A woman now, but not so long ago....

A friend came to visit yesterday. She was about 15 when I first met her. A cute and curious teen drawn into my shop to view the shiny things. She was, as my mother would have said, 'as bright as a button.' And yesterday she sat in my living room with her husband and their beautiful baby girl.

I'm more conscious now of the distinction between having and being a friend. I started this with the words, 'a friend came to visit'. I don't know if that is true. A young woman came to visit an old woman who is her friend. I suspect that I am, to her, more of a project. Someone you feel you must drop in on while you are home for a visit in summer.

As I made tea and chatted I made several statements that, while I can't recall what they were at present, were obviously unacceptable. The first two or three times I saw the look pass between this smart young couple and received a gentle nudge to a more modern way of thinking, to the right way of thinking, about matters quite inconsequential, I blundered on. That's what I do. Eventually, a wave of profound sadness mercifully shut me up.

The sadness I felt: it was the realization that I had been that young woman. Maybe not to that extent, I don't know. How would I know really. But the experience, I think, I hope, has softened me and ground down my opinionated edges. And while I'm grateful for the lessons, I'm resolved to be less accessible to some of my teachers.

She stopped by again today. She left a note. I wasn't home.

A new affirmation for you

Here's an affirmation for you. Bury your little bundle of index cards in the back yard and get out a blank card, put your favorite butterfly sticker on it, get out your strawberry scented, lavender coloured felt pen and write "DO LIFE" across that sucker in your best handwriting.
Now roll it up and stick it up....

Well, you get the idea.

A trait I admire in men. And a few women.

Women and men are different. To that I say hallelujah. But there's one thing men seem a lot better at than women. Having a disagreement with their same sex buddy. A man might say, 'hey, what the hell. I can't believe you just said (did) that' when they hear (see) their friend, in their eyes, being a jerk. A woman on the other hand is likely as not going to have nothing more to do with their friend for a while (or for freakin' ever) and no discussion. End of. That's weird.

And the tactics are interesting. I was having coffee with a friend yesterday and she was going through this cold shoulder situation with another woman. She'd phoned her friend who greeted her as if she were a telemarketer who had been way too persistent. Whoa. I knew about that one. So, she got off the phone then started to worry that maybe something was really wrong at her friends house. She went running over there and her friend opened the door and blanked her. The stare. No words. She might as well have been dressed head to toe in drab and carrying a handful of pamphlets.

The timing couldn't have been better for this discussion as far as I was concerned. I'd just experienced the same thing a few weeks ago. Still don't know what the phooey. So, M's experience and my experience were somewhat exorcised in one mutual therapy session. That's what woman ARE good at.

Yeah, I know. Not all men do it right. Not all women do it wrong. But ladies, I think we can, overall, do better.

Beware the joy suckers

The first part of my life was spent in one of those families that are touted as being the ideal. The mom, the dad, two or three kids, the house, the garden. Nothing iffy about it in the view of a basically conservative society. The same structured ideal that has produced lawyers, rapists, inventors, thieves, teachers, assassins, mill workers, wife beaters, nurses, sadists, writers and so on. The fact that this ‘ideal’ unit was headed up by a couple of mismatched, unhappy, angry, disappointed, frustrated and probably confused adults is irrelevant.

Whoa, what brought that on, eh? Well, I had a conversation with, or rather I was subjected to the views of, a guy who was bent out of shape because a family moved in next door to him that he would not now or ever accept as a family. Two women, two children. Oh my Lord. What was to become of those kids. What chance did they have in this world. Well, I did manage to get in a few words about them having as good or better chance of being their best selves as anyone else before he got the gist of my views and stomped off. Okay with me. Liked his back better than his front, as it turned out. ‘Another G&T, please. And have one yourself.’

I met one and I lost my cool.

It was bound to happen. I met someone who voted Conservative in the recent federal election and admitted it. Not only that, when I asked what their reasons were (I was calm), they only had one reason. The dissolution of the long gun registry.

It’s not as if I didn’t know there are voters who have no concerns beyond one issue they feel affects them personally. It’s not as if I don’t appreciate that they have a right to vote any way they please.

I’m not sure what ‘the tell’ was. What gave away the possibility that I was perhaps raging under my stoic exterior. Perhaps my face was red, or my  knuckles were white, or my pupils were constricted or dilated or popping out of my head. I don’t know. I do know that it was not my intention to get all confrontational with this six foot two mass of gun lovin’ humanity.

