigweed, but you didn’t hear me mention that.
A is also for Amaranthus and astor, the two new flowers in this year’s garden. Like so many great things, they came to us by chance rather than by design. Our usual spring routine takes us to the L.Y. cairns plant sale, where we consult the list I made the previous autumn and buy flowers arranged conveniently in al phabetical order, rushing past the A’s to get an early shot at the begonias and calendula. But this year we couldn’t make it to L.Y. And so, wandering in greenhouses with no recognizable maps to help us with our lists, we ventured home with two new A flowers, unremarkable in appearance, their properties yet unknown. .
Our reference source described amaranthus as “a flower found in old-fashioned gardens”, commonly called Tassel Flower, or Love Lies Bleeding. Love Lies Bleeding! Blood in the flowerbed? Maybe not. But it also revealed a dark side. Amaranthus comes in sixty varieties. Some of them are also called Pigweed. Oh no, not Pigweed, not that fuzzy-flowered pest that grew in the chicken yard! Remembering the farm of my youth, and the many days my father spent in the struggle against the weeds, I decided not to tell my father I was cultivating a cousin of pigweed.
We tucked our amaranthus in among the leafy purple coleus. By early June the plants had overtaken the coleus and were sprouting tiny fuzzy blood-coloured icicles which grew longer and fatter as the plants grew taller, touching their tips to the ground. Love lay bleeding. Pigweed, if I remember correctly, was a very hardy plant, not the kind to fade away or die of its own volition. It’s cousin has shown itself to be similarly persistent. Since none of the icicles has yet fallen, and new ones are still under production, the plants now hang them thickly by the dozen, attracting fascinated curiosity from all who pass them by.
Astors, said the book, are the reward for those who are willing to wait beyond the glory of impatiens. Impatient as we were with the waiting in our short Alberta summer, we sat back to see what would happen. June brought sturdy stocks of promising green. July grew them thick and tall with sprouting buds. But August brought the astors out in lacy bouquets of white and pink and purple, enough to fill a dozen tall vases if you wanted to pick them, though we don’t want to pick them.
So A is for asters and amaranthus, to admire in August, after bidding farewell to the luscious lilies and the toasted begonias. And P is for pigweed, but you didn’t hear me mention that.
Monday, August 13, 2007
WEDDINGS
A lot of things have improved about weddings.
Gone is that great and hurtful distinction,
The division between those who “had to get married” and those who didn’t.
A white dress no longer pretends to represent virginity.
The groom is toasted along with the bride.
Mothers and fathers present their children together.
Couples look for meaningful vows
Gone are the tired lines from the 16th century.
Invitations ask you to choose, chicken or vegetarian.
The beautiful wedding of Cathy and Roger!
Brilliantly radiant bride and groom.
Family gathering from miles around.
Caesar salad and creamy cheesecake,
Teary-eyed speeches and childhood pictures.
Gifts galore and a honeymoon to come.
There isn’t much fruitcake at weddings these days,
And fruitcake is one of my favourite foods.
But I still love weddings anyway.
Gone is that great and hurtful distinction,
The division between those who “had to get married” and those who didn’t.
A white dress no longer pretends to represent virginity.
The groom is toasted along with the bride.
Mothers and fathers present their children together.
Couples look for meaningful vows
Gone are the tired lines from the 16th century.
Invitations ask you to choose, chicken or vegetarian.
The beautiful wedding of Cathy and Roger!
Brilliantly radiant bride and groom.
Family gathering from miles around.
Caesar salad and creamy cheesecake,
Teary-eyed speeches and childhood pictures.
Gifts galore and a honeymoon to come.
There isn’t much fruitcake at weddings these days,
And fruitcake is one of my favourite foods.
But I still love weddings anyway.
Friday, August 10, 2007
WHO WILL CLEAN UP THE INTERNET
“Who will clean out the Internet?” he asks
His manner exuding the very same tone he would use
To say “Who will clean up the kitchen?”
“Or help me to hoist the canoe?”
“No, I’m serious,” he cries when he sees I am laughing.
“Who will get rid of the stuff that is up there?
Who will delete THE HOPE LADY Blog?”
“Delete it?” I mumble and raise my defences
Furtively counting the number of back-ups
Seeing anew how I’ve taken for granted the space to write down
Whatever I choose, as much as I choose,
Then show it to readers all over the world
With the flick of some seemingly meaningless buttons.
Up on the hill is a beautiful mansion
Crafted from marble and inlaid with gold
Down in the basement you walk past the guest suite
And then past the swimming pool
And into the bomb shelter.
Echoes of past threats, built for protection of those who would hide there
From simple deletion with somebody’s button.
On this summer morning when life is near perfect
I ponder the tension between building a deleting,
Having and saving,
Creating and protecting
In a world where we really have no way of knowing
Who will require great courage tomorrow?
And who will clean up the Internet?
His manner exuding the very same tone he would use
To say “Who will clean up the kitchen?”
“Or help me to hoist the canoe?”
“No, I’m serious,” he cries when he sees I am laughing.
“Who will get rid of the stuff that is up there?
Who will delete THE HOPE LADY Blog?”
“Delete it?” I mumble and raise my defences
Furtively counting the number of back-ups
Seeing anew how I’ve taken for granted the space to write down
Whatever I choose, as much as I choose,
Then show it to readers all over the world
With the flick of some seemingly meaningless buttons.
Up on the hill is a beautiful mansion
Crafted from marble and inlaid with gold
Down in the basement you walk past the guest suite
And then past the swimming pool
And into the bomb shelter.
Echoes of past threats, built for protection of those who would hide there
From simple deletion with somebody’s button.
On this summer morning when life is near perfect
I ponder the tension between building a deleting,
Having and saving,
Creating and protecting
In a world where we really have no way of knowing
Who will require great courage tomorrow?
And who will clean up the Internet?
Thursday, August 09, 2007
THE FUTURIST
“When I grow up,” I used to say,
“I am going to travel to Russia,
And have my big brown birthmark removed,
And change my first name to something better than Wendy,
And be a social worker,
And stay away from foods I hate,
Olives, oysters, tomatoes.”
I never mentioned getting married,
Not knowing if there was a man out there for me.
But the future is never as clear as it seems
Before I had even come out of my teens
I had already promised the man of my dreams
That we would get married at Christmas.
Then my birthmark emitted a prickle of fear,
So a doctor deleted that much-hated sphere
And it was so traumatic that I cried a tear
And decided not to meddle with my first name.
I never took Russia off my travelling list
But there were some places I wanted to see first
Like the UK, Hawaii, Nova Scotia and Calgary,
Portland, Chicago, Detroit and Nashville,
Phoenix, Los Vegas, Los Angeles, Los Cabos,
San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Orlando
New York, New Orleans, New Brunswick, and Red Deer,
Quebec and Ontario, Prince Edward Island,
British Columbia, even Saskatchewan,
I went to St. Petersburg, but it was in Florida
So Russia is still on the list.
After Australia, New Zealand and the rest of Europe.
I ate things Italian and learned to love olives\
I asked to be given smoked oysters for Christmas
I paid for Greek salads with lots of tomatoes.
But I did become a social worker.
So I did get one prediction right.
But I am probably not on the short list
To be hired as a futurist.
“I am going to travel to Russia,
And have my big brown birthmark removed,
And change my first name to something better than Wendy,
And be a social worker,
And stay away from foods I hate,
Olives, oysters, tomatoes.”
I never mentioned getting married,
Not knowing if there was a man out there for me.
But the future is never as clear as it seems
Before I had even come out of my teens
I had already promised the man of my dreams
That we would get married at Christmas.
Then my birthmark emitted a prickle of fear,
So a doctor deleted that much-hated sphere
And it was so traumatic that I cried a tear
And decided not to meddle with my first name.
I never took Russia off my travelling list
But there were some places I wanted to see first
Like the UK, Hawaii, Nova Scotia and Calgary,
Portland, Chicago, Detroit and Nashville,
Phoenix, Los Vegas, Los Angeles, Los Cabos,
San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Orlando
New York, New Orleans, New Brunswick, and Red Deer,
Quebec and Ontario, Prince Edward Island,
British Columbia, even Saskatchewan,
I went to St. Petersburg, but it was in Florida
So Russia is still on the list.
After Australia, New Zealand and the rest of Europe.
I ate things Italian and learned to love olives\
I asked to be given smoked oysters for Christmas
I paid for Greek salads with lots of tomatoes.
But I did become a social worker.
So I did get one prediction right.
But I am probably not on the short list
To be hired as a futurist.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
OUT ON VERANDAS
The veranda of my childhood
A country veranda unusual for a farmhouse
Cool in the shade of a hot, hot summer,
Warmed by the low-hanging sunshine of winter
Languorous memories of afternoon rest times,
Miniature tea sets serving to dolls
Visits by turkeys who strayed from the barnyard
Exquisitely infinite games of pretend
You be the father, I’ll be the mother
Let’s say the house is a princess’s castle
With hollow thick walls hiding secret rooms.
The veranda of my fifties
A city veranda uncommon in Edmonton
Welcoming whimsically festooned with flowers
Tables adorned with the bounty of summer
Cold sweating glasses and vegetable stir-fries
Barbecue magic and Saskatoon pies
Deep lounging chairs for a respite with reading
Wide sweeping steps for a neighbour to sit on
While sharing the news of the locals.
Now to the ones who envisioned verandas
And built them in spite of prevailing tradition
My grateful applause for a job well done
For the gift of so many mornings and evenings
Memories made in my childhood and fifties
Out on verandas.
A country veranda unusual for a farmhouse
Cool in the shade of a hot, hot summer,
Warmed by the low-hanging sunshine of winter
Languorous memories of afternoon rest times,
Miniature tea sets serving to dolls
Visits by turkeys who strayed from the barnyard
Exquisitely infinite games of pretend
You be the father, I’ll be the mother
Let’s say the house is a princess’s castle
With hollow thick walls hiding secret rooms.
The veranda of my fifties
A city veranda uncommon in Edmonton
Welcoming whimsically festooned with flowers
Tables adorned with the bounty of summer
Cold sweating glasses and vegetable stir-fries
Barbecue magic and Saskatoon pies
Deep lounging chairs for a respite with reading
Wide sweeping steps for a neighbour to sit on
While sharing the news of the locals.
Now to the ones who envisioned verandas
And built them in spite of prevailing tradition
My grateful applause for a job well done
For the gift of so many mornings and evenings
Memories made in my childhood and fifties
Out on verandas.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
TRUTH
Ten thousand tomatoes out there on the vine
Or do I, perhaps, under-estimate?
I count past a hundred but cannot confirm
For it is most likely a branch has been missed
And that would skew all of the numbers.
An approximate world, too difficult to know
Where, like so many truths
Clouded by guesswork,
This one will forever be a secret.
Or do I, perhaps, under-estimate?
I count past a hundred but cannot confirm
For it is most likely a branch has been missed
And that would skew all of the numbers.
An approximate world, too difficult to know
Where, like so many truths
Clouded by guesswork,
This one will forever be a secret.
Monday, August 06, 2007
COMPASSION FOROLD YELLER
They call him Old Yeller.
He wanders the streets
Screaming God Damn Fuck, God Damn Fuck
For minutes and hours and days and weeks
And months and years and decades
And sometimes he stays too long near your house
So yu give in and call the police.
“We know him,” says the officer.
“Believed to be harmless.”
“Brain injury you know.”
“Treat with compassion.”
But what is compassion?
For a loner who wanders
And too often loiters
Screaming God Damn Fuck, God Damn Fuck!
He wanders the streets
Screaming God Damn Fuck, God Damn Fuck
For minutes and hours and days and weeks
And months and years and decades
And sometimes he stays too long near your house
So yu give in and call the police.
“We know him,” says the officer.
“Believed to be harmless.”
“Brain injury you know.”
“Treat with compassion.”
But what is compassion?
For a loner who wanders
And too often loiters
Screaming God Damn Fuck, God Damn Fuck!
Sunday, August 05, 2007
TOYS
Pirate and I got new toys to play with
And that’s where the weekend has gone.
Pirate got rubber toys, squeaky and squishy
Soft and Supple
An ice cream cone bigger than his head
And a hedgehog even bigger,
Brought home by Mark as a happy surprise.
I got a GPS
And a PDA
And a PIN (pain in the neck, that is)
Paid in full on my MasterCard
But I really wanted it.
Pirate played with his toys in the yard
And said “no thanks” to his usual walk,
And dug a big hole in the lovely green grass
To make a safe place to store them.
I read the manual and played with my toy.
Threatened to smash it a few dozen times
I took it for walks and it told me the street names
I took it on drives and it said points of interest,
Things that are visually taken for granted
Voice competition for David.
Pirate was scolded for digging a hole
And warned about losing his toys in the future
And his paws were cleaned in the laundry sink.
While I went back to the manual again
To see what I needed to learn
To make the blasted thing work right.
So Pirate and I had a turbulent weekend.
Each of us travelling the road of discovery.
Too busy for blogging or walking on leash
Both of us feeling as happy as sunshine
Because we were blessed with incredible toys
And also the time to play with them.
And that’s where the weekend has gone.
Pirate got rubber toys, squeaky and squishy
Soft and Supple
An ice cream cone bigger than his head
And a hedgehog even bigger,
Brought home by Mark as a happy surprise.
I got a GPS
And a PDA
And a PIN (pain in the neck, that is)
Paid in full on my MasterCard
But I really wanted it.
Pirate played with his toys in the yard
And said “no thanks” to his usual walk,
And dug a big hole in the lovely green grass
To make a safe place to store them.
I read the manual and played with my toy.
Threatened to smash it a few dozen times
I took it for walks and it told me the street names
I took it on drives and it said points of interest,
Things that are visually taken for granted
Voice competition for David.
Pirate was scolded for digging a hole
And warned about losing his toys in the future
And his paws were cleaned in the laundry sink.
While I went back to the manual again
To see what I needed to learn
To make the blasted thing work right.
So Pirate and I had a turbulent weekend.
Each of us travelling the road of discovery.
Too busy for blogging or walking on leash
Both of us feeling as happy as sunshine
Because we were blessed with incredible toys
And also the time to play with them.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
EMERGENCY REPAIRS
When I can fix the world
I will turn to hospital emergency rooms
And make them into places where you can see a doctor
Some time in the first few minutes after you get there.
And if I can’t get that done fast enough
Then I will create a new job
Employing somebody kind and smart
To relieve the suffering of patients who are waiting to see the doctor.
And everyone who works there will help to make this happen
Because they will be delighted to see that there is somebody
Relieving patients suffering
Because relieving patients’ suffering will be the most important thing to them.
The person who is hired to relieve the patients’ suffering
Will be bringing warming blankets to those whose teeth are chattering
And getting frozen ice packs to reduce the pain of swelling
And finding a sling or something to help support your right arm
When they notice that you are holding it up with your left hand
And are likely to be holding it for several hours
While you wait to see the doctor.
The person who is hired will speak loudly to those with poor hearing
And softly to those who are distressed
And kneel down to utter words of kindness
To people who are lying on the floor
Because they are in too much pain to stand
While they wait to get to the front of the line
To be checked in by the nurse
So they can wait to see the doctor.
They will stock the place with chairs that would be comfortable for hours
Since they know before they take you you’ll be sitting there for hours
They will help you get some food if you need food while you are waiting.
They will help you make a phone call since your cell phone is illegal.
And when you tell the story of your visit to Emergency
You will be able to say that you were well treated
Knowing in your heart that somebody cared about your suffering,
And did some basic things to make it better.
You never know how long a change will take
Some changes happen faster than you think.
It just could be that by the time I get these changes made
Somebody else will have figured out how to shorten the waiting time.
I will turn to hospital emergency rooms
And make them into places where you can see a doctor
Some time in the first few minutes after you get there.
And if I can’t get that done fast enough
Then I will create a new job
Employing somebody kind and smart
To relieve the suffering of patients who are waiting to see the doctor.
