Author Archives: bonniedonily

About Tuesdays with Morrie

Posted on by

I’m re-reading Tuesdays with Morrie right now. I have a few more pages to go but I feel I can write about it because a) I’ve read it before; and b) anybody can figure out how it ends. So no spoilers here: Morrie dies in the end.

Tuesdays with Morrie is part of my (Death or) Near Death Collection. This book is shelved, if not physically on my bookshelf (because remember I did that color thing with my bookshelves), in my head along with When Breath Becomes Air and The Last Lecture. All three of these books deal with the imminence of death and what we can learn from it.

Death is not really a subject I shy away from. Just yesterday, I went for coffee with an older friend and we talked about how we both aren’t drinking as much coffee anymore but choosing to really enjoy the ones we have left in our lifetime caffeine budget. I fully embrace the concept that Neil Pasricha explores on his 3 Books podcast: we only live for about 1000 months, so let’s read the best 1000 books out there. And my husband and I religiously watch and read murder mysteries together: right now it’s Criminal Minds at supper and Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache Series before bed.

It was on this very day that I’m publishing this blog post 37 years ago that I was first confronted with the complete unreasonableness of death when an 18-year old friend – the most popular girl in school with all of her unlived life ahead of her – was killed in a car accident. Everything stopped. Every moment I had had with her, I tried desperately to remember. Every waking moment was pain and fear at the thought of death cutting short such a vibrant living person. I was acutely aware that It Could Have Been Me.

It’s that imminence that Morrie wanted his audience to whom Mitch Albom was writing to keep in mind. Morrie had learned the lesson early – by nature of just being a very thoughtful person – that money and ambition aren’t the things that matter in the end. Although I chuckle at the Joan Rivers’ line, “People say that money is not the key to happiness, but I always figured if you have enough money, you can have a key made,” – I suspect that Morrie is the one who is right and that even Joan knew it, too. Everyone knows that money can buy you a nice car, a big house and a lot of pizza, but in the end, Morrie could no longer drive, he lived in his wheelchair and he could no longer eat solid food. It’s not a great advertisement for a book, but the gold is there, demonstrated firsthand between the author Mitch and his old professor, Morrie, who meet on Tuesdays so Morrie could teach his last class. His thesis? That the real riches in life is relationship, for however long that might be. And Morrie lived that way, long before Life had sent him an eviction notice.

Don’t wait till you’re old to stop caring about the things that don’t matter and to start caring about the things that do.

About Why I Keep Blogging

Posted on by
Photo by Daniel Thomas on Unsplash

It’s nearly birthday time for me and since I started this blog on my birthday two years ago, it’s time for my annual checkup: How’s the blog doing? Am I still enjoying it? And maybe, most important: Do I keep going? Or in a paraphrase of Dr. Phil: How’s it working for me? Although I’ve had the occasional blank mind in the last year when it came time to write my post of the week (resulting in one of my Throwback Thursdays) I would have to say that the blog IS working for me. Or maybe I’m working for it. Either way, the writing is getting done.

I will keep blogging because it’s good for me. The every-week self-imposed deadline makes me write AT LEAST one blog post a week. I am trying hard to establish a healthy writing habit but the daily-ness escapes me. I’m working up to it. The blog lets me say, “Yes, I’m still writing!”

I will keep blogging because I believe in the written record. It makes me unreasonably happy when I read something I wrote twenty years ago that I would probably never remember if I hadn’t written it down. It’s why I keep writing erratically in several journals at a time and keep ridiculous notes on my computer. It all might come in handy someday, even if it’s just to reminisce when I’m one hundred years old, at the tail end of my journey of a century.

I will keep blogging because it keeps the pump primed. I’m working on a book and as I said before, sometimes it’s hard to get my writing in. While it may seem counterintuitive to write something else when I should be working on a chapter, the blog keeps me honest. It legitimizes my desire: I write, therefore I am a writer. Therefore, I should be able to write a book. Whether or not I ever get it published, I have to keep going because it’s in me and it wants to get out. I just need to trust the process that all this “extra writing” is part of the process not unlike the gardener who plants an extra zucchini seed or the photographer who takes a thousand pictures to get “the one” or Connor McDavid who just keeps practicing every single day.

