… oh, is that spelled OAR, not OR?… oh well, doesn’t matter.
In this Walter Mitty life I’ve lived, I’ve had dreams and desires to experience a hundred, nay, a thousand different occupations or preoccupations.
Historically, when we’re born it has generally been predetermined by our family and our society just how our life will be productively spent and drained.
Father is a farmer or a blacksmith?… so shall ye be.
Mother is a homemaker or a teacher?… no need to look further afield.
But now… NOW… from the moment we cry out our first salute to the world, we walk through the Walmart of life with choices upon choices, decisions upon decisions. This… OR… That…
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Yup, the OR‘s go on as far as Alpha Centauri.
I guess the good thing as far as avoiding confusion is that early on I didn’t realize that there were so many options from which to choose.
In my early teen years, I wanted to be doctor (as do most kids it seems).
And then, as practical reality settled in (as it does for most kids) and I figured I didn’t have the Right Stuff (time, money, drive), a lab coat was most accessible in, where else, a lab… hence Laboratory Technology became my vocation for 37 years.
Turns out it was a pretty good choice… luck maybe? Who knows…
But that didn’t mean I gave I up my dreams and passions for countless other occupations, trades, crafts, activities.
Some of these I’ve pursued outside of my job, either during my working years, or post-“retirement”. Just a few? Bartending, teaching ESL, winery work, sky-diving, language learning, Living Statue, triathlon’ing.
Still, a long inventory continues to run through my head like Santa’s Nice List.… those things that may come to be or maybe not. Time will tell, and like Walter Mitty, so long as I have a (reasonably) functioning brain, I can live many dreams through my Vivid Imagination and that can be a lot of fun.
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Here are some of my Wish List ideas (in no particular order)… feel free to share a few thoughts on whatever inspires you either in a feasible, or a totally fantasy-outrageous-like way:
Great actor like Matt Damon/Morgan Freeman/Daniel Day Lewis
Writer like Stephen King (novels) or Yuval Noah Harari (non-fiction)
Harmony singer in Eagles or Beach Boys
Professional guitarist like Tommy Emmanuel
Lifeguard
Language Learner and instructor
Cake decorator
B&B owner
Funeral Home Concierge
Book Editor
Calligrapher
Woodworker/Furniture Maker
Chef/Pastry Chef
Chess Master
Bonsai Grower/Sculptor
Genealogist
Movie Reviewer
Professional Popcorn Taster
Ice Sculptor
Blueberry Farmer
Olympic Speed Skater
Cigar Maker
Juggler
Jeopardy champion
TA DA!!
I’m sure there are more but this is what I have in my head today.
I guess the greater challenge becomes developing a priority list where money and limited time play significant roles. Should I be fortunate/lucky enough to make the Centenarian Olympics (ie. 100 years old in reasonable physical and mental health), then I’ve only about 300,000 hours remaining to pick away at my list… no time to waste, right?
I would feel like the guy who lived 100 jobs in 100 days…
It’s just a major life problem AND amusement when I have far more OR‘s than I have available ME‘s to do them all.
That’s it… I’ll be a clone (no, not clown) scientist!
Just so you know… I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, perhaps one fry short of a Happy Meal, and to quote a “friend” drunk-seriously looking me in the eye, “somewhere there’s a village missing its idiot“…
but… after 10+ years of consistent weekly writing, I know a little bit about you and my other readers on this voyage of self-discovery aka blog writing.
No, I haven’t been snooping in your windows at night… and I really don’t have the foggiest notion of what you look like naked… and I really really don’t want you to know what I look like naked… this isn’t supposed to be a horror blog site.
However… drawing from my former science-based career, I can surmise a reasonable sense of those things I talk about that resonate with many of you, and others that smack head on, like some crash-test dummy, into a brick wall of indifference.
With some tools provided me by this blog-hosting site (WORDPRESS), each day I can see which country my readers live in, and a basic count of the numbers of visitors… that’s it… no reveal of your hometown/city, your identity, gender, age, or whether you dye your hair blue or green.
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Fortunately for me, my livelihood today, unlike many others who do this, is not in any way dependent on drawing you into my blog-writing world consistently so that I can extract money from your pockets, or those of advertisers who would like to extract dinero from you.