But this five foot one on a good day blip of humanity lost her freakin’ mind.  “So, what are you saying,” I found myself saying.  “You don’t take into consideration a party’s views on trivia such as war, health care, corporate taxes, foreign encroachment on our sovereignty? You just don’t want to have to register your gun?”  And you know what. He said, “Yeah, that’s about it.” 

Another round of Rapture Talk. Good Grief.

Probably the most amazing thing is that it doesn't matter how wacked out an idea is, it can get a lot of air time. And often on pages and stations that are usually dedicated to more, let's say sane, subject matter.

When my neighbour told me about the coming rapture, last time round, I told her it had already happened and we were among the dregs that were left behind. That was the end of that.

So many ways to communicate, so many gaps in communication.

Lord knows, we have more ways of communicating with one another now than ever before. But is person to person, human to human communication getting any easier. I think not. I know I'm a dinosaur, but I am getting really fed up with trying to keep up with what's currently acceptable. It's never been one of my strong points but this is getting ridiculous.

Email, apparently, isn't cool with the cool. And actually having a conversation via land line, well, my dear. I'm really fortunate in that I still have a few people in my life that I share great phone time with, but outside of a small circle, you just can't be sure. And just dropping by someone's house to say hello, well, forget that. Except when it comes to dropping by my house. You'll be welcomed. And phoning my land line. You'll be warmly greeted. Like I said, I'm a dinosaur.

Email is an interesting thing. It used to be a major part of my communication with friends. Still is with some, of course, but there's an interesting lapse when it comes to married friends. I'm floored by how many couples have one email address. Usually, it's the man who has an email address and the woman doesn't have one. Again, this is about Dino Val. Way back when it was unthinkable that someone would open someone else's mail. I'm talking a letter in an envelope with a stamp on it. Now there's no such social boundary apparently.

More and more means of communicating. Less and less actual communication. More and more I'm realizing I'd better hurry up and catch up. Aside from those few people who actually sound glad to hear my voice, I have to NOT phone people. The 'dead' response is just too chilling. And going to someone's house that you've known for years and having them stare blankly at you without a word. Yikes.

The good news is, it's not everyone. It's just a matter of getting it through my head that this is tricky territory these days. Wonder if there's a night school class on navigating the new day to day reality. I'd sign up in a second. Hmm...might be a good place to meet like boggled people.

Democracy depends on you getting out and Voting.

Turned on ‘the News’ last night and the lead in was “more voters heading for the polls threatening to skew the results.’  I couldn’t believe my ears. We live in something called a democracy. At it’s base is the idea that the citizenry votes for their representative in government. More participation in this vote doesn’t skew the result. More people participating will produce a more accurate result.

Skew the results, good grief. If that’s not a wake up call to anyone not planning on voting, I don’t know what it would take.

One sure thing. There’s a whole lot of folks still  wielding a whole lot of power who think we peons are a whole lot stupider than we actually are. Well, skew ‘em. Get out and vote. 

Amazing how we carry our ancestors crapola . . .

I don't know if this is so obvious as to be inane but anyone who follows this knows that's not going to stop me going on and on. Here's the thing. We are so, make that SOOO, influenced by the way our families of origin felt about all kinds of basic stuff.

 I have to tell you about a conversation my friend and I had yesterday. We're both old enough to have squealed over the Beatles. We each have made our own way in the world quite competently. Neither of us give ourselves much credit.

We started talking about the experiences we've had with past partners, well, husband and husbandishes. Both of us have either worked and contributed to the 'marriage', or been the sole breadwinner. And we have both found that even when we're the only contributor, money wise, there's been an underlying opinion that the money we make is somehow trivial. Inconsequential. It's sometimes subtle, sometimes not. So, what the heck, we're wondering now, was that all about. Neither of us, at this point in our lives, would put up with that shit for a minute.

So, why did we put up with it then. When we got further into that, it became obvious we'd carried the tendency to put up with that shit from our very beginnings. Not only put up with, but carry, or carried, the very attitudes that drove us up the wall. In my case, we lived on a farm. My father farmed. My mother farmed right along with him. She worked as hard and as long as he did, day in and day out. But, she didn't work. That was the myth. He worked, she didn't.

