The Greatest Love of All

Bill Maher recently had a bit of a rant about narcissism and the dangers of self-love. One thing that stuck was his story about a five-year-old kid behind him kicking his seat during a cross-country flight and the parent explaining that “Logan is only exploring.”

“No,” Bill said, “Logan is being a dick, and if you’re not going to stuff him in the overhead luggage compartment, I will!”

After I stopped laughing, I realized that the concept of loving oneself has become, as is inevitable with mortals, somewhat warped with time.

The Greatest Love of All, when performed by George Benson in the 1970s, was sung gently and with compassion, as he entreats the listener to instill confidence and self-respect in our children.

The same song, performed by Whitney Houston in 1985, is a totally different animal. A fan of Benson’s version, I winced when the diva belted it out at full volume because Whitney was nothing if not a narcissist. She made everything into a “look at me” anthem when I believe this particular song was meant to encourage us to teach our kids not about self-love, but about selfless love.

Love in its mortal form is conditional. I love you because:

You love me.

You feed me.

You give me things.

You do things for me.

You ask nothing of me.

And if you stop, I won’t love you anymore.

Love in its purest form, the love that every child brings with him at birth, is the wellspring of kindness and generosity, of sincerity and compassion and respect for ourselves, for each other, and for the planet that sustains us.

There is nothing at all wrong with reminding that child of his divinity. There is, however, a grave injustice in cossetting that kid and letting him run riot. That’s doing him as much a disservice as it is annoying the heck out of the guy whose seat the kid is kicking. Darn this compostable container. It’s tricked us into teaching an entire generation that every one of them can have whatever they want whenever and wherever they want it because they are entitled. The era of instant gratification has made our children selfish, petulant, demanding, and incapable of fending for themselves in the real world.

On the flipside, however, because contrast is a universal law, there are millennials who band together for the greater good, who run bottle drives and raise funds for hurricane relief and apply themselves to their lessons so they can find the cure for cancer or champion clean energy. Those kids have got the message. They have healthy self-esteems and not only do they respect society, they want to improve it. Kudos to those kids, and to their parents for keeping them in tune with their inherent natures.

The song is true. If it gives a child the courage and confidence to make a positive difference in the world, then learning to love himself can be the greatest gift of all.

DIY

“Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile” – Albert Einstein

After twenty years in the same suite, our dear friend Treena has bought herself a condominium. Before she moves in, however, she’s renovating. And she’s doing it herself.

Ter and I were called to assist with collecting supplies last week—namely transporting a thousand pounds of laminate flooring and seven gallons of paint from the shop to the condo. Tiggy is a little Stormtrooper, but he also has a maximum load capacity of 1110 pounds so, after some frantic mental math during which our combined weight was added to the load, we estimated that the flooring alone would take three trips. Picture this: one Tiguan, two babes in their mid-fifties, and one waif hauling 34 boxes weighing approximately 20 lbs apiece from the curb to the second floor suite.

Bwahahahahahaha!

The first load was tricky since, having committed and therefore unable to reverse, we had no idea how we were going to accomplish this feat without killing ourselves. We bumbled through 5 return trips, during which I predicted we’d be professionals by the time we were finished.

Load #2—half the remaining flooring and 5 rolls of underlay were picked up at the shop and sat in the Tiguan while his girls took a union lunchbreak. Appropriately fuelled up, the “curb to condo” routine went somewhat more smoothly. (Curiously, Ter was energized by the carbs she’d consumed while Treena and I could have used a nap.)

Load #3—the last 160 lbs of floor plus seven cans of paint (3 eggshell, 2 semi-gloss, 1 primer and something else that I’ve forgotten); Tig was all but doing wheelies up the road with the weight over his rear axle. And when we arrive at the building … no parking save for the passenger zone with its 3 minute maximum.

Ter slammed the car into “park”, killed the motor and declared, “We’re doing it.” And from sheer terror of being busted (and potentially fined) by the strata council, we had everything out of the car, up the elevator and down the hall in twenty minutes flat.

