WINTER IS WEIRD

A friend came to the door today to pick me up for a walk, and when I opened the door for her, I laughed! I could hear her snow pants swishing each time she took as step, and she was wearing a parka over that. She had warm boots on her feet, a tuque on her head, and expedition mittens on her hands. This would have been totally reasonable winter wear on many occasions, but I had checked the weather in advance for the occasion of this walk. Sleet is where I draw the line, although it’s not much fun when it’s minus twenty with windchill. If you do dress properly, you can’t really hear each other talk!

In this case, it was just a couple degrees below zero, and it was going to melt in just a few hours. I am glad this friend doesn’t hold grudges, because she laughed it off when I commented. Still, I wore my lightest coat, with medium gloves and a coat, but by the end of our walk, I was sorry that I had a vest over my long sleeve shirt. I was feeling warm!

Later that day, another friend asked me how I was weathering the blizzards. I wrote her back, “In our day, we just called it snow!” This was not the first time this week that I had been asked about it. I get it. If I was a long distance trucker, I would try and plan my routes around the winter storms. But for a commute downtown, and a home with a moderate sized driveway, these “winter storms” that are called for sometimes days in advance, really just feel like, on the ground, that it is finally snowing.

The game is to know when to clean your snow, and when you are wasting time. I have a retired neighbour who cleans any snow any time, usually very early in the morning. He doesn’t need to be efficient. Another retired neighbour who had mobility issues after a stroke before he died had the opposite tack. He would only clear his walkway if it was worth the effort. He knew that it was better to leave snow than uncovering the slick ice rink underneath it after frozen rain. 

I have started to park my car, without fail, nose to the street, with only a few feet ahead, to allow for the hard pack snow that inevitably gets pushed up in hills at the bottom of my driveway by the city. There are tricks to this. Best to get it in warm weather. The snow is heavy, but if you get home late from work, or are not paying attention, and the soft heavy snow turns solid, you have an insurmountable ridge of ice that tears at the undercarriage of your car.

The street cleaning is another issue. As much as love how well our streets are cleaned in the suburbs compared to the city, there is no respecting the silence of winter. It is nearly midnight, and, like too many a sleepless pre-night sleep, or interrupted short sleep post evenings or pre-early mornings, I hear the repeated loud racing of a snow blower down the street. Every year these sleep deprived speeding maniacs kill a number of innocent pedestrian because of their recklessness. They sure have ruined many  a good sleep in the ten second run they take at the snow, late at night, or in the early morning, when the world is otherwise in its most peaceful season.

They sit in short sleeves, idling their cabs, polluting the world for our convenience. How I long for the days where the roads were blocked until people were able to shovel themselves out. As long as I am able, I will stick to the quiet carbon neutral habit of shovelling the snow.

SEASONAL INSPIRATION: WINTER WISDOM

 WINTER WISDOM

Today is another day where the sun stands still (solstice), and it will be the shortest day of the year.  In our Northern Hemisphere, this is the day that we are the most tilted away from the sun. Paradoxically, we are also nearing our closest location to the sun during our yearly orbit. It is this paradox that I want to highlight for this first instalment of the Wellness Seasonal Inspiration.

Tonight will be the darkest night, and some us will feel this. Seasonal depression is on a spectrum, and the lack of sunshine can be hard on a lot of us. Be kind to yourself. If you don’t feel like celebrating, you don’t have to. Take a moment to reflect. Light a candle. Make a sacred space. Be engulfed in the darkness, and know that you can walk through it. Look up to the stars on a clear night. Bundle up and get outdoors. Cuddle up with something warm, and stay inside. Sleep earlier, and longer, if you can. Take a moment, and accept the darkness. It is part of our lives. 

If none of this resonates, please talk to someone. Tell a loved one. Talk to a colleague. Book a therapy session. Call the PAMQ (514-397-0888). Come to the ER if you need to. Tell a stranger. Acknowledge your state of mind to yourself, get a second opinion, and seek help if you are depressed, burnt out, tapped out, exhausted, suicidal or homicidal. 

Like the paradoxal locations during the Sun and Earth’s orbits, although it can be dark, it also has a lot to offer.

SUNRISES AND SUNSETS

Enjoy the ease of seeing each sunrise and sunset, conveniently available during normal waking hours, if those exist! Let the sunset signal a winding down, whether you are napping pre-night, or going to bed for a day shift the next day. Enjoy the sunrise on the way east, and the sunset on the way west. Take a look outside, or go for a walk when the room brightens or darkens. You might be pleasantly surprised!

SLEEP

Remember that our society at large is under-slept, and very few of us are any different. Sleep is a natural preoccupation for anyone who works shift work. Remember that winter in our local climate makes many aspects easier. Plan to get an extra hour or two under the blanket of darkness that is the norm for the winter season. Sleep in if you can. On your days off, wake up with the sunlight instead of setting an alarm. Sleep studies show that excessive heat disrupts quality and quantity of sleep. This will not be a problem for months!

SNOW SPORTS

Find a winter sport that you enjoy, and do it. With the right clothing, and a good day, exercise outdoors is can be more comfortable, with less sweating, and decreased risk of dehydration (snow is always available, but not always recommended). Bundle up and go for a brisk walk. It has been beautiful with our recent snow, and each snow will be a little different. Make new tracks in a local park. Make a snow angel or build a snow creature, even if there are no kids around! 

If the sun has set, remember that this is the time of year that the stars are the best to view. Especially if you are away with a dark sky, but even if you are on the island, look up! Let your eyes adjust to the dark, and see what you can see. Find Orion with his arrow loaded on his bow, Draco thrashing its tail, Cassiopeia seated on her throne, Cygnus flying high above, and the lumbering Ursae. If you don’t have a clue what they are, buy a sky map, load an app or visit the planetarium. 

SNOW DAYS

Even if you have snow cleaning services, or the weather isn’t so frightful, when you have a day off, you can claim a snow day. Stay indoors. Read a book. Pick up a passion that you dropped in the active days of summer and fall. Create art or music. Do a puzzle. Play a board game. Sit around chatting with a hot drink and warm blanket. Write a poem, a story, a novel. Do something novel. Do something you love. Do something just for yourself.

GIVING SPIRIT

From the Yuletide to our current holidays, human history has mixed awe and celebration at this time of year. It’s a good time to remember how much it means when others think of us. What we do at work matters. We give a lot of ourselves at work. It’s easy to feel exhausted, and that we have no more to give. It’s easy to forget that giving is good for us too! Do make a point to reflect on how you can give outside of work too. Needs are year round, including our own. They don’t stop when the giving campaign ends. Many of you are already conscious of this. I am very proud that following the clothing drive of 2021, the stocks remain full, thanks to continued generous donations throughout the year, and the excellent management of great staff that go above and beyond. Thank you for thinking of the charities we use as resources, and for supporting the charities you value. Keeping doing something for others. 

