Re: Art

Re: Elder

My wife and I are in the midst of eldercare. Her mother is nearing 95 and needs attention. She is partially blind (can’t read print or signs, sees shadows and outlines). We are working with community services to build her a life worth preserving while sheltering her in our own home. We are not noble, just practical. We want what we think is best for her. We feel she has deserved a respectful conclusion after a life of care to others.

I placed my own elderly mother in a nursing care facility almost a decade ago. My sister and I concluded that we couldn’t meet her special needs. She was an elder who was difficult to serve. Of the three locations where she received government old age long term care, the last publicly funded centre was up to the task. She had five good years in a former hospital in British Columbia before she died of natural causes. After her death I was shocked to discover that a Nursing Home in Pickering, where she had previously been in residence, was discovered to have the most Covid deaths within Ontario.

Many cultures honour their seniors. The culture of caring for elders seems like a distant tradition for white folk. We tend to stick them somewhere and invite them over for holidays; but only if they promise to behave. Wealthy elders can afford nursing care in higher end Retirement Homes. Many may be supported, like my mother was, within a patchy arrangement of government funding. Often these old folks homes are dependent on staffing. The inequities between standards of eldercare surfaced with the recent pandemic. In Canada we have a federal Minister of State for Seniors but the office appears to have minimal influence.

Elders are people first so they can be cranky or angelic in spurts. I’ve known many people older than me, whom I have loved to think of as my friends. I’m growing old now too and can better appreciate the toll longevity can take on a person’s physical and emotional well being. I don’t like to feel pushed into believing that 70 is the new 50. That puts pressure on me to live up to a standard. Like most spirited elders I feel 17 and always will enjoy sensing that I am young at heart. I’m not turning into a fossil or becoming an old fogey in attitude. On my best days, I’d like to believe that I am eldering: growing old with grace.

My wife’s mother appears happy to be in our company. She jokes how it is better than being turned out to pasture or left to float away on an ice floe. Our village on Vancouver Island has a community centre for the elderly called ‘New Horizons’. I like the encouraging sound of that, since I rebel at the thought I might be at the end of things. We old folk continue to need opportunities for stimulation, restoration, even growth. I’ve a lot to learn & my special mom has a lot of wisdom still to give.

Re: Sex

I never had a birds and the bees discussion with my father, perhaps consequently I was averse to having ‘the talk’ with my three sons. To even write about sex makes my typing fingers go all jittery. Thank goodness for auto correct while I try to navigate the politically incorrect. I may be timid about the topic of sex but I champion its inclusion in classrooms.

Currently North Americans are getting all hot and bothered about how sexuality, sexual orientation, sexual preference, and sexual identity can be taught in schools. Children’s rights are being trampled as we claw at each other over who is the responsible distributor of sex information. When it comes to sex curricula we all share the book, even though there is no single definitive volume on the subject. Parents, teachers, administrators, politicians are all probably a bit shy when it comes right down to how to approach sex.

We rarely open up about our sexual body parts. In the art world, some dare to showcase those things that are obvious whenever we step from the shower. The penis rarely gets talked about or even seen unless it’s associated with a crime scene. It is taboo in film to show a penis unless it’s a rubber one. I remember seeing an ad for a bunch of male performers who would play with their organs like a puppet (originated in Australia called Puppetry of the Penis, I never went, too embarrassed, but very curious in an innocent way). I’ve been to a performance of Vagina Monologues and remember being stunned by the bravery of the cast to talk about such intimate things. As a lover of language, I am amused by the variety of descriptions for our sex bits: A hot dog bun, a mussel, an acorn, a mushroom, a zucchini, a kiwi. Funny how we use items in the grocery store to help define what lies unexposed in our underwear. The pseudonyms for penis and vagina, even breasts, can fill a book or at least the length of a comic’s stand-up routine. Over sexualizing our body parts is part of the communication problem. An abundance of puritanical privacy and secrecy makes any issue of sexuality ripe for problematic intercourse or discourse.

Sex is an activity, an orientation, an identity or a bad word depending who is doing the talking

Much of what I thought I learned as a child about sexiness came from Playboy magazines that my friend and I would find in our apartment building’s basement storage lockers. We’d show each other pictures, giggling nervously while wondering if we’d get caught. When I taught students of that same age in sexual health classes, I was professional enough to engage them seriously. Many parents sat in on my tutorials, telling me how discussion continued with their children after going home. The recent British television drama Sex Education does an excellent job breaking down stereotypes and common misconceptions.

Conquering our bashfulness will be a first step toward talking to each other about who we are meant to be.

