Author: catchmydrift.blog

I've had a career as an elementary school teacher. During that time I wrote for newspapers and magazines. Writing is a part of my daily life: It's a way to understand my thoughts, reach out to the world, offer an opinion and record my passage. I take joy in words as other artists express themselves through dance, acting, sculpture or paint. A single word can evoke powerful visions. I see life as a celebration. Like all humans I am complex and curious even while some have called me conventional. I follow my father's belief that everything can be awesome, if you choose it to be. I'm a work in progress, just like this blog, now with 300 postings of thought and ideas. Social media, like pen palling or ham radio connections of yore, can be a positive way to build that great, vast realm that is human consciousness. Leave me a comment if you are so moved or Substack https://mrrobertthompson.substack.com/ or on Bluesky @wh0n0z.bsky.social

Re: Satisfaction

When do you feel satisfied? Some people are never satisfied. Wow! How terrible that must be. The only Rolling Stones song that I ever really liked was ‘Satisfaction’. It may be no accident that this song is the second most covered title in history. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrIPxlFzDi0

Can you live with a normal level of satisfaction? I used to feel content as a teen if two out of four aspects on my life score card were judged by me to be satisfying. School life? Check. Part time work? Check. Family? Not so much, grounded this week. Social life? Disabled due to previous aspect.
I got a natural high when all four entries on my life score were not just ticked but starred! If I let that level of feeling pleased with myself become noticeable, I would soon have hell to pay from my mom who would tell me to wipe that smug look off my face. “Pride cometh before a fall” she stated, leaving me realizing that my brief record of 4 checks on my life score card was now reduced to three. This quirky version of ‘Satisfaction’ seems appropriate to my angst filled teen years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jadvt7CbH1o

The kid in me feels dissatisfied when I can’t get my way. The adult has to intervene in such situations, hopefully before I cross my arms and stamp my feet. We like to get what we want, when and how we want it. But that selfish sentiment, over time and if our adult selves don’t speak up, can lead to a sense of entitlement. This unsatisfied sense and the sense of outrage, are two senses best muted for our own social development and the happiness of those around us. At some point we must learn that we can’t have everything. The world can only be our oyster until we find a foul one; if that makes any sense.

It’s true that when we lack satiation, we feel disappointment. I count myself lucky when I feel satiated. In my childhood, after Halloween night, it was never difficult for me to put away the candy, while my sister ate herself sick. I don’t relate this in a smug, or self-satisfied way, just as fact. Much later, when it was clear my sister was an alcoholic, I wondered if there was a connection between slowness to feel satiated and addiction. If you can’t get no satisfaction or if it doesn’t come quickly enough, do you double down and risk everything to find it?

Coming to grips with getting a satisfactory grade in school, being a satisfactory player on a team, having a satisfying relationship or satisfactorily accomplishing any task will help us to not feel down about life or about ourselves. We can sing the blues on occasion and then we must get up and move on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9NijFed0dI

Oh! But the times I have sung out my dissatisfaction, like this, in a long hot shower. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRve0Nh9_uE

Re: Relate

Learning how to relate to another person is tough. We can be advised to ‘walk a mile in their shoes’ or be asked the question; “How would you feel if they were you?” We have to be open to the idea that we are not the only person in the world. We must learn that others may have a different view yet still require our respect.

This learning about relationships takes time and can be distorted by conflicting messages or misguided influence. In my growing up time I learned early to question my mother and follow my father. These two dominant relatives were responsible for helping me decide the kind of person I wanted to be. I would often avoid my mom because of her inconsistencies. Her standard instruction to me was, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Whereas my father, man of few words, would lead by quiet example. I learned by watching his response to the world’s pressures.