As we approach the only time of year that one out of two weeks is a given, enjoy the time you have off. Take care of yourself, and take care of others. Take your vitamin D for the next few months. Embrace the benefits of the winter season when you can. If you can’t or just don’t want to, remember; This too shall pass. From this day forward, for the next six months, until the summer solstice, the days will only get longer and brighter. 

https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/december-solstice.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3427038/

 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5446217/

https://www.realsimple.com/health/preventative-health/benefits-of-reading-real-books

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6174231/

https://vitotechnology.com/news/how-to-choose-a-stargazing-app-2021

LIVING WITH MY TEEN

 Living with my teen is much like living with my cat. She is around on her terms, and needs me very little, except to be fed and sheltered

Yesterday, we went for a walk to the local Walmart. It was a cold walk, and we both walked quickly to keep warm. Rebecca walked faster than me, but slowed down if I asked. I needed the exercise, and she needed me to buy her tiny canvases for her year end works of art that she will give away to some who deserve it, and others who will trash it, unable to see her passion and value.

On the way home, we were cold and crossing the wind when I realized that a low curb had collected a few flakes of snow. Rebecca thought it was paint, but, as we walked, she noticed too that the cracks in the pavement were filled with white. As we waited for the light to turn, we could see the wind blowing a thin layer of snow in that lazy pattern that so often we chase on the highway in winter, when the air is dry and the weather is cold. 

In that instant, the cold was secondary, and the barriers between us fell. It was snowing, and it make the cold worthwhile. It elevated our spirits, and we ran across the street, excited by the change of season for the first time since the weather cooled.

Tonight, I fell the same thrill, with the moonshine spilling onto my bed. No other man made light can fall in through the window from such a height. I seek the moon like our hearts sought the snow. It is wonderful to be warm, but how wonderful to be connected to nature.

PHO LIEN

I was in the neighbourhood of Cote-des-Neiges for a meeting, and I had time to get dinner. I hadn’t been back for ages, and I was feeling nostalgic. It was busy at the early hour of five thirty, and as a solo eater, I wasn’t sure if they would give me a table. Turns out it was no problem. First through the door, first served. I was grateful. 

It was a weeknight, so I was pretty sure that the hot and spicy soup was still going to be a weekend thing. I ordered a tried-and-true vermicelli/imperial roll bowl.  It was perfect, but it was different than I remembered.

I love a place that assumes that I can use chopsticks. I realized, like swallowing pills, swimming, riding a bike, and skating, I had made it clear to my daughter that being able to use chopsticks was not an option! 

The rolls were delicious, better than I remembered. The sauce was that perfect sweet and fishy sauce I loved, immediately emptied the entire silver container over the noodles. 

What was different was that the size of the bowl was smaller, the veggies were not a salad underneath, but a reduced quantity on the side. The noodles were enough, but less. The peanuts seemed generous.

 All in all, both inflated and skimpflated, I loved it. For my reduced metabolic needs, and bigger budget than before, I enjoyed every bite in the noisy, small, busy, fast serving, and wonderful restaurant.

 

THE PROBLEM WITH VIGILANTE POLICING

 Police executions seem to be increasing, but watching a documentary about a Mafia boss being gunned down in NYC in 1985, the reasons are the same.

A recorded comment about it makes it clear why it is just too easy for this vigilante practice to continue. 

“I guess they don’t have to prove his guilt or innocence any more.”

Credit: The Hidden Lives of Thieves S1 S1

RWANDAN GENOCIDE: A WORLD FAILURE

My daughter had to do a two minute presentation on the Why of the Rwandan Genocide. Not an easy topic, and certainly a challenge for a short speech with a grade 11 point of view. I remember parts of the news at the time, but it happened in 1994, when I had no television, and emails didn’t even exist, in the midst of medical school in Canada, where news from Africa was mostly a Christmas with a new fundraising song by a collaboration of artists raising money for malnutrition, and AIDS.  I have since read around it, knowing the scope of failure in personal and global political terms to grasp the significance until it was too late. 

I actually use a signature that was inspired by the aftermath, a quotation by Terry Tempest Williams, explored in her book Finding Beauty in a Broken World. “Beauty is not optional, it is a strategy for survival.”

Also,

In the open space of democracy, beauty is not optional, but essential to our survival as a species.

Terry Tempest Williams, The Open Space of Democracy

She had just one slide finished when it was due. She talked about the inciting event of the assassination of the president. I wanted to make sure that she knew about the longstanding roots in colonialism, Belgian racism,  and power differentials that divided the country between the Hutus and the Tutsis.

I remember the pain of Romeo Dallaire, stuck in a role that exposed him to horrific things without being able to do anything about it. The ultimate Moral Injury. A story of PTSD. I still have Shake Hands With The Devil on my to-read list, but haven’t had the courage yet. 

I remember a quiet terror that the world did nothing. I had an inkling that the response was different because it was Africa. I felt that it could have been my life, and no one did a damn thing to stop it. A total failure of the UN, the world. Totally unlike the idyllic Alliance of Star Wars.

I was quite moved by the fictional story called Sunday At The Pool In Kigali, and a character at poolside inspired my first good character for my developing novel. 

I will not forget. No one can, if they hear the story.

ASMR (MARS)

 There is this commercial that keeps playing. It’s a Mars bar commercial, but with whispering, which I find odd, and crinkling, that I find annoying. 

My daughter says it’s a love/hate thing. 

ASMR stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. It’s an attempt to give you the shivers. Frisson, in a word. Colloquially called a “Brain Orgasm”.

AME SOEUR

When I was a kid, the definition of a kindred spirit was Anne of Green Gables, and her best friend Diana. Nowadays, the term is more like to be a soul sister, or, more often with a romance partner, a soulmate. Soul sister is what the french translation amounts to. 

CHEMISTRY SOURCE

I saw an outdated periodic table at the school open house, and noted the name, Prolabec. I thought I might donate a new one, but apparently they had one, but in another room.

I looked at the catalogue, and it made me feel nostalgic for high school. I had an sudden desire after 30 years to buy myself a beaker, or an Erlenmeyer flask, but I wouldn’t know what to do with it!

HOW TO COOK LARGE TAPIOCA PEARLS

 It took me a long time to find proper sized tapiocas. The cooking aisle for many years seems to favour the tiny ones. Thanks to our growing obsession with Boba tea (Thanks Taiwan!), I found a beautiful bag of fat pearly tapiocas. I soaked them overnight on instinct, and end up with a gelatinous mass of gluten! DO NOT SOAK RAW TAPIOCAS!

So, thanks to google, and a website called What to Cook Today, here is the recipe that works (although it is a two day process, so no spur of the moment option!)

Prep 5 minutes

Cook 20 minutes

Soak 8 hours 15 minutes

Serves 6 (or me, 6 lucky times!)