And everyone who works there will help to make this happen
Because they will be delighted to see that there is somebody
Relieving patients suffering
Because relieving patients’ suffering will be the most important thing to them.
The person who is hired to relieve the patients’ suffering
Will be bringing warming blankets to those whose teeth are chattering
And getting frozen ice packs to reduce the pain of swelling
And finding a sling or something to help support your right arm
When they notice that you are holding it up with your left hand
And are likely to be holding it for several hours
While you wait to see the doctor.
The person who is hired will speak loudly to those with poor hearing
And softly to those who are distressed
And kneel down to utter words of kindness
To people who are lying on the floor
Because they are in too much pain to stand
While they wait to get to the front of the line
To be checked in by the nurse
So they can wait to see the doctor.
They will stock the place with chairs that would be comfortable for hours
Since they know before they take you you’ll be sitting there for hours
They will help you get some food if you need food while you are waiting.
They will help you make a phone call since your cell phone is illegal.
And when you tell the story of your visit to Emergency
You will be able to say that you were well treated
Knowing in your heart that somebody cared about your suffering,
And did some basic things to make it better.
You never know how long a change will take
Some changes happen faster than you think.
It just could be that by the time I get these changes made
Somebody else will have figured out how to shorten the waiting time.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
THE WISDOM OF THE PETTED PLANT
My daughter had a wonderful time at the flower-arranging party. But she went home chastened and bewildered. “We spent hours making beautiful bouquets,” she reported in wonder. “Then, when we were completely finished, I reached out ‘to stroke a big yellow rose. And the florist yelled ‘Don’t touch that!’”
There is, she told me, a perfectly reasonable explanation for her failure to anticipate official flower policy. She was raised in a home where plants and flowers, like the family dog, receive at least one daily petting. Geranium leaves as soft as felt release their pungent fragrance under a gentle touch. Marigolds are rough and round. Irises splay their wavy tendrils. Snapdragons stack their columns of pudgy little flower packets, reaching for the sky. And then there are the roses, thorns ensuring caution, their silky petals cradled like spoons in gentle patterned curves. I don’t recall having ever told my daughter to touch the plants. She must have learned it from watching me.
My mother, an ambitious gardener, forced by fate to defend her turf against the threat posed by a curious blind daughter, set the stage for flower touching. “Don’t step on the plants,” she would say. But aside from this one rule, the garden was mine to play in. Not stepping on the plants meant not walking in the garden, or rather, not walking in the garden with shoes on. Bare feet could keep things safe, stepping lightly, never putting weight down a second too soon. But there were other options. I could crawl on my knees or slide on my bum. I could poke away the soil to chart the progress of the fattening beets and carrots. I could squeeze the pods to judge whether it was time to pick the peas. I could search the underworld for the tiny new potatoes. I could pick any raspberry that yielded itself easily into my hand.
There was carte-blanche permission to pet the flowers, in the vase or on the vine, the May tulip cups, the opulent June peonies, the delicate sweet peas of August. By touch I could tell a fuscia from a petunia, a pansy from a dahlia. I was welcome to pull weeds, and I learned early that for every desired plant, there is probably at least one weed that feels almost identical but grows faster.
My daughter, like my mother, has eyes that see perfectly well. Nevertheless, her kitchen is adorned by a display of petted plants. “Come and see my orchid,” she implores. What she means is, touch the blossoms. Count the buds. Slide your hand the length of the long curving stock. Stroke the leaves and give me your best opinion as to whether the stickiness of the surface is some kind of disease.
“I don’t know if it is a disease,” I tell her, sniffing the residue on my finger before wiping it clean. “It seems healthy enough.” I know a lot about plants, yet there is still much that I do not know.
Sensitive in the aftermath of the florist’s rebuke, we wonder together if there are plants that die from a loving touch. Do stroked roses last a shorter time? Does ivy stretch less tall if you use your index finger to trace its starry leaves? Does anyone study these things?
No doubt the florist had her own good reasons for staying my daughter’s hand in the instant before it caressed the magnificent yellow rose. She might have heard the echo of her own mother’s admonishment, or acted upon the wisdom of the scientific community. As for my daughter and me, it seems unlikely that we will stop fondling the flowers. To support our position we look to the homes and gardens of three generations in our family. Abundance and diversity reign supreme. There among the lupines and lobelia, we find no reason to predict the early demise of the petted plant.
This feels to me like a story of victory, a triumph for flexibility and experimentation, a story of generations standing together to do unusual things. It also reminds me of the many times when, for no good reason except my personal squeemishness, I am out in the world, clearly a blind person and at the same time pretending not to be. For example, I am on my way to give a lecture in the education Building, looking for a classroom on the main floor. It makes sense to touch the walls and the doors, searching for a room number, the way sighted people seek out room numbers with their eyes. But I won’t touch the wall, not unless the building is so empty that I cannot hear a single human sound. Somebody might see me touching the wall. Both of us will be uncomfortable. They will think I am strange.
My mother never prepared me for this. How could she? We lived on a farm and rarely, if ever, did we search for room numbers. It is enough to thank her for giving me free reign to explore the world of plants. Out in the front yard I happily pet the flowers every summer day, out there where the neighbours have a full view. If they are bothered by the vision of it, they never drop a hint to me. I only hear them commending the flowers.
There is, she told me, a perfectly reasonable explanation for her failure to anticipate official flower policy. She was raised in a home where plants and flowers, like the family dog, receive at least one daily petting. Geranium leaves as soft as felt release their pungent fragrance under a gentle touch. Marigolds are rough and round. Irises splay their wavy tendrils. Snapdragons stack their columns of pudgy little flower packets, reaching for the sky. And then there are the roses, thorns ensuring caution, their silky petals cradled like spoons in gentle patterned curves. I don’t recall having ever told my daughter to touch the plants. She must have learned it from watching me.
My mother, an ambitious gardener, forced by fate to defend her turf against the threat posed by a curious blind daughter, set the stage for flower touching. “Don’t step on the plants,” she would say. But aside from this one rule, the garden was mine to play in. Not stepping on the plants meant not walking in the garden, or rather, not walking in the garden with shoes on. Bare feet could keep things safe, stepping lightly, never putting weight down a second too soon. But there were other options. I could crawl on my knees or slide on my bum. I could poke away the soil to chart the progress of the fattening beets and carrots. I could squeeze the pods to judge whether it was time to pick the peas. I could search the underworld for the tiny new potatoes. I could pick any raspberry that yielded itself easily into my hand.
There was carte-blanche permission to pet the flowers, in the vase or on the vine, the May tulip cups, the opulent June peonies, the delicate sweet peas of August. By touch I could tell a fuscia from a petunia, a pansy from a dahlia. I was welcome to pull weeds, and I learned early that for every desired plant, there is probably at least one weed that feels almost identical but grows faster.
My daughter, like my mother, has eyes that see perfectly well. Nevertheless, her kitchen is adorned by a display of petted plants. “Come and see my orchid,” she implores. What she means is, touch the blossoms. Count the buds. Slide your hand the length of the long curving stock. Stroke the leaves and give me your best opinion as to whether the stickiness of the surface is some kind of disease.
“I don’t know if it is a disease,” I tell her, sniffing the residue on my finger before wiping it clean. “It seems healthy enough.” I know a lot about plants, yet there is still much that I do not know.
Sensitive in the aftermath of the florist’s rebuke, we wonder together if there are plants that die from a loving touch. Do stroked roses last a shorter time? Does ivy stretch less tall if you use your index finger to trace its starry leaves? Does anyone study these things?
No doubt the florist had her own good reasons for staying my daughter’s hand in the instant before it caressed the magnificent yellow rose. She might have heard the echo of her own mother’s admonishment, or acted upon the wisdom of the scientific community. As for my daughter and me, it seems unlikely that we will stop fondling the flowers. To support our position we look to the homes and gardens of three generations in our family. Abundance and diversity reign supreme. There among the lupines and lobelia, we find no reason to predict the early demise of the petted plant.
This feels to me like a story of victory, a triumph for flexibility and experimentation, a story of generations standing together to do unusual things. It also reminds me of the many times when, for no good reason except my personal squeemishness, I am out in the world, clearly a blind person and at the same time pretending not to be. For example, I am on my way to give a lecture in the education Building, looking for a classroom on the main floor. It makes sense to touch the walls and the doors, searching for a room number, the way sighted people seek out room numbers with their eyes. But I won’t touch the wall, not unless the building is so empty that I cannot hear a single human sound. Somebody might see me touching the wall. Both of us will be uncomfortable. They will think I am strange.
My mother never prepared me for this. How could she? We lived on a farm and rarely, if ever, did we search for room numbers. It is enough to thank her for giving me free reign to explore the world of plants. Out in the front yard I happily pet the flowers every summer day, out there where the neighbours have a full view. If they are bothered by the vision of it, they never drop a hint to me. I only hear them commending the flowers.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
PONDERING THE POWER OF THE POISON PEN
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” So says Marianne Williamson in her book,
A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles
, Harper Collins, 1992, (Pg. 190).
Banish inadequacy. Forget about fear. I like outrage! It is so exhilarating. I like the rush you get when you blither and blather and bluster and stamp your foot in rebellion against things that are wrong, people who are stupid, circumstances that could change if only somebody would take the initiative to change them.
I like writing outrage! Fiery prose and flashing images, metaphor in exaggeration, honing in and cutting to the chase. Outrage makes for strong writing, bold writing, writing that never doubts its wisdom or its motives.
I like the results I get when I write outrage. Writing outrage gives you power. There have been times in the past when writing outrage has served me well enough, created the spark for policy changes, brought people to their knees by the need to defend the indefensible, opened a space for flexibility that never showed itself before, and might never have made an appearance had I not poured wrath from a poison pen (well, keyboard, to be accurate). But then, when you write your outrage, you can make it a little more interesting if you put some limits on the need to be absolutely accurate.
And so it surprises me a bit that I am cautious about writing outrage. Why, just yesterday I wrote a pretty good blog about an outrageous incident I have been wanting to write about for some time, and I published it, and then, an hour later, I went back and deleted it. They say you should be careful what you publish on the Internet, it could come back to haunt you.
Maybe I am cautious because I know how it feels to be the target of somebody else’s outraged writing. Not very often, thank goodness, but the memory stings, nonetheless. One time when I was young, and vulnerable, and committed to following proper policy, somebody wrote me a letter asking for confidential information. I casually replied, stating the company policy. The request had been written by a doctor, not an M.D., and I had not recognized the author as a doctor. It wasn’t long before my boss received a letter of outrage, a letter where the author had made his point by underlining some rather spectacular comments about my response in red pen, recommending that I be dismissed immediately. Two things gave this letter a terrifying authority, the vividness of the writing, and the professional confidence bolstered by the societal status of the man who wrote it.
I learned, from that experience, how letters of outrage are mediated. My boss, rather than being pleased to find me obeying company policy, was anxious to make change so that no doctor should think our organization incompetent. He taught me how to recognize the initials that tell you you are getting a letter from a doctor. Then my boss explained to the doctor that I was young and had not recognized that a doctor was writing to me. Having flattered the doctor, he then embarked on an exploratory conversation to determine why the confidential information was needed. He resolved the situation by finding a way to give the information without violating our confidentiality policy. The doctor got his information, my boss didn’t have to fire me. A happy-enough ending, you would think, except that it didn’t feel happy to me.
I felt burnt even though I was not fired, even though I might have been fired had I failed to follow the policy that got me into trouble when I followed it. I don’t know which hurt more, the doctor’s brilliantly insulting prose, or the fact that a doctor got more attention from my boss than a client would have had if a client had made the same complaint. It is the burnt feeling, smoldering inside me for thirty years now, that trapped and undefended feeling, the injustice, the humiliation that makes me cautious about writing outrage. It’s a glimmer of compassion for the little people who will be burnt in the fire that opens up the possibility of change.
I like to act with compassion, but it will only take you so far when things need to be changed. And that’s how it gets so confusing, facing the fact that outrage is sometimes more effective as a change agent than compassion will ever be. I said at the beginning that I like writing outrage, but that is not entirely true. My feelings on the subject are mixed. I like that first few moments of outrage, when you know for sure that you are right, and the people you are writing about are stupid. Later, it gets more complicated. I look to the future and find I would prefer not to be remembered as The Outrage Lady, the embodiment of someone else’s unhappy memories. And I prefer not to feel a lot of outrage, which is what I feel when I write outrage. Putting it out there on the page makes the injustice all the more cruel, the offenders more offensive.
I prefer to be The Hope Lady, reputed for offering different perspectives on old hurts, reveries on my favourite topics, pages for playing and pleasing and plunging into the warm depths of fond recollection. Still, I cannot escape the knowledge that outrage sometimes packs more power than hope in the way I have been writing it. And it is hard to resist taking the easier path when something needs to be done. And I can name you several things that ought to be changed, that aren’t being changed, that possibly could be changed if I got the ball rolling with a little of my well-aimed outrage. But I won’t write them on this page, not today, anyway. This is THE HOPE LADY Blog, after all. Outrage seems to be out of place here.
Still, if there is one important thing The Hope Lady persona has taught me, it is that I should never say never. For already, at this moment, The Hope Lady is bidding me to wonder how outrage and hope could be expressed at the same time. Knowing that change is both possible and needed, perhaps we can learn something from asking, “What would The Outrage Lady Do?”
A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles
, Harper Collins, 1992, (Pg. 190).
Banish inadequacy. Forget about fear. I like outrage! It is so exhilarating. I like the rush you get when you blither and blather and bluster and stamp your foot in rebellion against things that are wrong, people who are stupid, circumstances that could change if only somebody would take the initiative to change them.
I like writing outrage! Fiery prose and flashing images, metaphor in exaggeration, honing in and cutting to the chase. Outrage makes for strong writing, bold writing, writing that never doubts its wisdom or its motives.
I like the results I get when I write outrage. Writing outrage gives you power. There have been times in the past when writing outrage has served me well enough, created the spark for policy changes, brought people to their knees by the need to defend the indefensible, opened a space for flexibility that never showed itself before, and might never have made an appearance had I not poured wrath from a poison pen (well, keyboard, to be accurate). But then, when you write your outrage, you can make it a little more interesting if you put some limits on the need to be absolutely accurate.
And so it surprises me a bit that I am cautious about writing outrage. Why, just yesterday I wrote a pretty good blog about an outrageous incident I have been wanting to write about for some time, and I published it, and then, an hour later, I went back and deleted it. They say you should be careful what you publish on the Internet, it could come back to haunt you.
Maybe I am cautious because I know how it feels to be the target of somebody else’s outraged writing. Not very often, thank goodness, but the memory stings, nonetheless. One time when I was young, and vulnerable, and committed to following proper policy, somebody wrote me a letter asking for confidential information. I casually replied, stating the company policy. The request had been written by a doctor, not an M.D., and I had not recognized the author as a doctor. It wasn’t long before my boss received a letter of outrage, a letter where the author had made his point by underlining some rather spectacular comments about my response in red pen, recommending that I be dismissed immediately. Two things gave this letter a terrifying authority, the vividness of the writing, and the professional confidence bolstered by the societal status of the man who wrote it.
I learned, from that experience, how letters of outrage are mediated. My boss, rather than being pleased to find me obeying company policy, was anxious to make change so that no doctor should think our organization incompetent. He taught me how to recognize the initials that tell you you are getting a letter from a doctor. Then my boss explained to the doctor that I was young and had not recognized that a doctor was writing to me. Having flattered the doctor, he then embarked on an exploratory conversation to determine why the confidential information was needed. He resolved the situation by finding a way to give the information without violating our confidentiality policy. The doctor got his information, my boss didn’t have to fire me. A happy-enough ending, you would think, except that it didn’t feel happy to me.
I felt burnt even though I was not fired, even though I might have been fired had I failed to follow the policy that got me into trouble when I followed it. I don’t know which hurt more, the doctor’s brilliantly insulting prose, or the fact that a doctor got more attention from my boss than a client would have had if a client had made the same complaint. It is the burnt feeling, smoldering inside me for thirty years now, that trapped and undefended feeling, the injustice, the humiliation that makes me cautious about writing outrage. It’s a glimmer of compassion for the little people who will be burnt in the fire that opens up the possibility of change.