In my friends case, I can't remember what her father did but he 'worked hard' at whatever. My friend said her mother had 'done a bit of teaching.' Whoa. I could not let that pass. And, bless her, she heard me, when I pointed out what she'd said. There's a whole lot of difference between saying, 'Mom did a bit of teaching,' and saying 'Mom was a teacher.'  Or 'did a bit of teaching', and 'taught school'. Whatever, the attitude was picked up decades ago and brought forward by us, with us, and to our detriment. And we have to acknowledge, I feel, the root of this stuff before we can really change it. Oh, yeah, blame the parents. NO. That's not the point at all. If we carry that stuff it's our own stuff and we have to deal with it. But we have to recognize it, admit to it, and then change it. 

Travel is so broadening? Show me the evidence.

I was raised in a place that people came to in the summer. Tourists. The locals welcomed them at the beginning of the summer and celebrated their departure on the first Tuesday of September.  One thing I didn’t want to be when I grew up is a tourist.

We’ve all heard it over and over and over again. Travelling is broadening. Travelling makes you a better person. Travel, travel, travel, babble babble babble. I personally haven’t seen any evidence to support this point of view.

Case in point. I was watching the Oprah show, maybe a year ago. The woman was on who wrote a book called ‘Eat, Pray, Love’. I haven’t read the book. I know I would have twenty years ago, but we change. I’m sure it’s very worthwhile reading. I read ‘Women who love too much’ not once but twice. Changed everything. But I digress.

At some point in the interview she was talking about flying to the other side of the world to talk with a man who had never been out of his village. Actually, I think she said he’d never been off his front porch but that seems so unlikely I can’t be sure that’s what I heard. I was only listening with one ear to that point. But isn’t that something else. This woman who was seeking enlightenment, guidance, and all that good stuff was going to TRAVEL to the other side of the world to seek guidance from a guy that had blossomed where he was planted. An extreme example but . . .

There’s a really goofy reason I’m going on about this. I can’t admit it today. Tomorrow, for sure. I’ll be able to tell the goofy truth tomorrow.

The contentment conundrum

It’s bound to happen. Things I say come back to bite me. I found myself cringing earlier when I was talking to a dear woman who is in that age category that I would call ‘young’ and she would call anything but.  Young is probably fifteen or more years younger than however old we are at the time.

She’s thirty something and talking about being content. Yikes. I wonder how that works. I remember being thirty something and at this sixty something stage I am really glad I wasn’t approaching anything like contentment. I was striving, I was driven, I was working hard and playing hard. I was reading a lot of books that helped in the quest for eventual contentment. But I thank my lucky stars I had only brief glimpses of anything approaching the real thing.

That isn’t to say I wasn’t reasonable happy a lot of the time. Maybe we all have our own idea of what contentment means. I’m going to try to stop using the word. Let’s see. Where did I put my Thesaurus.

OOPS. I said ‘try’. Okay. There’s the seed for my next blog entry. But right now I’m not content to have a leaking roof on the shop. Off to the builders supply.

Well, the English debate wasn’t exciting but . . .

I am an incurable optomist BUT I do believe, right at this moment, that the results of May 2 election may be surprising. Why? Because I believe there may be a lot of people who have seldom, or never, voted, going to the polls this time round. What a great thing that would be.

I had a friend over for lunch yesterday and I almost fell off my stool when this woman said she votes for the last party I would have expected. Her reason, her father voted that way. And heaven help us, she shrugged and said, ‘that’s the way it is in most families, isn’t it?’

Good Grief. So, while I was chopping things I sat her down at the computer, brought up Vote Compass    www.cbcnews.ca/votecompass    and when she had gone through the process and saw what party most represented her views she was in shock. What a good thing that is. What a revelation. What a revolution.

I’m no expert on things political but I’m astonished sometimes that people can get close to that three score and ten in this country without bothering to acquire even the most basic understanding of what their political parties stand for.

So, young or old, use this magnificent information/research Hal thingy for gathering the info you need to vote for the party that will best represent you. The cute videos of kittens can wait till May 3 when a whole bunch of us will need the diversion. That’s democracy. Let’s all talk about it.

Again. Standing back far enough to see a bigger picture

I was listening to some of the comments of ‘ordinary people’ after the release of the Canadian government’s budget yesterday. These ‘ordinary’ Canadians were, of course, citizens who were plugged in enough to be hanging around parliament waiting for said budget to be announced. What struck me was how they, and I dare say, we, respond to what directly affects us personally.

I would be feeling a lot more optimistic today about our degree of enlightenment as a society if even a few students were concerned with the elderly, if health care workers were concerned with, let’s say, the sick. Wouldn’t it be great if someone, anyone, spoke to the plight of the physically disabled who had no one in their life who was disabled. If, and now I know how silly this seems, someone with buckets of money said THEY should be given LESS tax breaks.