Re: Peace

The first thought that comes to my mind when I read the word Peace is Mahatma Gandhi, then John Lennon. Both of these distinguished fellows died by a fanatic’s hand. While Gandhi perished before I was born, his writings and perception have been a large part of my life. The notion of passive resistance is integrated into my philosophy and my behaviour. Likewise Lennon eschewed violence and in his own way contributed to the resurrection of peaceful civil disobedience as a powerful form of protest. His music lives on as a guide to what might be. He and others in the peace movement of that time invited us all to Imagine.

I used to feel lucky that I didn’t have to experience a global war. I was being naive really because there were serious conflicts between peoples of the world in each of the decades of my existence. I think I looked at those of my parent’s generation as having survived WWII as an accomplishment, yet something that had happened back then; a burden I didn’t have to shoulder. I’ve never had to go to war as a soldier. That is not true for millions of people. Now there is no denying, regardless of what bafflegab you use, that world peace is in jeopardy. The ill conceived tragedy that was Vietnam transformed into Afghanistan which has bled into the invasion of Ukraine. Now, as the daily death toll in the Israel/Palestine region mounts, who in the wide world of empathy can say they are not affected by the turmoil unleashed when rigid sides are taken in the name of Property, Religion or Nationalism. We can all say we are at war so long as we see peace as being unrealistic. The label Soldier or Citizen will not protect you.

My father used Calm as an effective form of protest whenever his world turned upside down. My mother viewed this manner as Detachment but I grew to learn that my dad was a very empathetic soul. He was a Peacenik before the term was coined. He taught me that outward emotion could sometimes cloud an issue or interfere with peacemaking. In a perfect world people like my dad would be called upon to suggest remedies to conflict at an idolized United Nations type forum. Instituted in 1945, the UN has yet to live up to its potential for peacekeeping although it is not without trying. As a young boy I thought I’d like to wear a blue beret and join others in a peaceful pursuit of global harmony (while passing out cold bottles of cola of course). The current UN Secretary General António Guterres is being sincere when he directs us to have a global perspective.

Peace activists are often ridiculed for not knowing the whole story, or looking at the world through rose coloured glasses. We are told to ‘pick a side’ or ‘be on the right side of history’. As long as we inhabit a Me/You world it is hard to talk about Us.

There now! I’ve said my peace.

Re: Menu

I have an aversion to menus. My feeling is not pathological, but some people might want to declare that I’m nuts after reading this blog page entry. In the book of phobias (there probably is one) fear of menus comes closest to Decidophobia: The irrational fear of making a decision. Anyway, I resent being called irrational.

I don’t like Drive-Thru restaurants but the other day I had a craving for KFC. My wife encouraged me to have the bucket handed to me through the car window. I nervously complied. But first I had to contend with an eight foot tall menu printed with more types of fried chicken than I thought existed. The voice on the speaker asked what I wanted. I froze. The voice asked again and I blurted out that I wanted a ten piece bucket, original recipe. I breathed while my bride coached me to be calm. The voice said, “It’ll be mostly dark meat.” I mumbled something about ‘I hope it’s not all drumsticks’ as I considered the logistics of aborting this mission. “Drive to the window,” commanded the tinny speaker voice. I meekly obeyed.

Confusion over, I merged with the highway stream of traffic. My wife cradled the warm container of ready-to-eat chicken in her lap as I concentrated on the job of driving home safely. I tried to laugh at myself about being rattled but it wasn’t the first time I’ve expressed a reluctance to deal with the ordinary task of ordering from a menu. I’m nervous enough, while on a date, to ask my partner to order for me. The big overhead boards at fast food restaurants are the worst, especially when I don’t have my glasses on. The food choices are arranged in weird categories too; like Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner and then you have Combo Meals or even Vegetarian. At a table service restaurant I get stressed by the multi-folded plasticized menu maps, like those offered at the diner in the award winning Canadian television series ‘Schitts Creek’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvRACORcR_I

The origin of word Menu is French for ‘detailed list’ and the Latin for ‘very small’. I prefer simplicity when it comes to menu choices. If it is beef stew I don’t need to know the details of how the beef was raised/braised or that there were three kinds of potatoes hand peeled and marinated in organic vegetable stock. A dining out option is a time to treat my guests to the social aspect of breaking bread, not to go overboard about the type of flour that might have been used for the loaf.

A large amount of choice brings me stress. If someone asks me where I like to eat out, I say I don’t. My preference being to look in my own refrigerator and picking something with minimal preparation time. That way I can spend more of my leisure writing reflections like this one. My writing program has a drop down menu of only six headings; That’s not scary at all!

