Mean

When did we become so mean spirited? Why?

I watched with disgust as President Trump mocked 2 lovers at a recent rally he had, it was most unpleasant to witness a leader stoop so incredibly low. Does he think it makes him look better to belittle, judge, humiliate, mock others?

Leaders are adopting bullying, a juvenile, dangerous and utterly destructive form of leadership. Have you ever been bullied at school? At work? It is a most effective strategy is it not? If you are the bully, you have power over others, you rule the school yard, the office. Bullies don’t care what the cost is, they only want power and to destroy. They are totally self interested and they feed on fear.

Our leaders display the most despicable behaviours when they should be examples of grace, acceptance, manners, diplomacy. Instead they bully, blatantly lie and smear others with hateful commentary. They go to extreme lengths to discredit a fellow human being, engaging others in the quest and ignore their own faults and crimes. They are totally self absorbed. People mistake this as confidence and worship them. Such blind loyalty to a flawed human being is going to cost you. Everyone eventually falls around them, while they are still standing. Is this what we want our children to emulate?

Though I see this at a high level of leadership, I also see the ordinary person be extraordinary and rebel against this hate. Rejecting the us and them mentality that causes so much strife and violence. A leader is one person. We are many. We can quietly do good and change the world. Every small act of good can wipe out tons of bad. By living right we demonstrate what greatness is. We owe it to our children to show them the proper way to live.

The world is, like it or not people, a global community. If you look at history, we have always been striving to be so, eager to cross lines to trade and share, always on the move, restless to encounter others. The boundaries that once separated us are disintegrating, thanks to our ability to rapidly communicate and travel anywhere in the world. This is good and necessary because we all occupy the same, one, small little blue planet, alone in a huge and hostile universe. It is amazing we could think otherwise. The world is a closed ecosystem, what happens in one place spreads out everywhere. No, not even walls can hold back the jet stream, the ocean currents, tectonic plate movements!

Imagine if we all decided to clean up the pollution, end poverty, treat each other with respect and love. If we all worked together to fix our global griefs.

As long as we focus on our differences, openly mock and scorn others, keep our narrow mindedness and hard opinions, we are on a fast track to destruction.

Help!

Lucky for me, I finally have a diagnosis and treatment for a condition I’ve been suffering for 2 years! I am very happy to be getting well, at last. However. . .

If you have ever been diagnosed with something, and chances are you have if you are human and alive, you have no doubt experienced a plethora of advice and horror stories that can greatly diminish any optimism you might have held.

It is the horror stories that are the worst. Advice I can ignore.

A floodgate of terror is opened when you tell someone you’ve got something. You’ll hear about how their uncles best friend got it and suffered and was never the same, died a horrible death and left his family destitute. It will always be a story that even the best fiction writers couldn’t dream up.

Sympathy? My employer asked me if I had a list of all the job sites to advertise my job, just in case they have to do without me.

Excuse me?

The best thing ever said to me, many years ago when I was very upset about an illness was, “I am so sorry you are going through this, if there is anything I can do, please let me know”.

Thank you kind and wise co-worker Judy B!

It is a phrase I have tried to adopt when faced with another’s pain.

I realize we don’t know what to say or do in terrible circumstances, but I do think the best things we can do is listen and offer to help.

Free With a Price

I guess I must be strange, but when I go to a seminar, I actually want to hear what the speaker has to say.

I recently went to a free seminar on improving your retirement income. As a low income person, to have the opportunity to receive free financial advice from a seasoned professional is a blessing.

But as usual, that sentiment is not shared by many in an audience.

The man next to me loudly announced to a woman, who made the mistake of trying to chit chat to him about the topic before the talk started, that he had no intention or need to retire, that he LOVES what he does. So why are you here? To annoy everyone else I soon found out. He huffed and puffed, clicked his pen constantly throughout the talk, threw the free handouts we got on the chair next to him and sat defiantly with arms crossed.

There were many interruptions and of course, the self proclaimed experts in the audience that took liberties to answer questions for the speaker.

Sigh.

There are so few seminars I have gone to where no one is on their own agenda and respect the speaker and reserve their questions and thoughts until the end of the talk.

However, I did learn a few things, mostly that when it comes to financial advice, you really need a custom made plan as everyone’s life situation is different. And you need to get several opinions and ultimately, make your own plan. The people who could benefit the most are the low income persons, who can’t afford a financial adviser. However, there are free seminars!

Living in a Sieve

John Cleese when asked why he went to the United States, replied, he had vowed that once he was able, to never be cold again.

I too have made that vow, but have not had the success of Cleese to do it.

Instead, I have an indoor winter coat.

It was once an outdoor winter coat, but being white, it looked terrific for about a month and then needed some serious cleaning.

So I retired it to where it would stay clean but still have purpose. To wear in my drafty apartment, where there are so many places the air gets in, it is like a sieve.

Living in a sieve is not so bad in the summer, I do not need air conditioning. I love my apartment because I have a big balcony and a very soothing view. But, damn, is it cold in here in the winter!

I have taken all the drastic measures to keep a north wind out; sealing the windows with plastic and tape, stuffing them with towels, blocking them with foam board and finally covering them with heavy duty curtains. I do what I can. The indoor temperature seldom gets above 70F, it hovers around 62-65 no matter what I do, usually for several months.

So I have my indoor winter coat.

You do what you have to do. I like where I am, but if I could afford better, I would – providing it has a nice balcony and view!

Quiet Please

Sounds I like to hear.

