Memories. They go back, if we’re lucky, to our early childhood. I remember waking up in the summer to hear my dad mowing the grass, or heading out to play golf. I remember playing with Barbies – I had this really cool miniature floor lamp that plugged in to a battery. I’d set up a living room in the 18″x18″x18″ cupboard in my parents’ coffee table for my dolls and turn on the light and close the door. Now that was exciting for about 30 seconds.
One of my earliest memories of television though, apart from the show “Laugh-In,” is a trailer for a movie, called What Do You Say To A Naked Lady? Thanks to Youtube, I can revisit that disturbing memory.
Allow me to share it with you:
What’s your earliest memory, disturbing or otherwise?
In winter, it’s rare that walking around the block on my paper route isn’t an adventure. Between the ice, the slush, the snow, the temperatures that freeze my nostrils shut on contact, and days like to today when we have a miniature snow storm, there’s always something to make me rather stay in my pyjamas.
It’s all part of being Canadian. Our weather is a source of national pride. It’s what we endure to live in a country as free as this one is; with all its faults, at least we’re able to say we weathered a storm or two and came out the other side with a smile. Most of the time, anyway.
And so it is with that same pride that I walk around the block, braving the elements to deliver the news.
As difficult as it can be, I do love this country.
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Today, I’m a half a century old
Through the years, it’s true, I’ve been told
To take time with my nose
To oft’ sniff a rose
On this adage I’m most definitely sold.
Not quite a limerick, but it’s the thought that counts, right?
I think in the next half-century, (because that is surely how long I have left), I’m going to attempt not to fuss over things as much. Who needs perfectionism anyway? It is more important, after all, to take the time to appreciate the beauty that can be found in life’s imperfections. They are what makes things real and not manufactured.
Cheers to life, my friends. Live it to the fullest.
1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
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P.S. If you missed my JusJoJan 21 installment, you can find it here on my fiction blog.
I have love/hate relationship with those moments when I just stand back and go, “Whoa!” at something I’ve figured out after years of doing it wrong.
Today my “Whoa!” moment came to me concerning the operation of a car, which is something I’ve been doing for (I’m dating myself here) about 34 years. I was talking to the lady who manages the dry cleaner down the street, and during our conversation, we were discussing the inclement weather yesterday. She said she had been in a store for only a few minutes during the blizzard, and when she came out her windshield was already frozen so much that she had to scrape it off. That’s when I realized it.
I too, went into a store yesterday for a few minutes during the same snow storm, and when I came out, for the first time in all my years of winter driving, didn’t need to scrape the windshield. Why? Because for the first time in my life I drove to the store with the warm air blowing out at my feet and through the front-facing vents instead of the defrost, which warms up the windshield causing ice to form before I get back in. If the windshield is relatively cold all along, the snow doesn’t melt.
I’m wondering why in the name of all laziness have I believed since I was a novice driver, that if it’s cold out do I need to warm up the windshield? But that’s it! If I’m too lazy to brush the snow off when I first go out, instead of letting the warmth of the car do it, then I’ll have to either keep doing it, or waste gas letting the engine do it!
Whoa!
How I love that feeling: and how I hate having not thought of it before.
1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
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In the warmth of my living room, watching through the window as the snow flakes drift into fifties-style wannabe hairdos and watching my son play Wii Fit in his underwear, I realize how good I actually have it. Modern conveniences have given us such luxury. I mean, what if I was sitting, on a rock, in a cave right now (on my laptop of course, with full internet capabilities) worrying about whether or not I could scrounge up enough wood for the fire, wondering how far I’d have to walk because I’ve depleted the local fauna. I’d really be bitching to you over the web, wouldn’t I?
But no. I’m sitting in a warm living room, on a couch, with a kid giggling his head off every time his character jumps off the side of a floating platform to its flailing demise. Nothing bothers this kid of mine. He’ll play happily, as active as ever, while a machine pumps formula directly into his stomach as though this were the most natural thing in the world. I wonder if he’d still think so if we were sitting in a cave, watching the snow fall. Of course the machine would still be around. If I can have internet, he can have his feeding pump, right? And the manufactured formula that keeps him alive with all its non-yummy nutrients that don’t bother him in the slightest because he never tastes them.
All we’d be missing is the warmth. And the Wii.
Modern technology, I tell you. We could live without it.
1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
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There are days when I wish I could just run away – escape even for an hour. To drink a cup of coffee without being interrupted, or to close my eyes and hear nothing but the snow falling.
It’s both a blessing and a curse having a child who enjoys going to the hospital. Obviously it’s nice not to have to fight with Alex every time he gets sick – he gets sick a lot. He enjoys the attention he gets there; he loves to charm nurses and doctors alike, and to him, it’s an adventure. The downside is, he’ll pretend to be sicker than he is and then beg me to take him to see a doctor. And what better way, at this time of year, to actually catch something nasty, than sitting for hours in an emergency waiting room?