As I’d predicted six hours earlier, professionals.

Treena comes from a family of do-it-yourselfers. Her aunt happens to be Ter’s best friend from high school, and there is nothing she can’t fix, improve, or invent on the fly. Ter is equally smart when it comes to improvising. My superpower is pointing out that “you’ve missed a spot”. Thinking about hard work exhausts me, but something magical happened on the chain gang that day:

I had a blast.

I was aching all over and two loads of laundry awaited when I got home, but I spent the day helping someone I love alongside someone I love and that made me happy. Treena, bless her, was ever so grateful for our help, and I suppose that contributed to the joy (gratitude tends to inspire a greater effort), but I am grateful to her in turn, for giving me the chance to experience the unexpected delight of offering my time and my heart in service to one of my kind.

Love and service. That’s what life is all about, Charlie Brown.

White Lace and Promises

Have you noticed how everything starts out perfect and promising?

A new home. A new car. A new project. A new relationship. An idea. Each day. Life itself.

Today is the Rebellion’s third anniversary. This is the five hundred and sixty-second post. Wow. I can’t say I haven’t been writing, can I?

I started the blog why? Well, why not?

That was the title of my first post. I had to revisit it, to remind myself of what “why not” meant at the time. It seems I’ve remained true to my original intention, which was to share writerly thoughts, bits of fiction, quotes from heroes, and philosophical hypotheses developed over the course of my journey through this phase. In some ways, not much has changed. I’m still writing the same novel. I’m still working on my attitude, trying to create a positive vibe in a world of ever increasing contrast. I’m still imperfect and hoping to improve as I go.

I have, however, discovered something wonderful. Three years later, I am happier now than I have ever been.

Blogging is not solely responsible for my progress, but it’s helped. At least I can look back and see the trail behind me. It’s taught me a few things, that’s for sure. Things like, the smallest piece can trigger the greatest response. I get comments about things that I forget almost as soon as I’ve written them, while my treasures are seemingly passed without notice. A good reminder to “detach from the outcome” and not be too invested in the end result!

Remarkably, the poem that Nicole wrote for my fortieth birthday is equally relevant today, after fifteen years and five hundred-plus posts, so here it is again, because I love it and I love Nicole for writing it, and because it’s the nucleus around which the Rebellion is built. It was the promise of the CR’s potential when I stepped into cyberspace thirty-six months ago.

Enjoy again!

With love,

Sitting on a Shady Veranda with Ruthie Wordsmyth

 “You are the Saint of Storytelling.”

I tell her while sharing bits of

smooth candy and cups of green tea
sitting on a shady veranda under a Vienna sky.

“The Zeitgeist of Paragraph! 

Mistress of Manuscript Extravaganza!”

I tell her this because it is the truth

my friend, the writer, word-spinner
is the main character of a poetic prophecy
rising with an exquisite voice
an Enchanted Empress baring her
woven soul into spirals of fiction
into epiphanies of elemental editing.

My literary gentlewoman friend

the Storyteller, Princess of Plentitude
is the keynote speaker at a symposium
for the Gorgeous Struggle
offering simple directions to the center
of the universe and sundry side-streets of Sublime.

Her biography will soon be available in trade paperback

autographed copies of Comfortable Rebellion
will grace the bookshelves of admiring fans
but will pale in comparison to my first edition hardcover
inscribed with her permanent wisdom.

Inside will the near-art experience booklovers have longed for a fort-night

inside there will be polaroid pictures, convictions and conversations
dreams and disappointments though her tears will be absent
saved in a mason jar on the edge of her prolific writing table.

“You are the Operatic Melody of my heart!”

I tell her while brewing a fresh pot of green tea.

“A Victorious Virago!”

I tell her this because it is true.

“What would I do without you?”  I ask her.

She just smiles, shrugs her shoulders 

and tells me another story.

“Diva II”

The caterers had hired extra waiters and a bartender. The florist had delivered arrangements in cream and white. The caviar was iced and the champagne chilled to a perfect forty-five degrees. The band was a jazz quartet with a regular engagement and a pending record deal.