I’m thinking in the next little while this blog may evolve a little. I might narrow my focus, I might spend a little more time on the bones and the makeup and make it look a little different. It’s worth spending the time on it because it gives so much back to me.

I will keep blogging.

About the Heat

Posted on by
Photo by Laura Rivera on Unsplash

So, how about that heat, eh?

It’s been a record-breaking kind of summer when it comes to unusually hot days, not only here in Alberta, but all over the place, really. At the beginning of July when the forecast continually over-delivered on daily temperatures, it was easy to say, “Oh, that’s nice – we finally get a hot summer.” And by summer, we usually mean “about two weeks”.

But here it is August and the other day I heard myself saying to my husband, “Geez, it’s only gonna get to 18 today.” Which goes to show how quickly one can become acclimated to something. Not that I particularly love the hot temperatures. Or the dead grass, the abundance of grasshoppers or the sad looking crops in the fields.

In fact, the lack of rain has made me wonder if we’re entering another Dust Bowl Era. Thankfully, we have had a couple of half-decent rains in the last couple of weeks. It had been so long that when we heard the rain from the basement (where we regularly go to escape the late day heat), we ran upstairs and opened up the blind on the big picture window and just watched that like the latest episode of Planet Earth. If you shut your eyes and listened carefully, you could hear commentary from David Attenborough.

Not that I’m complaining about any of it. I mean really, it’s weather. Whatchagonnadoaboutit? We just deal with it by seeking out cold basements and air-conditioned stores for respite. Or we buy snow blowers and fuzzy slippers and snuggle in. The view outside the front window is always changing.

The forecast says it’s gonna be hot again this weekend. And that’s just gonna be alright.

About 3 Books

Posted on by

Lately, all my conversations are interspersed with me saying: “On that great new podcast I discovered, I just listened to an interview with (fill in the blank with the name of a person who just discussed the very thing we are talking about.)” Or not. As a friend of ours says when she wants to change the topic at hand: “Speaking of something completely unrelated…”

You see, I get a lot of input from the outside world via podcasts these days. And not necessarily new ones either. I know some people who shake their head sadly at me when I demonstrate complete ignorance at what is going on in the world on a daily basis. But if I fall in love with a podcast, I will happily go back two, three, four years into the catalog and “catch up”.

I was thinking about my podcast history recently – basically trying to remember when I started downloading and binging. It was definitely over ten years ago when my sister-in-law and I discovered an iTunes show about – wait for it – scrapbooking. But I always listened to the shows on my computer and it was painful waiting week to week for the new episode, because there was “nothing to listen to” in between. It wasn’t until I got an iPhone that I figured out how to listen to more “iPod broadcasts” – hence podcasts – on the go and that’s when I discovered This American Life. And then the whole syncing with the car radio thing happened and voila! Here we are in 2021 with the serious problem of hundreds of podcasts and thousands of episodes to choose from. And I’m sure I’m being conservative.

That tidbit about where podcasts got their name? I just heard it on this great new podcast I discovered. It’s funny, because I’m actually kind resistant to adding new podcasts to my repertoire because I have my favorites and keeping up with all those episodes can be hard enough. Chances are you’ve heard of Neil Pasricha before – he started a blog counting down 1000 Awesome Things which then was turned into The Book of Awesome. And all that was to counteract some bad juju that happened in his life. I was intrigued by this approach which I first heard about when he was interviewed on another one of my favorite podcasts What Should I Read Next? which is “dedicated to the answer that plagues every reader” what they should read next. Which I was ALSO resistant to listening to until she was endorsed on yet ANOTHER one of my favorite podcasts – basically it’s the Faberge Organics Shampoo commercial for how I got here: “…and you tell two friends and they tell two friends and so on and so on and so on…”

What’s great about 3 Books with Neil Pasricha is 1. It’s about books. (Hello?) 2. He has really AWESOME guests (see what I did there?) and 3. He’s Canadian – which is just always a cool thing to be. The whole schtick that Neil promotes is to interview his guests about their three most formative books – in a somewhat personal quest for him to read the 1000 best books on the planet before his thousand months is up – the average lifespan for us humans. He touts it as “the world’s only podcast by and for book lovers, writers, makers, sellers… and librarians.”