1 cup large tapioca pearls (for the British in you 160 g)

8 cups water

2 cups milk (whole, coconut, soya)

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg or 1 T cornstarch +  1 T water

vanilla extract

Precook 1 cup pearls in 8 cups water. Bring to boil, then simmer for 5 minutes. Stir to prevent sticking to the bottom of the pot. Turn off, cover, and soak 8-12 hours (OVERNIGHT).

Drain and put fresh 8 cups of water in the pot with pre soaked pearls. Simmer and stir for 15 minutes. Turn off and soak 15 minutes. The pearls should be translucent. Drain in fine sieve, and rinse. 

Sprinkle with 1 T of sugar to keep another day or two without sticking.

Make pudding by putting milk, salt, sugar, and pearls in a pot, and simmer until sugar dissolves. 

SKIP FOR CORNSTARCH: Add the egg by tempering. Whisk separately, then slowly add a small amount of cooled milk until the mixture thickens. Pour the tempered egg/milk mixture into the milk and stir. Remove from head and cool. 

Whisk the cornstarch and water until combined. Stir into milk mixture, and remove from heat. Cool. 

Add vanilla.

Eat warm, or refrigerate when cool. 

I like mine served with a dollop of raspberry jam. 

JOURNALIST MARIANA VAN ZELLER IN TRAFFICKED

It’s a harrowing journey, to keep up with this journalist as she digs into some dark stories that need to be told and heard. 

There are some excellent episodes. 

Here are a few facts:

We call it a SCAM. They call it a MONEY GAME. 

Don’t be a target. Lonely, gullible. 

Jamaica and Israel are big sources

Fentanyl was invented in the 1960s for use in Belgium’s ORs

Synthetic fentanyl “Little Devil”, “revolutionizing the industry”

Cutting heroin with fentanyl makes it cheaper because of its potency (50x)

“Heroin may kill. Fentanyl will kill.”

“Russian roulette with a fully loaded gun.”

“A national crisis”

Sinaloa, Mexico, on the west coast, is a major port of the drug cartel source (and the name of the biggest drug cartel, led by Guzman/El Chapo. The  (unsuccessful) arrest of son Ovidio led to warring factions joining against the Culiacan military police in 2019 called the Battle of Culiacan). 

China supplies the other through the mail.

M-30 is Mexican cartel made “oxy” - pills resemble, but made of fentanyl and horse lidocaine. It’s never left in Mexico.

“Down here among Mexico’s narco traffickers, fentanyl isn’t a deadly opioid. It’s an opportunity.”

“Chemists” or cooks should measure more. 

5 kgs are worth millions in America

Packers do the job of making the drugs unrecognizable to dogs: coffee, fabric softener, mustard

Most goes through the Mexico/California San Ysidro crossing

Supply chains work like Al Qu’aida cells, if they had a hot potato. Each does their job, and doesn’t ask question about the chain. 

Only 10% of the drugs estimated to be trafficked are confiscated.

Sicarios - gunmen (usually assassins for a cartel)

Cambistas - dealers

Mula - mules

Look for counterfeit money: Touch, Look, Turn

murky, sketchy

Journalist maxim: The harder you work, the luckier you are.

CHANGE YOUR STATE

Get up!

DO THIS INSTEAD:

Make tea

Drink water

Go for a walk/bike ride

Call a friend 

Make sarcastic comments to Siri and laugh at the response

Doodle/colour 

Blog/write

Read

Cross-stitch

Play the keyboard

Craft

Go to bed

Watch a show

Clean the house

MOTHER OF INVENTION

 Necessity is the mother of invention. 

Courage is the father of progress.

Breakthrough S1 E6  Water Apocalypse

HANDMADE STRAWBERRY BUBBLE TEA MADE WITH LOVE

 

I was walking through Shaughnessy Village, and I was inticed by a sign that advertised “handmade strawberry bubble tea made with love”. I love a good boba tea, and tapioca in general. This one came at at premium price, but the highest price was paid by this poor employee at Xing Fu Tang. It looked like there was supposed to be a machine that made them once the dough was introduced. Unfortunately, only one of the steps worked without aid. The “tapioca dough” was sliced into strips. The second step, taking the strips and rolling them into small balls, instead of being automatic, required patient attention by the handler. 

I am not sure how much love he had put in it, but quite a lot of patience went in, I am sure!

It was a dessert, to be sure. Like a strawberry yogurt with tapioca. Yum!

METRO TOURIST

My friend and I had been planning to spend the day from one end of the orange line to the next. We started early enough and finished late enough to have all three meals in different places, and we took photos of the metros themselves, the art they contained, and the environs. We only made it six stops before we fast tracked our way to China town for supper, before returning home. It was an adventure and we transitioned from comprehensive to focussed, from idealist to pragmatist, vacillating a little in between, and listening to ourselves and each other, for an excellent day!

The idea was to go from Cote-Vertu to Montmorency, but we have to return to continue on. We almost veered completely from the orange line, considering the connection to the blue line, least known to most but not for us, since both of us lived in Cote des Neiges for a few years, and began to wax nostalgic for the excellent food around Snowdon and Cote-des-Neiges. We are both pretty tasks oriented, and I genuinely think we would both have deviated from the task if the argument had been strong enough, but in the end, there were too many unexplored places that we still had time to see.

The metro is an integral part of Montreal’s history. The idea of a metro started as a network plan by Montreal City Council in November of 1961, and it was inaugurated October 14, 1966, with some concessions and future plans that had to accommodate the World Exposition (Expo ‘67) being awarded to the city in August of 1963. The original metro included three lines (Green, Orange, and Yellow) and twenty stations in 1966, and expanding to twenty-six by the opening of the Expo themed Man and His World on April 27, 1967.

ENTERTAINMENT - horseracing, fireworks, restaurant eating, parade

CULTURE -Mary and Child, Greek theatre, Japanese Shinto gates, Egyptian, Hebrew, Yin and Yang, Roman, ?beanie, Shakespeare ?Yorrick, Leonardo Da Vinci’s Man, Michaelangelo’s Statue, Pilgrims, Charlie Chapman, Comedy, Archecture vs modern art, ?, ?

SCIENCE- war, slavery, hieroglyphs, climbing mountains, Arabic, Chinese, Roman Era (SPQR -tattoo’s on Jason’s arm in gods of Olympus series, atoms, molecules, cell architecture vs the striving to the moon

The history of the metro is linked very early on the art you see in nearly every station. This is in large part to a caricaturist and first artistic director of Expo ‘67 named Robert Lapalme (encouraged to paint by contemporary Jean-Paul Lemieux. Each station was designed to distinct, and the art was often done by the architect. In fact, the metro budget didn’t cover art, so it was privately sought out and funded. Robert Lapalme’s vision was for the artworks to recount the city’s history. One such piece was a triptych created for the Welcome Centre of Expo ‘67, and requested to be installed in its current site at the Berri UQAM station (on the way to Longueuil, on the yellow line) as a personal request by Mayor Jean Drapeau. The three paintings, in primary colours represent Science, Culture, and Entertainment. They remind me of Don Quichote in a backdrop of roman ruins, if Picasso’s Guernica was Disney-fied  and mixed with the modern abstract.