A cat purring. Rain on a roof. Fall leaves rustling. Thunder. Wind through the pines. Waves lapping the shore. Birds singing in the morning. Crickets on a hot August afternoon.

Songs that remind me of better times. I can be stopped dead in a store by a song that comes on from the past.

A babbling brook. A train blowing his horn way off in the distance. A cats gentle meow. A lonely loon.

Silence. Yes, I like to hear nothing – it is a very rare thing to experience nowadays. Some nights there is a small window of time, maybe 20 minutes, where there is no noise at all.

If I had my way, we would have a mandatory noise free day once a month. People cannot mow their lawns, have radios on, fix their cars or homes. No traffic, no planes or trains, no sirens, no construction. Try to have a day that people can enjoy quiet.

But even the libraries are not quiet any more.

Having headphones on is not the same as open air quiet. Being outside in a quiet place is expansive.

Quiet please.

What If

I read an article on how journalists have to ask the President questions on the lawn while his helicopter is still whirring loudly in the background, and how this makes the press look disorganized and unprofessional.

So I ask. What if the press just didn’t show up. What if old POTUS lands and no one is there? What if we ignore him?!

Ha. Ha. I like the game of what if.

I think there is a whole lot of other people and things and stuff we should just ignore.

Not that they’ll go away, but just to show we don’t give a F any more what they say or do, or what their opinions are. Especially if they profess to be the chosen one.

We are now going to pay attention to the things that do matter. Pollution. Poverty. Animal welfare. The environment. Human rights. Big important stuff. Let’s get back to making positive changes in this world that benefit everyone and everything, regardless of who or what they are. Stop paying attention to nonsense because it is entertainment. There are people in the world doing good, let’s go listen. Let’s take action ourselves.

What if we did that?

Plants

“It’s a jungle in here!”

I smiled, yes I do like plants. I signed the courier form and handed it back to him. The delivery man took a step back, then leaned forward, “I really like your apartment, I love plants!”

At the time I had a lot more plants than now, I was younger then. Over the years I’ve gradually reduced the number of my green friends, but I still couldn’t imagine not having any.

I’ve always had a dim view of people who do not like plants or animals. I like to surround myself with life.

My working and living spaces have always been like greenhouses. Plants are my meditation. Whenever I need a break I just sit and look at them. They are so still and yet so alive.

Unfortunately, once I was forced to get rid of all my plants at an office when a new Executive Director arrived. She also had our beautiful rooftop garden destroyed that volunteers and staff so lovingly tended. What kind of person does this? It broke a lot of hearts.

Of course my cat also likes plants, but for different reasons. He does fancy himself to be a jungle cat and hides in the foliage. What can be closer to heaven than sleeping in the dappled sunlight among plants and flowers, or nibbling on some fresh shoots of grass?

I need not get scientific to expound all the benefits of having plants in your environment. There is plenty of literature on that. For me, the benefit is joy. And joy is the only thing worth having.

Two Holidays

As I get close to my annual holidays I feel like an old ship that has been out to sea a very long time and has been battling hurricanes non stop. Now without any power left, I coast into shore with only the currents and wind to guide me.

Every year the distance between annual holidays seems to get farther, longer, and a lot more painful.

To think, the younger version of myself often skipped annual vacations and took the pay instead!

We have just passed the first day of summer and now I long to be sitting in the long grass, watching the bugs and birds and whatever. Summer days can be mesmerizing and brings out the laziest parts of me.

As I look forward to a rest, I want to remind everyone to do the same. Take a break. Listen to the birds. Watch the clouds. See the big picture.

If you’re a planner like me, stop. Don’t plan anything and just let one day become the next. It will do you so much good to stop being your own worst enemy, and possibly everyone else’s too!

You don’t have to be anywhere, or do anything, or be anyone for a few short little weeks of the year. You don’t have to make big decisions (and shouldn’t), be zen or learn a new skill, develop yourself or seek a new career. You don’t have to be zip lining, cycling 100 km a day, or organizing an event. Turn yourself off.

I believe everyone should have 2 major holidays a year. One as described above, where you turn it all off and a second one where you turn yourself on – experience something new, go somewhere, try something. We need both in order to be healthy.

Now Is Not The Time

This weekend is the first time in what seems like a year that we have had nice weather. The kind of weather where you sit out and do nothing.

So now is not the time for me to rant, contemplate the ills of the world, and heaven forbid, write about them.

This is a weekend to celebrate life and all the good things about it.

The sun, the fresh air, the cloudless sky. Sit and watch my flowers grow.

So that is what I did.

With the cat of course.

I hope you did too.

Wonder

Suddenly there was a mass exodus of birds, flushed out from the rooftops and sidewalks of downtown. A cloud of mostly pigeons, interspersed with seagulls, starlings and sparrows, swooped around the buildings and down the streets.

Squinting into the noonday sky I spot the reasons. Too very large hawks slowly circling high above.

There are more hawks and falcons arriving yearly to our city in response to the increasing number of pigeons. At my apartment building I have seen as many as ten at once circling our skies. Falcons were introduced to our city core many years ago in an attempt to curb pigeon growth, but word got out and soon hawks were joining the foray.

To witness the slow circling flight of these birds is mesmerizing, terrifying and awe inspiring at the same time. But I think magnificence because they seem to rule their realm.

However, it is also true that crows vociferously announce the hawks whereabouts and mercilessly attack them on wing.

Nature makes sure all balances out, and it fills me with wonder.

I saw lots of osprey on my visit to Spokane a few years ago.