I think what I like so much about this particular show is the conversations (not interviews). Neil flies in to wherever each guest is located (Key West to talk to Judy Blume, San Diego for Frank Warren, New York to meet up with Mitch Albom) and they have a real sit-down-and-chat with the actual three books in their hands. Listening to Angie Thomas talk about reading Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Tupac Shakur’s The Rose That Grew From Concrete demonstrates a pretty straight through-line to her novel The Hate You Give. And I love sitting in on conversations and getting writing advice from the likes of Dave Barry and Tim Urban. Awesome.

Occasionally, one of those great guests has a great podcast, too. Sigh. I still have a couple years worth of 3 Books to go. I know I don’t have to listen to ALL the pods or read ALL the books. But I can just enjoy one conversation at time about 3 Great Books.

About Babies (of the Family)

Posted on by
Simon the Camper, age 2

[My “baby” turns 24 next week. How did that happen? I wrote a version of this when he was twenty less than that.]

Lately my husband has been bringing to my attention the fact – or opinion, depending which side of the fence you’re on – that I’ve been spoiling our youngest son. He says that my baby boy doesn’t get the same treatment as the other two sons. But it’s not that Simon doesn’t catch trouble from his mom. It’s just that mom’s tolerance level with her littlest man is a tad higher when he does get into mischief, meaning maybe, sometimes, okay, yeah, he might get cookies even if he doesn’t finish his supper.

Well, who can blame me? The baby of the family deserves some consolation: after all, he is always going to be the last, the most ignored, the one whose voice can reach screaming proportions and can still be unheard and the one whose ideas are never as good enough as the older people’s. And frankly, Simon has an ally in his mother because – ahem – I am a baby of the family, too.

I suppose that I see Simon’s frustration and automatically sympathize. Yesterday, he got beaned in the head with a snowball by one of The Older Bros., mostly because he was an easy target. The brother then dutifully led him to the house for first aid (hugs from mom and removal of the snow creeping down his neck). Simon was wailing and obviously very mad and, to his credit, (older brother’s name withheld for legal reasons) did apologize several times. But it was only when Simon all-out punched him that his own frustration finally dissipated and he was suddenly remorseful as well. Although I chastised him for letting his temper get the better of him, I related so well. Sometimes the only way to make the bigger people know you can’t be messed with is to get physical with them. Forgiveness doesn’t come as easy as when it’s mutual.

Simon does have an advantage over me. While I was a few years behind my next sibling, he’s not even two years behind and not compromised in size at all. Actually we predict that our youngest will probably outgrow the other two. (Update: Challenge accepted and met.) Consequently, we often warn them that if they keep trying the sit-on-Simon’s-head-game, it’s probably going to come back and bite them (in more ways than one). But Simon’s voice is smaller, if not in actual decibel output, in dismissible quotient. It seems all too easy for his older brothers to carry on a normal conversation while Simon tries in vain to get their attention. And when I casually mention to them that their brother is saying something, they appear surprised, as if it was only the wind blowing outside.

I remember those days of engaging in whole conversations only to find out I was the only one listening to myself. Granted, maybe my juvenile pursuits weren’t exactly interesting to my older, more sophisticated siblings. So I gradually became accustomed to doing things on my own. Anyways, when you’re ignored, it’s easier to get extra attention from mom, a trick that Simon has learned well. Some may call it kissing up (or other more derogatory terms). We babies just call it playing your hand.

If you sympathize with our plight, chances are you’re a baby, too. Oldest and middle children say that we live up to our name, but we can just give them back some of their own medicine: ignore them. After all, if you tried to say something, they probably won’t hear you anyways. 

About a Shoebox

Posted on by

When I was a kid, an important part of summer was the extra-hanging-out with The Cousins, especially the ones that lived about a mile away, easy distance by hike or by bike. And unlike school, where we were shuffled off into age-segregated groups, summer was a time to do away with those artificial lines. In the summer, The Youngers were sometimes allowed to hang with The Olders. It wasn’t Lord of the Flies, either – we had civilized wiener roasts or picnicked on white-bread sandwiches cut into neat triangles made by our auntie – and if somebody’s glasses got broken, we all commiserated. (Because we all wore glasses and knew dang well how much they cost.)

