Incident Distraction Reaction

We’re spending our day without thinking and then an incident occurs. It could be a child that has fallen off his bicycle and now has gravel in his knee. Or it could be the closing of the department where you have worked for sixteen years. 

Incident Distraction Reaction

Incidents have a way of happening. You’re not expecting them. For the most part. Because we all like our lives to float along without the gods of disaster noticing us.  

If we just continue to do our thing the cake that’s halfway through baking for the first order for your new birthday cake business, would not be a problem. You’d simply turn off the oven and get your gravelly kneed child to Emergency. But that is not how we humans are designed. 

Depending on how the rest of our life is performing, we might grab that son-who’s-just-like-his-crazy-father and scream at his dirt covered face because we are afraid of how much worse it could have been. Or you might raise your zen-like self off your yoga mat and speak in a soft comforting voice. (I'm only guessing that more likely, you’re somewhere in-between.)

Because we’re distracted in the life we’re floating through, don’t forget. We might be busy, but it's our boat, our life, we even believe that we are in control.

Courtesy Pixabay - Ben-Kerckx

Our days are planned, we have a checklist and we’re determined to plug right through. There are things to be accomplished at home, at work, for your aging parents or for your sister who’s finally admitted that her daughter is an addict. When and how can you get your stuff done if you now have to spend two hours in an Emergency waiting room? You get a chance for a reaction.

Whom are you going to call for help?

Then as it turns out, it’s a slow day for accidents and your son realizes that this incident could garner him some ice-cream on the way home and is seen by a Doc almost immediately. And then it's up to you what your reaction will be.

Death - Touched by His Uncomplicated Life

Fair warning, this post is about death. I hope that you will stick with me though because it is a story that we don't often tell.

A better place, passed away, the other side, we call death so many things. None of them, however, can take away the sting. We are afraid of the Unknown, and death is in my thinking the Ultimate Unknown. We avoid discussing it when we have the ability to do so, we live our lives behaving that we and our loved ones will be the exception.

I drive by a funeral home each day. The signs asking drivers to slow down and be respectful are placed at intervals. I wonder how many people driving by even notice the words. Sometimes the parking lot is empty, often enough it is not. A sprinkling of mourners and sometimes overflowing. Who is it, I wonder. Thank you for your contribution to this world. I hope you did little harm.

We have just recently heard of a trio of climbers who were swept away by an avalanche. They did not carry avalanche beacons/transceivers, they knew that in the event of being buried that they had little chance of being saved. How hollow would the words "they died doing what they loved" echo for their loved ones?

There are those who live to flirt with the line facing their death. But have they made peace with the days they have lived?

The other day someone was killed crossing a street going home from work not far from where I live. He carried a backpack that was torn from his body, perhaps it held the remnants of his uneaten lunch or something he found that day to show his children. He probably wasn't expecting his life to end steps away from his front door.

We are frequently reminded at the swiftness of life by folks like Humble the Poet. Death is just one moment away he often says. We hear it, we see it around us, but does it change the way we live?

Don't cry because it's over.

  Smile because it happened.

Dr. Seuss

DJW in stripes circa 1952

Today, I write about someone who was not known by more than a handful of people in his lifetime. His circle was small. He died last week. He had never read a book and was plagued with poor health. All he ever wanted was a decent cup of coffee. I wrote about him previously as the man of few possessions.

The Doors We Walk Through - Retirement Memories

on my retirement...

Have you ever thought about how many doors you walk through?

Doors that open to your future and doors you slam behind you. Doors that bring great promise and others best left untouched.

Tomorrow, I walk through a new door. A door that allowed me to create a safe haven when life was not going well, a door that gave me the means to build a life that I wanted.

Within those many doors, I met the most dedicated and diligent people. Folks who gave more with their patience and belief that they could inspire. Many held their lives together by threads as they too went through the unimaginable. And yet they continued to show up each day and be the best that they could be. They often offered to others what they themselves did not receive.

So it is with some bittersweet memories that I walk through my door tomorrow, as I hang up a career and hand it off to those who can be responsible to honour the promise we all made at some point to ourselves. Our futures are untold, but we can make a difference. I believe it and I hope that you do too.

