How Do We Get From Here to There?

It's always sad to hear of friends' marriage melt-downs. It should be beyond the power to shock; this is a modern world but it is, nonetheless shocking. They seemed so normal, so loving to each other, so attuned to each other's lives, supportive of each other's careers....etc. etc.
I'm old enough to remember Ann Landers' breakup. Jules had left her a note at the breakfast table. Basically it said: Dear Ann, found someone, gotta go. The guru of failing marriages had, herself, failed.
We start out so optimistic; so naïve and happy.

This is not the place to get all statistic-y; we all know them. But how is it that some of us are married forEVER? What is it about our relationships that is different? I know that we are not better, kinder, saintlier. If we're not, why do we deserve to be luckier?
My sister and I have long discussions; on one thing we are agreed. 'Love' is a ridiculously overworked, misused and misunderstood word. 'Loving someone to bits' is not the same thing as having 'love'. Being in love is an emotional state. Loving someone is an attitude. Love is a working term; it means all the things the Biblical verse says and that is not easy. However, as much as I have to suck up all my true-loves flaws, so does he suck mine up.
There are days when I am so weary of compromise that I think we're all whores....trading this for that. Is it worth it? Then there are the exciting moments when I glimpse this man from a new angle and my breath catches  in my throat and my legs go wobbly. The fact that we don't give up compromising is 'love', the other is 'in love'.
Do we give up on our marriages because we expect too much? Do we expect to be euphoric all the time? Is it misleading advertising?
Should a new spouse go about in fear of her/his marriage? When is it safe to bask in some security? Are we idiots to feel safe?
Luck, luck, luck. And stubbornness. Maybe.

If It Happened to Us.......

The Olympics are over; the fife and drum, the razzle and the dazzle, the furs and limos have moved on. For a moment the adrenalin is on pause; the recipients of shiny objects are 'basking in glory' and marketers everywhere are determining the long term value of their new commodities.
How can you tell I'm not a big fan? Medal winners make enormous amounts of money selling endorsements, hockey players make enormous amounts of money anyway, approximately one third of $50 billion (NO ONE can count that high in their lifetime) has been siphoned off in questionable fees? and still everyone went home happy.
There's the rub. Not everyone went home. The people of Russia have to pick up the tab and pick up they will....for a long, long time. Somehow, going in to the Olympics, the paying never seems as long as the coming out. Fifteen, twenty years down the road a lot of people will be sincerely pissed. Much like Ontarians with Hydro's debt reduction, or the good folk of Montreal and Expo. What about the Vancouverites? Well, there's a fair bit of money in that lovely city, you may say, but there is a fair bit of hardship in the parts of the province as well.
Not everyone went home. A certain little village has been all but destroyed. For the building of a shiny new highway and a glistening train, the people now have no local water supply. A middle aged man has lost his fig trees and can no longer sleep at night because of the noise. In Beijing, thousands were displaced so the city would look good.
But that's OK. As long as we are away from all of this, it's OK. Let other people suck up the sacrifices for the glitz that disguises itself as 'Games'.
How would you like to be in a bulldozer's path? How would you like to lose your water, your yard, your home? Please, please use your imaginations. About war most of us can do nothing, but about ego stroking, greed fueling, czar building......come on.

The Deep Magic

When I was a young mom, spring meant new runners, new splash outfits, new jeans...in short, a lot of unwanted and sometimes, hardship causing expense. It was not a time for deep reflection and there was no time for meditation. Just a lot of kids and sheddy dog and cat creatures with all the turmoil that goes along with that sort of life.
This is not a complaint; for the most part it was a good life - I liked my kids and they still like me. It was, however, a very busy life, and that may not be such a good thing. If you keep it up forever.
The last few years I've begun to notice the rhythms around me. It takes a few moments out of my day. It means I stop what I'm doing and look or listen. Sometimes I run to the door; other times I just need to look out of the window.

We live under a flight path of sorts, not sure what it's called and the geese don't care. They just ARE and have been for how long?


Northern Cardinal

 

This little guy sits on the top of the tallest tree in the neighbourhood announcing spring; his family has been doing this for years.
I find the goose migration absolutely moving, the cardinal perfectly charming. To think that this has been going on for millennia, that it will continue without any of us now alive on the whole planet is simply awesome. That is what awesome means....to be in awe of.
Perhaps it takes maturity to notice the deep rhythms, the immutable laws, the Lion's 'Deep Magic'. Perhaps it is a grandparently duty to point these things out to our grandchildren as it is their parents who are now leading the busy, busy lives.
Stop, look, listen is not only for intersections.

How Good are They Really?

I was at the beauty salon today, getting beautified and waiting for inspiration! (LOL)  I did walk out with two thoughts.

Could I live in the goldfishy-bowl existence of celebrities' lives? No. So, that was thought Number One.
Thought Number Two took a little more thinking, which is what I'm supposed to do, right?  It occurs to me that perhaps it isn't the skill so much as the amount of attention paid to the patron that really matters. The hairdresser who listens is valuable. The hairdresser who listens is more easily forgiven for cutting too much or scorching your ear than the one who chatters with her friend or worse yet, chatters about him/herself.
Is that true for everyone who touches us? I do mean physically.