Usually, we stayed outside, because that was the best place to escape The Adults. But a sudden thunderstorm might send us into the barn or the playhouse, or even sometimes, the house. On one of these afternoons, with all of us crowded in a circle on my cousin Barb’s bed, she decided to show us The Shoebox. It was a pretty ordinary shoebox. And the shoes that once lived there had moved on. Inside, in a reverse chronological pile from the top down, were all the things she had saved in her life thus far, the Things She Decided Were Worth Saving. I don’t remember exactly what was inside that box but I could venture to guess there were some newspaper clippings, a napkin or two from a wedding (remember when napkins were “engraved” with the couples’ name and date of the wedding?), probably some birthday cards, friends’ school photos, bottlecaps, badges and some letters, still tucked inside their envelopes with their time-stamp postmarks on the front.

I was completely enamored. Here was her entire life in a shoebox! Okay, maybe not really. But it felt so personal to me, her letting us see All Those Special Things, because she was showing us a little piece of herself, her memories, her dear ones. And I knew then that I needed to get my own shoebox.

Shoeboxes have long been repositories of such collections. Before my Shoebox Epiphany, I knew there already were other shoeboxes in our house. There was a box of unused greeting cards that I loved to look at, with some strange postcards at the bottom that never would be sent to anyone. There was the box with all the invitations from weddings past. There was probably a shoebox with old photos in it. Because shoeboxes, by their very neat size and construction and maybe their appealing color or design (or perhaps by the sheer price tag of the shoes you purchased) demand to be saved. So you might as well put them to work.

The shoebox is also a good limiter. Once the shoebox is full, well, you need to get rid of something. One of the first things I remember secreting to my shoebox was a cardboard french fry box shaped like a skunk (WHAT?) that came from a rare lunch out in The City. I kept it for a loooooooong time but eventually it was ousted from the shoebox. The shoebox is a flexible time capsule so, if you’re a Peruser or a Rememberer, you might find yourself naturally culling through the box every time you rifle its contents. Because food-stained skunk boxes eventually do lose their ketchup-colored patina.

Of course, you could also just add another shoebox.

There’s a few “shoeboxes” in my house now: some actual shoeboxes, some are dedicated dresser drawers, but mostly, I have saved things in scrapbook albums, including some of those things from my childhood shoebox. I sometimes wonder what to do with it all. But then, one of the kids or the girlfriends or a niece or nephew askes a question about our Good Old Days and we find ourselves, in a circle, around the Proverbial Shoebox.

I’ve saved too much, I have so many shoeboxes, I wonder what to do with it all sometimes. Except: it’s always fun to look back and remember a time when your whole life could fit into a shoebox.

Do you know a kid who needs a shoebox this summer? It’s a pretty simple do-it-yourself project. And, of course, no adults allowed.

About One Crazy Summer

Posted on by

My love for children’s books began – wait for it – when I was a child myself. Of course, when I learned to read I reached for those books that I could easily enjoy at first and then I slowly climbed the ladder to “harder” books. But I never left the love of those “softer” books behind. After all, my basic criteria for what I want to read is a good story, one where I can maybe learn something about the human story, about history (or “her-story”) and about ways to use the language. And there are many picture, middle grade (MG) and young adult (YA) that fit that bill.

When I first read the book The Happiness Project, I felt vindicated in my unabashed love of children’s literature when Gretchen Rubin expressed her habit of returning again and again to the books of her childhood to re-read – for comfort, for enjoyment and to learn something new each time about the book, the writing or herself. She even started not one, but two book clubs, centered on reading such books because she discovered that, once confessed, she was not alone in in her quirky affection and therefore needed two groups to hold all those as secretly passionate as her.

During our homeschooling season, we once went to a conference where an educator discussed the merits of using children’s books, not just for children, but for adults, too, as launching pads into a new subject. If you want to learn about how airplanes work – because I sincerely don’t understand such magic, do you? – you should go to the library and find a children’s book about it. And maybe, that might be all you need. Oh sure, I could ask Wikipedia or the Google, but it often doesn’t engage me the same way. I can still picture the illustrations of Wilbur and Orville Wright from the Children’s Encyclopedia that I read from our basement library as a kid (Volume A: because that was the free incentive to buy the set). And while I may not remember the mechanics of flight, I know that the Orville Bros. of Kitty Hawk did and they were persistent enough to make it happen.

