The Emperor's Clothes

When you attend a function do you notice the people who float by you without acknowledging you even though they are quite familiar with you?  Or the people who stop and ask how you are and then move on without hearing your answer?  Then there are the ones who give you eye contact and nod without hearing a word spoken.

       Recently I was at the World Oil & Gas Show and we wore name tags with our current position labelled on us like so much cattle.  As a project administrator I noted very quickly what my net value was in this world and that was similar to the one I inhabit at work.  Next to nil. Until they want something. Then suddenly I am “Susanne Darling”.  However Susanne Darling does not equate to Susanne Stupid.

       Fortunately for me, and I hope others take a page out of my notebook, I do not value myself according to my job.  I value myself on my own personal worth scale and no one knows me like I know myself. 

First of all, I know what my IQ is.  Tick.

Second, I know what my experiences are.  Tick

Third, I don’t care what others think of me.  Tick.

Bundled into my experiences are things like education, travel, friendships, career moves, extracurricular activities such as volunteer work, running political campaigns, writing, researching, supporting people, meeting celebrities, co-founding businesses and surviving the trials and tribulations of being a single woman in a complex world that does not acknowledge single women.  With this armour it is easy enough to sit at a table with 7 men who wait impatiently for me to leave so they can talk “guy talk”.  I can also observe with perfect phlegm the people who breeze past me acknowledging my co-worker on one side of me yet ignoring me as the Invisible One. 

And why I have this patience is because I recall the story of The Emperor’s Clothes.

Working Hard for the Money

When someone is a celebrity it looks really easy to just stand up there and sing, or act, or whatever, but these folks really do work hard behind the scenes to make things happen.  Case in point, we had a band play for us, starting at 9:30 but they were at the facility at 3 a.m. to prepare.  That’s dedication and professionalism.

       You know when your teachers and your parents tell you that things don’t come easy, that you have to work hard to get your grades, your allowance, your rewards?  They aren’t kidding.  If they are serious mentors, you should take their words of wisdom seriously. 

       Oh that’s right, I’m writing for the old, wise ones here and they know all of this.

       This is really a reality check for everyone.  Unless you are the chosen lucky few to win the lottery, nothing comes easy.  Life is a struggle every second of our life.  Some of us are blessed with happy natures, or slightly easier circumstances – or so it would appear.  But the truth is, we never know what is going on behind the scenes; be it real life drama or the prelude to a wonderful show.

       So when things are going smoothly, enjoy the ride but be prepared to brake!

Goodbye to Nora Ephron

Nora Ephron was a wonderful romantic comedy writer and one of my all time favorites is “You’ve Got Mail”.  I think Nora put all her favorite quotes and thoughts into Kathleen Kelly and she is one of the most delightful characters in romantic comedy history.  Nora also did a brilliant job in screenwriting “Julie & Julia” and Meryl Streep’s rendition of Julia Child is nothing short of amazing.  How many people have gone to the Empire State Building hoping to see a romantic pairing such as happened in “Sleepless in Seattle”?

       I envy Nora her razor sharp wit and undeniable writing ability.  It’s a sad loss her passing away yesterday.   Leafing through her last book “I Remember Nothing” makes me laugh as much as the first reading.  Here’s looking at you, kid.

Evolution vs Politics

It’s good to hear that the NDP are beating the conservatives in 6 different polls in recent weeks without even trying hard.  The conservatives just have to keep doing what they are doing and they will continue to alienate the people of this country.  Perhaps even Alberta will wake up and smell the coffee.  Issuing attack ads is just one more way to turn the voters off; most people won’t believe attack ads, it’s hard to imagine that they would try the same busted method that Mulroney’s people used back in 1993.  Didn’t they learn anything?

      I can wax enthusiastic about the gains of my party but the reality, let’s face it, is that human nature does not change very much.  From the beginning of time there are the bullies who somehow always manage to get on top and will pound the average person into the ground.  Then there will be an uprising and the people will have a small amount of relief for a short while before it starts all over again.  This is what I find so discouraging about humanity, that we simply do not seem to evolve past a certain point.

      Is that evolution?  Does it only have a certain capacity and then it simply dissipates away?

Researching a Beautiful Mind

That’s the title on my latest Alumni magazine which has inspired this thought process, what is a beautiful mind?  There is the razor sharp mind of a scientific research, the inquiring depth of a philosophical mind, the visionary beauty of an artistic mind or the driven energy of an athletic mind, to name a few types of minds.

       For me a beautiful mind is one that is interested in questioning the universe, the perceived truths and the obviousness of life.  It is a mind that loves simple natural beauty, that loves honesty, that honours friendship and that appreciates goodness.  A beautiful mind can enjoy a joke, can cry at pathos, can celebrate the victories of a normal life.

       A beautiful mind is someone just like you.