Which means, I choose to write about those things each week that strike a chord (musically, or otherwise) or arouse my curiosity for a minute or two… SQUIRREL!!
This is why, just like you, I’m all over the place in topic choices and themes, week to week. The only difference perhaps, is that I sit down and pound it out on a keyboard, like it’s a religion (the new Atheist denomination?)
Now where was I?
Ah yes… my knowledge of you and the things that interest you.
I can’t read your mind, but there are some themes that catch a fair number of eyeballs.
Here’s a brief list of those things I write about that gather the most interest over time:
The rising prominence and power of women. Those posts where I discuss and promote the desirability of women vs men in positions of political power are my number 1 draw. Just this week, soon-to-retire US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi waxed on about the outsized gains of women in the US House and Senate during her 20 years of leadership. This trend is a global one, and not a mere outlier blip. This is the direction of our future world, and it can’t come soon enough, alongside enhanced worldwide opportunities for women’s education (although we have to be very careful to not leave men in the dust to avoid toxic animosity).
Anything that is sexually-related. No surprise here folks, we almost all feel a magnet when it comes to the world of sexuality. As an aside, I’m perpetually intrigued and in some ways, disgusted, that our TV and movie screens are replete with graphic scenes of violence, murder, rape, war… and yet… (preferably) loving scenes of sexual encounters are largely hidden away. From a blogger’s perspective, I know, without doubt, that if I include the word sex, or anything that infers a sexual theme in the title… BOOM! Readers!! No, it’s not because my writing content is so titillating, or evocative, or mind-bending… it’s the search engines (eg GOOGLE) where folks are actively seeking out anything that takes them down the rabbit hole of sex and sexuality. Sex is the lazy person’s way to bring eyeballs to their internet world. Sex sells, they say. Hell, YES!
GOD and Religion. It’s no secret that I am a non-believer in a deity. However, I can’t possibly know with 100% knowledge of whether I am correct in this belief, just as I know that no one else knows the “truth” either. And so, I write about this, fairly often actually, in what I hope comes across as a viewpoint of tolerance. I know and respect that we all have deeply held internal beliefs that guide us through our lives. IMPORTANTLY, so long as we hurt no one with our belief system, I’m all for it. Free choice (with hefty spoonsful of tolerance and open-mindedness) can cover a lot of ground.
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That’s it… this blogger’s trinity.
Of course, my mind wanders madly off in all directions, so my view of the trinity is often, like the fata morgana… illusory, and far in the distance.
No need to worry my friends… I may know you a wee bit, but as for seeing you naked… I learned my lesson at 9 years old when I blew away my dollar on x-ray glasses from a comic book so I could “see” my Grade 3 teacher better.
Given a carefree choice, with no negative repercussions, I would happily live on junk food… probably? maybe? ummm…
Yes, I truly could hungrily wolf hamburgers, feast on french fries, slurp milkshakes, gobble pizzas… inhale chocolate, and devour cheesecake. Ad libitum…
The perfect atheist Heaven for me would be a hybrid McDonald’s and Cheesecake Factory that served me fat, sugar, and sodium-laced breakfast, lunch, dinner, and multiple snacks in-between.
My early childhood was replete with the chemical and technological wonders of 1950’s and 60’s-style technology.
This was mostly new-age junk food fed to us under a strange and implicit (mis)understanding that it was actually the best food for the human body… created by humans, sent into the world and marketed with a message telling us it was the easy-peasy, modern road to health using the very best scientific knowledge of the day (and yup, a lot of that messaging still exists).
Cruddy pseudo-food was sold on radio, TV, and magazines presented alongside esteemed doctors preaching from on high about the healthiest cigarettes you could smoke. It was a Mad Men diet filled with truly terrible choices like Cheez-Whiz, Spaghetti-O’s, and Pop Tarts. Spam spam spam spam, spam spam spam spam…
My loving mother doted on me by making chocolate chip cookies and muffins each week that I happily scarfed down resulting in my “husky” size as I entered my teen years.
One major truth in my life is that despite being a very active sports and fitness guy… sadly… I’ve always been able to easily out-eat my exercise compulsions, even while training intensely for Ironman races.
So, like a zillion others, I face a day-to-day love-hate relationship with food.