Each of the hundred invitations had been accepted. Every single one.

The men wore black tie and were defined by their silhouettes: tall, short, lean, pot-bellied. The women wore varying shades of pale, mostly in silk, many in satin, none in anything brighter than beige.

Except one.

The new bride wore screaming red.

She circulated on the arm of her matinee idol husband, acting the part of hostess at someone else’s party. The true hostess let her, and why not? She was charming, beautiful, and absolutely unwitting.

This was going to be good.

When Eleanor arrived at the appointed hour, she found the party in full swing. She understood exactly what was happening as soon as the scarlet dress popped from the neutral tableau. Before she could react, Mavis broke from the crowd, bustling to greet her with exaggerated fervour

“Ellie, darling, I was afraid you weren’t coming!”

She smiled and produced the gilt-edged card from her clutch. Her Hollywood hostess feigned a blanch.

“Oh, dear, how did you miss the note that we’d changed the time?”

Ellie was tempted to ask what note, but that would be playing along. Instead, she widened her smile and leaned in for the kissy-kissy exchange.

“You look fabulous,” she was told.

“You’re too kind,” she replied, though she knew precisely how she looked and “fabulous” was an understatement.

She was immediately swarmed by penguin suits eager to engage her. She enjoyed the attention openly, keeping to the perimeter of the ballroom. Batting her lashes and giggling was not her style; she expected men to hold her gaze and use grownup words in conversation. Flattery amused but seldom swayed her. Only once had she released her grip and fallen heedlessly into his arms.

Sly looks and catty whispers trailed her to the dance floor, where she indulged an old flame in a foxtrot. “Dane is here,” he warned.

Ellie continued to smile. “Of course he is.”

She would have sensed him among the shrewd eyes and shark teeth, even if the bloodstain gown had not seized her attention on arrival. She also noticed that, no matter where she went, the distance never closed between them.

She wondered how fast his heart was beating.

He looked no different. Handsome as ever, I must admit. Perhaps more so, since he was permitted to mature in this fantasy world of youth and filtered beauty. A square jaw and bedroom eyes were enduring commodities, guaranteed to improve with experience.

She wondered if he enjoyed his new role. Poppy was an ingénue struggling to be taken seriously, but marrying one of Hollywood’s most desirable leading men had not given her career the boost she hoped it would. Though Dane might encourage her, he wouldn’t exert his influence on her behalf. Eleanor had been responsible for her own success whether she was cast alongside him or not.

She felt an ominous flicker when she caught him looking her way. Neither overt nor surreptitious on either side, their eyes simply met. Ellie held her ground until Poppy put herself firmly in his way, then she accepted more champagne.

They had rivalled some studio couples and eclipsed others during a decade where Dane had grown more handsome and Eleanor had simply grown old. The miscarriage had been blamed for their split, but Ellie had been relieved in the end. Dane had left the press to her, and she had left them to their own devices. They had printed what sold instead of the truth, mostly because no one had known the truth, and Ellie was content to keep it so. Dane had certainly not contested her, not with his dreamboat reputation at stake.

She had spent his Caribbean honeymoon in the mountains, pondering her reaction over hot buttered rum and flirting with her ski instructor to see if he would bite. Her agent had tracked her to the lodge to offer his support, at which she had introduced him to Jean-Pierre. A mistake, in retrospect. Bernie had steered the teenaged Ellie into stardom just shy of legend; to think she might have fooled him at forty with a European lover was a sign of how badly she had erred.

The drive back to Beverley Hills had been a pensive one. She had almost declined the invitation waiting in her mail. Mavis Golding’s parties were celestial affairs attended by everyone who was anyone; inviting Ellie to this one meant that either she was still bankable or she was being set up. The latter notion had rankled for being more likely. Eleanor Bond might have suffered a blow from her own stupidity, but she would be damned before she let anyone in Tinseltown see it.

It did not occur to her that Dane would feel it, too. Or Poppy. The girl wasn’t at fault for being anything but insecure; that she stuck like flypaper to her husband’s side had less to do with his past than it did with proving herself deserving of her prize. Ellie almost felt sorry for her.