The first line planned was where we started, the Orange Line, but it is actually referred to as Line 2. It is the longest line in the system, at 30 km long. It is the second longest line in Canada only to the Yonge-University line in Toronto. It currently has 31 stations, which  contains 13 of the original 20 that were running in The original plan was proposed to run as a closed loop in 2019. It is Line 1, or the Green Line.

DUMPLINGS MAI XIANG YUAN

I visited this restaurant, Mai Xiang Yuan, last week when my brother came to visit, and stayed in Shaunessy Village at a Sonder apartment for the weekend.  The food in that area has exploded, and is starting to give Chinatown a second site. The restaurant has a different name on top, and we were reminded that the “french” term for dumplings is the Italian word Ravioli, plural being a mishmash of language Raviolis!

We had not great service, what with tea being offered, then taken away when we also asked for water. In the end, wanting both tea and water, it cost $1.50. Very strange that it would be worth the trouble to take it away instead of offering the both for such a nominal cost.

The place was recommended on a list of original lunches that I hope to continue to pursue. There was an open faced sui mai with a pink spiral that they were out of when I was there. There also looks to be a sister location in china town.

I would definitely return here, and can recommend that the dumplings are plentiful to feed a crowd, or my brother, who does a great job of increasing our choices with his high metabolism requiring higher than average food consumption!

I am usually a big fan of boiled dumplings, and you can make your own dipping sauce with soya sauce, chili sauce and vinegar on the table, but the best ones were the fried dumplings that looked like adorable little open folded tacos. We tried pork, shrimp and mushrooms #18, and pork and coriander #32A. They come in big quantities of 15. Quantity is more important than quality. The dumpling dough is perfectly made but don’t expect the usual fancy folds. The sui mai come in a beautiful steamer with handles in fours. We loved the pork and mushroom #74, and my brother ordered another round for second dessert!

I can also recommend the cucumber salad #54, It was a welcome side to more meat than I used to eating. We then ended with the fried bread that was served in four perfect buns with a custard dipping sauce #62. Yum!

So save yourself the aggravation and just order tea, and don’t expect good service. But the restaurant is nicely decorated, seats small groups only, and is fast and delicious.

You’ll have to go to instagram or the menu website to see pictures. We were enjoying eating so much that we wouldn’t have anything to photograph but empty plates!

COVID, I HATE YOU

 COVID, I HATE YOU

My brother is supposed to come visit in 3 days. This morning he sent me a photo of a covid positive test. His covid test. Yesterday, he came down with symptoms, so there is no way I can make the math work with a happy outcome.

Last year, we reached an agreement of what would happen if he came down with covid after he arrived. He knew that he would be isolating in the basement in that unfortunate event, and would probably order food to the door. Now that I see how active he is, I know that would not have worked out to keep him home, but it would have had to be.

Now, this is a different story because he has covid BEFORE he gets on the plane. It’s the same permissiveness as last year to cross provinces without testing. The question has just become more complicated because he has a choice not to get on the plane, which seems different than if he didn’t know better. The other very real difference is that this time, my daughter will be home for the week. I feel like she is even more cautious than I am, and the spread to school, her dad, and less likely work (since I am the only one wearing a mask consistently), makes the decision exponentially complicated.

So, as much as it pains me, if he has the ability to change the flight, I would prefer it. So two questions remain: what if his ticket (as I would expect) is non-refundable? That’s a more difficult practical question. Probably that shouldn’t matter, but it has to be considered, to be fair. Secondly, when would he be safe to come? He did plan to come for 10 days, which gives some options to delay, theoretically.

The infectious control problem is that at day 7, 50 % of covid patients are still positive, which means that we are told to wear N95s until day 10 days, which means the first 7 days of his time here (all the days without his girlfriend) would be behind a mask and in the basement. 

So, much as it pains me, I wonder if he could postpone his trip to match Britany’s. I hate that I work 2/4 days and that my daughter is only with us for one. Does the math work? 27-28-29-30-1-2-3-4-5-6-7 October the 7th. Friday. The day after his girlfriend is supposed to come, and he was going to go off to tour Montreal on their own.

I’d better call him. I hope he has insurance!

SEASONAL INSPIRATION: AUTUMN COMFORT

The full moon rises from the horizon, an orange sentry with an eye on us below. The nights are cooler but the crickets keep playing their fiddles, a little slower, but with the same hopeful chirp. Geese honk in the nights, talking their way south. Sight unseen, we know their V formation. 

The natural world in our temperate climate slows down. Orion rises high in the sky.  The light is getting shorter, and the dark a little longer. There is more time for rest, clear skies with stars, and cooler weather making outdoor activities more comfortable. 

School settles in as students hit the rhythm of a new year. Our education spanned at least two decades schedules that start at the end of summer. Fall always seems exciting; signalling a new beginning. 

These are a few of the signs of fall. Notice them. Enjoy them. Slow your breathing in this season of colours. Go for a walk in the leaves. Play a game in the park with friends or family. Put the busy away, and start preparing for something.

Enjoy your health. Enjoy your connections with others. Enjoy time by yourself. 

Move, sleep, eat well, but not too much, hydrate. Create something. Try something new.

Fall is the perfect time to check in with yourself. If you are not feeling well, consider your options. Do something to support your mental, physical, and spiritual health. Keep doing what is working. 

Let fall be a new start. Make a plan, take a deep breath, and take the first step.

Be well.

HOW TO DO A CROSSWORD A DAY

 My grandma had a basket beside her lazy-boy chair that contained books of crossword puzzles, and in her younger years, knitting. I was always aware that she could finish crossword puzzles en masse, but when I would attempt them, I couldn’t. That is, not until google, but it’s hardly a fun exercise if you have to look up the majority of the clues, and it would take me a month to do the Saturday puzzle.

Recently on holiday, my dad brought some crossword puzzles that he found online from the LA Times. I couldn't make more than a small dent, but my brother could always finish them. This is the same brother I have always relied on to remember what I couldn't remember. This is also the same brother who has made up crossword puzzle and submitted them to the NY Times! (One day they will see the light and publish them).

So I found myself going over answers when others were going for a walk, or when meals were not yet started or done. My nephew, my brother's nephew had as similar motivation, and taught me to see things differently. While I can never finish a NY Times crossword, the LA Times one seemed much less formal, and often employed simple phrases and jargon in place of an obscure word. When I understood this, it got a little easier.