It was easy to relate to my father. I watched what he stood for in life. He was good at relating aspects of his life journey through story. I adopted some of his philosophies of life into the pattern that was to become me. Relatively speaking I have found it easier to relate to one of my sons over the other two. It’s not a question of picking favourites. It has more to do with recognizing life style and the behavioural choices that go along with daily living. It’s also not about judgement, since my relationships with my sons requires a recognition of time and place factors. It may be easier to relate when a son is doing it my way (the familiar way) yet I’ve come to enjoy being introduced to other, equally satisfying, solutions to problems. I enjoy opportunities to update our relationship within current contexts so I can rediscover my sons. I hope I continue to be relatable to them.

My first wife instituted a bedtime prayer with our wee sons that ended with, “God Bless Mommy, Daddy and all our friends and relatives near and far away.” She was a fan of A.A. Milne and may have formed her opinions of the value of honouring friends and relatives from one of his books. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkr4E1Q1Dds

Relating to relatives isn’t easy. In-laws get the brunt of relationship jokes mainly because they lack history with us. Gatherings can quickly become shouting matches because, without a sufficiently long context, we have fewer ways to counter thoughts of ‘How can you think like that?’ or ‘You just don’t get me.’

There are ways we can make ourselves more relatable. Being consistent in our behaviour can be a start for people to recognize the patterns within us. Allowing someone else to know through our words that we have experienced some of the same life adventures can help open the door to a relationship. Until you hear the multitude of life stories you can’t really grasp the reality of all things being relative.

Re: Map

Through my grade school years I did my homework on a desk that had a world map on its top surface. Oh the dreaming I did, the places where I vowed I would travel, the adventures I would have while trekking from country to country.

Last week I was at a symphony concert when, to my amazement moments before the maestro was about to appear, a woman took a folding paper map out of her purse to show her friend where they were going next. I’m not the only one to whom paper maps matter. Indeed there are reports that cartographers are still in need to create that tangible passport to adventure.
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2019/jan/08/off-the-chart-the-big-comeback-of-paper-maps-stanfords-print-any-map?

My wife presented me with a small world atlas after I complained that the hotel we stayed at had a Bible in the bedside drawer, but no book of maps. A planner like me enjoys mapping things out before venturing into the great beyond. Maps provide a great visual for the places I’d still like to explore, if not in reality then at least in my imagination. That grand desk map of my youth gave me all I needed to picture a train trip across the vastness of the U.S.S.R. or a sailing adventure to the Galapagos Islands or an exploration of the icy realm of Antarctica.

These days, both Google Maps and GPS systems are helpful as long as the power is on and you can remain plugged in. I like to check a photo or video map on my device so I can have a virtual view of the area where I’m intending to visit. I get the sense of already being there (which mystics will tell you is 90% of the trip). My son once gifted me with a TomTom directional device for my car. It made some trips easier, however I wish the automated voice would congratulate me, just once, for making a correct turn.

Natural world maps have rivers, mountains or oceans for borders. I enjoyed teaching my students to use topographical maps and compasses while orienteering. They learned that their environment was filled with intersections. Places where fields become forest, land becomes water, hillside becomes pasture. These ecotones, riparian and littoral zones have an abundance of life, shelter and sources of food, yet danger may lurk. Travel in these areas is both rewarding and risky.

Political maps have borderlines. A country is conquered; draw a line. A region is colonized; draw a line. A government changes hands; consult (maybe), draw a line, build a wall even. When I’m crossing these borders I take satisfaction in feeling that I am stepping over an arbitrary margin. Line in the sand eh? Life at the edge eh?

All borders have intersection points. Any confluence can suggest both challenge and opportunity. My finger traces my route on that tactile paper map. I put my feet on the ground. And I go.

Re: Protocol

I’ve self declared that I’m a formal type fellow so I will also admit that I easily sense the importance of protocol. I need to have a system before I can proceed. I can adopt a protocol that is already there and I enjoy developing my own set of rules to fit the occasion. In politics I prefer a party or candidate with a platform that articulates a clear path. I like to volunteer for an organization that can fill me with confidence with their policies.

