Jumping to conclusions

I was gently reminded the other day that I hadn't posted anything since before Christmas.  My excuse is that time has slipped away again; I cannot understand how it's almost the end of January already.  But there has been something I've been meaning to talk about here.

Over the last week, I noticed the following:

A house down the street still has a Christmas tree up.
The guy at the corner brought out his snow blower this morning to get rid of the 2 cms of snow on his driveway.
A pretty healthy-looking woman whipped into a "disabled" parking spot and ran into the mall (and yes, she had a wheelchair permit on her dash).
And I'm guilty of jumping to conclusions.

Let me tell you about the conclusions I drew from each of the first three things I noticed.

First, the house with the tree - it seemed to me that whoever lives there is really pushing Christmas way past the bounds of normal love of the Christmas season.  I love Christmas as much as the next person, but a tree at the end of January?  Please.

The guy with the snow blower - what a lazy so-and-so.  There's barely an inch of snow on the driveway and it would take less time to bring out a shovel and push it off than it does to warm up the snowblower and manhandle it down the driveway.  Having a tool doesn't mean it's the right tool for every job.  And the snow blower is noisy and annoying on a quiet Saturday morning.

The woman in the "disabled" spot - how inconsiderate that she wouldn't leave that spot for someone who really needs it.  She obviously didn't.

Would you be coming to the same conclusions?   (I can't be the only one.  Please don't let me be the only one.)  I think many of us look at situations around us and make assumptions without knowing the circumstances behind what we see.  

The Christmas tree, for instance, may still be up because the person living there is ill and can't take it down.  Or maybe they are waiting for a family member to come for a belated Christmas celebration.  Or maybe they  like to leave their tree up for two months.

The guy with the snow blower may not be able to shovel because of a repetitive strain injury to his shoulder or elbow.  Or maybe he brings it out to do his driveway and then most of the sidewalks in the neighbourhood  - it's faster with a snow blower than with a shovel.

And perhaps the woman rushing into the mall was going to fetch her disabled parent or sibling or neighbour and help them out to the car.  

I needn't have made any assumptions about any of those situations - I don't know these people and what they do doesn't really affect me.  Who cares if a Christmas tree is up?  Or a guy chooses to use a snow blower over a shovel?  Or someone takes advantage of a technicality while I drive round and round, looking for an open parking spot?  It's not my business.  Why think or talk about it at all?

Well, when I noticed each of those things, I jumped to some conclusions and considered them fodder for a post here.  They were the beginnings of a grumbly post about how crazy/lazy/inconsiderate people were.  And while I was thinking about how to frame all that here, I started thinking about what might be behind the behaviour and why things may not be as they appeared.  It sort of ruined what I was going to say.  But somehow it still seemed worth talking about, and so here we are.

Maybe there's a lesson in here for all of us.  Or maybe not - maybe I'm giving crazy/lazy/inconsiderate people more credit than they deserve.  I may have drawn exactly the right conclusions.  Who knows?

Christmas

It's two days before Christmas and I am in my happy place.  It took a mental boot in the butt to get me here, and it was definitely worth it.  I'd have been upset with myself if I'd allowed a Christmas season to go by without enjoying it. 

And there's so much to enjoy.  The kid is home for longer than just a few days, my sister arrived yesterday and we've already had one family gathering - I'm looking forward to at least one or two more. 

I am not known to be a social person; in fact, I can be downright un-social.  Give me alone time and I am at my happiest.  Give me my small family and no one else and I'm happy.  Or that's the case most of the time.  The two notable exceptions are Thanksgiving and Christmas.  They are family-and-friends time, time to gather with others around a table or in the living room and enjoy each other's company.

A few years ago, it was just the three of us - Jim, the kid and me - for Christmas.  It was nice, but it didn't feel like Christmas.  There should have been more people around the table; there should have been more people coming and going.  It was a little sad.

But this year I have family around; they have friends they are bringing around, too.  It feels good.  It feels like Christmas. 

So here I am in my happy place.  All the trappings of Christmas are present and accounted for - the tree, the lights, the music, the food.  But even better than that, the people are here.  My family is here. 

May you find yourself in your own happy place this Christmas. 

Getting into the spirit

It’s been awhile since I posted anything here and when I look back I realize I have been very quiet this second half of the year.  Truth is, I really haven’t felt very chatty.  I had some fun things to talk about – a vacation in BC and a visit with a favourite cousin/friend, a long weekend in Ottawa with my Buds, time with the kid at Thanksgiving – but even those haven’t roused me from what has become a year-long funk.  And the funk continues … it’s nearing Christmas and I have yet to get enthused about the season.