I like to act with compassion, but it will only take you so far when things need to be changed. And that’s how it gets so confusing, facing the fact that outrage is sometimes more effective as a change agent than compassion will ever be. I said at the beginning that I like writing outrage, but that is not entirely true. My feelings on the subject are mixed. I like that first few moments of outrage, when you know for sure that you are right, and the people you are writing about are stupid. Later, it gets more complicated. I look to the future and find I would prefer not to be remembered as The Outrage Lady, the embodiment of someone else’s unhappy memories. And I prefer not to feel a lot of outrage, which is what I feel when I write outrage. Putting it out there on the page makes the injustice all the more cruel, the offenders more offensive.
I prefer to be The Hope Lady, reputed for offering different perspectives on old hurts, reveries on my favourite topics, pages for playing and pleasing and plunging into the warm depths of fond recollection. Still, I cannot escape the knowledge that outrage sometimes packs more power than hope in the way I have been writing it. And it is hard to resist taking the easier path when something needs to be done. And I can name you several things that ought to be changed, that aren’t being changed, that possibly could be changed if I got the ball rolling with a little of my well-aimed outrage. But I won’t write them on this page, not today, anyway. This is THE HOPE LADY Blog, after all. Outrage seems to be out of place here.
Still, if there is one important thing The Hope Lady persona has taught me, it is that I should never say never. For already, at this moment, The Hope Lady is bidding me to wonder how outrage and hope could be expressed at the same time. Knowing that change is both possible and needed, perhaps we can learn something from asking, “What would The Outrage Lady Do?”
Sunday, July 29, 2007
A QUESTION FOR KURZWEIL
Last evening, after welcoming us to an air-conditioned apartment and serving us icy drinks and dinner, James suggested we watch a video about the future. It was the sort of thing computer-savvy guys under thirty might suggest. Reluctant techno-peasants of my age are unlikely to suggest such a thing at a party, but I went along with it because the futurist on the video is Ray Kurzweil, the guy who invented the first reading machine for the blind back in 1976. At the time, it was completely revolutionary to think that a blind person could lay a page on a machine and have it read aloud. Today we take this technology totally for granted. Kurzweil is now demonstrating a PDA that will read signs, labels, and full pages to any blind person with a hand to point the camera. It’s a little pricey right now, but then, so was the reading machine when it first came out. When Kurzweil talks, I listen.
Kurzweil was talking about predicting the pace of change. Change, he said, happens exponentially, starting slowly and gathering speed, doubling itself all the time. Each technology, he says, is the tool that builds its successor. Each new technology gets smaller and faster and cheaper until it cannot get any smaller, faster or cheaper, and by that time, it has given us the capacity to build its successor and start the cycle all over again.
I of course, was listening carefully, and also remembering how I once told Lydia that there would never be a time when we could tell clients not to smoke in our offices. I think that was about two years before every office in the city adopted a non-smoking policy and the process of no-smoking by-law making first began. The change was near at hand, but I never saw it coming. I figured that if powerful people had been happily smoking in offices for hundreds of years, they would be doing so for hundreds of years in the future as well. I was using the pace of past change to predict the pace of future change, a fatal error, according to Kurzweil.
If Kurzweil had been in James’s living room, instead of somewhere inside a video, I would have asked him how long it might be until we humans learn to live peacefully together.
Some really good food for thought after dessert. Thanks James!
Kurzweil was talking about predicting the pace of change. Change, he said, happens exponentially, starting slowly and gathering speed, doubling itself all the time. Each technology, he says, is the tool that builds its successor. Each new technology gets smaller and faster and cheaper until it cannot get any smaller, faster or cheaper, and by that time, it has given us the capacity to build its successor and start the cycle all over again.
I of course, was listening carefully, and also remembering how I once told Lydia that there would never be a time when we could tell clients not to smoke in our offices. I think that was about two years before every office in the city adopted a non-smoking policy and the process of no-smoking by-law making first began. The change was near at hand, but I never saw it coming. I figured that if powerful people had been happily smoking in offices for hundreds of years, they would be doing so for hundreds of years in the future as well. I was using the pace of past change to predict the pace of future change, a fatal error, according to Kurzweil.
If Kurzweil had been in James’s living room, instead of somewhere inside a video, I would have asked him how long it might be until we humans learn to live peacefully together.
Some really good food for thought after dessert. Thanks James!
Saturday, July 28, 2007
TACKLING MENTAL ILLNESS
When I can fix the world I will tackle mental illness
And vanquish it with some resource we do not now possess.
Who knows how long we’ll have to wait to find the good solution,
Better than Freud’s insight,
Better than cognitive therapy,
Better than adjusting a cocktail of chemicals every week or every month,
Up and down, more an less, new and old
But never really getting it to the point of satisfaction.
And when I accomplish this there will be other things to worry about.
For instance, who will be our greatest artists,
For so many of the greatest artists
Have been those who see the world somewhat differently than we do.
We love it when they teach us through their music or their painting.
So when I can fix the world we’ll still have music, sculpting, drawing.
But not at the cost of so much suffering.
When I can fix the world, our art will spring from hope and joy and kindness.
And a little bit of suffering, though only if we need it,
To help us remember compassion.
And vanquish it with some resource we do not now possess.
Who knows how long we’ll have to wait to find the good solution,
Better than Freud’s insight,
Better than cognitive therapy,
Better than adjusting a cocktail of chemicals every week or every month,
Up and down, more an less, new and old
But never really getting it to the point of satisfaction.
And when I accomplish this there will be other things to worry about.
For instance, who will be our greatest artists,
For so many of the greatest artists
Have been those who see the world somewhat differently than we do.
We love it when they teach us through their music or their painting.
So when I can fix the world we’ll still have music, sculpting, drawing.
But not at the cost of so much suffering.
When I can fix the world, our art will spring from hope and joy and kindness.
And a little bit of suffering, though only if we need it,
To help us remember compassion.
Friday, July 27, 2007
OH WHERE IS SUMMER GOING?
Oh where is summer going?
Faster than a downhill cyclist pumping broken brakes
Faster than an executive jet late for a business meeting
Faster than a rocket on its way to the moon.
Where is summer going?
Oh I know this topic is boring,
Worn threadbare through centuries of over-use by cold Canadians
But I still want to know
Where the summer is going.
One day you’re coaxing the first tulip out of the ground
The next you’re pulling up the spent, exhausted pansies.
One day you scream in total ecstasy
Outside in just a sweater and no mittens.
The next you’re searching vainly for that sweater
Under sandals, flip-flops, soaker hose, sunscreen, bug spray.
One day you’re picking out tomato plants
Trying to recall which one Lois Hole recommended
The next you’re steaming in the kitchen,
Up to your ears in fresh tomato casseroles.
Oh how I love the days that fly untethered
On a race track between planting and harvest
I want more barbecues with sizzling meat and vegetables,
More cold salad suppers nobody has to cook,
More evenings out on crowded restaurant patios
More chilled frothy beers, frozen margueritas, dripping Popsicles, leaky ice cream cones.
More going out to festivals, more spending time at home.
More fragrant gentle evenings, sleepy afternoon siestas,
More perfect sunny mornings blogging on the veranda.
I love to complain about summer
Sweaty moments at the office
The Flowerpots drying out too quickly,
Shivery air-conditioned buildings,
Nights with noisy humming fans.
Showers threatening family picnics,
Muddy toes from stepping in puddles
After raging thunderstorms.
And I want to hold on to summer
Celebrating every moment,
Cataloguing every memory,
To keep me warm next winter.
Sometimes I really like winter
But I never try to hold on to it.
Faster than a downhill cyclist pumping broken brakes
Faster than an executive jet late for a business meeting
Faster than a rocket on its way to the moon.
Where is summer going?
Oh I know this topic is boring,
Worn threadbare through centuries of over-use by cold Canadians
But I still want to know
Where the summer is going.
One day you’re coaxing the first tulip out of the ground
The next you’re pulling up the spent, exhausted pansies.
One day you scream in total ecstasy
Outside in just a sweater and no mittens.
The next you’re searching vainly for that sweater
Under sandals, flip-flops, soaker hose, sunscreen, bug spray.
One day you’re picking out tomato plants
Trying to recall which one Lois Hole recommended
The next you’re steaming in the kitchen,
Up to your ears in fresh tomato casseroles.
Oh how I love the days that fly untethered
On a race track between planting and harvest
I want more barbecues with sizzling meat and vegetables,
More cold salad suppers nobody has to cook,
More evenings out on crowded restaurant patios
More chilled frothy beers, frozen margueritas, dripping Popsicles, leaky ice cream cones.
More going out to festivals, more spending time at home.
More fragrant gentle evenings, sleepy afternoon siestas,
More perfect sunny mornings blogging on the veranda.
I love to complain about summer
Sweaty moments at the office
The Flowerpots drying out too quickly,
Shivery air-conditioned buildings,
Nights with noisy humming fans.
Showers threatening family picnics,
Muddy toes from stepping in puddles
After raging thunderstorms.
And I want to hold on to summer
Celebrating every moment,
Cataloguing every memory,
To keep me warm next winter.
Sometimes I really like winter
But I never try to hold on to it.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
HOW GOLF GOT ITS NAME--MAYBE
I heard the most delightful story. It was a story about how Golf got its name. Apparently the letters G.O.L.F. were an acronym for the words that appeared on a sign, possibly even at St. Andrew’s. The sign read Gentlemen Only, Ladies forbidden. The story conjured up all sorts of images, men sipping whiskey in wood-paneled libraries, fragrant fumes from cigars and pipes bluing the air while women at home adjusted corsets and petticoats, waiting breathless for the men to return and escort them to debutante balls.
But alas, a little bit of Internet research has taken my delightful story from me. It was just an old husbands tale, according to the British Museum of Golf.
Golf, according to them, was originally a 16th century Dutch game called Kolf because of the hook shaped stick, which was more like a narrow plank with a copper hook on the end. The ball was made from rubber (a little larger than the wooden polo ball), from some of the first rubber plantations in Indonesia. When William III of the house of Orange, was king in England it went with him, to Scotland and England, and became golf in the English language
If this version is to be believed, then we must accept that like most modern words, the word "golf" derives from older languages and dialects. In this case, the languages in question are medieval Dutch and old Scots. The medieval Dutch word "kolf" or "kolve" meant "club." It is believed that word passed to the Scots, whose old Scots dialect transformed the word into "golve," "gowl" or "gouf."
It is a bit of a problem, seeking the truth. People who care about the truth ask us to abandon these untrue versions and tell the truth to those who gave us the wrong story in the first place, so that all may be made accurate as time goes on. But I really do hate to give up that delightful story. The act of writing things down has made us so literal, reduced our choices, stifled our imagination. Think of the old tales. Tale, for example, How Coyote Got His Power. According to that tale, Coyote wanted to be called Grizzly Bear but was persuaded to keep his name through a kind of bargaining process that gave him the power to change himself in order to deceive others. If I did a little research, I would be able to find the true origin of the word Coyote. I could tell you that story, and then I would lose the historical thread of native storytelling that attributed to the coyote the sneaky personality we all believe him to have.
In a way, each of these stories about how golf got its name are historical representations. One is factual according to linguistic and historical research. The other is metaphor, depicting a true and factual history of gender segregation. I like both of them. I don’t think I will choose one over the other.
But alas, a little bit of Internet research has taken my delightful story from me. It was just an old husbands tale, according to the British Museum of Golf.
Golf, according to them, was originally a 16th century Dutch game called Kolf because of the hook shaped stick, which was more like a narrow plank with a copper hook on the end. The ball was made from rubber (a little larger than the wooden polo ball), from some of the first rubber plantations in Indonesia. When William III of the house of Orange, was king in England it went with him, to Scotland and England, and became golf in the English language
If this version is to be believed, then we must accept that like most modern words, the word "golf" derives from older languages and dialects. In this case, the languages in question are medieval Dutch and old Scots. The medieval Dutch word "kolf" or "kolve" meant "club." It is believed that word passed to the Scots, whose old Scots dialect transformed the word into "golve," "gowl" or "gouf."
It is a bit of a problem, seeking the truth. People who care about the truth ask us to abandon these untrue versions and tell the truth to those who gave us the wrong story in the first place, so that all may be made accurate as time goes on. But I really do hate to give up that delightful story. The act of writing things down has made us so literal, reduced our choices, stifled our imagination. Think of the old tales. Tale, for example, How Coyote Got His Power. According to that tale, Coyote wanted to be called Grizzly Bear but was persuaded to keep his name through a kind of bargaining process that gave him the power to change himself in order to deceive others. If I did a little research, I would be able to find the true origin of the word Coyote. I could tell you that story, and then I would lose the historical thread of native storytelling that attributed to the coyote the sneaky personality we all believe him to have.
In a way, each of these stories about how golf got its name are historical representations. One is factual according to linguistic and historical research. The other is metaphor, depicting a true and factual history of gender segregation. I like both of them. I don’t think I will choose one over the other.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
IN ONLY A GENERATION
If this is one of those days when you are thinking that things never change, that real progress never happens, then I wish you had been with me on my morning field trip to the south Edmonton Probus Club. Probus is an organization of retired professionals and businessmen who gather once a month to hear an invited presenter speak on a topic of interest, and also to socialize. A number of wives had accompanied them today. The first woman member was inducted into the club. The main item for discussion at their business meeting was the question of how to recruit more women.
Could I be dreaming, or is it only a generation ago that women were pounding at the doors of such gatherings and being refused entry for reasons said to be perfectly logical? Something basic and fundamental seems to have changed. What’s more, those carrying out the change are wanting to make it happen.
Could I be dreaming, or is it only a generation ago that women were pounding at the doors of such gatherings and being refused entry for reasons said to be perfectly logical? Something basic and fundamental seems to have changed. What’s more, those carrying out the change are wanting to make it happen.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
A TALE OF TWO TELLINGS
We went to two evenings of storytelling. Both were held on hot summer nights. Both were at restaurants where every chair was taken long before the performance began. Both were made possible through the efforts of volunteers.
One was sponsored by T.A.L.E.S., The Alberta League Encouraging Storytelling. The other was sponsored by Story Slam. TALES had three tellers telling fifteen minutes each with each teller booking a spot well in advance. Stories could be original or credited and told with permission, but they had to be told and not read. All three tellers were female. Each guest paid $5.00 and the pot was divided among the tellers.
Story Slam allowed eleven tellers to sign up at 7:00 for an 8:00 start. Each read a self-authored five-minute story. Five judges were recruited from the audience and asked to give a numeric rating to each teller without being given any rules for judging. Stories lost points for each ten-second increment over the five-minute limit. Donations were solicited from the audience and the winner received the full donation pot. Eight of eleven tellers were male.
The read stories contained many more words than the told stories. Although the audiences shared a few common members, for the most part they were entirely different.
There are some interesting questions here for anybody studying story. Are males more financially competitive than females? Do females find it easier than males to tell stories without reading? Are males more likely than females to present their self-authored stories for public judgment?
Both TALES and Story Slam sponsor restaurant events on a monthly basis in Edmonton. If you are going to get a seat at these events, you pretty much have to be prepared to arrive early and pay for dinner at the restaurant. Though there are definite differences, a choice in terms of personal preferences, there seems little doubt that storytelling and listening is a form of entertainment that Edmontonians are embracing.
One was sponsored by T.A.L.E.S., The Alberta League Encouraging Storytelling. The other was sponsored by Story Slam. TALES had three tellers telling fifteen minutes each with each teller booking a spot well in advance. Stories could be original or credited and told with permission, but they had to be told and not read. All three tellers were female. Each guest paid $5.00 and the pot was divided among the tellers.
Story Slam allowed eleven tellers to sign up at 7:00 for an 8:00 start. Each read a self-authored five-minute story. Five judges were recruited from the audience and asked to give a numeric rating to each teller without being given any rules for judging. Stories lost points for each ten-second increment over the five-minute limit. Donations were solicited from the audience and the winner received the full donation pot. Eight of eleven tellers were male.