Do you know that feeling of forgetting what was distinctly clear a minute ago? A word at the tip of your tongue? Something sort of important you wanted to share with a family member? Then, poof, it vanishes! They say that walking back through a doorway can help you remember.

As I face my doorway tomorrow, I have re-lived the many others I have walked through during my career. I have suddenly recalled long-forgotten incidents and heard the laughter of working late nights and eating pizza at our desks. Of fumbled new protocols and crashing websites that held us hostage for hours. Of small things that seemed so drastic then eventually waned in importance. Silly things, big changes, chilling hours, all marched along, lined up, then disappeared.

I will hold on to the smiles, the sharing, and hope that some of my words created an idea in someone. Believe in a good world but question when you doubt. Stay strong, with practice it gets easier. Work hard for your dream, you are the only one who can do it.

Make each day count.

Walking through a doorway to retirement. (Tweet This)

Each doorway you walk through brings you life. (Tweet This)

Limited Vision

Limited Vision Vancouver BC

What do we see? Can we trust our Limited Vision? What's behind the corner?

I've had the good fortune of attending two creative adventures in the last few weeks. One was a writing conference, When Words Collide, which brought writers of all flavours to read, learn, teach and share their tips of our common love of words.

One of the presenters I had was confused over the breakdown of her technology, another laughed through the same occurence. One had an attitude "that needed a bigger stage" and turned me off completely. Yet, I am aware that he also had many fans there.

As we traversed between buildings, found short-cuts for finding the hidden elevators, we learned to store details of what we all need in our life. Security, comfort, commonality. A strange bunch we surely were, from the Mom-down-the-street to the downright eccentric. From the participant who looked like he walked right out of a detective novel, to the undercover cop who was awaiting his first book on the shelves. We were different from each other in our experiences and knowledge but we found our way to get along. We had to look beyond.

False Creek, Vancouver BC

My second, ongoing creative burst has come from an online course with Sarah Selecky. Sarah's Six Weeks, Six Senses program has pushed me to investigate my word juices 
to put together one story 
each week based on the assigned Sense.

It started with Sight, surprisingly that story came to me quickly. The photos provided each week are a starting point not an end in itself, a similar experience to what we encounter each week in our lives. But as we've moved through each lesson, it has become progressively more difficult (for me). 

How would you put a tennis ball, a tenement building and a (sad) girl wearing an ornate necklace in one story? When you read the other participant's submissions, you can't help but see what different eyes we look with, as all the stories were personal and unique. One focuses on the necklace, another on the tenement building. We each brought our own experiences into our story.

Which brings me back to Limited Vision.

Both my creative adventures were further confirmation for me that we see the world through our own story. Through Limited Vision. We see the hitch-hiker at the side of the highway as a lost soul, a thief, a youth on his own adventure. We see a sports gathering as a pain in the backside, an opportunity to network, a chance to give away our troubles for a few hours.

Every moment, of every day, we are exposed to a variety of choices of what we "see". And then we decide - do we expand or do we hide? 

We are different from each other, and we have to look beyond. (Tweet This)

When we see something, do we expand or hide? (Tweet This)

Don't Fence Me In

We had already been warned that the temperature was going to soar by the afternoon. Like many, the heat is not my favourite walking condition so off I went earlier than I usually do.

When you walk early while many in the rest of the world are still pajama-clad, you get to be in the silence. Even the few cars going by seemed hushed and in no particular rush.

So many things to get done, so many reasons not to. Little do I know that there are others up-and-about with the same idea.

As I'm walking anonymously down a main street, all of a sudden I see a face peering over my right shoulder. Eight feet up. Over the fence. Yikes!

He tells me that he aims to "take down this fence today before it falls down as it's been leaning for a week now". I don't tell him that I had just about jumped out of my running shoes.

Don't Fence Me In

As I recover and continue around the corner, I see these flowers poking through the fence. How often do we fence ourselves in, I think to myself. How daring of these flowers to see what's on the other side!

I hear the small bark of a small dog. He is being walked by his owner who is pulling her oxygen tank. They both walk slowly but they keep moving. I wonder what effort it must have taken to get her out this early morning. The dog's name is Max.