In this perpetual war (I’d like to call it the Hundred Years War, but that is still TBD!), I lose many battles. My weigh scale and I have been mortal enemies at times…
But also, to my good fortune, I win back a few food’ish battles too (kind of reflects the Russia/Ukraine scenario doesn’t it?).
The end result over my many decades is that I tend to hover – back and forth – in a BMI (Body Mass Index) category that sits in the category called OVERWEIGHT.
I say good fortune, but I’ll accept personal responsibility like a good adult for whichever direction the needle wavers on the weigh scale.
When the needle creeps up, I’m usually not surprised. French fries or potato chips twice in one week + movie popcorn + a light beer? Especially when I could have the side salad in their place? BAM… another pound.
A second (or… third!) piece of chocolate cake at a birthday celebration? What was I thinking? Yup, another BAM!
This is never good for someone who is striving to join in the Centenarian Olympics. But it is human nature and I love myself despite these weaknesses!
A New Era?
In the past year or two, I’ve been intrigued and captivated by the Intermittent Fasting trend (fad?).
The judgment of science on this nascent movement is in limbo, but common sense at least says that fewer hours spent eating usually means fewer calories going down.
So these days I typically adhere to an Intermittent-Fasting-Lite approach to eating.
Twelve hours on, 12 hours off. No special adjustments to what I would normally eat otherwise, EXCEPT… No evening snacks or anything else passes my lips other than green tea until the following a.m.
For me this is doable, and doesn’t – in typical DIET fashion – feel like a struggle or an imposition. It’s become a habit like regular exercise and eating lots of vegetables, which is what I want.
And most importantly, my weigh scale rarely – almost never – tells me I’ve strayed. We hardly ever argue anymore. Sure, we don’t vacation together or share inside jokes but the expletive deletives have dropped right off!
Food is life. Food is pleasure. Food sustains us but it is so much more.
Food is like sex. You can do it fast or you can do it slow. Both have their enjoyable moments, both can be wrapped in guilt…
… and thankfully, both are highlights of the human condition that we savour.
It’s hard to turn off our thoughts, don’t you think?
And since we can’t truly turn them off, why not think thoughts that make us more relaxed, content, productive… and… thoughtful.
While I’m traipsing the backroads of the Irish Isles, I turn once again to a forever friend and guest blogger.
Who better to turn to than my “retired” Physician Associate and deep thinker buddy Jim Ferguson. Jim is one of those rare people who can rationally combine his religious, philosophical, and scientific thoughts and not get himself tied up like a pretzel. While you think about this.. let me say…
Over to you James…
Well…yours truly has once again been invited to share a few thoughts and to cast them out into the MOTF blog-o-sphere for your consideration.
As I was pondering on a topic to write about, I found myself going down a deep rabbit hole on the topic of thinking!
Yup…I was thinking about THINKING!
I know… I know… you are probably thinking,
1. How did Larry ever hook up with this nut job, and
2. This guy definitely needs a hobby.
The answer to the 1st question is a long story and probably worthy of a blog post in and of its own right (and one that could lead to jail time for both Sir Lawrence and myself…😊).
To address the second point-given my ADHD nature, I’ve got more than enough hobbies to keep me going for the foreseeable future.
Sooooo… back to this concept of thinking about thinking.
It sounds like an episode from Seinfeld…right? The show all about nothing!
Well…let me tell you that there is a lot of thinking going on about thinking (and the nature of consciousness which is a blog topic in its own right) and there are many neurobiologists out there who are sharing their wisdom on the topic.
One such expert in the field is Joe Dispenza. Go look him up on-line. You will find lots of references to explore.
Joe has become one of the “gurus du jour” in the field and my impression is that he has now become more well known as a “celebrity” than he is as a hard-core scientist. This seems to be the case for so many who venture into the arena of being an expert in a specific area plus being a public figure.
They become a celebrity. One could argue that this is the case for people like Deepak Chopra, Dr. Andrew Weil (my mentor), Dr. Oz, Dr. Fauci (he of COVID-19 fame), Willard Scott (RIP), and the list goes on.
Back to the theme lest I get too distracted.
I actually have listened to Joe Dispenza lecturing on neurobiology topics including the topic of thinking and he has some fascinating things to share on that theme. I would never accuse him of “selling out” to the celebrity juggernaut as I find his talks both stimulating and grounded in solid science. Maybe he has found a happy medium between his science and celebrity.