So my brother found a Washington Post website where I can do the LA Times Crossword everyday. It's maybe cheating a little (I learned from my brother that you are not allowed to look up answers) because it gives me black letters if I have it right and red ones if I have it wrong. So on days when I don't work, I take an average of 30 minutes to do a puzzle with my coffee. I think that Sunday is the easiest, and it gets harder all week long, culminating to the Saturday paper. I have taken over an hour for those.

So at least I have a chance of finishing the LA Times crossword. I kinda love the tricks they use to make you think it's one thing when it is actually another. I like when I just know the answer and I can use the down to make the across clue. But mostly, I liked doing it with my dad and brother and nephew. So I do it with them in spirit, and with my grandma. It's a family affair, that gets a little easier every puzzle. 

HOW TO USE A CIRCULAR SAW

This is great video for the first time user, or the occasional user that forgets in between! It’s from a channel called Handymom, and it’s worth watching, and rewatching before you use your circular saw for the first time, or again!

NORVAL MORRISSEAU

My daughter’s art teacher last year spent a lot of time on the artist Norval Morrisseau. Apparently they were friends, and I really love the end product of a turtle that my daughter painted and brought home at the end of the year.

Cleaning up for the new school year, she gave me the photocopied sheets that she had received this year. I still find it amazing how resistant many teachers are in this day and age of laptops in going paperless. The pages were at least double sided, and contained several of his incredible works of art, but in black and white. It was essentially a copy of the Wikipedia excerpt, with three paintings from the Canadian Art Institute webpage. A wasted ecological opportunity, and a washed out portrayal that is so easy to find online. So, here I am, late at night, poring over the topic, in a mostly futile effort to give the papers a second life before I recycle them. The subject of Norval and his artwork was worth the study.

According to Wikipedia, Norval Morrisseau was born Anishinaabe, on the Sand Point Ojibwe reserve in Ontario. It was an Anishinaabe tradition to be raised by maternal grandparents. His grandfather was a shaman, and his grandmother a devout Catholic. He went to residential school in the 1930s. Another Anishinaabe tradition was to be renamed when dying, to give new energy and save life. At age 19, a medicine-woman gave him the name Copper Thunderbird when he was very sick. He survived. This is the name, using Cree syllabics, with which he signed all his paintings.

He contracted TB, and was sent to a sanatorium in his 20s, where he met his wife, Harriet. They had seven children together. At age 40, he suffered serious burns in a hotel fire in Vancouver. The following year, he was arrested and imprisoned for « drunk and disorderly behaviour », where he was assigned an extra cell for an art studio.

In 1973, he was among a « group of seven: » artists that Daphne Odjig organized to meet in her home, where they founded the « Professional National Indian Artists Incorporation » in 1973, showing first as a group at the Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) called Treaty Numbers 23, 287, 117 (a collective of their nations treaty numbers). The group also included Jackson Beardy, Alex Janvier, Eddy Cobiness, Carl Ray, and Joe Sanchez (in Canada at the time to dodge the draft).

He was self-taught. His early work resembled the petroglyphs of the Great Lakes region, and gave rise to a style now referred to as Woodland. He was initially advised to stick to earth-tone colours by early advocate and anthropologist Selwyn Dewdney, but, fortunately, he evolved to his most recognizable style of colours that became brighter over time, with characteristic black outlines. His subject matter covered a variety of themes, from Christian to mystical, from erotic to political.

He was introduced to a Toronto art dealer who, remarkably did not drive, so he had to be driven by Morrisseau’s friend Susan Ross to see his work. He was commissioned for a mural at Expo 67 in the « Indians of Canada Pavilion ». He was made a member of the Order of Canada, and the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. He make cover art for Bruce Cockburn, and his exhibitions were international and included Rideau Hall and the McMichael. 

The later part of his life was spent with declining health from Parkinson’s disease, and in battles to keep fake and forgeries out of the market. He established the Norval Morrisseau Heritage Society in an attempt to compile a database in order to discredit forgeries. His estate continues this fight today.

After his death, a 2019 documentary « There Are No Fakes » came out on this subject, and Ontario Superior and Appeal court ruled that the Maslak-McLeod Gallery acted fraudulently in manufacturing and selling fake Morrisseau paintings.

Notable works:

Androgyny ?Rideau Hall

Artist and Shaman between Two Worlds ( National Gallery of Canada:NGC)

Observations of the Astral World (NGC)

Indian Jesus Christ

The Storyteller

Man Changing Into Thunderbird

I cannot speak to the authenticity of this website, but the video has a number of incredible works, and boasts a large number of authentic vs fake paintings that seem to have a ring of truth. Truly, his art is worth looking for. From the McGill Visible Storage gallery, to the National Gallery of Canada, his work may be nearby. Certainly, there are plenty of beautifully works as an armchair tourist. Keep a look out for poor imitations if you are shopping. If you are painting, try out his style, and see what you can do with the inspiration.

My favourite quote attributed to him, that would resonate with my Princess Pirate:

« My paintings only remind you that you're an Indian
Inside somewhere, we're all Indians.
So now when I befriend you, I'm trying to get the best Indian,
bring out the Indianness in you to make you think everything is sacred. »

TAKE THE LEAP ! PURPOSE LAB

Sonia Di Maulo called this course Take the Leap. Why? It came from a book she wrote, The Apple in the Orchard. It was endorsed by Ken Blanchard, who wrote:

"Opportunities for growth and learning are all around you - so take the leap, and grow!"

1. Cultivate your decision-making/guiding principles. 

GOAL: Ground ourselves in purpose and prosperity.

A tree with strong roots laughs at storms. Malay Proverb

2. Discover and embrace your superpowers.

We have all Via character strengths. 

They are from 6 virtues:

WISDOM - creativity, curiosity, judgement, love of learning, perspective

COURAGE - bravery, perserverance, honesty, zest

HUMANITY - love, kindness, social intelligence

JUSTICE - teamwork, fairness, leadership

TEMPERANCE - forgiveness, humility, prudence, self-regulation

TRANSENDANCE - appreciation of beauty/excellence, hope, gratitude, humour, spirituality

My top 5 are:

Fairness

Appreciation of Beauty/Excellence

Honesty

Kindness

Love of Learning

3. Explore your Ikigai (Passions and Purpose)

It's a guide, like a North Star, and incredible things start to fall into place. You naturally reframe your focus and energy; doors begin to open you didn't even know existed.  

It supports our one undeniable calling...to be ourselves. 

Your ikigai/purpose, once clear, become core to your essence, your being and your doing.

Understanding the ikigai helps us say yes to the right things and no to the wrong things.

David E. Marlow The Ikigai Guy (LinkedIn)

The visual of ikigai is a beautiful example of a Venn diagram. 

What do you love? What are you good at? What can you get paid for? What the world needs?