Clearing out

A friend called today and told me she’s taking a 5 week intensive course in French, in Quebec City.  How extreme is that for learning something new and challenging?  What a coincidence after my writing yesterday!       I was thinking about something a little less extreme, like learning how to grow poinsettias so they will last for 2 Christmases!

       Joking aside, it’s difficult to come up with learning something new which will keep my attention span such that I will actual keep it in the memory box.  I’ve been lecturing my mother for the last couple of days on reading something new and interesting and all the while I’m trying to block the whisper “pot calling the kettle black”.  Somehow I don’t think book learning is what I need at this point in my life.

       I’ve tried Zumba, I’ve tried line dancing, it’s time to think of something quite different, something that I am actually coordinated in.  Yes, I am thinking what I need before my mind can be nimble is to make the muscles, the body, nimble.  Exercise will bring oxygen to the brain and perhaps the little firing neurons will give me the Eureka moment.

       For the last two days Mom and I have been watching the critters sniff around the new family room.  It’s quite amusing to watch them tread cautiously around the room, looking for something familiar.  When they smell an old pillow they linger over it, pawing it and then crouching on it to ensure that it’s still theirs.  As they get closer to one of the new pieces of furniture they wait expectantly as they know one of us is going to yell “don’t touch the new furniture”.  They look puzzled, as this expression is only supposed to happen in the living room.  Why in my room, they wonder.  They are learning something new and they don’t like it one little bit.

Cobwebs of the Mind

All week I’ve been thinking about happiness, contentment, optimism and just plain life in general.  Living with an aging parent has opened up my mind to the fact of aging, really growing old and noticing how an older person thinks.  It’s not as though I hadn’t been aware of some of the obvious signs of aging, whether it was simply visiting with my mother or reading about other older persons.  But living day to day with an older person has made me think quite a lot about how one’s mind works.  I find myself thinking along similar lines with my mother when it comes to defining the rest of my life.

       What, thinking about a time line?  Yes, it is a scary idea.  I am thinking along the lines of what matters anymore because I’m going to die soon anyway. 

       Does that make you pull up short?  Me, thinking like that when I’ve always had this notion of longevity.  Can you imagine how I felt when I realized that I was doing it?  Once I realized that I was falling into the groove I began to examine the idea and although I pulled back once or twice because I was frankly terrified, I decided that this was NOT the place for me.  It’s one thing to look at downsizing and getting away from material things but it is quite another thing to get away with your personal growth and instead regress into memories and old ways.

       There is nothing more irritating to young people than to listen to what it was like in the good old days and there is nothing more narrowing than disapproving of every new invention that comes along.  I do understand that there is comfort in nostalgia but it is only healthy for an hour or so, per week, not per day.  Watching the news can be informative but not if you end up going down the same old paths each time you see another dirty rotten trick that the government has pulled on us.

       It’s time to dust out the cobwebs of the mind and learn something new and challenging.

Happiness is Productivity

Mother and I have spent the last two days working like slaves in the yard.  Yesterday we first hauled a bunch of stuff out of the family room, pending the arrival of new furniture, and then we proceeded to gather up all the garbage that had been strewn about in the garbage.  We had a bit of a setback when I heard some scurrying in the back and lo, there was  skunk hustling from one side of the garage to the other.  We then worked very carefully on only one side of the garage, fearful of getting skunked.  Once that was done, we took a break and then we began painting the lawn furniture.  At the end of it I took the recycling up to the depot and returned with ice cream sundaes.

       We sat on the deck and praised ourselves, at which point Mom said

“Happiness is feeling a sense of accomplishment.” 

I smiled.

       So much for trying to get an answer from her with penetrating, intellectual questions. 

Optimist vs Pessimist

So I had to stop in the middle of my story yesterday because I thought I would run my theory by my mother.  The next thing I knew we were transported to her youth and how she felt about being glad or unhappy.  The conversation took the usual circuitous route and ended up in several gopher holes before we got back to whether or not she thought people were either an optimist or a pessimist by nature, not by life.

      The conversation went something like this.

      “So do you think you were happy as a child despite growing up in an occupied country?”

      “I never thought about being happy.  Everything was just normal and we were all happy.  My parents were happy with each other and so were my aunts and uncles.”

      “But were they happy in themselves, not with each other”  I patiently asked.

      “There wasn’t all this divorce going on.   People married because they liked each other and didn’t just pick the first person they who asked them, thinking they could change out later if it didn’t work out.”

      “But my question is, were they happy in themselves?”

      Long pause, thinking in progress.

      “They were happy because they liked each other.”

      Now I had to think about how to get her out of this gopher hole.

      “Would you say you were happy-go-lucky rather than someone who worried about every little thing in case it would go wrong?”

      “I wouldn’t say that I was happy or thought about it at all.  I just didn’t worry.  But I was responsible.  I was always careful about not getting into trouble or breaking a leg.”