Dispenza states that the average human thinks anywhere from 40,000-70,000 thoughts per day.
Were you aware of this? I was blown away by that number when I first heard him say this during one of his talks a few years back.
If the average person thinks that many thoughts, what about me and my ADHD mind? Geesh…that must mean that I am upwards of close to 80,000+ thoughts per day. I am always thinking things, pondering, considering, reflecting upon things! It is challenging to slow my mind down on a good day!
I found that stat to be truly astounding BUT what I found even MORE astounding (and alarming at the same time) was this next stat. You might want to sit down for this one!
Dispenza says that of those 40,000-70,000 thoughts you think on a daily basis, 80-90% of those thoughts are the SAME THOUGHTS that you thought yesterday and the day before that and so on!
Joe Dispenza
In other words, the thoughts we think today are merely repetition of thoughts we have had for days, months, years previous. Think about it and see if this is true for you. I did a study on myself and found that his statement was pretty accurate!
This has profound implications for those who find themselves “stuck in a rut”, “bogged down”, “who can’t seem to get out of their own way”, “who are constantly sad, depressed, anxious”, “who have that nagging monkey mind that never stops”, etc.
We know from solid science since the mid-1970s that the cells of the brain renew themselves. For decades before that time, it was understood that once humans reached five years old, we stopped producing new brain cells and stopped forming new neural connections. Not so!
The work of neuroscientist Candace Pert and her colleagues discovered that the brain continues to produce new brain cells (neurons) throughout the life span. The science on this theme has exploded exponentially during the past two decades. We now understand the brain to have the property of “neuroplasticity” i.e. it can produce new neurons and can rewire synapses throughout our lifetime.
Sooo…. the brain has neuroplasticity. Check.
Now back to the thinking part of this discussion.
Dispenza and others argue that if we want to get out of our own way, out of the ruts we find ourselves in, to address depression and anxiety, monkey mind, etc. we need to give serious attention to how we think!
We all have different habits of thinking. One size does not fit all in this case.
Some are deep thinkers while others maybe not so much. Some are easily distracted while others are not. If we find ourselves waking every day to the same mental and emotional stress in our lives, could one of the keys be to think deeply on our thinking patterns and to direct our energies towards changing these patterns. This makes perfect sense!
A quote from the Baha’i writings states, “The reality of man is his thought…”
This makes perfect sense and is on target with Dispenza’s thinking.
Whatever we think tends to manifest itself in what we then believe and then what we believe becomes our reality manifesting itself in our actions. The key according to Dispenza and others in his field is to change our thinking which then rewires the synapses (connections) between the neurons in the brain and then the result is new behaviours. Change our thinking=change our actions!
Sooo…. how do we go about this process?
Dispenza recommended that we practice meditation. During meditation we can practice thinking about our thinking and then adapt so we are then thinking new thoughts and avoiding going down those old thought pathways over and over again. To be proactive and develop new thinking patterns.
Other mind-body practices (Tai-Chi, Qi gong, Guided Imagery, Autogenics, Hypnosis, etc.) would also meet this need for developing new thought patterns. I have practiced meditation and I have found it to have profound effects on my thinking patterns.
Bottom Line: if we want to change the way we think, we need to first think about how we think (and we are all different based on our own individuality) and then implement new practices that allow us to develop and reinforce new thought patterns that will then manifest themselves in our outward actions.
If we do this, it results in rewiring of neural synapses in the brain which can lead to (as Candace Pert said decades ago) recreating ourselves on a daily basis.
This may seem simplistic yet it makes so much sense and people have been utilizing these simple mind-body practices for thousands of years with excellent results.
I’ll be chatting you up about labels and focus today but before that – and demonstrating my terrible lack of focus – I can’t not share the splendour of spring beauty that sits outside my window in this small valley oasis in Western Canada… the Okanagan Valley.
As I stroll my little rural street, it’s mid-bloom, a lyrical miracle of stunning colour and scent of fruit trees… nectarines and plums, apricots and apples, peaches and pears. Pink and white promise-filled flowers blended into the fresh, new leafy green shoots.