The party sparkled around them, the guests circling like planets orbiting the sun, everyone vying for a clear view of the imminent solar flare. Ellie paced herself through the thickening anticipation. She loved cocktail parties, had even thrown the one where Dane had met his future wife though matchmaking had not been her motive. She simply loved martinis and music and dressing up for real. She had actually laughed about it with the unknown starlet who had come as someone else’s date, about borrowing her mother’s mink and sloughing around her bedroom in oversized pumps. Poppy had been in awe the whole time, unable to believe that she, a small-town kid from the American Midwest, had been welcomed into such stellar company. Ellie had liked her. Deep down, she still liked her—or would do, once their rivalry lost its public appeal. The kid had bought the script casting Eleanor as her mortal enemy and the press did love a catfight.

“You look great.”

“I know.” She sipped from her goblet, her eyes gleaming over the rim at the unlikeliest of friends: Vera Casper, the sharpest nib in the gossip business. “You can quote me on that,” she added, in case the question arose.

“Are you avoiding Dane?”

“Does it look like I’m avoiding Dane?”

“Only to anyone who knows you really well.”

“Then you don’t know me as well as you thought you did. I had no idea that he was going to be here.”

Vera gave her the smirk. “You dressed like that to dance with Morty Golding?”

“I haven’t danced with him yet. I think Mavis is suspicious.”

“Every woman at this party is suspicious. We got that way when you showed up in black velvet Dior.”

Ellie laughed. “I wanted to have some fun.”

“And you hadn’t the slightest idea at all that Dane would be here?”

“I suppose it would have been naïve to be completely trusting.”

“Can I quote you on that?”

Ellie shrugged. “It’s not worth the ink, but that’s my opinion. Where did you get the turban? The feather’s a bit cheeky, don’t you think?”

“The mark of my trade,” the columnist agreed.

“Bird of prey,” a warm familiar voice drawled, so close to Ellie’s ear that she felt his breath on her bare shoulder. Her heart skipped, stuttered, then stopped.

Vera was thrilled. “Good evening, Mr. Seward. Where’s the Mrs?”

“Powdering her nose,” Dane replied, easily. He shook his head in blatant awe at Eleanor. “You never fail to take the room just by walking into it.”

“Just the room?” Vera inquired, since Ellie was dumbstruck and temporarily out of character.

“Get lost, Vee.” His hand closed on Ellie’s arm, long fingers firm against her skin. “Let’s take a walk.”

She found her voice on the terrace, though it sounded like a stranger’s, low and strangled in her throat. “Everyone saw us come out here. You couldn’t wait for Poppy to finish powdering her nose?”

“I want to kiss you so badly that I sent her off to do it.”

“For God’s sake, Dane.”

“Why did you do it, Ellie? I’d have forgiven you. I have forgiven you.”

“You’ve also married another woman.”

“I wanted to marry—”

She put a hand over his mouth. As she realized her mistake, before she could retract it, he caught her by the wrist and kissed her open palm. Her heart rebounded with a thud that shook her ribs. His eyes had closed, but it was almost worse than looking into them. She remembered watching him as he slept, comparing him, as she had compared everyone except her ski instructor, to Alfred.

Jean-Pierre had been compared to Dane.

The inevitable kiss was worthy of a silver screen reunion. Worthy of an Oscar if she had been acting, though she needed less skill to make it convincing than she did to break it. Even then, she stayed in his arms, limp and gasping from more than the effect of his unrelenting desire. She wanted to cry, but a femme fatale shed no tears. She shut her eyes instead, to reclaim a moment in time, and the terrace, the party, and Dane’s wife dissolved into a future altered to exclude them.

He spoke softly above her head. “They want us back together, El.”

She knew. Bernie had mentioned it. Good actors on their own, together they were great, and studio revenues had suffered for their break up. Dane was more concerned with the numbers, but Ellie was not stupid—and neither was the audience. “Too much has changed,” she said. “You should think about doing a comedy with Poppy.”