I didn’t pick up One Crazy Summer because I wanted to know more about the summer of 1968 in Oakland, California or about the Black Panthers or because it was a “black book”. I picked it because it was on the Newbery Medal and Honor List, which is awarded to exceptional MG and YA books and, again and again, I have learned that the Newbery Committee (usually) knows what they are doing. That being said, after visiting the King Center in Atlanta in the fall of 2016, I found my knowledge sorely lacking for what went on in the sixties with the Black Panthers and the other side of the coin, Martin Luther King Jr.’s non-violent protests.

Without context, we often assign judgement to acts of violence or protest. One Crazy Summer gives that context, with its story of the three Gaither sisters who travel from Brooklyn to Oakland one (crazy) summer to live with the mother who abandoned them when Delphine, the oldest, was five. Told in her voice, Delphine is a classic oldest child, a protective rule-keeper, a paradigm that Cecile, their mother does not fall into. Arriving in Oakland, it is not the happy reunion that the girls maybe hoped for, with Delphine resigning: “I was happy to be there and that had to be good enough.” In the way of their mother’s working routine, the girls are sent to a day camp run by the Black Panthers where they learn about Malcolm X and color protest posters that demanded “FREE HUEY”.

Over the course of the (crazy) summer and the course of the book, Delphine, Vonetta and Fern do learn more about their mother, a poet, and what she stands for, in the author’s masterful “show-don’t-tell” way. At the end of the summer, Delphine has a completely new paradigm in which to view her mother and a promise of a relationship going forward – which you can visit in the sequels P. S. Be Eleven and Gone Crazy in Alabama.

About What’s Saving My Life Right Now

Posted on by
Photo by Teigan Rodger on Unsplash.

At the end of Barbara Brown Taylor’s book Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith, the author lists a number of things that are “saving her life right now” – intuitive, instrumental and illuminating things that are life-giving in organic and maybe unorthodox ways – a little different to what she conventionally taught from the pulpit for years as an Episcopalian minister. Things like: teaching at a college, living in relationship with creation, and encountering God in other people.

At the end of every one of her podcasts, Jen Hatmaker borrows this same question to ask her guests – What is saving your life right now? – and the answers are not usually spiritual or abstract. More often what is saving someone’s life right now are ordinary things like reading a poem a day, eating ripe in-season strawberries or watching the latest Brian Regan special on Netflix.

I thought about this last night when I donned my eye mask before going to sleep. It’s usually still light outside when we hit the hay in this house and all the sleep-gurus strongly suggest that when it comes to sleeping better, darkness is your friend. I’m not that great of a sleeper these days – at least not during the second half of the night when my water habit wakes me up. It took me awhile to get used to it, but I think my eye mask is saving my life right now, helping me to get back to sleep a little quicker than usual.

But then, when I wake up in the morning, coffee is saving my life right now. Well, really, coffee has been saving my life for a long time, since I starting making cups of milky instant Nescafe to help me study for final exams in grade twelve. However, I sometimes get a little overzealous in my coffee habit and it becomes more of a havoc-maker than a life-saver. A visit to a doctor a few months ago instigated a stint on a very strict hypoallergenic diet to identify any foods which were causing my post-menopausal body more grief than they were worth. Happily – and maybe the reason I was able to sign on to such austerity – was that I could still drink my beloved coffee. But only two cups a day. It turned out to be such a good thing, because I’ve returned to the delight of really relishing those two cups, so much more so than the 4 or 5 I was glugging down.

Walking in the morning is saving my life right now. I love walking year-round but in the summer, there’s nothing so wonderful as being able to walk out the door in the early morning, knowing I’ll be greeted in sound and scene by all the friendly flora and fauna that love the early mornings, too. (Of course, there are some enemies as well: swooping gulls and rumors of bears in the park – but I’ve learned to avoid their usual hangouts.) And during our record-breaking “heat-snap” last week, morning was the only time that a long walk was tolerable.

