The Year of the Pause

Though I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, I do begin each year with a blank office bulletin board, and every year that board has a theme. 2017 was about the moon and stars. I sprinkled the paper with celestial quotes from Shakespeare to Einstein to Neil Degrasse-Tyson and drew pictures in higher chakra colours to lend a calming “night sky” atmosphere to my increasingly crazy workdays.

It didn’t always work, but it was always gratifying to see my colleagues smile so maybe it worked better than I think.

As January 1 approached, I began contemplating my theme for 2018. On Christmas Day, rather than annoy myself by surfing F***book, I was prompted to pay a rare visit to the Paper Teapot and catch up on far too many of Nicole’s poems. In calmer times, I dropped into the Pot quite often; altered priorities of late have put the screws to that, to my detriment. Nic’s poetry is both beautiful and practical, as it encourages my creativity and my interpretive skills—an artistic two-for-one that I confess has been taken for granted in light of more pressing (yet ultimately less important) issues.

I digress.

As I scrolled through her unread posts, my admiration—and, yes, envy—was reawakened. Her turn of phrase, her magical metaphors and airbrushed imagery held me in thrall until I could no longer stand it: I had to email her and gush about the handful of gems she managed to wring from spare moments around her epic year-long writing project.

One poem in particular pounced: a flame so pure in its perfection that it sparked the theme for my 2018 bulletin board and may even have prompted my first NY resolution in decades. It’s called “This Pause” and here’s what it inspired:

·         In the midst of chaos, hit the pause button.

·         Stop the carousel and take a conscious breath.

·         Hear the space between the notes.

·         See beauty in unexpected places (like the mirror).

·         Don’t buy into drama.

·         Foster your connection to the things that really count and release the rest.

Some days will be tougher than others. My resolve is an exercise in mindfulness, but it will be worth it when I remember to pause.

Thank you, Beanie.

Happy New Year!

With love,

The Best You Can Be

Could you have done more? Could you have said it differently? Been kinder? Been more generous? More forgiving? Tried harder? On another day, maybe.

Just not today.

Each day comes with a unique set of experiences and challenges, and we live each day to the best of our ability. That ability, however, is as unique as the day itself. You might think later that you didn’t do enough or say the right thing, but you did the best you could at the time.

I struggle with my shortcomings. I’m human; I have a lot of them. My intention is always to “do no harm”, but I can’t control how word or deed is received—and I admit, there are days when I don’t particularly care. On some days, I’m golden. On others, I goof up. The fact remains that, on all days, I always do the best I can.

So do you. The trick is to recognize, accept and forgive that whatever you did or didn’t do would have been done differently on another day. Let’s face it, sometimes, you just don’t feel well. You’re sick. You’re in pain. Stressed at work. Stressed at home. Sleep deprived. Over medicated. Under medicated. It’s easy to be less enthusiastic about interacting with your fellow man when you feel less divine and more human.

Tomorrow will be different and so will you. Do your best (and don’t fool yourself—you know when you’re cutting corners); that’s all the Universe asks of you because the Universe knows all you ever are is the best you can be in any given moment, period.

“Alfie the Christmas Tree”

This year I wanted to write a meaningful piece for Christmas Eve; something wondrous and magical that reflects the spirit of the season. Alas, nothing original came—but I remembered a poem that was written by the late John Denver and performed on a TV special with the Muppets many years ago (John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together). I’m unsure that it’s as powerful in writing as it was when he read it aloud, but the sentiment speaks to my wish for the holiday this year, so I thought I’d share.

Merry Christmas, with love.

* * *

Did you ever hear the story of the Christmas tree that didn’t want to change the show?

He liked living in the wood, he liked icicles and snow.

He liked wolves and eagles and grizzly bears, and critters and creatures that crawl.

Why, bugs were some of his very best friends, spiders and ants and all.

Now that’s not to say that he ever looked down on twinkle lights

Or mirrored bubbles and peppermint canes and a thousand other delights,

And he often had dreams of tiny reindeer and a jolly old man in a sleigh

Full of toys and presents and wonderful things, and the story of Christmas Day.

Oh, Alfie believed in Christmas, all right. He was full of Christmas cheer

All of each and every day, all throughout the year.

To him it was more than a special time, much more than a special day.

It was more than a beautiful story; it was a special kind of way.

You see, some folks have never heard a jingle bell ring and they’ve never heard of Santa Claus.

They’ve never heard the story of the Son of God, and that made Alfie pause:

Did that mean that they’d never know of peace on earth or the brotherhood of man,

Or how to love or know how to give? If they can’t, no one can.

You see, life is a very special kind of thing, not just for a chosen few,

But for each and every living breathing thing, not just me and you.