I had a woodworking phase in my life. I assembled hand-made picture frames and built original furniture items. Towards the end of this pastime I manufactured bookends. To weight the bookends I used various found objects, sometimes according to a buyer’s particular specifications, thereby creating unique pieces. This artistic ‘bookend period’ was back in the day when everyone I knew had a bookshelf in their home. My dream home still has one room (Library? Den? Study? Conservatory?)that has a full wall of books on display. My most requested bookends were made of mining drill cores. It was a mass-produced gift for family and friends one Christmas. I arranged one side to have a neatly stacked grouping, on the other I glued broken cores arranged all higgledy-piggledy. My statement was that between life’s bookends there is Order and Chaos.

Protocol is designed to maintain order and reduce risk. Protocol suggests consistency through proven success. I can’t imagine enjoying an air flight without the confidence of knowing that the crew follows an exacting procedure. There are protocols in medicine that must be followed for good health; the simplest being, “Wash your hands”. Adjustments have to be made in any system and are certainly required if something within the system breaks down. Normally if protocols are tried and true, their value lies in efficiency. Along with that, a good protocol provides a feeling of security. However, all protocols must be used with underlying compassion. Without kindness in the mix, rules can crush. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLUZ0Nv7UH4

If protocols break down, confidence flags, confusion and chaos follows. When we no longer count on the protocols we have become used to, then the doors open to pirates, snake-oil pedlars, and other multitudinous conmen. Today we use the word Disrupter in place of my grandmother’s word; Conman. This person, usually male, or corporation, comes into your life for one purpose: To persuade you to buy something. I’m convinced that Trump’s legacy is to be the character in the warning fairytale for our future generation’s bedtime story. Trump is the shyster of our age and he may be used as the very definition of Chaos.

This is not to say that randomness is not important, even welcomed! The great Charles Darwin recognized it was critical for the survival of the species, any species. Yet a measure of consistency is critical for short or longterm protocols. We can accept randomness, even plan for it, as long as the benefits we’ve learned and earned aren’t disregarded.

The basic meal of life comes first, then variety adds the spice.

Re: Infinity

One of my favourite concepts is infinity. I used to tease my students with the notion that if we had a chance to travel in a straight line in space, we would never stop and we would never encounter a wall. In relation to time, infinity means forever. In regard to space, infinity is limitless. Scientists have tried to calculate the beginning of time and space. Referring to this moment as the Big Bang, they have concluded that the Universe (as close a synonym for infinity as I can imagine) was created almost 14 billion years ago. Every year, during this lesson, one of my students would tease me back by asking; “What came before the Universe?”

Because infinity is so incomprehensible we prefer to think in a finite way. Sorting things into boxes brings us a sense of order. Scheduling things on a calendar or in a day-timer app on our cell phones gives us a feeling that when we start something it will have a predictable finish. Thinking in a finite way reduces randomness and gives us the illusion of control. How else are we to comprehend the vastness of time and space if we don’t create within it, a structure?

In relationships we may romanticize the idea that a special union, like a marriage, can last at least as ‘long as ye both shall live’. ‘Forever and Ever’ is how we may conclude a prayer in the security of believing that some things never end. Organized religion and other power structures have helped us to feel calmer about the shortness of our individual lives in relation to the infinite expanse of time and space. We are encouraged to think that our spirits will live on and our earth will last for future generations. However, we all know that someday our bodies will cease to support and transport our essence. There is no practical way, save for Cryogenics, to extend our body’s natural life span. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bedford

The Metis flag is an infinity character on a blue background, symbolically suggesting that a people lasts forever. Indigenous people have an oral history that indicates reverence for the natural and lasting world. Currently, in Canada and elsewhere, aboriginal tribes have gathered to protest against political structures that don’t recognize the sacredness of Earth. When I was a child summer seemed to last forever. I felt secure that water would always flow clean and the land would always grow stuff. I worry that I, along with my white ancestors, have messed up the planet so badly that my grandchildren will inherit an environmental apocalypse.