The read stories contained many more words than the told stories. Although the audiences shared a few common members, for the most part they were entirely different.
There are some interesting questions here for anybody studying story. Are males more financially competitive than females? Do females find it easier than males to tell stories without reading? Are males more likely than females to present their self-authored stories for public judgment?
Both TALES and Story Slam sponsor restaurant events on a monthly basis in Edmonton. If you are going to get a seat at these events, you pretty much have to be prepared to arrive early and pay for dinner at the restaurant. Though there are definite differences, a choice in terms of personal preferences, there seems little doubt that storytelling and listening is a form of entertainment that Edmontonians are embracing.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
LISTENING OUT THE WINDOWS
Listening through my windows
What is there to hear?
The cars of the Grande Prix kilometres away,
Buzzing like a distant swarm of killer bees.
The swish of the breeze as it trembles the aaspens
The squeal of bus brakes at the stops along Jasper Avenue
Do they ever take the squeal out of bus brakes?
The tweeting of the buses as the kneel for the seniors
And the baby strollers
And the wheelchairs.
Who would have thought, forty years ago, that buses would kneel
And wheelchairs would roll on?
The far-off shouts of anger
On the streets where people deal and drink and swelter in the sun
Robins and magpies, blue jays and sparrows, woodpeckers and wax wings, gulls and geese,
Dogs and cats and skateboards and the beating drums of dragon boats
Cars and trucks and sirens and lawn mowers,
Neighbours chatting
And a happy young couple laughing and laughing and laughing.
What is there to hear?
The cars of the Grande Prix kilometres away,
Buzzing like a distant swarm of killer bees.
The swish of the breeze as it trembles the aaspens
The squeal of bus brakes at the stops along Jasper Avenue
Do they ever take the squeal out of bus brakes?
The tweeting of the buses as the kneel for the seniors
And the baby strollers
And the wheelchairs.
Who would have thought, forty years ago, that buses would kneel
And wheelchairs would roll on?
The far-off shouts of anger
On the streets where people deal and drink and swelter in the sun
Robins and magpies, blue jays and sparrows, woodpeckers and wax wings, gulls and geese,
Dogs and cats and skateboards and the beating drums of dragon boats
Cars and trucks and sirens and lawn mowers,
Neighbours chatting
And a happy young couple laughing and laughing and laughing.
Friday, July 20, 2007
ACIDANTHRA?
What is an acidanthra? I’ll forgive you if you don’t know. But I will tell you about my acidanthra. The earliest among them have just emerged from the shelter of their stocks. Give it another couple of days and the pots will be sporting tall white flowers and smelling wonderful!
Acidanthra; the word caught my attention when Ginger first said it. I had to hold myself back, finish listening to what she was telling me before asking her how to spell it. I was supposed to be working. We weren’t talking about gardening when she mentioned it. We were talking about being sick, and being tired of being sick, and wanting to be well enough to go outside, wanting to plant acidanthra.
“They grow from bulbs,” she said, when I asked her to tell me more about acidanthra. “I’m surprised you don’t know about them. You garden don’t you? You can get them anywhere.”
Spring came, and then summer. One warm day the reception desk at Hope House started smelling wonderful. “It’s these tall white flowers Ginger brought in,” they told me. “We can’t remember what they’re called. She said you’d know what they are.”
“Acidanthra,” I said primly. They were impressed. They asked to spell it.
Usually, I find, when you learn about something new, you start noticing references to it everywhere. You wonder how you managed to miss them for so long. Not so with acidanthra. I did a little research. My spell-checker did not recognize the word. I could find references on the Internet, but then, you can find anything on the Internet. At the start of the next season, when the master gardeners were talking about scented flowers on the phone-in shows, and the newspapers were writing about scented gardens, and nobody was mentioning acidanthra, I took that as evidence that acidanthra must be a rare flower obtained from a secret source known only to Ginger. I set out to prove that acidanthra bulbs are hard to get. Just to be safe, I didn’t go to a greenhouse where I knew there would be knowledgeable well-trained salespeople. I lured David over to the bulb rack at the nearest home improvement store. I spelled acidanthra and set him to searching among the irises and gladioli. Like me, he felt certain it would not be there.
The search was not a long one. It took about three seconds to find acidanthra. We bought nine little bulbs in a mesh bag for a bargain price and took them home, planting them according to the package instructions. Well, let’s just say we sort of followed the package instructions. It’s how we usually deal with instructions.
Nine shoots came up. Nine bulbs produced flowers. Everyone who came to visit noticed them. “What are those lovely-smelling white flowers?” they wanted to know.
“Acidanthra,” we said primly.
By mid-September the flowers had gone, leaving tall green shoots turning to brown. The package instructions never mentioned anything about what to do after you planted the bulbs. There was no more advice to ignore. I dug up the bulbs. The original nine had multiplied to fifteen. We stored them in the garage, in a plastic pail beside the pail of gladiola bulbs. . This year I planted them again and delighted when the shoots came up. I added the word to the permanent dictionary in my spellchecker.
All this I proudly reported to Ginger. Ginger said, “I didn’t know you could keep the bulbs over the winter!”
All of it just proves that there are still a lot of things out there we don’t know.
Acidanthra; the word caught my attention when Ginger first said it. I had to hold myself back, finish listening to what she was telling me before asking her how to spell it. I was supposed to be working. We weren’t talking about gardening when she mentioned it. We were talking about being sick, and being tired of being sick, and wanting to be well enough to go outside, wanting to plant acidanthra.
“They grow from bulbs,” she said, when I asked her to tell me more about acidanthra. “I’m surprised you don’t know about them. You garden don’t you? You can get them anywhere.”
Spring came, and then summer. One warm day the reception desk at Hope House started smelling wonderful. “It’s these tall white flowers Ginger brought in,” they told me. “We can’t remember what they’re called. She said you’d know what they are.”
“Acidanthra,” I said primly. They were impressed. They asked to spell it.
Usually, I find, when you learn about something new, you start noticing references to it everywhere. You wonder how you managed to miss them for so long. Not so with acidanthra. I did a little research. My spell-checker did not recognize the word. I could find references on the Internet, but then, you can find anything on the Internet. At the start of the next season, when the master gardeners were talking about scented flowers on the phone-in shows, and the newspapers were writing about scented gardens, and nobody was mentioning acidanthra, I took that as evidence that acidanthra must be a rare flower obtained from a secret source known only to Ginger. I set out to prove that acidanthra bulbs are hard to get. Just to be safe, I didn’t go to a greenhouse where I knew there would be knowledgeable well-trained salespeople. I lured David over to the bulb rack at the nearest home improvement store. I spelled acidanthra and set him to searching among the irises and gladioli. Like me, he felt certain it would not be there.
The search was not a long one. It took about three seconds to find acidanthra. We bought nine little bulbs in a mesh bag for a bargain price and took them home, planting them according to the package instructions. Well, let’s just say we sort of followed the package instructions. It’s how we usually deal with instructions.
Nine shoots came up. Nine bulbs produced flowers. Everyone who came to visit noticed them. “What are those lovely-smelling white flowers?” they wanted to know.
“Acidanthra,” we said primly.
By mid-September the flowers had gone, leaving tall green shoots turning to brown. The package instructions never mentioned anything about what to do after you planted the bulbs. There was no more advice to ignore. I dug up the bulbs. The original nine had multiplied to fifteen. We stored them in the garage, in a plastic pail beside the pail of gladiola bulbs. . This year I planted them again and delighted when the shoots came up. I added the word to the permanent dictionary in my spellchecker.
All this I proudly reported to Ginger. Ginger said, “I didn’t know you could keep the bulbs over the winter!”
All of it just proves that there are still a lot of things out there we don’t know.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF STRENGTH
It is a good day, the kind of good day you have when you can see, beyond any doubt that something has gone well, better than you expected. It is the kind of good day you have when somebody else also noticed that it went well, and your two stories of how it happened are similar enough that you can actually believe it happened.
It’s also a good day for Ron. He’s so thrilled to share the news. He has a new job. If Ron had not got his new job he would never have been able to leave his old job. What’s more, if Ron’s new job hadn’t paid fifty percent more than his old job, then he would never have found out how valuable he actually is, and he would not have discovered that the boss at his old job was willing to offer him more money than he was going to earn at his new job. And if none of this had happened, Ron might never have known the sweet satisfaction of leaving his old job despite the offer, leaving as a proud man, a valued man, the kind of man a business will fight to keep.
The pride is a new thing for Ron, a novelty for both of us. It felt so good to see him proud. He got the new job by using his number 1 strength, curiosity. It really was something to celebrate.
I have to confess that I didn’t pick curiosity out as his top strength when he came to me for counselling. In fact, I didn’t notice curiosity in him at all. I saw what he saw, the man he was able to show me, a shy and lonely man. It’s a funny thing how depression will just blank out the person sitting before you. It hung over him like a heavy oppressing fog, keeping him on the inside and me on the outside, calling to each other as if from a great distance. .
Getting to know a man shrouded in depression is an exploration. Perhaps it is a little like human archaeology; the science of uncovering what is hidden. Shy people are the hardest to get to know. It takes a long time to find their core if you leave it up to normal conversation.
To save some time, I asked him to go on the Internet and complete the VIA Signature StrengthsQuestionnaire. I knew it would name his strengths. The test told us that he was a curious, creative man who loves to learn, a forgiving man who cares about being fair. This was a self-portrait he had not shown me, but when I checked with him, he said it seemed accurate to him. He could even verify its truthfulness. He was able to tell me how curiosity, creativity and love of learning showed itself in the electronics and computer activities that filled his free time.
“Not much of a profile for a salesman,” he said. No wonder I am so unhappy.”” He was working in sales at the time. He got the job because he had some specific knowledge about the products he was selling.
Our exploration had only just begun. With a little more conversational digging, we unearthed another buried truth. He was satisfying his curiosity by wondering things, trying things, and looking up information in books. But as for coming right out and asking a question, this was something he rarely did. What’s more, he really didn’t know much about the mechanics of question asking.
His love of learning began to help us. He could learn to ask better questions. I taught him a few question-asking basics. He called on his curiosity for topics and practiced asking questions of me. Then he went to work and started being curious about the needs of the customers he was serving. His interest flattered the customers. Conversations got going. The information exchange helped them make better purchases.
That is how he got the new job, not by looking for a job, which is what I had hoped he would one day be able to do, but by being chosen for a job through conversation with a customer. It was achieved by learning new skills to augment strengths that were hidden from me by depression. Depression hides so much. It makes people seem so hopeless. I have to keep reminding myself that I have no idea what might be hidden there. As Norman Cousins once said, “We simply know too little not to hope.”
This morning a celebration was in order. Every counsellor needs good days like this one. We need them to keep our hopes up.
It’s also a good day for Ron. He’s so thrilled to share the news. He has a new job. If Ron had not got his new job he would never have been able to leave his old job. What’s more, if Ron’s new job hadn’t paid fifty percent more than his old job, then he would never have found out how valuable he actually is, and he would not have discovered that the boss at his old job was willing to offer him more money than he was going to earn at his new job. And if none of this had happened, Ron might never have known the sweet satisfaction of leaving his old job despite the offer, leaving as a proud man, a valued man, the kind of man a business will fight to keep.
The pride is a new thing for Ron, a novelty for both of us. It felt so good to see him proud. He got the new job by using his number 1 strength, curiosity. It really was something to celebrate.
I have to confess that I didn’t pick curiosity out as his top strength when he came to me for counselling. In fact, I didn’t notice curiosity in him at all. I saw what he saw, the man he was able to show me, a shy and lonely man. It’s a funny thing how depression will just blank out the person sitting before you. It hung over him like a heavy oppressing fog, keeping him on the inside and me on the outside, calling to each other as if from a great distance. .
Getting to know a man shrouded in depression is an exploration. Perhaps it is a little like human archaeology; the science of uncovering what is hidden. Shy people are the hardest to get to know. It takes a long time to find their core if you leave it up to normal conversation.
To save some time, I asked him to go on the Internet and complete the VIA Signature StrengthsQuestionnaire. I knew it would name his strengths. The test told us that he was a curious, creative man who loves to learn, a forgiving man who cares about being fair. This was a self-portrait he had not shown me, but when I checked with him, he said it seemed accurate to him. He could even verify its truthfulness. He was able to tell me how curiosity, creativity and love of learning showed itself in the electronics and computer activities that filled his free time.
“Not much of a profile for a salesman,” he said. No wonder I am so unhappy.”” He was working in sales at the time. He got the job because he had some specific knowledge about the products he was selling.
Our exploration had only just begun. With a little more conversational digging, we unearthed another buried truth. He was satisfying his curiosity by wondering things, trying things, and looking up information in books. But as for coming right out and asking a question, this was something he rarely did. What’s more, he really didn’t know much about the mechanics of question asking.
His love of learning began to help us. He could learn to ask better questions. I taught him a few question-asking basics. He called on his curiosity for topics and practiced asking questions of me. Then he went to work and started being curious about the needs of the customers he was serving. His interest flattered the customers. Conversations got going. The information exchange helped them make better purchases.
That is how he got the new job, not by looking for a job, which is what I had hoped he would one day be able to do, but by being chosen for a job through conversation with a customer. It was achieved by learning new skills to augment strengths that were hidden from me by depression. Depression hides so much. It makes people seem so hopeless. I have to keep reminding myself that I have no idea what might be hidden there. As Norman Cousins once said, “We simply know too little not to hope.”
This morning a celebration was in order. Every counsellor needs good days like this one. We need them to keep our hopes up.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
COMPETITION CAN CHANGE YOU
We have this yard that gives us so much pleasure, with a lawn and hedge that Lawrence keeps neatly trimmed; and a side bed created from nothing and brought to beauty by David; and a veranda with a large number of flower baskets; and my front bed of lilies, irises and peonies.” It is a celebration of abundance, not so much a carefully conceived plan. But it has grown. Watching it grow a little each year, Ruth once said, I think you have a bit of a flower problem.”
We have this neighbour named Ed, the best neighbour anybody could want. He’s such a great neighbour that he was one of the selling features listed by the lady who wanted to sell us the house. He keeps a beautiful yard for us to look at. He often comes over to admire our splendour, to say how tough the competition is with us living on his street. We have always told him there is no competition.
But now things are changing. The postman has left a little sign nominating our front yard in recognition of Communities In Bloom. The first thing Lawrence said when he saw it was, “How does Ed feel about this?”
Some time in the next couple of weeks, according to the brochure the postman left, a representative from the horticultural society is going to come out for a look at our yard. It will be rated along with other nominated yards. Like I said, we are not in a competition.
It is not really unusual that I would just go out there and give the pots a little trim up, taking out a few dead things, moving a few of the prettier things from the back to the front. It’s quite common for me to turn the rose bushes so the blooms are visible from the street. So why did I feel just a little bit guilty doing it? I’ve never felt guilty about yard care before.
Is it because of Ed? No, it can’t hurt Ed. He’s away on summer holidays. And anyway, Ruth says we need not fear the competition. We are safe. We can’t possibly win anything with all those dandelions out there.
We have this neighbour named Ed, the best neighbour anybody could want. He’s such a great neighbour that he was one of the selling features listed by the lady who wanted to sell us the house. He keeps a beautiful yard for us to look at. He often comes over to admire our splendour, to say how tough the competition is with us living on his street. We have always told him there is no competition.
But now things are changing. The postman has left a little sign nominating our front yard in recognition of Communities In Bloom. The first thing Lawrence said when he saw it was, “How does Ed feel about this?”
Some time in the next couple of weeks, according to the brochure the postman left, a representative from the horticultural society is going to come out for a look at our yard. It will be rated along with other nominated yards. Like I said, we are not in a competition.
It is not really unusual that I would just go out there and give the pots a little trim up, taking out a few dead things, moving a few of the prettier things from the back to the front. It’s quite common for me to turn the rose bushes so the blooms are visible from the street. So why did I feel just a little bit guilty doing it? I’ve never felt guilty about yard care before.