So in your Christmas prayers this year, Alfie asked me if I’d ask you

To say a prayer for the wind and the water and the wood—and those who live there too.

Do You See What I See?

What do you see when you look in the mirror? Do you see someone worth loving? Someone who is loved? Do you see someone whom you love?

Many of us tolerate their our reflections for practical purposes, like teeth-brushing and face-washing, but lots of us don’t like to look that closely at ourselves. We see what we’re told to see, and the mirror only shows the flaws that have dogged us from birth. We focus on our buckteeth and bug eyes because our peers focused on them and we mistook teasing for truth. Beauty, for most of us, was unattainable without certain products, and even then, Revlon has never worked the same magic on me as it did on Cindy Crawford.

She was the supermodel I figured I had the best shot at emulating. Trust me—it never happened.

That’s okay. I know now that her Cosmo covers were touched up to make her more than she actually was. None of us is perfect; we’ve established that. Unfortunately, we are primed to pay more attention to our imperfections than they deserve, and at the cost of what makes us beautiful.

You are so much more than what you see in the glass. Mirrors only show us two dimensions. I wonder sometimes how I appear to other people. I’m happy in my own skin (finally!), but I know some beautiful people who loathe to look in the mirror. What gives?

Here’s the best kept secret in the cosmos: everyone is beautiful. That’s the dimension the mirror cannot capture, and thus the one whose existence we insist on doubting. Our divinity eludes the tool we use to measure our appeal, yet our divinity is what makes us each unique and special and extraordinary. How can you be all those things and not be beautiful? A smile—even a bucktoothed one—is irresistible when it animates the smiler’s eyes. When we accept that we are divine, we allow ourselves to be loved. When we feel loved, we feel beautiful, and our distorted perception of ourselves is realigned to reveal the inescapable truth. Beauty resides in the soul, and everybody has one of those. Some of us are out of touch with it, but we have one nonetheless.

The next time you catch your own eye, take a minute to look—really look—at yourself, and don’t look away until you glimpse that beauty. I promise you, it’s there. I can see it, even if (right now) you can’t.

With love,

Reading Material

I’m one-third of the way through my annual visit to The Night Circus and it’s as magical as ever despite its familiarity. There are no throwaway scenes, no skip-over passages; in fact, there are scenes where I wriggle with delight at what I know is to come. Everything is so beautifully executed. It’s a joy to read.

The best book this year was ML Rio’s debut novel If We Were Villains, and unexpected feast that I was compelled to pick up and subsequently read twice in a row. I finished the last page, then flipped immediately to the first and started over again—in the same sitting! A book that good is always a treasure, probably because they’re so rare. Villains was favourably likened to Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, so I proceeded to read that as well.

It wasn’t the same at all. None of the characters was remotely likable, and the tragic secret that bound them was something I’d have done just because the guy was so insufferably irritating. Nor did I find the professor who supposedly seduced his idiot students into committing the original, accidental, crime particularly charismatic. The whole story left me utterly cold.

But the most disappointing read of 2017 had to be Juliet’s Nurse. The premise was certainly intriguing, especially to a Shakespeare fan who has three different versions of Romeo and Juliet on DVD (and Tybalt steals the show in every one), but the execution fell far short of the expectation. It’s hardly the author’s fault that I’d hoped for a new twist on the tragedy and she gave me more of the nurse’s background than I anticipated. The kids weren’t even born at the beginning of this story. Once I realized that we weren’t starting with the Montague/Capulet conflict in full swing, it was quite engaging, and it was a bonus to meet Tybalt as a child, even if it was never entirely clear why he grew up with such a hate-on for the Montagues. The so-called blood feud was barely explained let alone investigated, but what really bugged me was the portrayal of Juliet as a sweet young thing and Romeo as an awkward stripling suddenly turned conniving traitor to the precious girl’s tender (ha!) heart.

I’m sorry but, hello? Has the author even read the play? Seen the movie? Romeo as a double-crossing womanizer? Seriously? I have never seen him as anything other than a poet with heroic intentions too easily foiled by fate and his own romantic nature. Juliet, on the other hand, is a pampered, impetuous firebrand whose willful passion drives the whole story.

So, toward the end of the novel, I was reading to get it over with, caring nothing for any of the players and bitter that the news of Tybalt’s death was given tabloid drama status and the reason for it never fully defined—except, of course, for that amoral scoundrel being solely responsible. Honestly, when I wasn’t impatient with the nurse’s histrionics, I was snickering at the play by play. I was saved by my library card on this one—I borrowed rather than bought the book, which had been haunting me for some while. In the end, the story I told myself about the story was far better than the story I was told!