Stepping outside in the morning is the springtime equivalent of stepping into your grandmother’s house at Thanksgiving or Christmas and inhaling the aromas wafting from her oven – the turkey, cinnamon and sage spices, vanilla and baking apples.
Mixed in with the sweetness of the drifting floral scents is the humming of activity surrounding the square white boxes left on the fringes of the orchards where pollinating bees come in and out of their hives like rushing throngs of Costco shoppers.
It’s sensory overload of the greatest kind.
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NOTE to self: focus Larry.
Yes, today I’m thinking about LABELS and FOCUS.
Like cans and jars in the supermarket, we all have labels that attach to us – little descriptors that tell us and the world who we are. (Let’s agree to ignore the negativity labels that exist to bring us down)
Labels tell us our personal meaning of life… labels justify our existence. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy… you get it.
What are the labels you use to describe yourself if someone asks?
I struggle with this as an ADHD kinda guy who has many too many labels to know where to begin.
Perhaps this sounds like a good thing but I’m not so sure.
I’m TOO scattered.
Here’s my off-the-cuff label list to bore those who are foolish enough to inquire:
Husband/Parent/Grandparent
Guitar player/Singer/Songwriter
Exercise – Runner/Swimmer/Cyclist/Yoga/Weight Training/Tennis/Hockey (as a kid)
Stock Market Investor
Liberal
Introvert
Traveller/Homebody
Blog Writer
Music Lover -Folk/Country/Classical
Rom/Com Movie Lover
Medical Lab Tech/Retired
Woodworker/Renovator
Language Learner/Teacher
Cook/Baker/Fast Food Junkie
Chocaholic
Atheist/Philosopher
Gardener
Philanthropist/Volunteer
It’s an endogenous and exogenous list that both describes the internal me while also giving me a real meaning and sense of purpose… we can agree that this is good.
But, while that list may or may not be as long as yours, the boots-on-the-ground problem with a lengthy label list is focus and prioritization.
Like I said, I’m too scattered and this creates a brain traffic jam for me.
My solution has typically been making daily lists and trying to site the most critical tasks and joys early in the day when my mind and body are at their freshest and most energetic.
Today, I find my brain squeeze is growing ever greater as being an involved granddad and “parenting” a local Syrian family with their daily struggles is making me take a critical look at my list of labels – my label darlings.
As writers like William Faulkner and Stephen King are known to say, “You have to kill your darlings.”
Or, less dramatically, as Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson might say, “Something’s Gotta Give“.
Going forward, I’ll be looking carefully at my focus and priorities. Making tough choices.
As a people pleaser, I’ll struggle with the word NO, but will need to steel my resolve and use it more often.
And, unlike Stephen King, I really don’t want to traumatize any of you, so I promise I won’t kill any of my darlings, but I may have to put some down for a nap. (but definitely NOT the Chocaholic!)
OMG, caffeine-waterboarding… it’s torture! Choices and more choices… everyone’s different, yes?
And still more choices… when you read my posts.
I understand that you reading this is a privilege for me because you have the choice.
That you vote to take a few minutes away from 100 other things you could do or read or watch is humbling. It’s the nature of our 21st century multi-choice universe that the option to flip past me is the easiest thing ever.
What makes me so special to deserve your eyeballs? I’m not John Krasinski handsome or Malcolm Gladwell insightful.
After 9 years of writing these weekly missives, I know that readers come and readers go, and a brave (or foolish!!) small number of you have stayed with me from Day One… I thank you.
But honestly, as much as I appreciate you, I don’t write for you as my #1 motivation. I’ll tell you what is in a minute…
This is fortunate because I don’t earn a living – hell, even a pittance… sniff… not even a penny – from my weekly word count.
Of course I peruse the number of views I have on my posts each week and from which country you originate (that’s it… I don’t get your name or city, just your country)…
…the social part of me, like Sally Field (YOU love me!), loves the recognition that you read my words, or make a comment, or click a LIKE.
But I don’t obsess over or tailor my words to suit any individual or group.
Now I do sometimes read my posts as if I’m “possessed” by one of you (will I channel YOU this week?). I put myself in your shoes and try to interpret what I’m saying through YOUR filter (or what I perceive as your filter).
I like to present and challenge ideas without offending – there’s space for us all.