Re: Think

Some might tell you they’re thinking all the time. I believe them. I get lost in my thoughts regularly, in a daydreamy sense. If someone asks me what I think I’m very flattered because I feel my view of the world is just as significant as the other guy. I don’t very often come to conclusions with my thinking, at least not in the sense that mine are better than yours. It’s the variety of thoughts that can spin off to holy shit moments that intrigue me enough to ask myself, “Where did that come from?”

Formal education helped me to organize my thinking. I’ve no doubt that significant teachers pointed the way to help me understand my world. When a teacher responded to my hand in the air, I felt empowered to share what was on my mind. The words Thank and Think are nicely related that way since I feel grateful for my ability to think through a problem or be thoughtful about another person’s situation. I sometimes wonder where the thoughts come from that link us as a human race.

My wife has convinced me that all creatures have ideas about their environment. Just because we have trouble communicating with other living things doesn’t mean they aren’t thinking about what they might do next. Some evidence shows that trees (aided by fungi) form an underground network of signals for food sourcing and defence. I believe in a collective consciousness: That mysterious force that delivers inspiration, insight and direction. I don’t believe that it comes from a divine source, as an answer to a prayer, but more likely from an unknowable cloud of electrical transmissions.

We humans have an electric field even when we don’t have our thinking cap on. There are billions of us on this planet continually discharging energy. We are a collection of charged particles bouncing about in a sea of chemicals. We might be called Sparkles in an alternative universe. In that sense I might wish to call a grandchild Ethereal in recognition of our lightness of being. This collection of atoms that is us, by any other name, is sweet and remains after we die. I can easily think that these motes, atoms, ions and microscopic bits constitute what some call a soul. So I wonder where the soul goes, when I cease to be Robert.

It’s tempting for me to suggest that these specks of me will become thoughts after I am gone. After all, what else will be left of me, except that which is discovered in someone else’s thinking. My grandkids might think of their grandpa when they are in the midst of story time at school. Likewise, someone reading these words might think of a living soul they haven’t seen in a while or recollect thoughts of an ancestor long dead but still alive in this manner of thinking.

I can’t be alone to think on the meaning behind 13.7+ billion years of stardust. I’ll be careful the next time I rub my eyes. Who’d a thunk it?

Re: Retire

I’ve been retired from a career in teaching for seventeen years. I’m not tired of it. Back in 2006 I had reached the magic formula that gave me a full pension so I embraced the moment to call it quits. I told my friends, family, students, whoever would listen. During one of my last recess duties a six year old came up to me with her friends in tow. “You’re not going to be a teacher anymore?” asked one kid. I nodded. “I told you he’s retarded.” stated another little scamp. I reminded them all that the R word wasn’t polite and that I would be retired after Christmas. “See!” one student shouted as they scattered through the playground. I still miss the children, but not the job.

I wonder what the word retire really means. After a working life in education, I took a job with my wife in joint resident management of a condominium. During those five years in a new community I also did a lot of volunteering. I wasn’t as idle as the designation of Retired might suggest. I wasn’t even technically a senior citizen yet. I had relocated, reconnected, reestablished, renewed, reconsidered and revamped my life. Those labels don’t appear on drop down menus from online surveys of employment status. My life didn’t end when I halted my career. Some of my most active years were still ahead.

Workers are being slammed/shamed by some employers these days for being selective about how they see work after Covid19. There is a workers’ revolution underway and it’s about a quality labour environment. Union membership is on the rise again as a reflection of employees wanting a greater stake in their workplace choices. Consideration of preservation and equality of retirement benefits is part of the negotiation demands. We are currently living in an age of record profits for companies and share holders and yet workers, who create the wealth, are being scorned for wanting better employment conditions. Labour must be honoured.

Life long learning is a banner slogan and a quest that I take seriously. It used to be that some folk might be called ‘retiring’ in attitude or behaviour. I’m not someone who is reticent about revealing my feelings. I consider myself to be an introvert in general, yet I will never retire from standing up for a just cause. Education is key to my continuing to feel that I have a place in my community and my society. Right now I am doing lots of reading; a great activity during one’s retirement years!

There were times during my full time working days when I wanted to sing out and declare to my boss ‘Take this Job and Shove it!’. When I was on the countdown to my last day of teaching I cut out a large ad from a local furniture store; Don’t Pay Until 2006. I pinned the reminder to my cork board behind my desk. Children in my classroom may have had trouble with the concept of being retired, but I sure didn’t.

Re: Kill

In exploring my world through individual words, I’m often surprised when I come across a word that I haven’t examined in this blog. Kill is part of everyone’s vocabulary yet it’s one of those basement words that we might leave boxed up, unattended.