Last night he almost managed to convince me that he’d aspirated food into his lungs again. He complained of pain in his chest, that he was feverish, (he wasn’t) and he was just plain miserable, the same as he was on Christmas Eve. I suspected he might have been exhibiting symptoms from the flu shot he received the day before yesterday, so I decided to call Telehealth Ontario, a service we have here so that we can talk to a nurse, so see if our symptoms are worth taking to the emergency room.
The nurse asked me all the protocol questions before she would talk to me about Alex – is he responsive, is he in pain etc etc. I answered as honestly as I could. Yes, he was complaining of chest pain, yes he was turning blue around his lips (I explained he always does whenever he’s upset – it’s due to his heart condition) but no, he doesn’t have a fever. Finally she asked me a question that was relevant. When did he last eat? It was three hours ago. She told me that if he’d aspirated, the symptoms of that would have shown up earlier.
So while I was relieved, she was telling me to call 911 and have an ambulance take him to the hospital because of his blueness and his chest pain.
Why didn’t I? It was the sparkle in his eye that told me all he really wanted to do was visit his beloved nurses. Today there’s not a thing wrong with him.
Yesterday I had to take my son, Alex, to the doctor to get a note for school. It wasn’t for a high-risk field trip; it wasn’t because of some strange sort of disease the school needed to be assured he was free from – nothing like that.
I needed a note to say that he was allowed to eat. The first conversation on the phone with the doctor’s secretary went something like this:
Me: Hi. I need an appointment to get a doctor’s note.
Secretary: Okay, what is it for?
Me: Well, you see, the nurse at his school won’t let him eat until he has an all-clear from the doctor.
Secretary: Soooo, when was the last time he went to school?
Me: Today.
Secretary: How long has it been since the school didn’t allow him to eat.
Me: It’s been about a week.
Secretary: ….
Me: So can I get an appointment soon? Or…
Secretary: I don’t understand.
Me: Neither do I.
All of this, of course, came about because he aspirated (inhaled and had lodged in his right lung) a piece of food on Christmas Eve. For the most part he is tube fed, but the school wants to make sure it’s safe for him to eat before they’ll let him do so.
So today I went to the doctor. That conversation went as follows:
Doctor: Sooo… what do you want me to write?
Me: Just say he can eat. OH, and drink. I don’t want to have to bother you again in case they decide that’s against the rules as well.
Doctor: And he’s been fine when he eats at home, right?
Me: As fine as he’s ever been.
Doctor: Oookay.
(She starts typing.)
Me: I guess this isn’t something you write a note for every day, eh?
Doctor: Err, no.
Today, Alex went to school with the note in his backpack. After not being allowed to eat with the other kids for a week, he’s a happy camper.
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Science has come up with ways to keep people alive in the face of disease, improved warfare and methods of gaining information have been designed to ensure Hilter never happens again, and warning systems are being developed to alert people to get out of the way of impending doom due to tornadoes, tsunamis and the like. So how do we keep the population of the world down now?
Through the very same technology that claims it is trying to help us. Pharmaceutical companies provide us with life-saving drugs which only kill us in other ways, and pesticides to make our “quality of life” better in that we can enjoy our food more. Cell phones – the best way yet to receive information – are apparently giving us brain tumors. So what’s left? War, of course. Government-run, huge conglomeration-funded wars. And who wins in all of this?
The rich bastards whose gain comes from our hides.
Now watch this. It’s beautiful.
Nature happens, with or without us – but are we making it better with technology? Or are we simply allowing a certain few to stand upon a pedestal and dictate to us who we should be and how we should live our lives?
But, you say, there’s only so much we can do, isn’t there? Even if we overthrow our governments, more of the same will replace them. If we refuse to buy the products sold by the huge corporations, how do we live?
To know ourselves, to care for ourselves and each other is a good way to start. From our immediate families and outward, to our communities and our countries. We have to realize that everyone and everything on the planet is equal. We are all connected – the Earth is its own organism, just as each of our bodies are. Imagine how it would be if we were all self-aware. Not self-centered, not self-involved, but so aware of ourselves and how we affect those around us that we could do so for the sake of good.
If you haven’t watched the video by this point, go back and do it. It’s eleven minutes and eighteen seconds’ worth of footage everyone should hear.
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1. It’s never too late to join in, since the “Jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post) counts as a “Jot.” If it makes it to WordPress that day, great! If it waits a week to get from the sticky note to your screen, no problem!
2. If you write a JusJoJan post on your blog, you can ping it back to the above link to make sure everyone participating knows where to find it.
3. Write anything!
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Life is all about focus. Some of us focus mostly on how we feel within ourselves. If we are unwell, it’s the only thing on our minds, unless there is something more important going on outside our illness. When we are well, some of us focus on what is closest in our lives – our family and friends, our homes – and some of us set our focus to our jobs, the weather, and even what is happening in the world. We’re all different that way.
We focus on what makes us happy, and depending on our circumstances, what makes us sad.
In other words, we tend to focus on things that stir our feelings. But what if we could focus on contentment? Balance: that which makes us feel nothing at all. That fine line in which everything is perfect. Nothing is particularly wrong, or right. Everything just… is. The middle ground.