Is it because of Ed? No, it can’t hurt Ed. He’s away on summer holidays. And anyway, Ruth says we need not fear the competition. We are safe. We can’t possibly win anything with all those dandelions out there.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
WHAT I BELIEVE ABOUT HOPE WORK
What have I learned about hope work?
I have learned to appreciate questions.
And expect unexpectable answers
To go forward on pure speculation
And take time to secure the foundation
I have learned to be bold and audacious
And ask questions when others are suspicious
That hope work can often mean hard work
And hope work is frequently fun.
Why do I bother with hope work?
Because hope, according to the research,
Is definitely positively associated
With success in many achievements
And coping with terrible adversity
And hope work ultimately helps me
Keep from telling them just to be positive
Find a place of shared understanding
With those who are tired from struggling
While I listen pondering and wondering
What I can do to help.
What do I watch for in hope work?
For hope that is quietly implicit
For chances to make it explicit
And give it an on-stage performance
With lights and applause and encores
For ways it can be the foundation
That our counselling can rest upon.
What do I know about hopeful?
That hopeful is a way of being
That I can become more hopeful
If I hang around hopeful people
And ask myself hope-focussed questions
And remember that hope is contagious
And notice the things that are hopeful
Then tell other people about them
So that they can reflect what is hopeful
And send it right back to me.
When do I proudly do hope work?
When people are asking for hope work
Which happens amazingly often
When hope is observably absent
Obscured by the fears of tomorrow
And the lack of a way to address them
When hope work makes sense in the context
Of a credible counselling plan.
What’s in a hope worker’s toolbox?
There are scrapers to gently uncover
The hopes that lie quietly waiting
For something to bring them to life
There are highlighting words to adorn them
And respect for the hopes that seem hopeless
And unbridled curiosity about any of them
From which anything good might grow
There are searchers exploring the history
For things that were better than expected
And impossible things that were possible
And times when things seemed to be terrible
But were better than ever they seemed.
There is string for connecting the senses
To things in the world that are hopeful
To pictures and fragrance and music
And hope heroes beckoning forward
Showing the way to be hopeful.
There are tools to envision the future
A future desired and embracing
As if it really could happen
As if it were already happening
And tools to build the hope up
During the time of waiting
Tools to relieve the burden
And chart the way to go.
What have I learned about hope work?
To respect that it’s always in progress
To forgive it for not being perfect
To honour and learn from its critics
To follow the paths where it leads me
And thank it for showing me so much
Of a world that I might not have noticed
If hope work had stayed in the shadows
Instead of tempting me to try it
On a day when I might have ignored it
And chosen some other career.
I have learned to appreciate questions.
And expect unexpectable answers
To go forward on pure speculation
And take time to secure the foundation
I have learned to be bold and audacious
And ask questions when others are suspicious
That hope work can often mean hard work
And hope work is frequently fun.
Why do I bother with hope work?
Because hope, according to the research,
Is definitely positively associated
With success in many achievements
And coping with terrible adversity
And hope work ultimately helps me
Keep from telling them just to be positive
Find a place of shared understanding
With those who are tired from struggling
While I listen pondering and wondering
What I can do to help.
What do I watch for in hope work?
For hope that is quietly implicit
For chances to make it explicit
And give it an on-stage performance
With lights and applause and encores
For ways it can be the foundation
That our counselling can rest upon.
What do I know about hopeful?
That hopeful is a way of being
That I can become more hopeful
If I hang around hopeful people
And ask myself hope-focussed questions
And remember that hope is contagious
And notice the things that are hopeful
Then tell other people about them
So that they can reflect what is hopeful
And send it right back to me.
When do I proudly do hope work?
When people are asking for hope work
Which happens amazingly often
When hope is observably absent
Obscured by the fears of tomorrow
And the lack of a way to address them
When hope work makes sense in the context
Of a credible counselling plan.
What’s in a hope worker’s toolbox?
There are scrapers to gently uncover
The hopes that lie quietly waiting
For something to bring them to life
There are highlighting words to adorn them
And respect for the hopes that seem hopeless
And unbridled curiosity about any of them
From which anything good might grow
There are searchers exploring the history
For things that were better than expected
And impossible things that were possible
And times when things seemed to be terrible
But were better than ever they seemed.
There is string for connecting the senses
To things in the world that are hopeful
To pictures and fragrance and music
And hope heroes beckoning forward
Showing the way to be hopeful.
There are tools to envision the future
A future desired and embracing
As if it really could happen
As if it were already happening
And tools to build the hope up
During the time of waiting
Tools to relieve the burden
And chart the way to go.
What have I learned about hope work?
To respect that it’s always in progress
To forgive it for not being perfect
To honour and learn from its critics
To follow the paths where it leads me
And thank it for showing me so much
Of a world that I might not have noticed
If hope work had stayed in the shadows
Instead of tempting me to try it
On a day when I might have ignored it
And chosen some other career.
Monday, July 16, 2007
HOT!!!
Too hot to think.
So hot I thought the roof might blow off Hope House when I opened the Monday morning door.
So hot I thought the LRT tunnels would be cool.
But it has been hot too long for that.
Endlessly hot.
It started to swelter on Thursday, been sweltering ever since.
Remembering other hots.
Midnight in Chicago, 100F.
Strolling in the packed streets, sweat trickling down my back.
Tropical perspective.
Susan visits the Taj Mahal before 9:00 AM while the temperature remains below 40C.
David wears shorts in the Philippines and sleeps alone with air conditioning while the locals sleep eight in a hot room and spend their days in suits and ties.
Ruth wears a sweater at 5:30 AM in Thailand as she rides her bike to work. It is only 24C this early.
Coping with hot.
Wiping up the puddle of sweat where the Marguerita glass stood on the table.
The bathtub is a swimming pool, standing cold water, waiting for occasional dipping.
A bucket of ice sits behind the fan, cooling the air that blows across our bodies all night long.
Leaving bed in a thunderstorm to open all the doors and lower windows.
Guarding the house that stands open and vulnerable, listening to night sounds, petting the dog, willing a breeze to blow.
Visiting Nana.
In her air conditioned room
In the hospital where she is tied to oxygen
And has been for ages
And will be for ages
And hearing her say she’s been told it’s hot
And she’d like to be able to find that out
For herself.
Makes it seem kind of cool
Being hot.
So hot I thought the roof might blow off Hope House when I opened the Monday morning door.
So hot I thought the LRT tunnels would be cool.
But it has been hot too long for that.
Endlessly hot.
It started to swelter on Thursday, been sweltering ever since.
Remembering other hots.
Midnight in Chicago, 100F.
Strolling in the packed streets, sweat trickling down my back.
Tropical perspective.
Susan visits the Taj Mahal before 9:00 AM while the temperature remains below 40C.
David wears shorts in the Philippines and sleeps alone with air conditioning while the locals sleep eight in a hot room and spend their days in suits and ties.
Ruth wears a sweater at 5:30 AM in Thailand as she rides her bike to work. It is only 24C this early.
Coping with hot.
Wiping up the puddle of sweat where the Marguerita glass stood on the table.
The bathtub is a swimming pool, standing cold water, waiting for occasional dipping.
A bucket of ice sits behind the fan, cooling the air that blows across our bodies all night long.
Leaving bed in a thunderstorm to open all the doors and lower windows.
Guarding the house that stands open and vulnerable, listening to night sounds, petting the dog, willing a breeze to blow.
Visiting Nana.
In her air conditioned room
In the hospital where she is tied to oxygen
And has been for ages
And will be for ages
And hearing her say she’s been told it’s hot
And she’d like to be able to find that out
For herself.
Makes it seem kind of cool
Being hot.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
TALL THINGS
It’s a year for tall things,
Five-foot peonies
Six-foot lilies.
And also for wondering
How they decide
Which are the years for tall things.
Five-foot peonies
Six-foot lilies.
And also for wondering
How they decide
Which are the years for tall things.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
BUMBLEBERRIES
Strawberries from the market
Bought too many, eat them fast
Watering the raspberries
Small and hard and waiting to burst juicy
Saskatoons on the park path
David’s gone to pick some
Taking his Blackberry with him.
Bought too many, eat them fast
Watering the raspberries
Small and hard and waiting to burst juicy
Saskatoons on the park path
David’s gone to pick some
Taking his Blackberry with him.
Friday, July 13, 2007
APPROXIMATELY A DOZEN THINGS THIS BLOG HAS TAUGHT ME
1) That the easiest way to connect with others is through emotions.
2) That our differences are more interesting when we find ways to frame them through our common understandings
3) That being hopeful is different from being a hero
4) That anger is the least likely emotion to find a place on The Hope Lady Blog
5) That my writing wants to change after I read it out loud
6) That my writing changes even more when I read it out loud to an audience
7) That I should probably not attempt to publish a thousand-page novel since there aren’t enough listeners in my life to listen to it as it develops
8) That written humour and spoken humour are not the same.
9) That an experience can be replicable without being understandable. No audience will laugh when I tell them my mom called her hope-opotamus Hopey. Every audience will laugh when I pause, and then say, “She named me Wendy. She wasn’t perfect.”
10) That humour would rather be enjoyed than understood.
11) That I will have to learn at least one more thing before I can write educational materials and please myself at the same time.
2) That our differences are more interesting when we find ways to frame them through our common understandings
3) That being hopeful is different from being a hero
4) That anger is the least likely emotion to find a place on The Hope Lady Blog
5) That my writing wants to change after I read it out loud
6) That my writing changes even more when I read it out loud to an audience
7) That I should probably not attempt to publish a thousand-page novel since there aren’t enough listeners in my life to listen to it as it develops
8) That written humour and spoken humour are not the same.
9) That an experience can be replicable without being understandable. No audience will laugh when I tell them my mom called her hope-opotamus Hopey. Every audience will laugh when I pause, and then say, “She named me Wendy. She wasn’t perfect.”
10) That humour would rather be enjoyed than understood.
11) That I will have to learn at least one more thing before I can write educational materials and please myself at the same time.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
SCARECROWS FOR HOPE
Think of things that go together: kittens and warm milk; freezers and ice cream; strawberries and shortcake; toast and jam; scarecrows and hope. Yes really, I mean it. Scarecrows and hope. Could a better match be found anywhere?
Scarecrows were invented thousands of years ago by creative people who realized that standing in their fields scaring the birds off their crops was perhaps not the best use of their time during the busy harvest season. No wonder they have prevailed through the centuries. Scarecrows exemplify so many of the qualities that can make our world a more hopeful place to live.
The scarecrow is a gentle joker, a bundle of cast-offs pretending to be scary, an early alarm who intends no harm. Needed only in times of great bounty, when there is really enough for everyone, scarecrows stand proudly in the raspberry patches proclaiming their hopes. Ï hope you will find some place else for breakfast,” they say to the birds. “These berries are reserved for my family.”
Humble scarecrows are environmentally friendly, made entirely of recycled material! No expensive new duds for scarecrows. They wear whatever is at hand, whatever will flap in the breeze, whatever won’t mind being out in the wind and rain.
Scarecrows are pacifists. One might be a replica of your grandmother in old clothes shooing bothersome birds away. She is the purveyor of gentle warnings, like the traffic reporter who tells you where the radar traps are located. The intent is to keep you safe by giving you notice that somebody cares about what you are doing.
Scary as they might be, scarecrows have a friendly side. Seat one comfortably in your front porch swing. It will not mind if you come to sit beside it. It will gladly grant permission for a photograph. Or if you aren’t the sitting type, you could learn from my widowed friend Mrs. Smith. Shortly after losing her dance partner husband, she created a scarecrow and called him George. Soon she was taking him to the local seniors’ centre and dancing away the afternoons with his head on her shoulder. Seeing that Mrs. Smith had a constant and reliable dance partner, the single ladies, of whom there were many, grew envious. In no time at all they were cutting in, insisting on having a turn with George.
Humorous, eco-savvy, peace-loving, good company. Scarecrows are all of these. What more could we wish for in a hopeful world?
Scarecrows were invented thousands of years ago by creative people who realized that standing in their fields scaring the birds off their crops was perhaps not the best use of their time during the busy harvest season. No wonder they have prevailed through the centuries. Scarecrows exemplify so many of the qualities that can make our world a more hopeful place to live.
The scarecrow is a gentle joker, a bundle of cast-offs pretending to be scary, an early alarm who intends no harm. Needed only in times of great bounty, when there is really enough for everyone, scarecrows stand proudly in the raspberry patches proclaiming their hopes. Ï hope you will find some place else for breakfast,” they say to the birds. “These berries are reserved for my family.”
Humble scarecrows are environmentally friendly, made entirely of recycled material! No expensive new duds for scarecrows. They wear whatever is at hand, whatever will flap in the breeze, whatever won’t mind being out in the wind and rain.
Scarecrows are pacifists. One might be a replica of your grandmother in old clothes shooing bothersome birds away. She is the purveyor of gentle warnings, like the traffic reporter who tells you where the radar traps are located. The intent is to keep you safe by giving you notice that somebody cares about what you are doing.
Scary as they might be, scarecrows have a friendly side. Seat one comfortably in your front porch swing. It will not mind if you come to sit beside it. It will gladly grant permission for a photograph. Or if you aren’t the sitting type, you could learn from my widowed friend Mrs. Smith. Shortly after losing her dance partner husband, she created a scarecrow and called him George. Soon she was taking him to the local seniors’ centre and dancing away the afternoons with his head on her shoulder. Seeing that Mrs. Smith had a constant and reliable dance partner, the single ladies, of whom there were many, grew envious. In no time at all they were cutting in, insisting on having a turn with George.
Humorous, eco-savvy, peace-loving, good company. Scarecrows are all of these. What more could we wish for in a hopeful world?
Sunday, July 08, 2007
THE FIRST TRANSITION
Three weeks before my twelfth birthday Air Canada flew me away to the school for the blind in Vancouver. I left behind my family, my friends, Trixie my pony, Lady my dog, our farm 9 miles south of Lougheed Alberta, and everything else that was familiar to me. My folks knew it would be difficult for me to be away from them, given that I had never yet spent more than twelve hours out of sight of a close relative. They packed my luggage. They sent the essentials: cough drops and
pocket money, shortbread and shampoo, chocolate bars and Barbie dolls, raincoat and church hat, figure skates and bedroom slippers, portable typewriter and self-addressed envelopes, red 120-base Hohner accordion and pink
nighties, transistor radio with enough extra batteries to last until Christmas, bathing suit and Aspirin, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in Braille. They packed it all in an enormous trunk with my school clothes, their hopes for my future, their fears for the present and the love that made them send me away.
Both the trunk and I arrived safely in Vancouver, though the timing was off. My flight lasted about an hour. The trunk’s journey lasted about four weeks. Meanwhile I, homesick and bewildered, doing laundry really, really often, moved cautiously forward, assuring myself that this would be the most difficult transition I would ever make. For the most part people left me alone. Possibly they were waiting to see what kind of person I would be when I finally stopped crying, which I did. I look back on that experience with thankfulness. Thank goodness nobody told me how much harder it gets, later in life, when you make a big change and you have to do your own packing!
pocket money, shortbread and shampoo, chocolate bars and Barbie dolls, raincoat and church hat, figure skates and bedroom slippers, portable typewriter and self-addressed envelopes, red 120-base Hohner accordion and pink
nighties, transistor radio with enough extra batteries to last until Christmas, bathing suit and Aspirin, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in Braille. They packed it all in an enormous trunk with my school clothes, their hopes for my future, their fears for the present and the love that made them send me away.
Both the trunk and I arrived safely in Vancouver, though the timing was off. My flight lasted about an hour. The trunk’s journey lasted about four weeks. Meanwhile I, homesick and bewildered, doing laundry really, really often, moved cautiously forward, assuring myself that this would be the most difficult transition I would ever make. For the most part people left me alone. Possibly they were waiting to see what kind of person I would be when I finally stopped crying, which I did. I look back on that experience with thankfulness. Thank goodness nobody told me how much harder it gets, later in life, when you make a big change and you have to do your own packing!