And it’s not just me.  It seems everyone I know is having a crummy year.  Prolonged and/or serious health issues, major financial problems, deaths, damaged relationships … it’s a bad year for everyone.   And it’s not like it’s a single event in the year – it’s issue after issue; scare after scare.

For me it started in January and I’m really hoping it ends in December.  I’m not going to bore anyone with my litany of complaints about what has felt like an unending string of health and personal issues this year.  I just hope there really is an end to it.   

This has been a topic for conversations I’ve had with various people, and we all are coming to the same conclusion – it’s just that time of life.  These middle aged bodies have become strangers to us and we are left to figure out what the new regime is.  We are experiencing what we always thought were old people’s problems.  We are dealing with almost-grown and grown children and changes in relationships, aging parents .. the list goes on.  I may be naïve to think my bad year will end at December 31: none of the conditions that seem to be related to it are going away any time soon – I’m still going to be middle aged next year.

So now what?

Well, I have decided it’s time to move on.  Enough of this.  I’m tired of having a crummy year and part of what makes it crummy is that I’m identifying it as crummy.  If this is the new normal, I’m going to live with it and deal with it.   I know I said earlier this year I needed to get back on track and I meant it, but then things went sideways and … well, here I am at the end of the year, wanting to get back on track.

I’ll start again, now.  Christmas is coming.  I love Christmas.  The tree is going up on the weekend.  I have lists to make, baking (ugh) to do, rooms to prepare, gifts to buy and wrap.  I’m going to look forward to Christmas, dammit! 

You gotta love all those mod cons

We have just experienced the far-flung effects of Hurricane Sandy – a night of high winds, rain and, for our neighbourhood, nine hours without power.  It was interesting trying to get ready for work in the dark this morning; the flashlight just doesn’t give adequate light for applying make-up.  I’ve heard from a neighbour that the power went back on awhile ago, so we won’t be facing a defrosted freezer or spoiled food in the fridge. 

These kinds of experiences make me wonder how I would fare if we had a prolonged power outage.  Today was easy – it was an adventure.  It didn’t take us long to grab our car keys and head out for breakfast.  The outage was very localized so there were lots of places to go.   

But a widespread, long-lasting loss of electricity – what would that look like?  I can’t even look back to the time, a few summers ago, when much of eastern Canada and the northeast States went black – some places for days.  We happened to be on vacation in Central Canada at that time and just heard the news reports.  Even if we had been at home we would have been only mildly inconvenienced – the power was back on in less than a day. 

 

So what would happen if we had no electricity?  I like to think I could adapt.   I used to camp and learned to do without electricity for a few days or weeks – sort of.   There was always electricity and hot water in the washrooms and showers.  Okay, so it wouldn’t be like camping.  It would be like … I guess the way my great- or great-great-grandparents lived.  

 

There would be a big difference, though.  Back before electricity was a given, life unfolded just as it always had – that was the norm.  To give up electricity now would be giving up something I’d always taken for granted.  It would be a backward step instead of the norm.  I don’t know how long it would take to realize that it was the new normal.

 

Jim and I had to really think about what we were doing this morning – we were automatically flipping on light switches that weren’t working, going to open the fridge door, closing a door and blocking out the street light that was inexplicably still burning on the other side of the street, turning up the thermostat that wasn’t even recording the temperature – everything was automatic.  How long would it take to unlearn all those automatic gestures and learn new ones that are so much lower tech?

 

Personally, I’m in no hurry to find out. 

Happy New Year (yes, really)

Summer is pretty much over.  Or it is for me – once Labour Day hits, I’m ready for warmer clothes, fall foliage and comfort food.  That’s what I want.  What I get is quite different – we still have days of hot, humid weather and the summer flowers are blooming brighter than ever.  It’s too soon to get that pot of soup bubbling on the stove.

I know the calendar says we are finishing up the third quarter of the year, but in my mind, Labour Day signals the beginning of the new year.  After two months of summer casual, it’s back to the rhythms and routines of the other ten months.  It’s back to school and back to work; back to business as usual. More importantly, it’s the time for new beginnings:  a new class, a new hobby, or even a whole new routine.