What is your passion (energy)? What is your mission (aim)? What is your profession (career)? What is your vocation (calling)?

Your ikigai is in the middle, connecting all these things.

"But there is no reliable shortcut to action. In fact, we may come to recognize that the conversation is the action. Growing in wisdom and compassion is the work. Every thing else is just testing stuff out."

Michelle Holliday

Leap from the comfortable to the uncomfortable.

4. Celebrate your Past and Present, and Ground your Future (Growth Model)

"It doesn't matter how slow you go, as long as you don't stop." Confucius

"Each person leaves a legacy -- a single, small piece of themselves, which makes richer each individual life and the collective life of humanity as a whole. " - John Nichols

Tell and share! Living fully every day! Take time to experience ourselves. What makes us happy? What brings us joy?

We are a constant ripple effect.

5. Breathe life in to your living legacy.

You don't become a legend by living in your comfort zone. Start writing your story.

Three parts:

- How you experience yourself, every minute, every hour, every day. 

- How people experience you every minute, every hour, every day. (Does it align with your guiding principles? Are you using your strengths in presenting your authentic self?)

- The benefits you are leaving for yourself and others when you are not there.

Don't worry if your first thought s not your best thought. Write them down anyways!

Yearly living legacy is a compass. It give you a heading. Write something, not necessarily that you think you can achieve, but inspires you, scares you, engages you.

Look for a focus point, not necessarily an end point. 

e.g.  Sonia's yearly legacy

2019 To help 100 people discover, create, embrace, and breathe life into their living legacies.

2020 To help 1000 people discover, create, embrace, and breathe life into their living legacies.

2021 Active 100,000 emerging leaders to discover, create, embrace and breath life into their living legacies by 2025.

Workbook: 

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Relevant

Time-bound

SMART 1 year living legacy

WRITE THE LIVING LEGACY YOU HAVE IN MIND (5 minutes)

I would like to eliminate the physical clutter around me, and make room and time to evaluate my guiding principles, powers, passions and purpose. I would like to have a house that has a place for everything, and space for another. I would like to have the readiness to spend available time with my daughter and friends, because I have an orderly life with some advance preparations. I would like to continue to have guarded precious time alone with myself, to ski, and hike, and read, and write, and dream. I would like to invest my money wisely in preparation of leaving my job in 5 years, and prepare my resume and 5 year plan to my next phase of life. I want to have my affairs in order so that my death would be planned to minimized the impact on my family when the time comes. I would like to continue to find a common ground with my daughter so that when I am gone, she has a living legacy to admire and follow, as she chooses.

Where do I want to end up on January 31, 2023? 

I will organize each room to have its own items with room to spare in the storage areas I already have (so no room to expand, only to contract) and only have 2 boxes of "craft project items" stored, with the rest recycled or given away or garbaged if need be. I would like to start reorganizing my garden with priority to prepare for next year's growing season, repair the shed and deck, and install a railing for my neighbour. I am enrolled and will participate in a mentorship year. I will update my CV and be ready to submit it to a I will finish my daughter's baby book and the year she was 15, and prepare for the year she was 16). 

Draw your map (vision board?)

Use your own language! "Certified Reinvention Practitioner" "Soul Doctor"

What is my dream? 

Financial freedom

Time to reflect

Healthy balanced life

Advocacy for others for the same

Who do I want to be?

Enough for myself

In community with others

Connected mother

Ready friend

 What do I need to do for myself?

Less stuff

More efficiency

Better habits

 What are my tools? 

Knowledge

Supportive friends

Some financial security

How can I monetize my skills?

Not sure

What is my attitude? 

Hopeful

Tends to the dark ( I blame melancholy but acknowledge it)

Tends to resist (I blame introversion but accept it)

What is my perspective? What are my convictions?

Who are my top five people? Who knows me, and supports me? Who are my "mastermind" group?

Adle, Cindy, Nathan, Holly, Aviva

First Published January 31st 2022

Finally finished August 31st 2022!

THE POWER OF HABIT BY CHARLES DUHIGG

 WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO IN LIFE AND BUSINESS

I read the book, The Power of Habit,  first by listening. I had borrowed the audiobook and there was too much richness in it to leave it there. So I borrowed the real thing, at first just to fill in the visuals that were missing, but as I started to reread, and place sticky markers, I realized I needed to process it a little more.

This year, the library has decided to join with others to do away with late fees. I think it will be mistake. I have never liked to owe the fees, but they were not painful in amount, and apparently they were more essential to my good behaviour than I thought. So I am one month overdue, which has never happened in my adult life before, and I am pretending like I have another month because those are the limits. Meanwhile, I received several email reminders and a personal phone call from Brigitte (which thankfully went to voicemail so that I didn’t have to explain myself), and today I have to end this cycle!

It is apropos, then, that this book is about new habits. The one reality the library has in its favour is that I suspect I cannot win a gift certificate for a local bookstore in the Summer Reads Bingo if I don’t give it back by tomorrow, so here are few thoughts I want to carry with me.

This is book of stories, and the skill of storyteller is evident. I had heard a few of these stories before. How the military stopped riot violence in Iraq by studying the pattern, and doing away with food vendors, basically dispersing an angry crowd before it moved to violence. How unfortunate brain accidents led to our understanding of how the brain was organized, identifying the basal ganglia as essential to habit, with anterograde memory is destroyed. How Michael Phelps swam to an Olympic record essentially blind when his goggles leaked. How Rosa Parks inspired the Montgomery bus boycott that was a turning point in the civil rights movement.

It explains the success of the Saddleback Church, how the law handles addiction, the success of Starbucks, online marketing algorithms, and a number of cautionary tales that vary from London Underground fires to inexcusable medical errors like amputating the wrong limb. It gives concrete steps to changing habits that could benefit us all.

This is the executive summary, kindly reviewed in the Appendix:

Habits can be changed, if we understand how they work.

Cues and rewards are not enough. Only when you start craving the reward will the routine be automatic.

At the core of every habit exists a loop consisting of three parts: a cue, a routine, and a reward. 

With every bad habit, you want to replace the routine with a better one. Simply put:

1. Identify the routine.

2. Experiment with rewards.

3. Isolate the cue.

4. Have a plan

We use our basal ganglia to maintain routines, so that we save our mental energy for more conscious tasks.  

We share this organ with fish, reptiles, and other mammals. It is central to recalling patterns and acting on them. It stores habits as an automatic routine called « chunking », which gets more efficient over time, and conserves mental energy for other tasks. Once our brain recognizes a cue, it triggers automatic mode and which habit to use. The more rewards for a particular behaviour, the more automatic that routine becomes.

When a habit emerges, the brain stops decision making and follows the efficient routine. Bad habits are efficient, but they can be replaced with equally efficient good habits 

We need to find our autopilots and change our behaviour from the unconscious cues that we make conscious for a time.