He answered too sharply. “I’m not interested in a husband-and-wife duo.”

“Then you shouldn’t have gotten her pregnant.”

An awkward silence fell, made more awkward by Eleanor gently extricating herself from his forgotten embrace.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was unfair.”

Dane remained stonily silent. He was better with drama when the lines were written for him; that was why he and Ellie had been such a powerful pairing. Off screen, he had proposed to marry her despite the baby rather than because of it, proving his loyalty to a woman who had been unsure of her feelings until it was too late.

At least with Poppy, he was doing right by his own child.

Ellie moved to rejoin the party. Dane grabbed her arm, spun and yanked her against his chest. “Why?” he demanded, shifting his grip to her wrists and shaking her as he spoke. “You still haven’t told me why!”

She tried to keep her voice steady. “This is neither the time nor the place.”

“You had plenty of time in other places. This is it, Ellie. You tell me now, here, why you did what you did, or I’ll—” He stopped abruptly, before he blurted the truth.

Ellie said it for him. “Or you’ll hate me forever? You’re already there.”

He released her with a shove. “Damn you, Eleanor. This isn’t a scene from Black Widow. You loved me, I know you loved me, so why did you do it?”

She was quiet for a moment, then she looked straight into his eyes. “I wanted to.” When he said nothing, she cracked a rueful smile. “You knew something then that I know now, and now it’s too late. You’re married to someone else and I am comparing every one of my lovers to you. Congratulations. You’ve replaced a dead man in my heart.” She turned once more toward the party.

Poppy stood on the terrace, a shock of red in a black-and-white photograph. How much she had seen and what she may have heard was anyone’s guess, but Eleanor only froze for a heartbeat. In that beat, she glimpsed her own dream in the girl’s unblemished features, and it wasn’t the dream of stardom in a shallow pool or immortality on celluloid. It was the plain, pure dream of love and a family, the dream that had died long ago, when Alfred was killed.

She paused by the bride on her way indoors, standing shoulder to shoulder in opposite directions. “Be kind to him, Poppy,” she said, softly. “He’s a good man.”

“What are you going to do?” Poppy asked.

People were watching through the windows, waiting for the explosion. Eleanor Bond squared her shoulders, lifted her head, and summoned her sultry, movie star smile. What was she going to do?

She was going on.

“Diva II” (Preface)

Thank you, Nicole.

From a writing exercise sprang the suggestion that there may be more to a woman named Ellie. The exercise was focused on the house where she once lived, the grand old mansion with a history so checkered you could play chess on it, but Nic made a comment surmising that Ellie herself had a story to tell.

So she did.

Tomorrow’s post is a slice of that story; a small slice, and perhaps one of many to come. I felt a warm affinity to Ellie as I worked with her, a bit like the affection I feel for Ariel Black though that remains more of a mystery because he plainly has no interest in me. Ellie, on the other hand, feels like a friend.

And what an interesting friend to have. A movie star from Hollywood’s heyday, we meet her at a party where her former lover is also in attendance with his bitsy new wife, and the industry holds its collective breath awaiting the quake …

Enjoy.

Humdrum and Humble

You know the old saying, “Pride cometh before a fall”?

Well, this extraordinary being put her underpants on inside out this morning.

Methinks it’s time to talk about humility. I don’t mean self-effacing comments or putdowns. I mean humility as defined in Webster’s Dictionary, specifically “the absence of pride or self-assertion.”

I think it was Professor Ekkles who said that someone who declares herself to be enlightened is probably not. This comes as something of a relief, as I don’t consider myself to be enlightened. I’m just waking up and trying to stay conscious. Blogging about it is part of my process, kind of like bouncing an idea off a friend to get a better grip on it, myself.

When I began to wake up, I was confronted with an unsettling truth. The world was still the same. My life was still the same. I was – and am – changing, but the daily grind remained more of a grind than I thought it would be once I regained consciousness.

Rats.

Then, Zen wisdom was brought to my attention:

“Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.”