We are about to begin a new calendar year. We will talk for a while about new possibilities or a fresh start. We may encourage our young folk to believe that their lives contain infinite opportunities. I’m hoping that I will do more than wishful thinking. I am an idealist at heart. Perhaps I’m hopeful in a similar fashion as a grade two student who once said she liked me, “Infinity plus one.”

Re: Tease

When I was a kid I thought Christmas Eve was such a tease. My mom would mention that times had been financially hard and that we mustn’t expect much under the tree. As an adult, I came to the conclusion that this was her way of reducing expectations so that when Christmas morning arrived we would all be awestruck that Santa had somehow pulled off one of his miracles. I think my mom’s approach to Christmas morning gift giving was the reason I often developed a stomach ache on December 24th.

This example also taught me about the larger pattern in my mom’s behaviour towards others: set them up with what seemed like the truth, orchestrate a reversal, say you were just having fun, accuse them of not being able to take a joke. Sadly, she lost many friends using this strategy of social engagement, including her own daughter.

My mom was a natural born teaser, yet she hated the comedy of Don Rickles; a man who made a career from taking the mickey out of people.

His use of mockery and ridicule at an audience member’s expense disturbed me. While I recognize that many people think teasing is all in good sport, my experience with my mom, taught me that teasing someone, like in any sport, produces winners and losers. Maybe my mom thought that teasing me early would give me character, or thicken my skin. I would say it made me shy with people. A former girlfriend, early in our relationship, said she wouldn’t ‘joke with me’ until she knew me better. A pretty accurate comment, I felt at the time, since teasing can bore into your heart if you don’t ‘get the joke’.

Teasing was not promoted as a form of humour when I became a father. My wife and I agreed that making fun of someone would not be something we modelled to our sons. She was a fibre artist and was very practised at teasing out particles from animal fur. For example, raw sheep wool, even after it has been washed, has much debris embedded in the fibre. Deft fingers are required to remove tiny seeds or vegetable filaments. Bits of straw, dung, dead insects and such can be picked from the fleece using a carder. A hand carder has many rows of fine metal spikes. A carding machine looks like an instrument of torture. When the fibre has been processed in this way, you can roll a clean roving that can be spun into yarn.

Christmas is a time of yarns. Sometimes we have to tease apart the truth from the stories before we can spin the best yarns. I guess in this sense finding the truth requires some teasing. Perhaps that’s what we do when we are poking fun; trying to provoke a reaction that will tell us something more about the person who is the butt of our joke.

Life can be messy, especially when we aren’t sure how to separate the drama from the comedy.

Re: Memory

My first thought when I think of this word is the song Memory from the hit Broadway musical Cats. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-L6rEm0rnY
I haven’t seen the staged play, yet the song haunts. I feel a yearning upon hearing the opening chords. The words in the verses take me on tangents as I relate them to moments in my life. I wonder if the tug of emotion comes from my own memories and the sentimentality that comes from travelling to my past. Christmas with all its familiarities makes it easy to stroll down memory lane. There are musical triggers, baking triggers, alcohol triggers, shopping triggers; all can lead you down a dark alley. Thank goodness for fairy lights to guide us safely home again!

The busy activity of holiday preparation acts to keep us cheerful. We can’t help but anticipate joyful reunions. Yet the temporal reality can get us feeling a bit maudlin can’t it? Some days seem so short that it feels like the sun has hardly made any effort to rise. On those occasions I have a struggle getting out of my bathrobe; morning coffee turns to breakfast, early lunch, supper feels right at 4pm and gosh it is night again. It’s easy to retreat to the comfort of bed, wishing some happy memory replays through REM sleep.

My memory confounds me. Sometimes while working on a crossword I’ll remember an answer from a clue, baffling myself as to how I could possibly recall something so obscure. Later I might forget where I set down my glasses. I dread the thought that dementia may come calling as I advance in years, erasing some of the memories that I cherish.