Thursday, July 05, 2007
HOW TO GO FORWARD AFTER A LOSS
She gave me a bright red amaryllis, the really-tall kind, the really-big-bulb kind, the really-broad-and-long-leaves kind, only it had no leaves and its future blossom was only a short stock attached to a fat bulb when I first unwrapped it. She was very surprised a year later when I told her it was blooming again. She thought I would have tossed it out after the flowering, which is the thing people often do with amaryllis. She knew I liked flowers, but she didn’t know I was an amaryllis keeper.
Now she is gone and I still have the amaryllis. . This year the flower was a little smaller than it has been, telling me that either the bulb is getting too old, or its big pot is too small, or maybe it is telling me something else that I just don’t understand. It is not all that easy to understand precise details given to you by an amaryllis.
I am glad I did not tell her the flower was getting smaller. It was huge and opulent the last time she heard about it. And I will just keep on doing the best I can, as I did when she was here, comforting myself by remembering that everything has its season, and even the really-beautiful, even the really-exceptional cannot stay with us forever.
Now she is gone and I still have the amaryllis. . This year the flower was a little smaller than it has been, telling me that either the bulb is getting too old, or its big pot is too small, or maybe it is telling me something else that I just don’t understand. It is not all that easy to understand precise details given to you by an amaryllis.
I am glad I did not tell her the flower was getting smaller. It was huge and opulent the last time she heard about it. And I will just keep on doing the best I can, as I did when she was here, comforting myself by remembering that everything has its season, and even the really-beautiful, even the really-exceptional cannot stay with us forever.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
HOW DO BLOGS WORK?
Experience may be a great teacher, but after ten months of blogging, logging 107 blog entries, I still have quite a few questions about blogs.
What makes it possible for a failed journaller like me to be a blogger? I mean really—107 entries is quite a few. Think of the journal history I would have if I had jotted down 10.7 entries per month from the time I could write!
Who reads my blog? I know my family members occasionally read it, and sometimes they send out links to their friends. I know some people read it when they are considering me as a keynote speaker or workshop leader. But total strangers read it too, and it makes me want to ensure I don’t say anything I wouldn’t want a total stranger to know.
What has caused my entry from May 29 to come up in a Google search of my name when no other entries come up? This is indeed a puzzler. Somebody out there has an answer to this question. I wonder who.
Just a few of the myriad mysteries that may, or may not be solved in my lifetime.
What makes it possible for a failed journaller like me to be a blogger? I mean really—107 entries is quite a few. Think of the journal history I would have if I had jotted down 10.7 entries per month from the time I could write!
Who reads my blog? I know my family members occasionally read it, and sometimes they send out links to their friends. I know some people read it when they are considering me as a keynote speaker or workshop leader. But total strangers read it too, and it makes me want to ensure I don’t say anything I wouldn’t want a total stranger to know.
What has caused my entry from May 29 to come up in a Google search of my name when no other entries come up? This is indeed a puzzler. Somebody out there has an answer to this question. I wonder who.
Just a few of the myriad mysteries that may, or may not be solved in my lifetime.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
SPITTING CHERRY PITS
I have many fond memories of Alice Winkel. I was always inspired by her absolute determination to be in charge of her life. Sometimes she included me in her efforts. She would ask me to give her the gift of laughter, and then she would give the same gift to me.
One day last summer she called to say that she needed to be cheered up. She wondered if I would be available to spit cherry pits from my office balcony. I gathered a small crowd of Hope House staff. It was our first day of orientation with a visiting scholar from Australia. She joined us. Alice brought her mother, and a huge bag of cherries. Out onto the balcony we filed and the spitting began.
Some of us were better spitters than others. The best spitters of all were the professors in the crowd. They taught us to shape our tongues like a canal and blow the stones forcefully along the trench. Alice, in her truly considerate fashion, had brought some washed pits so we wouldn’t have to make ourselves sick eating too many cherries. But we didn’t use them. We all ate too many cherries.
One day last summer she called to say that she needed to be cheered up. She wondered if I would be available to spit cherry pits from my office balcony. I gathered a small crowd of Hope House staff. It was our first day of orientation with a visiting scholar from Australia. She joined us. Alice brought her mother, and a huge bag of cherries. Out onto the balcony we filed and the spitting began.
Some of us were better spitters than others. The best spitters of all were the professors in the crowd. They taught us to shape our tongues like a canal and blow the stones forcefully along the trench. Alice, in her truly considerate fashion, had brought some washed pits so we wouldn’t have to make ourselves sick eating too many cherries. But we didn’t use them. We all ate too many cherries.
Monday, July 02, 2007
SHIRTS ON THE CLOTHESLINE
The shirts and shorts and pants are warm from the clothesline. I like clotheslines.
I didn’t get the clothesline to help the environment, though that would have been an excellent reason to get a clothesline. I got it because I could remember the way the sheets smelled on my childhood bed, fresh and clean like life beginning all over again. I wanted to smell that smell as a grownup. I wanted my kids to know that comforting fragrance.
Even though I had a clothesline I kept the electric dryer. I remembered gathering the clothes in on rainy days, wetter than they had been before the storm. I recalled brushing past them where they dripped from the line in the kitchen, on the route between the stove and the table. I remembered blowing on freezing fingers, unpegging frosted towels as stiff as boards, and Mother saying, “Careful not to break them.”
The streets of San Jose Del Cabo, when we were there, wound their way past tiny Mexican huts with roosters crowing among the electric washing machines and fridges in their backyards. The breeze rustled bright Mexican shirts on the clotheslines. San Hose Del Cabo, according to the brochures, has 360 days of annual sunshine.
Just down the road, along the golf course, along the oceanfront, are the shiny new condos own by Canadians. We stayed in a lovely one, two bedrooms, two baths, cool floors of ceramic, in suite laundry, balconies to die for, pools and hot tubs. In a good Canadian condo there will inevitably be rules and there were rules at ours. Just a few rules out of consideration for your neighbours. Please use the electric dryer provided in your suite. Never hang towels or any other laundry on your balconies.
Back here at home, even on this fine day, I timble the socks and underwear in the dryer. It takes only a hsort time to dry them, with all the big things hanging outside. I am not sure how pleased my neighbours would be to see them, and yes, I am a little too lazy to hang them out. Bringing in the shirts, so effortlessly dried on this magnificent July day, I reflect on our half-hearted Canadian attempts to assist the environment, and I wonder when we will come to our senses and help the Mexicans by letting people hang towels on the balcony.
I didn’t get the clothesline to help the environment, though that would have been an excellent reason to get a clothesline. I got it because I could remember the way the sheets smelled on my childhood bed, fresh and clean like life beginning all over again. I wanted to smell that smell as a grownup. I wanted my kids to know that comforting fragrance.
Even though I had a clothesline I kept the electric dryer. I remembered gathering the clothes in on rainy days, wetter than they had been before the storm. I recalled brushing past them where they dripped from the line in the kitchen, on the route between the stove and the table. I remembered blowing on freezing fingers, unpegging frosted towels as stiff as boards, and Mother saying, “Careful not to break them.”
The streets of San Jose Del Cabo, when we were there, wound their way past tiny Mexican huts with roosters crowing among the electric washing machines and fridges in their backyards. The breeze rustled bright Mexican shirts on the clotheslines. San Hose Del Cabo, according to the brochures, has 360 days of annual sunshine.
Just down the road, along the golf course, along the oceanfront, are the shiny new condos own by Canadians. We stayed in a lovely one, two bedrooms, two baths, cool floors of ceramic, in suite laundry, balconies to die for, pools and hot tubs. In a good Canadian condo there will inevitably be rules and there were rules at ours. Just a few rules out of consideration for your neighbours. Please use the electric dryer provided in your suite. Never hang towels or any other laundry on your balconies.
Back here at home, even on this fine day, I timble the socks and underwear in the dryer. It takes only a hsort time to dry them, with all the big things hanging outside. I am not sure how pleased my neighbours would be to see them, and yes, I am a little too lazy to hang them out. Bringing in the shirts, so effortlessly dried on this magnificent July day, I reflect on our half-hearted Canadian attempts to assist the environment, and I wonder when we will come to our senses and help the Mexicans by letting people hang towels on the balcony.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
AT THE MARKET
At the market
Carrots with their tops on
Peas with their pods on,
Vendors with their smiles on
Selling expensive mushrooms.
At the market
Marigolds and marjoram
Sage and thyme and tiger lilies
Coleus and columbine
Guarantied to grow.
At the market
Syrup made from saskatoons
Jam made from blackberries
Relish made from red tomatoes
Bread from rye and something else
Natural and healthy.
At the market
Saxophone is giving a concert
Country singer singing the blues
Children’s choir on the loud speaker
Neighbours talking over it.
At the market
Sunny days and hot dogs
Coffee bar and seafood
Sausage man and hemp shirts
City streets transformed by magic
The gift of summer at the market.
Carrots with their tops on
Peas with their pods on,
Vendors with their smiles on
Selling expensive mushrooms.
At the market
Marigolds and marjoram
Sage and thyme and tiger lilies
Coleus and columbine
Guarantied to grow.
At the market
Syrup made from saskatoons
Jam made from blackberries
Relish made from red tomatoes
Bread from rye and something else
Natural and healthy.
At the market
Saxophone is giving a concert
Country singer singing the blues
Children’s choir on the loud speaker
Neighbours talking over it.
At the market
Sunny days and hot dogs
Coffee bar and seafood
Sausage man and hemp shirts
City streets transformed by magic
The gift of summer at the market.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
WE LIKE PEONIES
I like peonies. I like the deep red ones that were in the back flowerbed when we bought the house. We wanted them in the front flowerbed, so we moved the plant. But we must have missed a little root, for now there is one at the back, and one at the front. We are keeping both. I like peonies.
I like the pink ones. We first got a root from John and Marie and planted it in our first Edmonton house. Then we started it again in the second Edmonton house. Now, in their fifth summer at the third Edmonton house, the pink peonies are smelling like Heaven and taking up more space than we gave them. They are growing through the railing on to the front steps. But we won’t cut them back yet. I like peonies.
I like the white ones. We first got the root from Peter and Marilyn. I was so impressed because they were standing up brave and straight, strong and luscious, smelling wonderful! We brought a piece of the root when we moved from our second Edmonton house. The flowers are standing brave and tall between the lilies. They are shading some lilies, maybe a little too much. Maybe we will move the lilies. I like the lilies, but I really like the peonies.
My father likes peonies. Two colours of them were standing in a vase on his kitchen table when we visited last weekend. “I thought I should pick them,” he said. “There are so many out there, so I took some to Nancy at the post office and Sandra at the farm.” I never knew he cared about peonies.
Mom used to grow the peonies. They would bloom in the yard on the farm in June. If there was a wedding or a spring tea she would arrange them in lavish bunches, garnished with leaves.
Sandra likes peonies. There are several colours in her garden, and there were more on her kitchen table, the earlier ones that Dad brought before hers came out.
It’s a thing in my family I guess—liking peonies.
I like the pink ones. We first got a root from John and Marie and planted it in our first Edmonton house. Then we started it again in the second Edmonton house. Now, in their fifth summer at the third Edmonton house, the pink peonies are smelling like Heaven and taking up more space than we gave them. They are growing through the railing on to the front steps. But we won’t cut them back yet. I like peonies.
I like the white ones. We first got the root from Peter and Marilyn. I was so impressed because they were standing up brave and straight, strong and luscious, smelling wonderful! We brought a piece of the root when we moved from our second Edmonton house. The flowers are standing brave and tall between the lilies. They are shading some lilies, maybe a little too much. Maybe we will move the lilies. I like the lilies, but I really like the peonies.
My father likes peonies. Two colours of them were standing in a vase on his kitchen table when we visited last weekend. “I thought I should pick them,” he said. “There are so many out there, so I took some to Nancy at the post office and Sandra at the farm.” I never knew he cared about peonies.
Mom used to grow the peonies. They would bloom in the yard on the farm in June. If there was a wedding or a spring tea she would arrange them in lavish bunches, garnished with leaves.
Sandra likes peonies. There are several colours in her garden, and there were more on her kitchen table, the earlier ones that Dad brought before hers came out.
It’s a thing in my family I guess—liking peonies.
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
FAN MAIL
Several weeks have passed since I first tried to email a fan letter to Elizabeth Ellis. It is not something I normally do, sending fan mail. People worthy of fan mail get a lot of it, I hear. I hate the thought of taking up their time having to reply to me. But I had made a New Year’s resolution to contact people who wouldn’t expect to hear from me. I had not been thinking of contacting people I have never met. Still I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should make an exception in this case.
Elizabeth Ellis is a Texas storyteller, one who turns pain into laughter, just my cup of tea. David discovered her at a conference in 2004. I didn’t hear her tell a story until last fall when we went to the Jonesboro Festival. Once she got on to my radar, I followed her shamelessly from tent to tent for the whole week end, listening with all my senses to a huge repertoire of stories, short, medium and long. She never knew I was there. In tents that hold more than a thousand people you don’t exactly notice every stranger.
You can influence someone and never know you had. After that weekend I would imagine her pitch and rhythm, matching my voice to hers every time I stood before an audience to start a story. I thought of all the plants that draw sustenance by attaching themselves to living trees. It seemed unethical that she should have a parasite and not know it.
So I went to her website and launched a fan letter into cyberspace. It was returned. Undeliverable mail,” is what the message said. I patted myself on the back for trying, and settled down to live my life. But in the quiet moments when my mind wandered, it wandered back to that undelivered letter and tried to make improvements.
I went back to her website and tried again. The machinations of cyberspace are always unpredictable. But the second letter came back, same as the first. I vowed to definitely get on with my life.
It didn’t work. More revisions came into my head when I was trying to compose a grocery list. So I returned to that website, passed through the main page, and into the murky interior where I pressed another button and got a different email address. That one worked. She got my letter. She was pleased. She wrote back to me the very next day. She said she hardly ever gets fan mail.
Elizabeth Ellis is a Texas storyteller, one who turns pain into laughter, just my cup of tea. David discovered her at a conference in 2004. I didn’t hear her tell a story until last fall when we went to the Jonesboro Festival. Once she got on to my radar, I followed her shamelessly from tent to tent for the whole week end, listening with all my senses to a huge repertoire of stories, short, medium and long. She never knew I was there. In tents that hold more than a thousand people you don’t exactly notice every stranger.
You can influence someone and never know you had. After that weekend I would imagine her pitch and rhythm, matching my voice to hers every time I stood before an audience to start a story. I thought of all the plants that draw sustenance by attaching themselves to living trees. It seemed unethical that she should have a parasite and not know it.
So I went to her website and launched a fan letter into cyberspace. It was returned. Undeliverable mail,” is what the message said. I patted myself on the back for trying, and settled down to live my life. But in the quiet moments when my mind wandered, it wandered back to that undelivered letter and tried to make improvements.
I went back to her website and tried again. The machinations of cyberspace are always unpredictable. But the second letter came back, same as the first. I vowed to definitely get on with my life.
It didn’t work. More revisions came into my head when I was trying to compose a grocery list. So I returned to that website, passed through the main page, and into the murky interior where I pressed another button and got a different email address. That one worked. She got my letter. She was pleased. She wrote back to me the very next day. She said she hardly ever gets fan mail.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
SOPHIA'S DIARY
We went to Hamilton Ontario expecting to find McMaster University and maybe a steel mill or two. We definitely did not expect to find a castle. But there it was, a real castle, Dundurn Castle, built for Sir Allan McNab in the 1830’s. In the castle there is a schoolroom, the place where the McNab children were educated. And lucky for us that they were educated, because young Sophia McNab kept a diary.
Sophia’s diary recorded information about daily life at the castle. Today that diary is perhaps the most influential document used by the guides who recreate the castle’s history for the tourists. They know which rooms were used for what purpose.
Doesn’t it make you just want to keep a diary, something to ensure that the record is accurate, a reference book for the tour guides in the unlikely event that your house is still standing 180 years from now?