I love this saying. It’s a reminder that, no matter how extraordinary I may be, the humdrum beats on and I must march to it. I can view it through a cleaner lens, but at its base, life is still a series of challenges—and just as I may excel at chopping wood, many folks are better at carrying water, enlightened or no.

It’s the same trap that snares higher-educated people. Those letters that pop up after your name when you’ve gotten your degree do not make you smarter than a high-school graduate or someone who had to quit school early to support the family. They just mean that a) you were lucky enough to go to university and b) you know more about your chosen field of study and may be entitled to more money assuming you can find a job in that field. Masters degrees or doctorates don’t make you worthier than anyone else of love or acceptance or kindness or patience except in the egotistically conditional sense, and that has little to do with why we’re really here.

We are all worthy of love and acceptance and kindness and patience, regardless of education or social status—or in spite of it, for that matter. We are all extraordinary. Yet, as I discovered while getting dressed this morning, the ordinary is designed to keep us humble.

With greater love,

* * *

Tears For Fears released a song back in 1995, the title of which I borrowed for this post. It’s an awesome song – hear it here and enjoy!

Extraordinary World

You are extraordinary.

Honest.

We all are.

Sadly, most of us don’t realize it. Being unaware, however, does not change the fact that we are born from the divine and must therefore be divine at our core. It’s in our spiritual DNA.

The question du jour: How does an extraordinary being live in an ordinary world?

Well, truly, the world is as extraordinary as we are, being born of the same source energy, but we’ve lost sight of that as surely as we’ve lost sight of ourselves. But that’s another post. Today, it’s about us. You and me, the extraordinary ones living an ordinary life.

How do we do it, you ask?

Extraordinarily, of course! It’s the only way we can live, the only way we know how. Look at it this way: no one else in existence brings to the table what you bring. No one else can be you, therefore no one else can say or think or do anything the way you say or think or do it. We might share similar traits or habits or opinions, but even what’s similar must be expressed in a manner unique to the individual because the individual is unique.

That’s the divine part. How each of us is singularly capable of following the path laid before us, even if the path is identical (which I doubt it is. That no two paths are alike is as extraordinary as the people who walk them).

The late Dr. Wayne Dyer was fond of saying that we are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. We are foiled by the coil—mortal, that is—thrust first into a compostable container with limited faculties, then into a world of contrast designed to teach us what we must learn in order to reclaim our divinity. I wonder sometimes why I signed up for this gig, and if only I’d read the fine print on the contract, but most of  the time, I’m okay with the arrangement. I understand some of what I’m meant to be doing here, and I trust that the rest will come clear as I move along. Trust is part of being extraordinary, as are acceptance, honesty, kindness, respect, and love. As each of these qualities comes with us from before, then applying them in our daily life must by default make living that life extraordinary.

So there you go. Be extraordinary by being yourself. Recognize the divinity within you. Recognize the divinity on others, and in the world around you. Make today an extraordinary day because that’s what is it and what you are.

Honest.

With love,

X Company

Over on channel 2, CBC is running the most X-ellent TV series, X Company, a spy story set in occupied France during World War II. It’s produced in part by the group behind Orphan Black, which is why I decided to give it a whirl when it debuted last year. I generally avoid war stories and, yes, this one is disturbing, but it’s so well done that I’m as worried about the Gestapo officer who’s hunting the heroes as I am about the genius kid who signed up for active duty but told his parents he’d got a desk job well away from the front.

Actually, I’m worried about everyone. That’s how I know it’s a good show. Every scene, every character, and every dire situation is expertly written, directed and played. The heroes don’t always win, and the villains aren’t always proud of their villainy. Sometimes the guy you think is a baddie turns out to be what he insists he is: young, scared and desperate, despite the uniform. But you don’t find that out until you’ve already shot him.

I doubt that the writers have invented anything worse than the crimes that were actually committed against the French people during the Nazi occupation. Or that are actually being committed against civilians in present day wartime—all that’s evolved since WWII is the power of our weaponry and the technological skill required to deploy it. It’s ironic that “the war to end all wars” didn’t. That particular conflict may have been resolved, but war itself has certainly not been stayed. If anything, it’s gotten worse.