I accept that each of us sees the world in a slightly different way. However, I will choose reason and scientific fact over rumour or rhetoric where facts exist.
Emotion and opinion have their place too, but they should be secondary to fact. The internet has hugely challenged our ability to think rationally with roiling oceans of pseudo-truths (alternative facts).
Back to me navel-gazing…
Motivation #1 for this blog?
My thinking and personal understanding happens when I write… I access ME when I put words to paper, or screen, or song.
Really… I’m ultra-clumsy in interpersonal verbal interactions… I fumble and stumble and say inappropriate things that I would never do or say if I had a minute or an hour to think and reflect. Fortunately this “woke” dude has learned to NEVER ask a woman when she is “due”.
I also try NOT to be inspired by the misogynistic male judge (John Michael Higgins) from the movie Pitch Perfect commenting on the female singers: This does not look like the fresh-faced nubile Bellas that we have come to know. Is it me, or are those skirts just not working anymore?
I know many others who can think faster than a blink of the eye, who explore their inner thoughts and opinions while speaking… their brain functions best through the spoken word. I am in awe of the fast thinkers of the world.
I’m a slow thinker. Whatever “intelligence” I possess happens while I write… I find my insights and perceptions while writing my blog posts, and in my personal e-mails, and in my songwriting.
I’m constantly shovelling/writing to delve further inside myself looking for understanding – of myself and of the world around me. In that moment I’m Stephen King with magic powers.
This intelligence typically takes me 500 or 1,000 words to surface… anything less and my head is spinning like I just got off a fast Merry-Go-Round ie. no substance or understanding…
A miniskirt-short blog post is like a Twitter post…
Jerry Seinfeld says: “Twitter is good. Why say a lot to a few people when you can say virtually nothing to everyone?”
… but more than 1,000 words in my post and it’s just VD (verbal diarrhea). Maybe that’s one thing I learned from Hemingway’s brevity.
Back to Seinfeld… he’s my philosopher of the week… for some obvious reasons I can’t use Bill Gates for awhile now.
Seinfeld observes that people who are comedians work at understanding themselves, while actors observe people in order to play different characters.
I would add to this that poets and songwriters also look inside for understanding of themselves and the cosmos. Do you see yourself in any of these roles?
So, this week’s “Larry Wisdom”?
If, at some time, you feel introspective, “choose” a cup of your favourite espresso or oolong and think about your best route to “finding” the you that lies deep beneath the surface. It might be your best Twilight Zone experience ever.
One last Seinfeldian observation of this crazy world to ponder:
If aliens are watching us through telescopes, they’re going to think the dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them’s making a poop, the other one’s carrying it for him, who would you assume is in charge?”
We were acquaintances who happened to live under the same roof for 16 years. Ghosts treading the same floors in different dimensions.
I’ve spent many years feeling bitterness and resentment towards the man who housed, fed and clothed me.
There was no abuse … sure, the occasional routine spanking – it was still the era of spare the rod and spoil the child – no, my beef with my father was benign neglect.
He never joined in with my mother at my school events, attended my hockey games, or helped with delivering my newspapers when the snow was deep the way Mom did. He never helped with my homework or joined me in making little plastic car and airplane models, never threw a baseball my way. He didn’t teach me how to drive or tell me that one day I’d have to shave hair from the edges of my ears (really?!?).
I think that many of us harbour some ill feelings towards at least one of our parents.
It’s pretty amazing that these childhood feelings can linger for decades afterwards, which perhaps helps me understand why we prosecute war criminals and sexual predators (yes, YOU Harvey W.) many years after the acts occurred. The hurts stick to you like flypaper.
In the early winter of 1974 I was on a French class school trip to Quebec City … what joyous fun and freedom it was for a 16 year old to share a hotel room with two buddies in a “foreign” city…
… to experience the Quebec Winter Carnival, taste the frozen maple taffy, cavort with Bonhomme Carnaval, eat filet mignon in an historic old restaurant, and sip French wine (yes, underaged!) with classmates from long plastic canes designed to secretly tote alcohol.
And there were girls on the trip! Even more, there were teenage girls in the Quebec streets who spoke… French! Oh Mon Dieu…
Then the phone rang in my hotel room and the fun ended all too soon.