Sophia’s diary recorded information about daily life at the castle. Today that diary is perhaps the most influential document used by the guides who recreate the castle’s history for the tourists. They know which rooms were used for what purpose.
Doesn’t it make you just want to keep a diary, something to ensure that the record is accurate, a reference book for the tour guides in the unlikely event that your house is still standing 180 years from now?
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
HOW DO NUNS LIVE?
I almost found out how nuns live, something I have always wondered about. I never quite believed it was exactly like it is in Sister Act and Sound Of Music. And I really was curious about it, still am.
I probably would have found out. I was sitting right next to a nun on a flight from Edmonton to Hamilton. There was plenty of time to ask questions, only I didn’t know she was a nun. She seemed like an ordinary person reading a book. I was reading too.
The weather was bad on the way toward the ground, bad enough that even the most private traveler could not fully pretend to be reading a book. When we had landed safely, and the thundering applause of the passengers had faded away, leaving us only the sound of the giggling children, we began a little conversation, the kind of grateful chatter you undertake on such celebratory occasions. She observed that the children thought the bumps were included at the end of the ride as part of the price of admission. I asked a few questions, and learned she had been visiting a sister in Alberta. I assumed she meant a sibling.
Instead of racing off the plane, we stayed in the cabin, lightning flashing, hale pelting. When we had been there half an hour, and the stewardesses had given up trying to keep us from going to the bathroom, my seatmate got out a cell phone and made a call.
“Sister Anne,’ she said, “This is Sister Mary. I’m in Hamilton. Sister Joan is supposed to pick me up here, so if she calls can you let her know I’m here, but we can’t get off the plane until the storm passes.”
The voice of adventure spoke to me. This is your chance, it said. This is perhaps the only time you will ever be fully free to learn about the life of a nun by asking simple questions. But the voice of propriety spoke louder. It is rude to listen to telephone conversations, she said. It is even more rude to ask questions about the things you overheard while listening in on telephone conversations.
I went back to reading, vigorous reading, the kind of vigorous reading that inspires curiosity in others. I was reading Braille, as I so often do on planes. I had already finished the book I had brought, but I was hoping my reading, and our new friendliness would give her the courage to ask me a question about the Braille. So many other strangers have sat beside me over the years, waiting for the right moment to ask about my book. They say, "Is that Braille you are reading? Or, "Are those just letters or do some of the dots mean actual words?”
If only she would ask, then I would get a turn to ask. Just what I would ask I did not know, but I was sure I would think of something. Maybe I would start with, “I just couldn’t help but overhear your conversation in this small space, and there are some things I have always wanted to know.”
If she would just ask, then I would ask. But she didn’t ask. Maybe she already asked some other blind traveler about Braille. Maybe she’s a Braille teacher. Maybe she is simply too well mannered to intrude on the reading privacy of strangers. Maybe she isn’t even a curious person, not even a little bit curious, though I doubt that. Whatever the reason, she didn’t ask, and so I didn’t ask, and now I don’t know, which is too bad because I really wanted to know how nuns live in the 21st century.
I probably would have found out. I was sitting right next to a nun on a flight from Edmonton to Hamilton. There was plenty of time to ask questions, only I didn’t know she was a nun. She seemed like an ordinary person reading a book. I was reading too.
The weather was bad on the way toward the ground, bad enough that even the most private traveler could not fully pretend to be reading a book. When we had landed safely, and the thundering applause of the passengers had faded away, leaving us only the sound of the giggling children, we began a little conversation, the kind of grateful chatter you undertake on such celebratory occasions. She observed that the children thought the bumps were included at the end of the ride as part of the price of admission. I asked a few questions, and learned she had been visiting a sister in Alberta. I assumed she meant a sibling.
Instead of racing off the plane, we stayed in the cabin, lightning flashing, hale pelting. When we had been there half an hour, and the stewardesses had given up trying to keep us from going to the bathroom, my seatmate got out a cell phone and made a call.
“Sister Anne,’ she said, “This is Sister Mary. I’m in Hamilton. Sister Joan is supposed to pick me up here, so if she calls can you let her know I’m here, but we can’t get off the plane until the storm passes.”
The voice of adventure spoke to me. This is your chance, it said. This is perhaps the only time you will ever be fully free to learn about the life of a nun by asking simple questions. But the voice of propriety spoke louder. It is rude to listen to telephone conversations, she said. It is even more rude to ask questions about the things you overheard while listening in on telephone conversations.
I went back to reading, vigorous reading, the kind of vigorous reading that inspires curiosity in others. I was reading Braille, as I so often do on planes. I had already finished the book I had brought, but I was hoping my reading, and our new friendliness would give her the courage to ask me a question about the Braille. So many other strangers have sat beside me over the years, waiting for the right moment to ask about my book. They say, "Is that Braille you are reading? Or, "Are those just letters or do some of the dots mean actual words?”
If only she would ask, then I would get a turn to ask. Just what I would ask I did not know, but I was sure I would think of something. Maybe I would start with, “I just couldn’t help but overhear your conversation in this small space, and there are some things I have always wanted to know.”
If she would just ask, then I would ask. But she didn’t ask. Maybe she already asked some other blind traveler about Braille. Maybe she’s a Braille teacher. Maybe she is simply too well mannered to intrude on the reading privacy of strangers. Maybe she isn’t even a curious person, not even a little bit curious, though I doubt that. Whatever the reason, she didn’t ask, and so I didn’t ask, and now I don’t know, which is too bad because I really wanted to know how nuns live in the 21st century.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
WHAT DO YOU HOPE FOR?
“What do you hope for Murray?” I asked
“I hope to have sex again,” he said. Murray was seventy-five.
“What do you hope for, Olga?” I asked.
“I hope they won’t bring me tuna sandwiches again,” she said. “I am allergic to tuna.” Olga was eighty-nine.
“What do you hope for, Doug?” I asked.
“I hope for complete nuclear disarmament,” said Doug. Doug was seventy-eight.
“What do you hope for, Vera?” I asked.
“I don’t hope,” said Vera. “I just take care of my husband.” Vera was eighty-four.
“What do you hope for, Robert,” I asked.
“I hope people will enjoy reading my poetry,” said Robert. Robert was ninety-three.
“What do you hope for, Jenny?” I asked.
“I hope to die soon,” said Jenny. Jenny was seventy-one.
“What do you hope for, Ruth?” I asked.
“I hope they have chocolate for dessert,” said Ruth. Ruth was eighty-seven.
“What do you hope for, Granny?” I asked.
But wait a minute. Let’s tell the truth here. I didn’t ask that. Granny died ten years before I learned to ask old people what they hope for. And that MIGHT BE THE REASON why, on the night after the fair, Granny called me to say “I waited all day for somebody to come and take me to the fair, but nobody came.”
And I learned to ask people what they hope for, even when they are old.
“I hope to have sex again,” he said. Murray was seventy-five.
“What do you hope for, Olga?” I asked.
“I hope they won’t bring me tuna sandwiches again,” she said. “I am allergic to tuna.” Olga was eighty-nine.
“What do you hope for, Doug?” I asked.
“I hope for complete nuclear disarmament,” said Doug. Doug was seventy-eight.
“What do you hope for, Vera?” I asked.
“I don’t hope,” said Vera. “I just take care of my husband.” Vera was eighty-four.
“What do you hope for, Robert,” I asked.
“I hope people will enjoy reading my poetry,” said Robert. Robert was ninety-three.
“What do you hope for, Jenny?” I asked.
“I hope to die soon,” said Jenny. Jenny was seventy-one.
“What do you hope for, Ruth?” I asked.
“I hope they have chocolate for dessert,” said Ruth. Ruth was eighty-seven.
“What do you hope for, Granny?” I asked.
But wait a minute. Let’s tell the truth here. I didn’t ask that. Granny died ten years before I learned to ask old people what they hope for. And that MIGHT BE THE REASON why, on the night after the fair, Granny called me to say “I waited all day for somebody to come and take me to the fair, but nobody came.”
And I learned to ask people what they hope for, even when they are old.
Monday, June 04, 2007
THAT HOPE MOMENT
MOMENTS OF HOPE
In any life there are hope moments, moments that count in the big picture, moments that make a lasting difference. Sometimes we recognize them when they happen. At other times the recognition comes years later.
One of my hope moments happened when our son was four years old. It was a hot and dusty day. The temperature in the old Volvo must have been near the boiling point. We were making a visit to the foster parents who had delivered him to us just prior to his first birthday. We had done our best to keep them alive in his memory, selecting a prominent backyard location for the tree they gave him, telling him stories of how good they were to him. Still, you really don’t remember much of the first four years of your liefe.
This was the first time he would return to their home.
We were only a few miles away from our destination when he said a word that sounded like: “Bird.” We looked around but nobody saw a bird. He kept on saying: “Bird!” We kept on looking. Soon we were all impatient, wanting to change the subject. With tension mounting, we were relieved when the house came into view.
In only a moment we were out of the car and at the front door. And what did we find just beyond the door sill? Well, you may already have guessed it. It was a bird, a brightly-coloured, chirping, singing, calling bird. His foster mother, smiling with delight said, “That bird remembers you. Your playpen used to sit right here.”
We were dumbfounded. For he, a boy who had left this house before his first birthday, remembered the bird. It was a time of surprise, a moment that brought into question all my beliefs and assumptions about memory. It was a time when I realized that the world might just be amore mysterious and interesting place than I had thought.
Since that day I’ve been a little more conscientious, tried to be a little more informative when talking to babies. They just might remember something I said.
In any life there are hope moments, moments that count in the big picture, moments that make a lasting difference. Sometimes we recognize them when they happen. At other times the recognition comes years later.
One of my hope moments happened when our son was four years old. It was a hot and dusty day. The temperature in the old Volvo must have been near the boiling point. We were making a visit to the foster parents who had delivered him to us just prior to his first birthday. We had done our best to keep them alive in his memory, selecting a prominent backyard location for the tree they gave him, telling him stories of how good they were to him. Still, you really don’t remember much of the first four years of your liefe.
This was the first time he would return to their home.
We were only a few miles away from our destination when he said a word that sounded like: “Bird.” We looked around but nobody saw a bird. He kept on saying: “Bird!” We kept on looking. Soon we were all impatient, wanting to change the subject. With tension mounting, we were relieved when the house came into view.
In only a moment we were out of the car and at the front door. And what did we find just beyond the door sill? Well, you may already have guessed it. It was a bird, a brightly-coloured, chirping, singing, calling bird. His foster mother, smiling with delight said, “That bird remembers you. Your playpen used to sit right here.”
We were dumbfounded. For he, a boy who had left this house before his first birthday, remembered the bird. It was a time of surprise, a moment that brought into question all my beliefs and assumptions about memory. It was a time when I realized that the world might just be amore mysterious and interesting place than I had thought.
Since that day I’ve been a little more conscientious, tried to be a little more informative when talking to babies. They just might remember something I said.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
A BRIEF OBSERVATION ON HOPE AND GOAL-SETTING
I will not try again,”” I say.
To bring the scent of lilac in.
For twice now I have clipped the blooms and left their fragrant trail behind
Sniffing in the living room
Feeling disappointed.
But as I sit here at my desk the room explodes with lilacness.
Carried on the breeze, wafting from the trees through the open window.
Just one more reason to hope that when you fail to meet a goal
That which you were striving for might still be happening anyway.
To bring the scent of lilac in.
For twice now I have clipped the blooms and left their fragrant trail behind
Sniffing in the living room
Feeling disappointed.
But as I sit here at my desk the room explodes with lilacness.
Carried on the breeze, wafting from the trees through the open window.
Just one more reason to hope that when you fail to meet a goal
That which you were striving for might still be happening anyway.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
GETTING RETIREMENT RIGHT
Fred and Amy Merrett threw a party, a party to celebrate the winding down of the Bronze Harmony Handbell Choir. As a music teacher fred introduced handbells to Winnipeg schools in 1963, then came to Alberta and promoted them here. When the time came to leave the school system, conducting this choir was Fred’s retirement project. He has been doing it for the past 21 years. If the Edmonton Journal is to be believed, Fred is 83.
What a party it was! Great food, great music; ringers at the mic telling us all how Fred’s influence has probably touched every handbell teacher in western Canada. The music he composed is played by ringers around the world.
Even after this Fred will still be ringing intimate concerts with his wife Amy and writing more music for the bells. Seems to me that Fred has been extremely wise, stepping out of full time employment and carrying forward something he loved, pursuing excellence long after official retirement, bringing the future into view before letting go of the past, celebrating endings with a flourish. His story is the story retirement planners dream about.
What a party it was! Great food, great music; ringers at the mic telling us all how Fred’s influence has probably touched every handbell teacher in western Canada. The music he composed is played by ringers around the world.
Even after this Fred will still be ringing intimate concerts with his wife Amy and writing more music for the bells. Seems to me that Fred has been extremely wise, stepping out of full time employment and carrying forward something he loved, pursuing excellence long after official retirement, bringing the future into view before letting go of the past, celebrating endings with a flourish. His story is the story retirement planners dream about.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
QUEEN VICTORIA'S BIRTHDAY
A real Canadian Victoria Day we had
A cousin from Britain to celebrate with us
A morning trip to Barbecue Country to replace a part for a Weber Grill
Not easy to find in Europe”,” he said.
A Chili Combo lunch at Tim Horton’s.
We taught him the language of Double Double, and he drank it black.
A bracing hike in Elk Island National Park.
Red-winged blackbirds, beaver lodges.
“Victoria Day in Edmonton,” we said, “can be cold as an August afternoon at the beach near Cardiff.”
A thirst-quenching root beer at A&W.
“Tastes like toothpaste,” he said, “Really good toothpaste.”
A trip to Rona, that Canadian How-To store for a small Canadian Axe.
“We’ll use it camping, he said.
Ï won’t carry it in my hand luggage.”
Then on to Best Buy and Campers Village.
Alberta beef for dinner, barbecued, though not on a Weber Grill.
A walk by the river and then?”
That holiday spectacular, only in Edmonton!
The High Level Bridge waterfall, pink and misty in the setting sun.
Edmonton’s Niagara.
"How wonderful it is,"says he, "To be in this family that reaches out to touch across the Atlantic."
He is right. It is wonderful.
Next day he is on his way back to Britain, where they don’t celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday.
And the High Level Bridge dryly waits for another holiday.
A cousin from Britain to celebrate with us
A morning trip to Barbecue Country to replace a part for a Weber Grill
Not easy to find in Europe”,” he said.
A Chili Combo lunch at Tim Horton’s.
We taught him the language of Double Double, and he drank it black.
A bracing hike in Elk Island National Park.
Red-winged blackbirds, beaver lodges.
“Victoria Day in Edmonton,” we said, “can be cold as an August afternoon at the beach near Cardiff.”
A thirst-quenching root beer at A&W.
“Tastes like toothpaste,” he said, “Really good toothpaste.”
A trip to Rona, that Canadian How-To store for a small Canadian Axe.
“We’ll use it camping, he said.
Ï won’t carry it in my hand luggage.”
Then on to Best Buy and Campers Village.
Alberta beef for dinner, barbecued, though not on a Weber Grill.
A walk by the river and then?”
That holiday spectacular, only in Edmonton!
The High Level Bridge waterfall, pink and misty in the setting sun.
Edmonton’s Niagara.
"How wonderful it is,"says he, "To be in this family that reaches out to touch across the Atlantic."
He is right. It is wonderful.
Next day he is on his way back to Britain, where they don’t celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday.
And the High Level Bridge dryly waits for another holiday.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
DECORATING A HOPEFUL WORKPLACE
Several years ago the Grey Nuns Family Medicine Clinic staff began a study of hope. All the staff took part. Doctors, nurses and administrators studied together. As an act of hope, they decided to decorate the clinic with the goal of making it a hopeful place. They turned the waiting room into a living room with a comfortable conversational atmosphere. They created a children’s play area. They transformed the examining rooms into theme rooms featuring photos and stories for patients to enjoy while they waited for the doctor to come in. The Roman Room, for example, featured one doctor’s story about going to Rome, showing pictures and explaining why Rome was a hopeful place for him.