Ah, yes. I am a dreamer. Am I the only one?

Changing my low down ways. This is not easy. Yikes!

I can’t help but be amused by my own seeming inability to REALLY change. I’ve blogged about this before, I know. This blog helps me, sometimes, really get it, whatever ‘it’ I happen to be obsessing over at the moment. But this ‘it’ just came barreling through here a few minutes ago. Again.

A couple of guys at the door asking if I still do pottery. They noticed the sign wasn’t there anymore but…  I can’t honestly say I no longer do pottery so I fessed up but asked what it was they were looking for. Well, could they see the pottery. I knew in my heart of hearts that this was going to be one of those instances where I go out the back,  open the shed, spend ten to twenty minutes answering questions then get hit with the thing they really wanted. But I said, okay I’ll meet you out the back.

Did all the ‘where do you get your clay,’ ‘it comes from Medicine Hat’ stuff and 15 or 20 minutes later they described this horrible sounding lamp, fountain, wine jug thing they’d bought in Mexico that they would like replicated. So, another five minutes telling them how I could but don’t want to and why. And I sycked them on another potter (sorry), locked up the shed and wished them a nice day. 

But here’s the thing, I knew we could do what needed to be done on the front stoop but I don’t know how to stand my ground and get folks to come out with the weird project they have in mind without the phoney trip to the shop. I’m not getting that. And I’m still saying the same blah blah stuff over and over and that’s what I semi-retired to get away from. Only now the blah blah is that I’m still doing pottery but I’m doing it for the people who want what I do, not for people who want me to recreate their souvenir of Mexico, or whatever.

And times and people are different now. Was a time when these guys would have realized they’d taken a half hour of my time, annoyed the hell out of me in the process of finally getting to their point, and would have bought a mug, or something. That’s no longer the way of the world. I’m talking generalities now, of course. But really, I don’t have a freakin’ clue how this is going to resolve itself. I don’t know. I’m shouting now. I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO.

Ah, that feels better.

The task of choosing leadership. Democracy’s big problem

I wonder what’s really going on in the minds of leaders of the pseudo democracies. The young Egyptians have just shown all of us what can be accomplished when you use these electronic things everyone carries around for something other than telling each other what we had for lunch.

I’m certainly not up to speed on any of this but the root of the rebellion seems to be people getting fed up to the teeth with having less and less and working harder and harder just to stay alive while the powerful get richer and richer and if that doesn’t ring a bell, well, bless your little heart.

The western media is awash with folks talking as if they, we, have it all figured out and democracy means doing what we’re doing, and blah blah blah . . .  But look at the problems we have finding and keeping decent leaders. And when someone comes along that is performing the role not too badly the opposition comes up with some, often bogus, scandal and instead of the electorate saying ‘who cares’, everyone jumps on their self righteous high horses, gasps in horror, and switches teams. Good grief.

I hope the people in Egypt come up with a really great leader.

I found this definition of a leader and thought, hmm, there’s a start.

LEADERS ARE PEOPLE WHO RAISE THE STANDARDS BY WHICH THEY JUDGE THEMSELVES AND BY WHICH THEY ARE WILLING TO BE JUDGED. THE GOAL CHOSEN, THE OBJECTIVE SELECTED, THE REQUIREMENTS IMPOSED,ARE NOT MAINLY FOR THEIR FOLLOWERS ALONE.THEY DEVELOP WITH CONSUMMATE ENERGY AND DEVOTION THEIR OWN SKILL AND KNOWLEDGE IN ORDER TO REACH THE STANDARDS THEY THEMSELVES HAVE SET.THIS WHOLE-HEARTED ACCEPTANCE OF THE DEMANDS IMPOSED BY EVEN HIGHER STANDARDS IS THE BASIS OF ALL HUMAN PROGRESS.A LOVE OF HIGHER QUALITY WE MUST REMEMBER,IS ESSENTIAL IN A LEADER.THE TRUE LEADER IS ONE WHO REALIZED BY FAITH THAT HE IS AN INSTRUMENT IN THE HANDS OF GOD,AND DEDICATED HIMSELF TO BE A GUIDE AND INSPIRER OF THE NOBLER SENTIMENTS AND ASPIRATIONS OF THE PEOPLE." Rastafarian definition from

www. Angelfire.com / rasta   

Angelfire.com is really worth checking out, in my opinion. All this stuff is 'in my opinion'. I must start using that phrase more, in my opinion. Oops, I just burned my toast. Have a good day.