Only a few months after my Mom’s unexpected death, my Dad had been diagnosed with acute leukemia and was being aggressively treated in hospital with nasty chemo chemicals to combat the blood cancer. There were yeast sores all through his mouth and he could barely drink. The chemotherapy designed to save him was brutal and life threatening all on its own.
The voice on the phone said that he was dwindling – quickly – and I should perhaps book a train ticket and return home ASAP if I wanted to say a final goodbye.
I “bravely-in-a-boys-don’t-cry-sort-of-way” held back any tears and began packing and lamenting the end of my teenage frolic en francais.
Shortly after I received another phone call… Larry, don’t worry, he probably isn’t as bad as we first thought, he should survive the next couple of days. Stay there and enjoy your time in Quebec.
Right.
Turns out my Dad survived the chemo (and leukemia) and lived another reasonably healthy 7 years.
And you might think that we became close (or closer) as a result of his illness and the near-death experience, but we didn’t. The big chill remained. The Hollywood happy ending never occurred in real life.
But. Over many years I’ve let the bitter taste dissipate. Melt and absorb back into the universe. It becomes so dilute that it can’t do any harm anymore.
I’m not perfect. I’ve realized that I’m a product of my upbringing and environment and so was my Dad. In his shoes: with his parents, school, and life experiences, would I be any different? I don’t know.
My Dad wasn’t a bad guy. In many ways, he was a good fellow, just not a good Dad to me.
I will never totally understand the man he was, but I understand now through my own life history how a life is molded and shaped … how diamond is often imperfectly formed over time from coal through heat and pressure.
You might say I’ve grown a tiny bit … which is really a synonym for older and … wait for it …
My youngest daughter turned 30 last week. Not oldest… youngest!
I turned 30 just the week before. OK, maybe 2 weeks ago.
No, I’m not a time traveller, but the sensation of time is a fluid, rapid thing like warm sand slip-sliding between your toes at the beach.
Being 30 means you’re not middle-aged yet, but you’ve definitely boarded the ocean liner that carries you over the seas from childhood and the orbit of your parents into the grown-up world with most of the trappings of adulthood.
Job. Home. Maybe kids.
You should can wander around your house naked if you want to and your Mom won’t scream at you.
It’s mostly fun and exciting but scary and jammed with worries too.
I worry about my kids because I’ve lived through the years that are to come for them.
The time between say, 30 and 60, is where you strap on your seatbelt and buckle in for the bumpy ride. Some cope well and fly to the stars, others flounder and drown beneath the weight.
Either trip is filled with challenges.
Family, jobs and responsibilities grow and multiply, and then somewhere in there… most of us exchange the solid ground that is our parents beneath us, and find we’re freefloating with a parachute attached to nothing but cool, thin air.
It’s like we’ve thrown away our diaper now and hope like hell we don’t sh*t our pants.
After 30 is also when we begin to discover if the directions we’ve chosen are where we truly saw our dreams… our WHY… or perhaps if it’s someone else’s dream we’re pursuing.
We all develop a definition of success – in it’s myriad forms – in our heads… the WHY is hopefully what leads us down that path.
WHY is a million questions, but it’s the answers that tell us who we really are.
A small example… I ask myself WHY do I write a blog post every week with no attempt or hope of ever making a livelihood from the effort expended.
My readership (thank you for being in that group) is small and swamped in a expansive world of words and thoughts from every direction.
The voice that ponders and then answers my WHY question is the one that finds expression in writing where it can’t seem to find it in spoken words.
Things happen when I sit to write, just as they do when I sit and play my guitar.
I THINK IT’S ABOUT MY FINGERS.
There are guidelines, understanding, and points of view that reside somewhere deep inside me and refuse to come to the surface until my fingers are moving… it’s like my brain and fingers have a mystical connection… I don’t even try to look behind the curtain for the Wizard, because a wizard, a muse if you prefer… is magic.
Perhaps you find that same wonder through your religious beliefs, or it could be that you have a connection between your brain and your tongue that I lack.
I like the illusion of magic and wonder so I don’t question. I accept. It’s pretty childlike really.
Maybe that’s why I like children’s books.
They engage our imagination and sense of wonder whether we’re 3 or 30 or even 60-something.
Writing this blog draws out my own wonder about myself, you, and the cosmos surrounding us.
Man On The Fringe 