Then there is an ancient fellow, balancing two big bags of cans and bottles on his bicycle handlebars. He is well equipped with leather gloves and a plasticized apron. Good Morning! he says as he pedals away.

I pause at the intersection that has no cars, out of habit I guess. I sense a whizzing, as a woman wearing a blue helmet driving her electric scooter races past me. Her purple jacket and hood flowing behind her. I can only imagine how fast she must have travelled in her younger days.

And as I reach home as the sun bears down its heat on me, I am still picturing the flowers and the folks I met today who made it to the other side of the fence.

Keep looking for what's on the other side of the fence. (Tweet This)

What will you do today to break down your fence? (Tweet This)

Keep Reaching for the Arrow

Courtesy Pixabay - WolfgangGerth

This post is a book review of The Last Arrow, sharing my thoughts as they might be of benefit to you on this day.

This book reached me as books sometimes do, when we need a little nudge, or perhaps a push to "keep going". You too might be struggling with dedicating your time and efforts to your goals as they might seem almost impossible. It's difficult sometimes for us to see the end result when we don't seem to be moving ahead, not even one little step each day.

Erwin Raphael McManus speaks of those days. He reminds us that each action we take does lead us to new learning, which makes us a bit of a different person at the end of that day. In that moment, we might not be able to see the value of learning a small specific task. (Have you ever felt the joy with editing a photo, or creating a new recipe?) But somewhere down the road, that little piece of knowledge pushes us to our next new thing.

McManus' words are heavily reliant on a reader's familiarity of the Bible. But I do not suggest that you shy away from it if you are religiously biased in any manner. His encouraging and motivating words are concrete, you will not doubt his sincerity.

The words continuously convey the necessity of finding your people, your tribe. The people who will support you and you them, and the impact of our lives on each other. "..we are all connected and our choices are never only our own. They affect everyone around us and also have an effect on those yet to come."

Learning the Summer Time Sway

As I sit at this vantage point of experience I wonder where else my path will take me. When you reach a certain age we can not stare down the fact that time is marching on. And so is our Summer.

We can do our best to out-pace our peers in the swimming pool, or on the running path. We can continue to stand on our heads and bend in ways that even we ourselves could not have fathomed not long ago.

Summer Time Sway - Ethel circa 1915

But nevertheless, we look down on our scars, see white hairs appearing, lines defining the choices we've made written on our faces. In my mind I am young and oh-so wise but at the end of the day, sometimes I am tired.

I yearn for those days when I had insurmountable energy and could fill my calendar from early to late, grab a tea and a sandwich in the late afternoon and would never consider a nap. My body needs a snooze some days now, but somehow I never cultivated the skill to close my eyes and drop into the motion of doing nothing. Swaying unconcerned as if in a hammock on a warm summer's day.

Is this why we get a vacation? To consider, to stop, to just be. I've reached the half-way point of my summer break. I feel the tide pulling me back to the rest of my life. Torturing me with tasks undone, incomplete projects, scraps of paper with plans scattered on my desk.

I yell loudly in my inside voice. Leave me alone.

Let me listen to the birds chirping frantically while they find a lonely puddle, hear the distant hum of a lawn mower propelled by an adolescent chore list, and the familiar (although gratingly annoying) sound of an ice-cream truck coming up the hill to my home. Let me savour it all.

Life is still teaching me to sway.

Allow me to immerse in the second half of my vacation, as we should in the second half of our lives. Growing and learning, of course. But also basking, nodding, swaying in appreciation for what we have experienced and accumulated in our hearts with those who have graced our lives.

With special thanks to family and dear friends (over coffee, on a patio, by phone and via Skype) who have shared their precious summer time with me. You have enriched my life.

And now on to the second half.

Have you given yourself the gift of the Summer Time Sway? (Tweet This)

Learning the Summer Time Sway with what fills our hearts. (Tweet This)

Sit in this Moment of Disappearing Time

Sit in this Moment of Disappearing Time

We can sit on the mountain top, we can hide in the forest. We can splash in the waters, we can dance with the breeze.

We can be on a stage, we can sit in a corner, we can be unknown to others or friendly only with ourselves.

We can write volumes of best sellers, paint pictures in the dark.