This doesn’t stop my toes from curling during an episode of X Company. The discomfort here is psychological. I applaud it. I appreciate that the producers acknowledge my ability to perceive what’s happening without being walked through it step by gory step. In our desensitized world, it’s cheating to film severed limbs or acts of bestial cruelty. The suggestion of anything—good or bad—is far more powerful than graphic visuals. It takes greater skill, however, to ignite someone’s imagination and get the desired result than it does to lay it all out for them. There’s nothing lazy about X Company.

I wish I could have said the same about Game of Thrones.

A Patient Man

The first season of Vikings was hilariously painful, but once our hero, Farmer Ragnar, through a series of strategic manoeuvres, became King Ragnar, things got a little interesting. A new cast of characters in England (specifically Wessex) expanded the story in season two, and I have to admit, I kinda like the shifty King Ecbert because I cannot for the life of me figure out his game. In season three, the Vikings tried to take Paris, which brought in another band of individuals, mostly a pushy Frankish princess and a nutty Mercian queen, but through it all, Ragnar has maintained his magnetic mystique.

Four episodes into season four, and I’m hooked.

Is it possible for an actor to earn an Emmy by saying nothing? Travis Fimmell probably has fewer lines per episode than any other actor in the series, yet he owns every scene he’s in whether he speaks or not. He can simply sit and stare, and I’m enthralled. It’s not like he’s eye candy, either—he modelled when he was younger, but he’s matured into, well, a Viking. Age and scruffiness haven’t dimmed the wattage in his smile, though. When he flashes teeth, it’s like panning along the bench at a World Cup hockey game. The beauty in a Viking smile is unparalleled.

Let’s just forget that he’s actually Australian.

The annoying characters have remained so, alas, but Ragnar’s enigmatic methods have appeased my frustration with them. Floki the Nutcase, for instance, has bugged the h*** out of me for three seasons, but crossed Ragnar last year by making a deluded gaffe and has paid dearly for it—to the point where he may have been driven sane (not a typo) while awaiting the killing blow that hasn’t come yet.

Then there’s Princess “My Father Was A Gott” Aslaug, who replaced Lagertha as Ragnar’s wife in season two—why, I still can’t fathom because Lagertha kicks serious butt and I may just have answered my own question. In any case, Aslaug has also crossed Ragnar and is paying the consequence. The honeymoon is definitely over.

Firstborn son has grown up and is fighting to prove worthy of Dad’s affection. First wife now rules over a neighbouring community but I think she’s still in love with Ragnar so we’ll see where that leads, especially since he’s become so disenchanted with Aslaug. Older brother Rollo, whose jealousy of Ragnar is eclipsed only by his idiocy in trying more than once to overthrow him, is stranded in Paris and being wooed by the local aristocracy in hope of keeping the barbarian horde from crashing the city gates. I’m pretty sure he’ll oblige them just to piss off his little brother.

And through it all, Ragnar watches in patient solitude, listening, assessing, planning and swiftly executing. He’s a complicated man, seldom lovable, sometimes infuriating, always entertaining.

And he has the best lines. Last week’s episode had him speaking directly to the camera:

“I am constantly torn between killing myself, or everyone around me.”

I - love - this - guy!

Justin Time

You had to see that title coming, didn’t you?

60 Minutes did a piece on our hottie Prime Minster, coinciding with his visit to the US this week. It’s been twenty years since a Canadian PM has been invited to a state dinner at the White House, and to be honest, it’s really too bad that Barack Obama is on his way out as President, because I believe that he and Justin would have been a force for good on the world stage. I can’t predict how it will go with Hillary—and gods forbid we end up with Prez Trump in the role of obnoxious next door neighbour.

Anyway, the 60 Minutes piece gave a little insight to confirm my gut feeling about our nation’s leader. He’s young, he’s green, and he’s connected to what’s important in life. How the combination will serve him in the ugly world of global politics remains to be seen, but I was deeply impressed with everything he said.