Maybe our fascination with killing comes packaged in our minds with the broader mystery of death. In the art world, we can love murder mysteries, film noir is fascinating and slasher movies are popular for date nights amongst teenagers. We are repulsed but intrigued by serial killers; we want to know details, the reasons behind the murder. When I hear an ambulance I’m curious if the siren stops close to our neighbourhood. If there is an accident on the highway, we rubber neck to see if there’s been some road kill. The dark side of our imagination isn’t pleasant. Yet it is present. Stephen King is a popular author for reasons beyond his skill with words.

I’ve known one person in my life who has gone to prison because he killed someone in a bar fight. This fellow was a run-of-the-mill boyhood friend. It’s curious to me why authority figures want to convince us that murderers are all insane. That’s usually the approach taken to try to dismiss the incessant gun play and resulting carnage that goes on in the United States. Some cases just don’t fit the madman stereotype. I’ve read of mercy killings for example, and have considered the more frequent accidental deaths involving highway collisions. I don’t believe that the Alberta truck driver who missed a stop sign causing the death of many members of the Humboldt Broncos can be called a crazed killer.

When we want to avoid the word Kill we invent a substitute like Slay, Slaughter, Smoke, Terminate, Disappear, Blow Away, Liquidate, Crush, Bump Off or Hit. Wordlessly, a mafia gangster might signal a death sentence with a kiss. Likewise, someone who wants you gone might make a slashing movement across his throat to show evil intent, even if he is ‘only joking’. Professionally, a director could yell “Cut!” while making a fierce chopping motion to signal her desire to kill the action in a scene.

We can’t fool ourselves by thinking normal God Fearing Folk don’t kill when it says in the Bible that there is a time for it. Our spoken word endorses the emotion behind the thought: “I’m going to kill you!” (we might cry out in rage). “We killed them!” (we might declare after a sporting victory). “I’m going to kill it!” (we boast after cramming for an exam). “He’s killing me softly…” (we might sigh/sing while bringing news of a lover to a friend). We feel proud when we kill two birds efficiently using only one stone. Hunters still find it necessary to pose while smiling beside their dead prey.

I try to avoid using the K word but I don’t want to be a killjoy when it comes to encouraging reflection. Words colour our perception of the world; it’s ignorance that kills.

Re: Create

Yes, I believe we are created in god’s image. Yet, I do not believe in God. I prefer to attend closely to another soul for proof of the act of creation. How that soul came into being I cannot fathom. How I came to be on this earth, I cannot comprehend. Yet I know for certain that we are all miracles of creation. That is a fact found in our DNA; each strand of which carries the markers of our uniqueness.

We as humans are constructed out of Big Bang stuff. As recipients of this creative matter and energy we are destined to travel a creative path. The best teachers do not indoctrinate or inculcate. As a teacher I thought of all of my students as singers, dancers and artists waiting to find the right tools and skills to enable their creative force within to show itself. Budding scientists, athletes, orators, change agents and titans of business sat in the desks of my classrooms. Each child will tell you their dreams of destiny. Each child will be confident in their ability to make something. Each child will be convinced they are a marvel, unless they are told they are not.

Children must never be deflected from their creative urges. I could be a strict parent in my time but I would not stand in my sons’ way when it came to them testing their creative aspirations (even if their music was definitely too loud). One of my favourite creators, the songwriter Harry Chapin, sang a poignant song (Flowers are Red) about a stifled creative urge. Here he is with entertainer John Davidson showcasing how ideas can spring up from daily experiences. Then this gem of a moment in music happened. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qrbNygL0YU

The film, ‘The Fabelmans’ fictionalizes Steven Spielberg’s youth. This famous director was lucky, in a way, to have had the right magical dose of encouragement from various sources, not to mention an ingrained natural talent. The patriarch of the family perpetually thought of his son’s movie fascination as a hobby, while his mom revelled in his exploration of self. As I watched I wondered about my own parents, trying to guess who encouraged me to colour outside of the lines.

At the dawn of creation a spark was placed in all of us. Lucky are those who are born into the perfect environment to thrive. Most of us struggle for simple recognition of our innate creativity. Without a rudimentary acknowledgement of our gifts we begin to think less of ourselves, creatively or otherwise. Obviously, we are not all going to be famous artists. Gaining fame is not the point of creative pursuits, be they hobbies, pastimes or even professions. My father’s greatest talent was creating an atmosphere for making others feel appreciated: He made them feel gifted.

If God exists, I’m convinced he/she/they didn’t make junk. We have the genetics capable of creations of our own design. It’s paramount that we encourage ourselves and others to live up to that example.