Yet sometimes there is joy in rediscovery.
As a youngster I was gripped by the brief television series about amnesia called Coronet Blue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghkOAZjNFEU
Other films like Groundhog Day and Fifty First Dates have captured memory loss in a humorous way. Currently I chuckle at the JIF peanut butter ads. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjnM7PWQ-YE

Memory connects us to time. We take selfies with our mind’s eye every single second. Some shots are quickly discarded, some become blurred with time, while the best of the best are kept safe, like that Kodak or Polaroid snap from our youth. We bring these memories out when we need reminding of how much we have to be thankful for. The Christmas of 2006 contains some of my fondest remembrances: I had just retired from a career in teaching, extended family gathered for one last big hurrah at the homestead, stories of past and present were blended with hopes for the future.

I’ve just read an excellent biography of Buffy Saint Marie by Andrea Warner emphasizing Buffy ‘The Philosopher’. The author allows us to listen as this talented song writer and activist crystallizes her memories down to two personal keys of life: Gratitude and Wonder.

Your memoir, created from words and experiences only you know, awaits publication.

Re: Woke

Perhaps it’s my need for light at this time of year that makes me feel hyper-vigilant. I joke that I’m afraid of the dark and that has a certain memory of childhood truth to it. I really appreciate the observance by many to string lights around their buildings since it makes it more easily enjoyable for me to get out for a nighttime ramble. In our community we have an annual lighted truck parade that helps to celebrate the light. The swift moving caravan of dozens of vehicles honks its way throughout our streets, piercing the darkness and our eardrums while making crowds of people smile. https://www.ieoa.ca/

The African American word Woke comes to mind and is useful to me as I come to understand our requirement to be alert to life. I feel that being awake to the world around us is a responsibility of citizens. The poet, Ivan Brooks Sr. starts his piece ‘Reasons I Woke Up’: I woke up very happy/This joy isn’t for me alone/But for nearly everybody/Who calls this world home. https://hellopoetry.com/words/woke/

The joy of being Woke is energizing. I love those mornings when I can rise confidently from slumber and just know in my heart that it is going to be a good day. At times like that a song comes easily to my lips, as this one from the film The Sound of Music.

Lit is another word that can be used to express awareness to the joys that life may bring if we are paying attention. I’ve never felt the need to take drugs to get Lit, but I’ve been known to get a buzz from a happy-hour drink or two. When I am Lit I am also Woke to all possibilities. The world is out there for me to explore and I wish to bring it! I suspect that the Three Wise Men of myth and legend woke one morning and got lit by a passionate desire to seek the reason for the star in the West. My favourite carol as a child was We Three Kings. I could picture their quest easily: Three souls, all wise, yet still they searched. They rode with gravitas, perhaps hoping that their gifts would be enough for what they imagined they would behold.

Being Woke or Lit can prove that you are alive. Someone once said: “If Death comes a knocking just hope he finds you living.” We are often in a wakeful, yet numbed state. What a pity, since soon enough our days of consciousness will end. To be alive is to be fully awake, with our light shining brightly, clearing away the darkness. We must be wise to ourselves. We must look for the wisdom, the wakefulness of others who might act as our guides.
We can be turned on, only after we have tuned in.

Re: Carols

It’s that time of year for Christmas music. The jing-a-ling loop heard in stores and on most radio station playlists may make people get Ebenezer Scrooge grumpy or it may start their yuletide engines. I usually like the first few weeks of this sound and then I start wishing that the season would just hurry itself along. A pun is called for: I’m a Bad-Humming Bug!

For convenience I call all christmasy songs Carols. I’ve sung many Christmas hymns in church choirs and once joined a regional choir that performed favourites in a Holiday Extravaganza! During my elementary teaching days, I even wrote an original song for a play written and performed by my whip-smart fifth graders: “…Don’t be a grump/Get off the couch and don’t be a lump/Share your feelings/Share your life/It all comes true on Christmas night!” The play was way better than my song but a deal was a deal.