We can be buried in sadness, or shine on magazine covers.              

We can do many different things, while we are strangers to each other, drop pennies in a box, or fly on the wings of a dove.

Each morning rises to meet our demands, but what we do with it, no one else commands. (Tweet This)

We each get to do what each of us does. And that's why we get to leave behind pieces of us.

It is up to us.

And then we just Follow The Sun for one more time.

How do we sit in this moment of disappearing time? (Tweet This)

As Xavier Rudd asks in these beautiful lyrics, how do you "cherish this moment, cherish this breath"?

We're All Missing Something

We're All Missing Something

When I picked up these numbers at a garage sale many years ago, little did I know how much conversation it would trigger.

Folks coming into my office have had such interesting responses:

• where did you get them? At a garage sale, I think they were house numbers when house numbers were cut in wood.
• hey! the 3's missing. Yes, that's exactly the point
• I love the colour! It was very popular in the 50s and 60s. I had a bath tub in this colour in the first house I bought.
• a little one who was proud that she could add up all the numbers. Bravo, now that's thinking!
• why do you have it there? Because it's a daily reminder to me.

What do these numbers mean to you?

I see their awkward balancing act and each time it reminds me of a missing piece, the gap in all of us. The way we do our best to stand up straight.

In the stories we tell ourselves based on our memory of things past, in how we halt our own growth, in how we put limits on our courage, in our patterns of fear, in why our dreams seem just outside our reach.

Sometimes that missing 3 feels as large as an ocean, a huge leap, that we learn to ignore. Until one day when we just don't see it anymore.

Why bother? we think to ourselves. This is just the way I am. (Tweet This)

We can learn to ignore most gaps, until the pain gets too much. Until the day arrives when we are brave enough to question, what are we missing? And then that 3 can be the most magnificent thing of your life. The day that you realize that YOU can fill in the gap.

I had a colleague who remarked on these numbers each time he entered my space. He laughed about the missing 3, he moved the numbers around when he was feeling playful. He sat silently and nodded as he stared at the 1-2-4-5. And on his last day with us, he told me this...

I understand, he said. Thanks for the reminder that we're all missing something. 

We are all missing something. What are you prepared to do about it? (Tweet This)

Search in the Mirror

...Sometimes the world seems against you

The journey may leave a scar

But scars can heal and reveal just

Where you are.
(from I am Moana) 

Search in the Mirror

We search in the mirror each day. We look for physical changes as time goes on. How often do we pause and reflect on the changes within?

The end of a school year. A farewell of sorts to those moving on, sometimes with sadness, at times with reverence for what they've taught us. Or at least what they were supposed to teach us.

Teams ending, teams starting up. New jobs. Retirement. Travels. Unemployment. Loneliness. Unknowing.

How does each person effect the other? Testing our integrity, our compassion, our growth. What are we willing to give up for recognition, moving up the ladder, security, politeness? Oh, how we resent these lessons. 

We would more easily pack a bag and run away than sit in the pain of learning. (Tweet This)

How quickly do we recognize what these valuable (although possibly dominating/aggravating/hurtful/negative) people bring to our lives? We are annoyed that we constantly have to accommodate, we don't always have the strength to step out with grace...quietly.

Yes, if we are fortunate we meet people who see the world as we do, who stand in the same beliefs. And that is always a relief, kindred souls tested on the same battlefield. We can turn to each other to talk it out over a coffee and a walk.

But they are rare, as time goes on. We cover up, we mask. We do it well. How many people do you know that you would bare your tender heart to?

Do we recognize our lessons in the moment? Do we only learn in retrospect? (Tweet This)

Some day do we say, ahh! I fell for it again! I let that kind of personality get under my skin...again.

Or, I admire her resilience. His courage in tackling new things is inspiring.

Which way do we tend to lean?

As Life sends us on our next journey...let us ask the question most important for our tomorrow - What is this experience teaching me about myself? 

The answers are within.