Re: Get

“You can’t always get what you want…” A Rolling Stones song can be a philosophical code for living a life of satisfaction. I once had a great conversation with a friend about getting it: The it being life’s meaning. We both agreed that what you got, when you thought about life, was directly proportional to how much you thought about your existence. Most days I get why I’m here, existentially speaking.

The word Get has a lot of use for its size. This small word is used without much thought because it makes the sentence flow. Consider that you might be told to get stuffed, get it together, get cracking, get a room, get a life, get going, get real, get over it, get lost or ‘just try to get along already!’ Get suggests a direction as well as a directive. Sometimes we get anxious about getting there. Other times we long to get back to where we once belonged. We save money for a get-a-way so that we can get together or because we must get off the hamster wheel. I often wonder if we get what we deserve.

When I was a kid we were encouraged to recite what we got for our birthdays. After Christmas the question, “What did you get?” rang through the classrooms. As we emptied our halloween containers we would spread our fingers through the loot hoping to find those candies that we wanted most to get. Thinking back now, I wonder if this desire to acquire was a step towards indoctrinating us kids into the consumer world. After all, a capitalist society is predicated on getting stuff.

As 2020 dawned the exclamation, “You’ll never guess what I got!” gained a morbid new meaning: I was among the many who got Covid19. As advised, I had gotten all the shots to try and prevent it but the virus found me anyway proving I was not as immune as I thought I was, and that vaccinations probably kept me from dying like the seven million global souls.

One of my pet peeves surfaces while I’m in a fast food restaurant. A customer will look at the menu board and state more than ask, ‘Can I get…?’ which sounds rude to me. The annoying part of me wants to turn around and ask if their mother taught them the ‘Please may I have…’ sentence starter. What I’m getting at is the same kind of feeling when someone non-accepts a thank you by saying, ‘Not a Problem.’ Oh well, we are what we are. At this part of the blog I’m thinking of Judy Blue Eyes: It’s getting to the point where I’m no fun anymore. I am sorry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZGeU83K6Do

Harmonies by Crosby, Stills and Nash are at the blissful end of the vocal spectrum whereas a hillbilly yelling “Git”might be at the opposite pole. Language is forever fluid. I love it when I can capture the right word at the right time. It’s a Gotcha moment.

Re: Tax

“This job is taxing me.” My mom used to say that I was taxing her patience, leading me to believe that the verb to tax was a negative thing. My wife and I have just been through a taxing experience; the slow death of her father. It’s not easy saying goodbye especially when you have a duty to care for another.

Most folk use the word Taxes in the context of paying them to their governments. There is a tax on most things in a modern society. When we buy stuff there is an expectation that some of what we pay will go to a municipal, regional or federal coffer. Many of us resent the fact that a government always has a hand in our pocket. Most of the time I can get my head around the need for group participation in financing needed services. Collectively we have to have a way to pay for the roads we drive on, the hospitals we go to in emergencies, the schools where we find enlightenment, the infrastructure elements that provide for the continuation of our culture. The importance of being taxed in this way must be viewed as a positive thing if we are to consider ourselves members of a caring society.

We all have a duty to care for our neighbour. Sometimes it is on a personal and intimate level. Sometimes it is anonymously through paying taxes. I find it difficult to place a coin in the hat of a soliciting homeless person who regularly frequents a corner in our downtown. I don’t resent his presence, I feel sad for his predicament. I gain some solace knowing that I pay taxes to a city government that has a progressive housing initiative. I don’t mind paying my fair share. The fact that our tax system is unfair bugs me though.

#Taxtherich is a well used hashtag on Twitter for good reason. Taxation policies in my country and other developed areas lack equity. Records, research and anecdotal stories abound of the one percent of us who find exemptions to paying taxes in proportion to their income. Employees of big companies often pay more taxes than the CEOs who run the corporations. Governments are reluctant to close the tax loopholes or institute a wealth tax for fear of investment going elsewhere. Consequently social programs are run through raffles and bake sales, while the super rich play with their money buying yachts and building spaceships. This imbalance taxes my patience for an equitable resolution.

The game of Monopoly depicts an unbalanced corporate world, but at least there is a luxury tax card. Several among the millionaire/billionaire class have boasted that they will give their fortunes away. I don’t believe that philanthropy is the answer to such a persistent societal need. Citizens have a responsibility to vote for fair tax laws. Once upon a time in the Americas the notion of Taxation/Representation was enough to cause a war. It’s one thing to be independent from tyranny, it’s another to find ways to support each other’s needs.