The project received national media coverage at the time. It was also greeted with cynicism. Why were much-needed health care dollars being wasted on decoration? What difference could decorations really make? What reason was there to believe that patients would want to have conversation with each other, or that the doctors would want to be distracted by conversations about Rome in the examining room?
I met with the clinic staff yesterday. Most of them were strangers to me. Only a few of the original hope decorators remained. I asked them to tell me what had happened to their hope project. This is what they told me.
They are now in the process of redecorating. The rooms are being updated with the stories and photos supplied by the present staff. They are pleased that they can now talk to their patients about their own stories. The patients sit out in the living room talking to each other about the examining rooms.
I hope I get the Prairie Room,”” says one. Mom, do you think we can get the Spa Room?””
When the doctor comes in, the patients start talking about the room they waited in. They remark on the atmosphere. They ask about the origin of the project.
All this leads me to reflect on the medical clinic I visit. It is a big clinic with several doctors. The phone rings constantly. The staff hustle patients down the hall to airless identical cubicles. Chairs in the busy waiting area are arranged in rows. Never once have I heard a patient express a hope to another. Nor have I heard the excited voice of a child who is looking forward to being in an examining room. Having heard this kind of talk among the patients, it is not at all surprising that the Grey Nuns Clinic staff wanted to update their decorating! New staff who were not included in the original project could see how the decorating had influenced the relationships between and among staff and patients.
Hope involves the interaction of thinking, feeling, acting and relating. When you come together to decorate using a hope theme, your product reflects all of these. It transcends social class and personal income. Where is hope more needed than in a medical clinic. The line-ups are long, the staff is tired, the patients are ill and the prognosis can be poor. Hope can get lost in the shuffle.
It is hard to ignore hope when you put it in the decorations. It stays visible, works its way into routine conversations among strangers. . What’s more, hope has a much better chance of showing itself when people come together in places where it is okay to look forward to things, and okay to find that the patient has something in common with the doctor.
The project received national media coverage at the time. It was also greeted with cynicism. Why were much-needed health care dollars being wasted on decoration? What difference could decorations really make? What reason was there to believe that patients would want to have conversation with each other, or that the doctors would want to be distracted by conversations about Rome in the examining room?
I met with the clinic staff yesterday. Most of them were strangers to me. Only a few of the original hope decorators remained. I asked them to tell me what had happened to their hope project. This is what they told me.
They are now in the process of redecorating. The rooms are being updated with the stories and photos supplied by the present staff. They are pleased that they can now talk to their patients about their own stories. The patients sit out in the living room talking to each other about the examining rooms.
I hope I get the Prairie Room,”” says one. Mom, do you think we can get the Spa Room?””
When the doctor comes in, the patients start talking about the room they waited in. They remark on the atmosphere. They ask about the origin of the project.
All this leads me to reflect on the medical clinic I visit. It is a big clinic with several doctors. The phone rings constantly. The staff hustle patients down the hall to airless identical cubicles. Chairs in the busy waiting area are arranged in rows. Never once have I heard a patient express a hope to another. Nor have I heard the excited voice of a child who is looking forward to being in an examining room. Having heard this kind of talk among the patients, it is not at all surprising that the Grey Nuns Clinic staff wanted to update their decorating! New staff who were not included in the original project could see how the decorating had influenced the relationships between and among staff and patients.
Hope involves the interaction of thinking, feeling, acting and relating. When you come together to decorate using a hope theme, your product reflects all of these. It transcends social class and personal income. Where is hope more needed than in a medical clinic. The line-ups are long, the staff is tired, the patients are ill and the prognosis can be poor. Hope can get lost in the shuffle.
It is hard to ignore hope when you put it in the decorations. It stays visible, works its way into routine conversations among strangers. . What’s more, hope has a much better chance of showing itself when people come together in places where it is okay to look forward to things, and okay to find that the patient has something in common with the doctor.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
A CURIOUS PERSON'S LAMENT
In this world there are curious people. And then there are researchers. Though I would like to believe I could be a researcher, all evidence suggests that my rightful place is among the curious.
Curious people wonder about things. The readers among them study books. The gregarious ones ask questions. There is definitely a curious person in me. She wonders how anybody ever dreamed up the idea that words could travel along a wire. She wonders how the dryer manages to eat only one sock in any given pair. She wonders what kind of psychologist she would have been if she had not found the Hope Foundation. And last Sunday, in the half hour it took for the chemical reaction that would bind the Dark Ash Blonde dye to her hair, she wondered if blondes have more fun.
In an act of bravado, with boldness obliterating self-awareness, She announced a plan to spend the day studying the matter. In short, she thought she was a researcher. She had, unfortunately, forgotten something experience has already tried to teach her several times. She had overlooked the defining characteristic that separates the curious people from the researchers. That characteristic is planning, also known as forethought.
The thing I admire most about researchers is the way they channel their curiosity. Like us curious ones, they notice peculiarities all the time. They wonder what is happening, or how things came about, or how they might be different. But they don’t go forward, pell-mell and headlong. They think about it. They ask people about it. They make a plan. They apply for funding. They get paid while they study. If they have theories about the discoveries they plan to make, they keep them to themselves until it comes time to publish in a professional journal. Toasted and lauded by their peers, they leave us curious ones starry-eyed and envious, wondering how they do it.
Fifty-odd hours after the union between the Dark Ash Blonde Dye and my hair was consolidated, I remain curious about whether blondes have more fun. I might have been able to tell you the answer had I not messed up the research design. It was corrupted before I even began my day of study. In my rush to find the truth, I had overlooked the significance of a pattern that has been repeating itself for more than ten years. What I should have recognized, what I should have inferred from the information everyone gave me, was that Sunday was not the first time I had been blonde. It was simply the first time I administered a product with Blonde on the label. I now understand that, over the past dozen years, I unknowingly became a blonde over and over again. That transformation happened gradually, showing itself approximately every ten weeks. Not knowing that I was blonde, I failed to check to see if I was having more fun.
You may be wondering how I came to this conclusion. Well, the answer is both simple and surprising. You see, every time I dyed my hair Light Golden Brown, somebody would say: “You coloured your hair. It looks good.” The difference was apparent to the discerning eye. It happened over and over again. But this time, not one person commented on the difference. What’s more, people admitted they had not noticed a change when I drew their attention to the dying.
Now the optimist in me is considering an interesting theory. Perhaps I was wrong in assuming that I was going grey. Maybe I was simply going blonde. I am curious about that. Maybe I should study it! On the other hand, maybe somebody else should.
Curious people wonder about things. The readers among them study books. The gregarious ones ask questions. There is definitely a curious person in me. She wonders how anybody ever dreamed up the idea that words could travel along a wire. She wonders how the dryer manages to eat only one sock in any given pair. She wonders what kind of psychologist she would have been if she had not found the Hope Foundation. And last Sunday, in the half hour it took for the chemical reaction that would bind the Dark Ash Blonde dye to her hair, she wondered if blondes have more fun.
In an act of bravado, with boldness obliterating self-awareness, She announced a plan to spend the day studying the matter. In short, she thought she was a researcher. She had, unfortunately, forgotten something experience has already tried to teach her several times. She had overlooked the defining characteristic that separates the curious people from the researchers. That characteristic is planning, also known as forethought.
The thing I admire most about researchers is the way they channel their curiosity. Like us curious ones, they notice peculiarities all the time. They wonder what is happening, or how things came about, or how they might be different. But they don’t go forward, pell-mell and headlong. They think about it. They ask people about it. They make a plan. They apply for funding. They get paid while they study. If they have theories about the discoveries they plan to make, they keep them to themselves until it comes time to publish in a professional journal. Toasted and lauded by their peers, they leave us curious ones starry-eyed and envious, wondering how they do it.
Fifty-odd hours after the union between the Dark Ash Blonde Dye and my hair was consolidated, I remain curious about whether blondes have more fun. I might have been able to tell you the answer had I not messed up the research design. It was corrupted before I even began my day of study. In my rush to find the truth, I had overlooked the significance of a pattern that has been repeating itself for more than ten years. What I should have recognized, what I should have inferred from the information everyone gave me, was that Sunday was not the first time I had been blonde. It was simply the first time I administered a product with Blonde on the label. I now understand that, over the past dozen years, I unknowingly became a blonde over and over again. That transformation happened gradually, showing itself approximately every ten weeks. Not knowing that I was blonde, I failed to check to see if I was having more fun.
You may be wondering how I came to this conclusion. Well, the answer is both simple and surprising. You see, every time I dyed my hair Light Golden Brown, somebody would say: “You coloured your hair. It looks good.” The difference was apparent to the discerning eye. It happened over and over again. But this time, not one person commented on the difference. What’s more, people admitted they had not noticed a change when I drew their attention to the dying.
Now the optimist in me is considering an interesting theory. Perhaps I was wrong in assuming that I was going grey. Maybe I was simply going blonde. I am curious about that. Maybe I should study it! On the other hand, maybe somebody else should.
Sunday, May 06, 2007
BEFORE THE DAY IS OVER
Have you ever awakened to the certain knowledge that this is the day when a question will be answered? Today is such a day for me. By the time it ends, when the sun has fallen below the western horizon, I will know for sure whether blondes have more fun. Even as I sit here, writing at this very moment, a transformation is taking place. A change as subtle as the melting of winter into spring. It is one of those days I knew I would never see, and now it is here.
I was never going to colour my hair. “Grow old gracefully,” I exhorted. “Never be ashamed to be who you really are.” I was picturing a wise, silver-haired maven holding court for a dozen eager listeners. Silver hair meant wisdom.
But now I ask you, have you ever heard of anyone having silver roots? It seems they are grey when they poke their little heads out some time around your fortieth birthday. Silver, apparently comes later, maybe at age eighty.
The moment they appeared I ran to the drugstore. “Give me a colour exactly like the colour of these natural ends,” I gasped. And thus my hair got a name, Light Golden Brown, which everyone said was a little bit red, even more so under the summer sun. That was back in the days when there were only a few grey (excuse me, silvering) roots.
“Just how many silvering roots do you think there are?” I asked the girl who cut my hair last month. She was about twenty, tall, sophisticated, kind to old people like me.
“Oh,” she said diplomatically, “a few.”
“Give me a percentage,” I said. It seemed like this was the time when I could really face the truth, sitting there in a crowd of strangers, brushing severed hairs from my cheek, trying to keep them out of my coffee.
“Well,” she said, taking a long time. I imagine she was counting, “Well, half maybe.”
It shouldn’t have hurt me. I know it shouldn’t. These insidious markers of time’s passage have been there a dozen years, multiplying every week, maybe every day. But it did hurt me. I mean, I have thick hair, and experts say a thick-haired person has as many as 200,000 hairs. Cut that in half and you have 100,000 grey hairs, give or take 10,000. How would you like to have 100,000 grey hairs?
There are stages you go through when half your hairs are grey. First there is the numbness, then denial. Then comes anger, and then bargaining. “How about,” I said thoughtfully to my family one day, “how about I dye my hair grey so the roots won’t show so much!”
They laughed. They thought I was joking. I most certainly was not! “What will you do when the 100,000 brown roots start showing?” they wanted to know. Sometimes they can be maddeningly logical.
I was stumped. I had no words to answer. So I struck a different bargain. “How about I dye my hair blonde, something between the grey roots and the brown?”
They couldn’t think of an answer for that, or maybe they are just worn out from waiting for my silver-haired wisdom to set in. So today, as I write, my hair is losing its claim on Light Golden Brown. In only a few moments it will be Dark Ash Blonde. In a couple of months there will be 100,000 grey roots, and 100,000 brown roots, or maybe only 90,000 brown roots. But today, by the time the sun goes down, I will know if blondes have more fun.
I was never going to colour my hair. “Grow old gracefully,” I exhorted. “Never be ashamed to be who you really are.” I was picturing a wise, silver-haired maven holding court for a dozen eager listeners. Silver hair meant wisdom.
But now I ask you, have you ever heard of anyone having silver roots? It seems they are grey when they poke their little heads out some time around your fortieth birthday. Silver, apparently comes later, maybe at age eighty.
The moment they appeared I ran to the drugstore. “Give me a colour exactly like the colour of these natural ends,” I gasped. And thus my hair got a name, Light Golden Brown, which everyone said was a little bit red, even more so under the summer sun. That was back in the days when there were only a few grey (excuse me, silvering) roots.
“Just how many silvering roots do you think there are?” I asked the girl who cut my hair last month. She was about twenty, tall, sophisticated, kind to old people like me.
“Oh,” she said diplomatically, “a few.”
“Give me a percentage,” I said. It seemed like this was the time when I could really face the truth, sitting there in a crowd of strangers, brushing severed hairs from my cheek, trying to keep them out of my coffee.
“Well,” she said, taking a long time. I imagine she was counting, “Well, half maybe.”
It shouldn’t have hurt me. I know it shouldn’t. These insidious markers of time’s passage have been there a dozen years, multiplying every week, maybe every day. But it did hurt me. I mean, I have thick hair, and experts say a thick-haired person has as many as 200,000 hairs. Cut that in half and you have 100,000 grey hairs, give or take 10,000. How would you like to have 100,000 grey hairs?
There are stages you go through when half your hairs are grey. First there is the numbness, then denial. Then comes anger, and then bargaining. “How about,” I said thoughtfully to my family one day, “how about I dye my hair grey so the roots won’t show so much!”
They laughed. They thought I was joking. I most certainly was not! “What will you do when the 100,000 brown roots start showing?” they wanted to know. Sometimes they can be maddeningly logical.
I was stumped. I had no words to answer. So I struck a different bargain. “How about I dye my hair blonde, something between the grey roots and the brown?”
They couldn’t think of an answer for that, or maybe they are just worn out from waiting for my silver-haired wisdom to set in. So today, as I write, my hair is losing its claim on Light Golden Brown. In only a few moments it will be Dark Ash Blonde. In a couple of months there will be 100,000 grey roots, and 100,000 brown roots, or maybe only 90,000 brown roots. But today, by the time the sun goes down, I will know if blondes have more fun.
Friday, May 04, 2007
A MOST HOPEFUL APPROACH--HATS OFF TO CBC
Want to hear something really hopeful, some inspiring and true stories about aboriginal youth in Alberta? Then go to the Internet and find links TO programs broadcast earlier this spring as part of the CBC series known as Soaring Spirits. In a world where our mainstream media spend most of their time reporting the bad news, CBC has taken an alternate path. They have devoted the time to telling stories that exemplify and give hope.
"Soaring Spirits" is a new song by the group Redd-nation. The group wrote the song to go with the series. You can listen to the story of Christina and the hopes she has for her daughter. You can hear an interview with Shawn Bernard, a former offender who has changed his life. You can hear from Kyle who hopes to be Prime Minister some day. You can find out how 13 year old, Bobbi-Jo Beaver became the first person to sing O Canada in Cree at an Oilers home game. And that is only the beginning. There are stories about aboriginal schools, young entrepreneurs, teen-agers who volunteer to teach dance classes and much much more.
The website is a feast for the hopeful palate, a tangible example of how differently we would view our world if we took more time to read and tell hopeful stories. Congratulations CBC! I take my hat off to you.
"Soaring Spirits" is a new song by the group Redd-nation. The group wrote the song to go with the series. You can listen to the story of Christina and the hopes she has for her daughter. You can hear an interview with Shawn Bernard, a former offender who has changed his life. You can hear from Kyle who hopes to be Prime Minister some day. You can find out how 13 year old, Bobbi-Jo Beaver became the first person to sing O Canada in Cree at an Oilers home game. And that is only the beginning. There are stories about aboriginal schools, young entrepreneurs, teen-agers who volunteer to teach dance classes and much much more.
The website is a feast for the hopeful palate, a tangible example of how differently we would view our world if we took more time to read and tell hopeful stories. Congratulations CBC! I take my hat off to you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)