Intermittent fasting is saving my life right now. Or I.F. to those in the club. For those of you not yet inducted, it simply means waiting a little longer than usual before you eat your first meal of the day. For me that is anywhere from 10 to noon for a total of 14 to 16 hours without food. (I do get to have my first cup of coffee because I drink it black during this window.) It cuts down my calorie intake for the day a little, which is good since Mother Nature decided that older women need to burn less. This doesn’t help when you’re used to eating three squares a day. Plus snacks. Plus dessert. Plus plus. I.F. has given me some reins to pull on the horse I call my appetite and by the time I do eat “break-fast”, I feel hungry and a good-emptiness in my tummy.

And, of course, reading (as always) is saving my life right now, but more specifically: reading other writer’s journals. So far I’ve read May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude and I’m over halfway through Madeleine L’Engle’s four-book Crosswicks Journals. Both women were writing from “about my age” in these journals, contending with everything from a raccoon who regularly breaks into the house every night (Sarton) to a mother’s last visit and then death at Crosswicks (L’Engle). And all the while, they were trying to keep up with the business of writing and managing a household, while also not getting as much sleep as they would have liked because of raucous raccoons and aged mothers. It’s a good reminder of the quote that “everyone is fighting a hard battle.” But in the midst of the battles are loveable grandchildren and velvety donkeys, burgeoning gardens and restful walks to the stream: things that were saving their lives right then.

It’s also a good reminder that it’s the little things that really make that difference. What’s saving your life right now?

About Nothing

Posted on by
Picture by Nathaniel Bowman on Unsplash

Wishing you all a lovely day to commemorate what is good about this country and how to keep it that way for all of our diverse citizenry.

From one hoser to another: “Take a day off, eh!”

About Manners

Posted on by

[It’s fun to look back on my column from twenty-some years ago. Now my boys are sporting their own piercings and, as always, question anything that doesn’t seem relevant. And our town is refreshingly UN-ethnocentric now.]

This morning as we were having breakfast, the sound of a cement mixer interrupted the conversation I was having with my husband. Upon closer examination (although the resemblance with mouth open was astonishing), we realized that it was our middle son Tim, accompanying the chewing of his toast with a very audible, if fluctuating, hum. Rick promptly directed him not to open his mouth when eating. Tim, always obedient if it can be made into a joke, looked directly at his Dad and with a smirk, kept his lips pursed and tried to shove his toast into his mouth. Flushing away all of Dad’s effort at teaching Tim some manners, I nearly choked on my toast as I snickered uncontrollably.

It occurred to me later in the day that in the whole business of teaching our three sons some manners, it’s probably going to get a lot worse before it gets better. The situation is even more serious if they can succeed in making Mom and Dad laugh when we’re supposed to be stern. The trouble with etiquette is that a lot of it doesn’t make sense to a child. If spaghetti is served, why can’t it be thoroughly enjoyed with all aspects of the face and hands, as well? Why do you have to say “excuse me” when your body performs an uncontrollable function? Why do you have to say “thank you” for a gift you don’t like? Why can’t you stare at the person with multiple body piercings in apparently awkward places? Wasn’t that the whole point? So that people will notice?

Then there’s the whole realm of political correctness. In our primarily ethno-centric community, it’s always a point of fascination for my kids to see someone different than them. Although television helps, real life is no contest. It’s hard to tell a small child that they shouldn’t bring up a person’s color or nationality to them, not to mention size, disability, length of hair or choice of clothing, because the person might find it offensive. In a child’s reasoning, the obvious question is: “Why?” If that’s what the person is, what’s the big deal talking about it?

If kids were always perfect, polite and politically correct, “Kids Say the Darndest Things” wouldn’t have gone past the pilot episode. And lots of magazines will pay good money for you to repeat the very thing about your child that at one moment exasperated you and made you laugh the next. As one mother related when trying to get her demanding daughter to ask nicely for a book, the little girl blurted out impatiently, “Please, excuse me, thank you and God bless!”

Fortunately, most people happily excuse a child’s curiosity and their fumbled attempts at politeness. But just in case, it might not be a bad idea to teach them a blanket statement like that one!