      From there the conversation drifted to her confirmation and how her self confidence grew when her father told her she was the nicest girl in the class, with the nicest dress.  Afterwards she was walking ahead of some boys from her school and she overheard them say that she was the nicest once at the confirmation.  Somehow in all of this I gathered that self confidence was part of her happiness.

Vacation Mode

June is always an unpredictable month and yet it is a lovely time of year so I decided to go out on a limb and take a week of vacation.  The plan is to work hard around the place but I have to say that the energy level just isn’t what it used to be.  When I read Richard Simmons’ blog and see what he does every single day I have to question why I can’t be more like him.  In order to get energy one must pull a little energy out by sheer willpower and build upon.  I know this simply by forcing myself on the treadmill, once the exercise is completed I definitely feel energized and ready for more.  It’s that difficult first step.

       So much of what we do is based on our brains, on how we think and the effort we put into our endeavour.  Yesterday my sister asked me “Are you happy?  Do you feel content with your life?”  I answered in the affirmative (no surprise there) but then she asked me about my friends, if I thought they were happy and fulfilled.  I had to think and consider a little while she continued to tell me that she thought most people were not.  I thought it was a very interesting observation on her part as it was obvious she had been thinking about this for quite a long time.  I think happiness can be a transient state for most people.  Perhaps a better way of looking at people is not to think whether they are happy or unhappy but rather whether they are an optimist or a pessimist.  Overall I think most people are probably pessimists but whether they are born that way or life has made them so I cannot tell.

       To be continued

Father's Day

I don’t think much about Father’s Day since my father passed away 11 years ago.  Rather I think about my father a lot, in fact it is a rare day when I don’t have some fleeting thought of him.  My father was an ebullient personality who really bubbled over with life and happiness.  As kids we looked forward to his homecoming every evening because he would always have some story to tell us about what happened at work.  He could make the worst disasters sound hilarious, such as the time his factory had a slight problem with their beef stew spilling over and running into the sewers.  They cleaned up the place but it all went into the sewer which ended up backing up into the Indian carpet store behind them, which they didn’t know about for a day or so.  When Dad discovered the problem he went over to the store owner to apologize (even though it really wasn’t their fault, it was the city sewer after all).  But when Dad offered to buy one of the carpets, cheap, the store manager practically ran him out of the store.  Only my dad would have the brass to do something like that!

       Another time my dad was strolling back from his lunch with one of his colleagues when they came across a hat shop.  There was a big sale going on so in they went to see what kind of deal they could make.  A particularly nice hat was lying in the pile of $5.00 hats.  Dad recognized it as a Borsalino and wondered if he would be able to get it for the $5.00.  he took it up to the counter and asked if it was $5.00 as it was in the bin.  The man said yes, Dad popped it on his head and even though it came down to his eyes he said “sold”.  His friend asked “what are you going to do with a hat two sizes too big?”  Dad said he didn’t know but he couldn’t leave a Borsalino in the bin! 

As chance would have it one of his partners showed up that afternoon and as he was a big fellow Dad handed him the hat and said “Happy Birthday”.  John said “How did you know it was my birthday?”  Well, Dad hadn’t known it was his birthday; it was just his way of handing him a present.  Tears rolled down his cheeks and then he got all upset as Dad took the hat away from him and began rolling it up, stamping on it and whacking it around.   Then the hat popped right back into shape.  Dad said “It’s a Borsalino, you can’t hurt it no matter what you do to it”.  Well, the poor old man was in heaven.  We laughed so hard at the story, picturing the poor man crying over his ruined hat.

Yes, I sure miss my dad, he was something else.

The New June

The tune “April Showers brings May flowers” doesn’t work in Alberta.  Instead we sing “June Showers spoil Stampede Parade . . . maybe”. 

      It does seem as though the weather swings more violently and more frequently than in past decades; or am I just getting old and find time running away on me.  When we first moved to Alberta it seemed that we were usually in a 5 to 7 year trend with weather changes but these past few years it seems as though it changes within a couple of years, but none of it for the good.  Our winters are longer and colder and summers also shorter and colder.  The other day it was 22C and people were “boiling hot”.

      Just as the weather alters so do our moods, only it is hour by hour and no longer day by day.  Our world is so fast paced that our mental processes simply cannot adjust to all the information we receive which makes us nervous due to the constant rush of adrenaline we are fed.  What do I mean?  We are inundated with information no matter where we turn, on the bus there are posters everywhere, in the elevator there is a TV screen with moving news, our work is filled with emails, instant messages and what have you.  When we get home the radio or television pours news at us by the second.  And I’m not even taking into account the tremendous commutes we all have. 

      When was the last time you spent calm quality time?  I hope it was some time this week but I suspect not.  So when you find yourself having a wild mood swing, think about the poem “April Showers” and make up your own rhyme . . . maybe that will bring the pendulum back for you.