Experiments show that almost all habitual cues fit into one of the five categories:

Location (Where are you?)

Time (What time is it?)

Emotional State (How do you feel?)

Other people (Who else is around?)

Immediately preceding action (What action preceded the urge)

IN SUMMARY:

Our brain likes automatic behaviour. Bad habits can be changed to good habits by changing the habit loop. Make a new cue. Create a craving for something better. Reward the good behaviour. This is how transformation occurs.

Address an old habit by keeping the same cues and rewards and feed the craving by inserting a new routine.

AA 90 meetings in 90 days is arbitrary and Bill W was agnostic and hostile to religion for part of his life. However, AA works because it identifies the cues/triggers (AWARENESS TRAINING) with a « searching and fearless inventory of ourselves (consider Proust’s questionnaire) » and admitting them to others. Ulf Mueller showed that turning off neurological cravings was not enough to stop drinking habits. Alternate routines were necessary for dealing with stress. This is called a competing response. AA also practices faith, because to change a habit, you have to believe that it’s possible. A community helps change because you believe it others. Commitment to others and accountability helps. 

Planning for failure, and recognizing negative ideas helps.

The power of changing a keystone habit is that that it can create a chain reaction. 

Stories to read and tell:

How a major near Kufa, Iraq kept the peace by teaching habits to soldiers and studying past riots with a simple solution to prevent new ones.

How Henry Molaison (H. M) taught scientists and doctors at MIT how critical the hippocampus was to memory when he lost his in a neurosurgical operation in 1953 following his head injury intended to improve his life to stop him from multiple daily recurrent grand mal seizures

How Eugene Pauly (E. P.) taught researchers in San Diego about the subconscious brain after he suffered from memory loss following viral encephalitis

How Claude Hopkins sold toothpaste so successfully that he created our tooth brushing habit by harnessing a craving for clean teeth

How Procter and Gamble turned Febreze into a success by understanding that bad smells aren’t cues but a clean house is a reward

How coach Tony Dungy took the worst team in the NFL by creating new habits with players established on-field cues (The Golden Rule of Habit Change: Insert a new routine) or how The Bucs won the Super Bowl in 2002 (even if he wasn’t there)

How Bill Wilson fought alcohol addiction with a 12 step program (friends of Bill W) that attacks the habits at the core 

How Paul O’Neill (who later became Treasury Secretary) remade an aluminum manufacturers by focussing on one « Keystone habit « 

How Charles Schulz went from high school dropout to Starbucks top manager by using habit to strengthen willpower

How Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement changed the social habits of Montgomery, AL

How Rick Warren built the nation’s largest church in the US (while being an introvert!)

How ethics and law see addiction and sociopathy in the context of crime

STORYTELLING

 Of all the things I have the hardest time getting rid of from my daughter’s childhood, it’s the books. It’s not like they are in great shape, or that they have any monetary value. In fact, it’s so easy to get cheap books, and our library public sale gets cheaper every year.

It’s the stories that I want her to read. The magic of Sherazade’s tales as told by Disney. The rhythmic rhyme of the original Winnie-the-Pooh, so often dumbed down in the modern early readers. The heroic tales of kids stranded on an island who save themselves, or the inspiring women who did amazing things when the odds were stacked against them. 

Thomas King is my new favourite storyteller, and his 2003 CBC Massey Lectures, published as The Truth About Stories feeds an innate obsession with a human need for stories and storytelling. He says « The truth about stories is that that’s all we are. » He quotes Anishinabe writer Gerald Vizenor « You can’t understand the world without telling a story. There isn’t any center to the world but a story. »

The human brain seems to be set up for stories. I know that I have often wished for a brain that retains every word and fact perfectly, but what I do remember are the stories. I seek out podcasts by great storytellers, like Tim Hartford, Michael Lewis, Roman Mars, and Malcolm Gladwell. My daughter, who doesn’t read books as often as I did (we had fewer choices back in those days), gets some her stories from YouTube. She gravitates to the moralistic Dharma series, which is a little too neat for my liking, but I understand the draw for her, and it certainly has relevant talking points to discuss over the dinner table.

This summer, travelling in a van to visit friends and play tourist with my family in Saskatchewan , my parents were full of family stories, triggered by locations they knew people from, or memories that had been made away from home. My neighbour often tells me stories of her like, beginning with a laugh and the opener , « Oh, I haven’t told you that one ? » before she takes a breath and begins the story with delight. 

I love stories, and I respect a great one, but I respect even more that skill that a storyteller can have for telling it well.

Sometimes, I think I am a decent reporter of events, but I have never felt compelling in the art of storytelling. Thomas King is providing some clues in his book to his success, and P.D. James similarly breaks down the formula of the murder mystery in Talking about Detective Fiction (which is better than the very prosaic title suggests).

Each chapter/instalment/story begins with the same way, with a paragraph that repeats. It’s a great paragraph, and it’s a device that works. 

« There is a story I know. It’s about the earth and how it floats in space on the back of a turtle. I’ve heard this story many times, and each time someone tells the story, it changes. Sometimes the change is simply in the voice of the storyteller. Sometimes the change is in the details. Sometimes in the order of events. Other times it’s the dialogue or the response of the audience. But in all the telling of all the tellers, the world never leaves the turtle’s back. And the turtle never swims away. »

At the end of each chapter, he repeats the same four sentences, with a predictable change in a fifth. It is a benediction, an admonition, a challenge.

« Take [sic:this] story. It’s yours…Do with it what you will…But don’t say in the years to come that you would have lived your life differently if only you had heard this story. You’ve heard it now. »

He also says, « You’ll never believe what happened » is » always a good way to start a story ».

He describes his brother telling a story, « drawing out the details, repeating the good parts, making me wait ». 

He continues, « One of the tricks to storytelling is, never to tell everything at once, to make your audience wait, to keep everyone in suspense. »

Again, he contrasts, « Stories are wondrous things. And they are dangerous. »

Then he goes on to tell another creation story he calls Woman Who Fell From the Sky, and outlines the differences between it and the one I know so well from Genesis, and it’s interpretation from my « predominantly scientific, capitalistic, Judeo-Christian world governed by physical laws, economic imperatives, and spiritual precepts ».

In telling it, he takes a story and makes it sound dangerous, and then modifies it to be closer to the truth, but I enjoy the downgrade, because it’s fun. I enjoy the story, not because the story is so extraordinary, but the storytelling is. 

He interrupts his story to make a sarcastic commentary, in case I missed the obvious. But I am laughing, so I don’t feel he is dumbing it down for me, just that he want me to hear the point. 

My daughter would love this story, and I would love to tell it to her, but it won’t be the same. So I have to return the book to the library, and she may never read it, but I have to believe that the story I loved is now a part of me. That somehow, some part of the story will make it to her from me. So that she can see the magic in a story. So that she can see the danger in the story. So that she laugh at the story, and laugh at herself. 