It’s good to be reading again, though. Of late, I haven’t been as immersed in words as much as behooves my creativity; I can’t write if I don’t read, as it seems I need the work of other writers to inspire me. I have learned how to write (and how not to write!) through their efforts, for all of which I am grateful whether or not I actually enjoyed the experience. I think now, with few weeks of vacation ahead and my mind turning from mere survival to more pleasurable pursuits, it might be time to renew my passion for my craft and see where it takes me.

Overheard At a Hockey Game

Flyers 4 - Oilers 2

Cardigan doesn’t know much about hockey. He probably doesn’t care a whole lot, either, but Basher is his friend so he tries to be supportive when the Flyers are on TV.

Last month, when the Canucks were in Philadelphia, he cheered when Vancouver scored their first goal. Basher immediately pounced. “No, no,” he said, “we’re rooting for the guys in the orange sweaters, not the white ones.”

Cardie looked confused. “But, your sweater is white.”

“Yah, white with black and orange,” Basher replied, which did nothing to help Cardie’s bewilderment.

“The visiting team wears white,” I added. “We want the home team to win.”

“Oh,” said Cardigan, without any conviction at all in his tone. He cheered when the Flyers scored, however, so Basher and I figured he’d got the  message.

Until Wednesday, when the Flyers played in Edmonton. The Oilers also wear orange, and their home sweaters are even more aggressively so than Philly’s. The Flyers scored, Basher and I cheered, but Cardigan was silent. The Oilers scored, Basher said something I would have smacked his ears for except that I said it at the same time, and Cardigan said nothing.

After a while, he whispered to Basher, “I’m confused.”

“Why?” Basher asked.

“Because last time, you told me to cheer for the orange sweaters instead of the white ones. Now you’re cheering for the white ones instead of the orange ones, so I don’t know what I’m supposed to do!”

At this point, Ter chimed in to elaborate on the home versus visiting sweaters, and that it’s better to cheer for the crest on the sweater rather than the colour. Cardigan took a long, hard look at the Flyer logo on Basher’s chest, and proceeded to cheer for the visiting team (who won, incidentally—woo hoo!)

The next night, Philly played in Vancouver. “Do you know who to root for?” Basher asked his nerdy friend.

“Yup,” Cardie happily replied. “The white sweaters!”

Basher looked pleased, until Cardigan added, “Because the other ones are blue!”

Christmas Tree Lights

I love this quote from Maya Angelou. I don’t travel enough to have lost any luggage, but I live in a rainforest and at tree-trimming time each year, I am reminded of the best opening line to a story I have yet to write:

“They found the body in dumpster, a string of Christmas tree lights wrapped tight around its neck.”

I’ve not determined whether the body is male or female, but there have been years when it’s been blonde and of Scottish/Finnish heritage. The time it takes to wire 400 twinkle lights in place is the perennial test of patience, Ter because she’s the one wiring them, me because I’m the one trailing behind her, doling out the string bulb by bulb, and intermittently declaring, “Hey, this one’s dead!” to which she traditionally replies, “How the h*** did that happen? They were fine when we tested them!”

In the Rockland days, she fussed more about getting the lights “just right” and I thought more about strangling her with them. I occasionally consider hanging myself with them when half the cursed bulbs burn out, but remember the 60s and 70s, when one dead bulb killed the entire string? I bet my mother does, as she’s the one who strung the lights before we kids put up the ornaments.

We bought a string of LEDs for the bears’ tree one year. Duly christened “the jellybean lights”, the wires were so thick and horrible to work with that they didn’t make it onto the tree at all. We remain fans of the old school fairy lights. In fact, we’re almost hoarding them for fear of losing the option in years to come, due to some silly government regulation about fire safety.

One of our oldest and dearest ornaments is Tigger in his Christmas sock. It’s an “ornamotion”, one of those fun decorations plugged into an empty bulb socket to make it move. Unfortunately, Tigger is so old that his plug is no longer compatible with the light sockets. Let’s face it, twinkle lights are not made to last forever, and the Noma strings we’ve preserved specifically for Tigger have all shorted out, never to be heard from again. Ever hopeful, we will always try the plug in a new string, but even present day Nomas no longer comply. So, for the past couple of years, Tigger has peered over the top of his sock, but not popped in and out of it.

Some traditions are forced into retirement.

This year, the lights were untangled on a rainy day—addressing two of Maya’s three checkboxes. We got a late start and at the time of this writing, the tree is still in pieces let alone strung with those rackinfrackin fairy lights, but somehow or other we’ll get ʼer done. No one will die and the end result will be fabulous as always.

That holiday murder mystery won’t be written this year … I don’t think …