I had a short term relationship one Christmas holiday. Her name was Carol. I didn’t tease her. Maybe that was the reason it ended before the new year. In general maybe that is why many people don’t like songs about Christmas; because it reminds them of past loves, broken promises, expectations about presents or turkey dinners gone terribly, horribly bad. Some Carols can certainly stick in your mind. Likely because of the constant airtime during December, one tune or another will bore its way into your head. Earworm is such an appropriate word isn’t it?

That critter can often get lodged in my brain deeply enough that I can find myself belting out Baby It’s Cold Outside while enjoying a hot shower in February, half expecting to be joined by Will Ferrell’s Elf. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7RMy7Vg0LU
This duet is one of my favourites in the Christmas songbook. I find it to be playfully seductive but some have criticized its lyrics as being inappropriate as we examine what it means to be sexually active in a #metoo atmosphere. This version by Idina Menzel & Michael Bublé from a few years back, featuring child actors, may cause outrage; but it’s so cute!

Still another version of this song that came from a GLEE episode. It appears light hearted yet at the time it aired on television the context seemed so groundbreaking.

Quite a while ago, when my tenor voice was reasonably under control, I got paid to sing for a Worthy Matron of the Order of the Eastern Star. Her choice was The Christmas Song.

Its long sustained notes and lower register were a challenge for me but I pulled it off. Afterwards, one gentleman in the audience sought me out. With a tear in his eye, he told me that my performance reminded him of a fellow soldier who sang this very song at dockside while he and his buddies were boarding transport to return to Canada after WWII.

Some carols never leave us.

Re: Principle

In grade school I remember being taught how to distinguish between the words principle and principal as a spelling lesson. Your school principal, presumably, was your ‘pal’. The other word was never clearly defined. Like so many things that one comes to learn, the use of the word Principle and its practical applications, depended on my gathering experience.

I remember being advised early on that to be ‘a man of principle’ was something to work towards. My mother would note when I was being ‘too wishy washy’ and suggest that I select a priority and ‘stick to it’. My father would provide examples of principled behaviour by focussing on completing a task before starting another. Coaches would intone that, ‘winning wasn’t everything’ and you must show good sportsmanship above all else. Teachers would insist on adherence to the principles of hard work, determination and following your dream.

My formal education regularly consisted of studying examples of individuals who never gave up no matter how hard the challenge. I was taught to show admiration for these achievers from history: The explorers who set forth to map our globe. The generals who vanquished the enemy. The politicians who created great nations. The scientists who unlocked the mysteries of our physical world. The artists who challenged our perceptions. The philosophers who provided the keys to help us understand ourselves.

It was only as I matured that I realized many of these men and women of principle had personal flaws. It was a jolt to my psyche to find out they were drinkers, womanizers, gamblers, racists, or just people with terrible party manners. Norman Bethune, as one example, has been revered as a man who followed his principles of justice, peace & unity for humanity. His personal life however was a shambles of sexual affairs, rude social scenes and arrogant social discourse. The authors of the biography ‘Phoenix’ suggest that Dr. Bethune’s ‘black sheep’ persona was politically manipulated on his death to create a ‘white knight’ iconography.

“It’s the Principle of the thing” is something I’ve often said or thought as I have waded into an argument. I’ve found that sticking exclusively to a principle can restrict my ability to listen effectively and yet I still feel the need to ‘stick to my guns’; which is a violently dramatic and threatening representation of what being rigid with principles might lead one to.

One of my favourite principled individuals of modern times is Noam Chomsky. He’s one of few people who dare to venture into the land of principles/morals/values these days. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-OEEC5FpJ0

When I listen to the wisdom of his words I feel anchored by the truth. I saw this request from his wife Valeria on my Twitter feed and will pass it on: 
@johannhari101 -It’s Noam Chomsky’s 90th birthday soon (Dec 7). I’m helping his wife, Valeria, gather tributes to him for a birthday book. If Chomsky’s work has affected you, pls write a message addressed to him explaining how & send to chasingthescream@gmail.com