 

This is why the calendar new year isn’t very meaningful for me.  That’s just a date on a page with no break between the old year and the new.  My new year begins at Labour Day, when I feel refreshed after a summer of more casual living.  That’s when I feel there are new opportunities, wider horizons and anything seems possible.

 

Happy new year to all you like-minded folk.

Scenes from a morning's walk

I’ve been getting more serious about walking for exercise in the mornings and am gradually increasing my distance and speed. 

While I’ve been out and about walking the neighbourhood, I’ve observed a couple of things I think are interesting.  They aren’t necessarily significant but I thought I would share them. 

First of all, there are some people who are absolutely dedicated to having a green lawn, even though we’ve had no significant rainfall for I’m not sure how long - I believe it’s more than a month.  It’s bone dry where I live.  The last rain we had was a brief – and I mean brief – downpour a couple of weeks ago, and that was the first rain in weeks.  Yet there are some lovely green lawns out there.  

What is so important about a green lawn that people waste water by watering and watering and watering?  They have underground sprinklers that run every day or every second day.  Not only is this not good for the grass, but because the sprinklers are automatic, they are running even on the few occasions it is raining.  This has been a pet peeve for me for a long time.  Even in wetter years, those sprinklers will be running rain or shine, whether the grass needs watering or not. 

C’mon, folks!   Let’s not waste water on the grass – it’ll come back next year.  Or if you must water, treat your lawn to a good dowsing once a week and then let your grass get stronger and send its roots deeper so it can survive better when it’s dry. 

Secondly, I have yet to have a young person look at me or greet me in the morning.  I regularly pass kids – high school age, I’d guess – heading off to work, headphones on, feet dragging.  They do not look at me, they do not smile, they do not acknowledge that another living being is passing them on the sidewalk. 

I’ve occasionally had an adult act the same way, but for the most part, others will say “good morning” or “another hot day” or something appropriate to the morning.  

Is it that the kids are plugged into their own little world and don’t notice anything around them?  Have they been so indoctrinated to not speak to strangers that they never grow out of it?  Do they not care to speak to anyone over 30?  Are they so tired it’s all they can do to move one foot in front of the other?   It’s a mystery to me.

Will the kids be alright?

Has everyone read about the high school commencement address that said to students “You are not special.  You are not exceptional”?  I’d be surprised if there is anyone who hasn’t, but in case you missed it, here’s a link to a video of the address and a link to shortened version of it.

The headlines screamed “Students told they are not special” and an interesting thing happened.  Most people who commented on blogs or in response to the story agreed with what was said in the speech.   Young folks and older folks both – that surprised me.  There were of course a few unhappy people who thought the teacher was out of line but for the most part – a round of applause.

My first reaction was that it was a gutsy thing to say at a commencement, and a bit odd for the occasion.  Surely that couldn’t possibly have been the whole point of the address.  I read more about the speech and then watched the recording and found it to be more affirming that it was damning.  The graduates were encouraged to do things without regard to reward, achieve for the sake of achievement, find self-fulfillment in selflessness.  They were encouraged to go out and become better than special. It’s a powerful message. 

When I read through the comments in various places online, I expected there would be more finger-pointing by younger people – fingers pointed at parents (like me?) who over and over again told their children how wonderful and special they were; at schools that wouldn’t let kids fail; at sports leagues that made sure everyone got a ribbon or trophy just for showing up.  We all deserve fingers pointed in our direction – we are the parents who raised a generation of over-indulged, self-absorbed children.  We are the ones who marched down to the principal’s office when we thought a teacher was being too hard on our baby.  We are the ones who abused sports coaches and referees for imagined slights against our children. 

We, however, are not the ones paying for our actions – our children are.  It’s our children who are going out, unprepared, into a world with fewer and fewer jobs, with people who don’t care about past (non)achievements, with no interest in coddling anyone.  I fear we’ve done our children a great disservice.

It seems to me we started going wrong when the word “parent” became a verb.  Previous generations didn’t build their lives around their children the way we did nor tried to make life as easy as possible for them.  Previous generations – our parents, grandparents and their parents and grandparents - were more concerned about raising kids who were prepared go out in the world to take their places as responsible adults.  And that’s where we’ve failed – we haven’t allowed our children to grow up and take responsibility for anything, much less themselves.   

And now we have a commencement address that says, in the nicest way possible, that it’s time for young people to grab the reins and actively pursue their own lives.  It’s a message that should go out to every graduate.  And maybe to every parent as well.