Each chapter begins with the same paragraph. It’s a great paragraph, and it’s a device that works. 

« There is a story I know. It’s about the earth and how it floats in space on the back of a turtle. I’ve heard this story many times, and each time someone tells the story, it changes. Sometimes the change is simply in the voice of the storyteller. Sometimes the change is in the details. Sometimes in the order of events. Other times it’s the dialogue or the response of the audience. But in all the telling of all the tellers, the world never leaves the turtle’s back. And the turtle never swims away. »

At the end of each chapter, he repeats the same four sentences, with a predictable change in a fifth. It is a benediction, an admonition, a challenge.

« Take [sic:this] story. It’s yours…Do with it what you will…But don’t say in the years to come that you would have lived your life differently if only you had heard this story. You’ve heard it now. »

A great idea bears repeating. 

It’s what works for me. The story isn’t about an omniscient omnipresent potent creator god. It’s a series of blunders that we are capable of woven together as a warning and a truth. We come from complicated stories. We are complicated stories. That’s okay. In fact, it might just be the way things are. There is no fall from grace. No stain on humanity. There is acceptance, humour, pain, and grace.

The birth of a twins reflects the way I have been taught to believe to be an Asian look on life: zen, balance, yin and yang. There is a boy, light, right handed. There is a girl, dark, left handed. The right-handed twin smoothed mud into flat land. The left-handed twin stomped and piled the valleys and mountains. The right-handed twin fills strait trenches with water and organizes rivers to flow in both directions. The left-handed twin makes the rivers crooked, fills them with rocks, and lets them flow only in one direction, with waterfalls. The right-handed twin creates forest with trees all lined up, so you could go in and not get lost. The left-handed twin moves the trees around, so that some parts are dense and difficult and other parts open and easy. The right makes roses. The left makes thorns. The right makes summer. The left makes winter. The right, sunshine. The left, shadows. The right creates women, and the left creates men. (Until then, the story did not suit my feminist sensitivity to misogynistic norms, but the last move seems to even the playing field). The conclusion from telling to two stories in contrast leads back to his own personal stories as child. Although we love dichotomies, and « trust easy oppositions…we are suspicious of complexities, distrustful of contradictions, fearful of enigmas. ». It is clear, though, that these enigmas are everywhere. Maybe in them are more authentic stories than the ones we like to tell. 

Maybe at the base of our consciousness, we are all simplifying life to understand it, but a great story teller needs to do better than just making contrasts. As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explains in her TED talk The Danger of a Single Story , « The consequence of the single story is this: It robs people of dignity. It makes our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar ».

Very often, I end a work day buoyed up by the stories that I have heard, even when the rest of the job has taken almost all my energy. I consider myself a decent listener, and a better interviewer, but if I think about the stories I have heard, they are more powerful than most of the people telling them. Once in a while, though, I met a storyteller that could take any ordinary story and turn it into magic. That’s rare, and when it happens, I always wish I didn’t have a job that spurs me on to the next important task, because if I could, I would sit there the rest of the day and listen to them tell me more stories.

My goal is the achieve the grand strokes of telling a decent story that compels beyond the basics, without the crutch of a murder mystery (which I find abhorrent unlike many), but my dream would be to tell a story like the story tellers all around us; in every good book.

A great idea bears repeating. And a good story lives on. It changes you. It displaces a part of you. It transforms you. It creates a new you. Tell your stories to those you love. Write them down. Collect them. Share them. They are, after all, who we are

THANK GOODNESS FOR TIME, OR EVERYTHING WOULD HAPPEN AT ONCE

My teacher friend and occasional life coach taught me the strategy of goal setting to do 15%. There is no stopping you from doing more, but the idea is to overcome analysis paralysis and set a smaller achievable goal instead of the long list that a lot of us work from daily.

The proportion of life to writing feels similar, so, in both cases, it seems like it’s never enough. If I could work 1 day and write the rest, or have 1 social event and then the next 6 days off, my life balance would be perfect! As it stands, running 1 day in 7 leads to unnecessary stiffness and muscle pain, and should clearly be more regularly. But most of us can’t get away with those proportion, and have to deal with the inverse reality, with a lot less time to process and ponder and reminisce and write about the things that are meaningful to us in a day. 

So as I go to bed late, I feel led to frenetically list the things that I have heard and thought about and enjoyed and do not (but most certainly will) forget. I have only met one person that I am certain had an eidetic  memory, and I am still jealous. If I remembered it all, I don’t think I would feel so compelled to write it down. I feel like Alexander Hamilton, but do it less. He wrote a lot, but I suspect that even he didn’t feel like he could write it all down. I hear the songs in my head on and off all day, and things like “I imagine death so much it feels like a memory” resonate with me. 

The title is a paraphrase from Einstein. This much I understand about relativity!

I listen to a podcast funnelled to a Pushkin channel I adore called Cautionary Tales. The episode was about a volcano called Mount Tambour in Indonesia with such terrible losses that it sounds like the Apocalypse. The weather in Europe is terrible and the season in Switzerland where a group of storytellers get together and change gothic literature forever is called the “year with summer”. Without it, the idea of Frankenstein’s monster and Vampires would never have happened. In Canada in 1816, a similar effect was felt. Reading about the eruption led to Pompeii, and another volcano eruption that was more well known, but still pretty obscure, from  1883.  Yes, I just discovered that George’s lies about raising money for the brave Krakatoans was based on a real disaster, just not at all in context.

I learned that the Louisiana Purchase from the Spanish (ignoring the nations that already lived there) actually included portions in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan!

I feel grateful, in a pool full of young swimmers, that my daughter is such a good one. She can’t remember how to breath without using snorkel goggles all fogged up and hasn’t swum like a human for years, but she is a graceful fish, who spend the afternoon trying to perfect her splash, while and watched and barely recalled the years of worry when she couldn’t be trusted even with a bubble on her back to pitch headfirst and try to drown. 

I wondered at words recorded in the genealogy searches of celebs how a person actually died of “asthenia”, a word that google struggled to believe exists.

I watched a new series of the British Bake-Off and heard the German baked called a “Konditormeister” in praise of winning the honour of the week.

I read about the British “Home Children” experiences and recognized familiar abuse and unreasonable expectations of a group that had no one defending them. 

I read about the architecture of a house, now a real estate agency in Burlington that looked, with the rolling lawn in front, like the back of the White House, with its neoGrecian columns and familiar lamp.

I even refound a website called Alloprof with how to write an argumentative essay, in French,  and many others, with explanations of what is required. 

Meanwhile, our friends travel around the Gaspésie without ever really knowing where we went, but finding their own adventure. 

Even in Covid times, we don’t have enough time for ourselves, or others. The only way I had time to write these few words was to go to sleep way past my bedtime.