The doctor, the dentist...anyone who handles any part of our bodies. Seeing that most of us aren't dentists, how do we determine 'good' or 'bad'? Most of us aren't diagnosticians either, so how do we know FOR A FACT that our doctor is
 'good' or 'bad'? Maybe, he/she just has a terrible bedside manner. Or, scarier, maybe he/she knows crap and could charm cobras!
It's easy to tell with accountants; either the tax man cometh or he doesn't. Same with a lawyer; it's either in jail or out.
Cashiers? Some may be fast and efficient, but don't you just hate it when a super-dooper young pair, barely legal to work, are having the time of their lives around your stuff and never even looking at you? Whose money is it, anyway? "Mine, mine," you want to shout, and maybe, be just a little bit graceless.
Skill vs. stroking.  Thinking about it makes me realize that I can be on the stroking side; not crabby to crabby service workers, smile at grumps, bite my tongue at the checkout and make nice to my true-love even when I don't want to!!!
 

How Many Baskets.......

I consider myself happily married. Yes, I do. I also consider myself very married which, I must confess, leads occasionally to a misleading degree of complacency. Take baskets, for example. My true-love mentioned he is desirous of one. This is a basket.

Full of goodies type basket


I have several other types in my "What kind of basket can my true-love bring me today?" mind.




Book storing basket



Well mannered and obedient pet holding basket

Alas and alack! This is not what my true-love meant at all! He wanted an inbasket. "An inbasket?" I cried. "Whatever for?"

"For in things." he said.

I was disbelieving. "You don't have anything to put into an inbasket. You don't print out your e-bills."

He got snarly. "Once, just once, I forgot."

"So the inbasket will help you remember." I confess I scoffed. I am a good scoffer. I put feeling and tone into my scoffing. It is not unrecognizable. At which point he yelled.

"Why can't you just say yes? Why do you always have to be in control?"

Why do people ask dumb questions ? "Uh, that's what controlling people do; they like to be in control."

My poor true-love. I promise to practise. "Yes dear, buy as many baskets as you like." By God, that first part is hard to say.



I have a Hero!

Now that all the sappiness of Valentine's Day is behind us I can tell you about my hero (really heroine but it just doesn't sound catchy as a title!). Here was a woman who knew how to love. She had 3 husbands, no divorces, just sad, sad deaths, but kept right on living and loving.

Cecile at 22

 This is my godmother; she was first widowed in her early 40's. Heart disease.  Then she met a man. He was still married so they lived in sin for awhile. Tut, tut! The Catholic Church AND the Anglican Church refused to marry them after the man's divorce became final. You would think that the churches would be all happy that a pair of middle-aged people had found love and happiness again and wanted to "make it right". You see, they were both old enough (and she was Catholic enough) that they really did feel they were indeed living "in sin". Hurrah for the United Church which blessed them and sent them on their way.
Poor Godmother...they were hardly married at all when he died.
Very sad but undaunted, she took up the business of living alone again. This time she took a lover! Naughty, naughty. But the lover proved to be a good, good idea. Because of the lover, she took Spanish lessons. Because of the lover, she went on cruises.  Because of the lover, she didn't become dried up and crusty. She was a vibrant, alive woman .....and then she met a man.
The man had been widowed for 3 weeks when he proposed. She laughed and sent him away. But not for long, just 6 months or so, and then at the age of 70  they married. Hurrah for love!
So, they were together for 20 years. One husband had built her a house, the second left her a great deal of money and the third helped her spend it. In the nicest possible way, of course. They travelled the world.
It took me the longest time to understand what I so admire. She was not always nice; in fact, in her old age she was selfish and manipulative. She was the kind of old lady who yelled insults in restaurants because she was so deaf she'd forgotten how to whisper. At the store, she piled strawberries onto her pint basket and sailed through the checkout even though everyone knew she had 2 pints worth! She was so ambivalent about children. She was childless but had mothered her second husband's. One day, she was so sad that she didn't have any and the next, so happy because all kids did was break your heart! Godmother, godmother....you didn't rest on your laurels and that is what I so admire. You just kept on going and doing. Forward looking, that's what you were. My hero. 

How is a Raven like a Writing Desk....

How is a raven like a writing desk or better yet, how are Blaise Pascal, Ingrid and cedar waxwings connected?
Think of it as a triangle ▲ with Blaise Pascal on top. He was the amazing mathematician who invented the first digital calculator, opened new fields of study in atmospheric pressure, hydraulics, projective geometry, probability theory, invented Paris' transit system and a ton more as well as becoming a philosopher of note. Right now I'm reading  'Pensees'; it is hard work but worthwhile. It is full of little brain jerk-awakers; they may not make me rich but keep me on my mental toes.

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

 On one of the other sides, there are cedar waxwings. They are cheery little birds which eat mainly berries, are very social and handsome . They are yellow and grey with little red markings on their wing tips. Their numbers are stable or even increasing due to the fruit trees homeowners are planting. Courting birds feed one another. A gang of them eat my ornamental crabapples nearly every day.

Mature cedar waxwing



 

Then there's me. On the last side of the triangle. (My hair colour which used to be Tacky Tucker blonde is now Waxwing Wannabe.)

M. Pascal theorizes that man is chronically unhappy because he/she lives either in the past, looking back to a perception of happiness or in the future, always planning on being happy and working toward that end. There is no happiness in the present because WE MISS IT. 
I love it because it's true! Busy, busy people even on vacation, always racing around on tours, shopping, dining and always, always connected somehow to something disruptive. There is hardly time to savour the moment.
This has been described variously as ecstasy, bliss, joy or just the moment.
At our age, we need to be way more conscious of this. Some of us don't have a lot of future in our future, and none of us have a guarantee that there will be any at all. Today, now is all we have.

So, M.Pascal has given me thought and I am his fan; the waxwings give me joy and I give them food; because of M. Pascal, I don't let the cats out when the birds are in my tree and the birds? Well, M.Pascal believed, so perhaps, wherever he is, the waxwings give him joy, too