I especially liked his refusal to buy into the fear and paranoia the journalist tried to spark with questions about crossing borders and welcoming thousands of Middle Eastern refugees into the country. Rather than suspect wolves among the sheep, he replied that respect, trust and kindness are the greater means of achieving the peace we all allegedly crave. Raising walls and locking our doors will only breed more dissention. But best of all was his reply when she asked about his boxing hobby.

“Boxing,” he said, “is not about how hard you can hit your opponent. It’s about how many hits you can take and keep going.”

Now that someone has explained it to me, it makes a little more sense. It’s also a statement about his outlook on life. How cool is this guy?

Whether or not a genuinely good person can succeed as a world leader, I’m still unsure. Doubt makes me nervous that he’ll be taken out if he starts to exert too much positive influence, but I also believe in the philosophical fact that a single positive thought can neutralize a hundred negative ones; and if this is so, then this sincere and compassionate young man is in a position to restore Canada’s reputation as a progressive and proactive nation.

We’re good people. We deserve to have a good man representing us to the rest of the world. I’m hardly a proud sponsor of politicians in general, but I truly do believe we picked a winner last October.

Be Wonderful

The Fixx recorded a song in the 80s called “Are We Ourselves?”

The short answer? “No.”

Another quote of mysterious origin (I heard it from Don Henley, but am pretty sure it’s not actually his) is, “The older we get, the more we become like ourselves.”

Well, life is a journey, right? We spend the first part of it trying to fit in, to become who we think we must become in order to be accepted by family, peers, superiors, and society as a whole. When we become detached or, worse, isolated; when we fear that we truly are alone and unloved, when we believe ourselves to be stupid or unworthy or useless, bad things happen.

Human things.

We must remember that we are here to be human, to experience contrast, to find our way back to ourselves, and return home with a sack full of lessons learned.

Ter was recently advised by someone who doesn’t know her very well that she is “a little unapproachable.” It wasn’t an accusation; it was more an FYI in case she wasn’t aware of the aura she projects, which is one of aloof reserve. She surprised the person by replying frankly. “I know,” she said. “It’s a weakness. I don’t like it, but I’ve accepted it.” She added that she is half-Scandinavian, which truly does make a difference, but refrained from mentioning her incredible shyness. She has struggled with it for as long as I’ve known her, because it’s not who she really is and, on some level, she knows it.

She is really wonderful.

So am I.

So are you.

Every one of us is wonderful. A lot of us have fallen out of touch with that wonder, but it’s still there. Seems I’ve spent a whole lot of years discovering who I truly am, but what I’m actually doing is rediscovering myself. I’ve had to release a bunch of learned behaviours and marginal ideas, but it turns out they were only holding me back, so who needs ’em?

This doesn’t mean I’ll be rich and/or famous one day. Genuine success isn’t measured in dollars and internet “hits”. It’s in discovering your true self and in being happy with who you really are.

Scary thought, eh? Imagine, spending time alone with no social media, family, series marathons or work issues to distract you from your own company. Yikes. How do you survive face time with a stranger?

Do something nice for yourself. Take a walk along the water. Buy yourself an ice cream on a cold day. Go to a movie that you, but no one you know, wants to see. Take a bubble bath by candlelight.

Most importantly, brook no internal criticism. When that snarky inside voice starts nagging you, tell it to shut up. You’ll never convince it that it’s wrong, so it’s better to ignore it. Better yet, beat it at its own game. When it says, “You’re an idiot”, counter with “Maybe, but I am also loved.” Eventually, you will drop the “Maybe” part because you won’t believe it anymore (and it was never true in the first place).

You are unique and magical and wonderful. I know it. The Universe knows it. Deep down, you know it, too. So just sit quietly for a moment. Close your eyes. Breathe in and out in equal measure. In, out, in, out. Your mind will jitter a little, but that’s okay. Pay it no attention. Focus on this instead:

I am loved.

I am safe.

I am wonderful.

Because you are.

With love,