The call isn’t out there at all, it’s inside me. Moana 

Walking the Habit

You see the same people week after week. And you hear their stories or you make them up. (Tweet This)

You see the handsome man with an older dog. You see them each winter’s morning. He acknowledging you with a tip of his head, you recognizing them at a distance. Whose ritual was it, you wonder. Man or dog. It was a long way around the lake. And then one day you see him alone and the next time too. And you want to say, sorry about your dog, you must miss him. But you wonder if that is too forward. Because what story has he made up about you when he passes? That you walk too fast and are always alone? Must have no friends?

You see people in funny combinations, are they out on a first date? You’ve done the same thing to see if this man can keep up with you and hold your attention for 6 kilometres. You see one of them turn to the other, but the other’s eyes never stray from the walking path or looking for an escape. Did their online profiles identify who they really are or was it all fabrication? Will you ever see them together again?

Walking the Habit

She is usually wearing pink, her hair is  substantial, blonde messy. You wonder if she has  just stepped out of bed and wound that big floral   scarf around her neck as an afterthought. You never really notice the man with her. He is secondary. All year long she wears pink. What does her closet look like?

There’s a big man, he walks like someone who has lost a great deal of weight recently. Like his knees hurt with every step but still you see him with one new walking companion after another each week and he doesn’t give up. When Spring finally arrived he had removed his long inappropriate coat and my, he had lost so much weight. He was almost slim, although he still walked with uncomfortable knees. Does it hurt badly? you think as you cross each other.

You see the children grow, they start off unstable on their new bikes, they fall behind their older siblings. And then one day, they make it up the entire hill without stopping or whining. They begin to recognize you too, and they wave their little hands when you go by. And you think to yourself, please put your hands back on your handlebars I don’t want to see you fall.

You think about the elderly man you used to see walking slowly and saying his prayers. He used to put his hands together and bow and quietly say Namaste, but you haven’t seen him in so long.

The fast runners go by, you cannot catch their conversations. What a shame. Some call “hello” and “good evening” when it is only 8am, just to make you laugh. Some are constantly recovering from another injury. They have been known to laugh and whine too.

The cycling teams fly by. They look pretty fit and have great thighs when you see them at a certain angle. And you think, ah 40 years ago I would have fallen for those legs. I know they are practising for some event, but they definitely miss out on overhearing the passing conversations or notice the gal dressed in pink.

All this happens before 10am on a Sunday morning. It is a good way to start the day. Then you continue your habit and go have a cheap cup of coffee at McDonalds.

The stories you hear when you walk. (Tweet This)

Do only writers notice the stories that walk by? (Tweet This) 

Habit = Glenmore Reservoir, South West Calgary

Box of Favourite Toys

It was a box, just a box. It held nothing that meant anything to me but were the treasures held for decades by someone who used to be close to me. How did I get possession of this box, you ask?

Box of Favourite Toys

A life time ago, I was young and in love. Those feelings I eventually gave away too. But the owner of this box kept adding to it with the loss of each female relative. And then decades passed, these “jewels” were eventually left to me, and ended up with assorted other bits of history that had no story. Glassy, audacious, sparkly, set in garish ornate, old-fashioned brooches and hat-pins. They sat in the equally absurd bronze stained wooden box at the back of my closet, ignored.

The more I’ve read however of cleaning out our loved one’s closets made me consider my own mortality. How could I leave all this stuff for my own children to sift through? How could I leave them with all my junk, incomplete projects, scribbles in notebooks, scraps of fabric and this box of jewelry. How would they know what was important to me and not just filling up my spaces, preventing me from discovering myself. (Tweet This)

You might think, ohmygoodness, but she’s old, surely she should know who she is by now? But guess what, you are ALWAYS learning and growing. I am not the person I was last year, or last week. I have learned and lost and shared and grown some more. And in that passage of time, I’ve discovered that “things” have lesser meaning, because I will leave this world alone without any of my favourite toys. And those who know me best will get to choose which leftover piece of my heart has any value to them. (Tweet This)

And that is why, I have worn the (less!) ugly brooches on my jean jacket, or taken some apart to hang on a chain, have used another to decorate a gift, and given many away. The monetary value might be a little or a lot, I do not know. 

But I like to think that each trinket will arrive on the doorstop of someone who will appreciate its uniqueness. And the story they tell of how it reached them is really none of my business.

Because we all leave this world alone without any of our favourite toys. (Tweet This)