Category Archives: Thankfulness

About the Perfect Day

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About thirteen years ago, our family took an epic trip to the other side of the world to visit friends that lived there. Besides the obvious attraction of reuniting with our peeps, along with free accommodations and translation services, it was a warm country surrounded by ocean. In other words, a perfect holiday destination, completely different from our temperamental country of origin. It was a vacation I’m remembering wistfully today, in the midst of our February deep-freeze, as it were.

Towards the end of our time together, we crammed all eight of us – with suitcases – into their car and made a pilgrimage to the sea. Our destination from their inland city was less than Vermilion to Edmonton, but it took us all day to get there – we actually broke up the trip into two days. Because: Indonesian roads, traffic and time are just not the same as in North America. We arrived at our beach house in the pitch dark and fell exhausted into bed, the roar of the ocean so loud we thought there was a good chance we would be swept away in the night.

The next morning, when we cracked open our bedroom door – after checking that we were still, indeed, alive – we were greeted by Dave who had (bless him) made coffee and opened up an entire wall of doors to a porch where we could sip and stare at the ocean in our front yard. Not long after, we took a walk along the beach until our crew found a place to play in the surf. We spent the rest of the day exploring the jungle (and somebody’s fantastic treehouse – even though we weren’t actually invited to), alternating with dips in the pool and playing beach volleyball. When the sun disappeared, we ate a perfectly grilled supper of marlin steaks, prawns the size of our hands, and fresh vegetables. And then we played all the card games that Lynn could think of until we were too tired to stay awake anymore, even though we didn’t want the day – or our time with our friends – to end.

At one point that afternoon, when the sun was high and we were cooling off in the pool, Dave pronounced that it was A Perfect Day. It is something that has always stuck with me. While I don’t usually pine for sandy beaches, there is something to be said for the resetting nature of time by the water. That day we had nowhere to be but HERE AND NOW. The day progressed slowly and quickly. We spent time outside, we walked, we were curious and explored, we got a little wet and sweaty, we ate some pretty simple food and we were with people we loved. It’s a pretty simple equation.

And one that could actually be replicated anywhere. Sure, a beautiful exposure to ocean or mountain is helpful but it’s also good to remember that Perfect Days are just the sum of Simple Things. Plus, the time and the awareness to realize that Perfect can be Now. Even in February. In Alberta.

About The Happiness Equation

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I’ve already said this: I am a fan of Neil Pasricha. My admiration started with his podcast Three Books and then I realized I had heard of him before – I had even slipped a copy of The Book of Awesome in one of my son’s stockings one Christmas. I fangirled so much over Neil’s kind and endearingly nerdy interview style on his podcast that I left a voicemail of appreciation. Then one day in the car, as I was catching up on episodes, to my surprise I heard my voice coming from my radio. If you’d like to hear it, check out Episode 89 after Neil interviews Zafar the Hamburger Man (at time 50:17).

It would make sense that I would then want to read all the books that Neil has written. But while The Book of Awesome and its spawn are New York Times bestsellers, I prefer to stick to his more prescriptive books, starting with The Happiness Equation: Want Nothing + Do Anything = Have Everything.

The book is full of good advice which humorously ends with the caveat: Don’t Take Advice. This is #9 – you need to read the whole book to understand why – but basically, the book is filled with information that resonates and makes sense. Although it seems weird in a book whose very title suggests it will teach you what you need to be happy, the very first section tells you to Be Happy First.

Wait, what? Is it really that simple? Think it, do it?

Actually, the important part of that mini-sentence is the DO. In the first few pages of the book, Pasricha outlines 7 Ways To Be Happier RIGHT NOW as verified by the field of positive psychology. Here they are:

  1. Three Walks – We all know that exercise makes us feel better, if not while we’re doing it, then for the benefits after. Research backs that as little as three 30-minute walks a week will activate pleasant feelings – a.k.a. happy feelings.
  2. The 20-Minute-Replay – If you’re happy and you know it, write it down! Writing about a happy experience lets you relive that experience as you write it down and every time you re-read it.
  3. Random Acts of Kindness – Hold open a door. Shovel someone’s sidewalk. Pay for coffee for the next guy in line. Five kindnesses like these a week help you feel good about yourself and thus, happier.
  4. A Complete Unplug – Periodically – be it after supper, for a weekend or during a vacation – disengage completely from social media, the internet and incessant texting. In fact, Pasricha is a proponent of landlines – if people really want to reach you, they can call you at home. (No one every does.)
  5. Find your Flow. Engage in a personally challenging activity that makes you forget everything else.
  6. Meditate – FOR TWO MINUTES. 2-minute-meditations on a regular basis increase compassion and self-awareness and decrease stress. All for the cost of TWO MINUTES.
  7. Be grateful. Once a week, write out three to five things you’re grateful for. As Pasricha says, “If you can be happy with simple things, then it will be simple to be happy.”

Sounds good to me. And easy. But hard. Because in the end it’s up to us to DO these things – no one else can make you happy. It’s all part of the equation.

About What’s Good

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Photo by Valentin Petkov on Unsplash

Yesterday I had a good 3-hour pre-Christmas phonecall with one of my dearest friends. She’s the kind of friend where we don’t need to talk every day or every week or even every month, but when we do, the three hours feels like ten minutes. I count it a good good blessing to have friends like that.

Three hours on the phone does give you a lot of time to discuss what’s new and also, as good friends will do, rehash what is old. Especially since we are getting old or – at least – old-er. We talked about how we are celebrating our respective Christmases – what’s the same and what’s different from the usual: her mom is in Mexico, mine is in heaven. Her grandchildren will be with her ex-son-in-law, I haven’t got any (yet). We both get to spend most of it with our best friends (our husbands), but there are other things that are different because the one thing you can count on is change.

And then, maybe around hour two, when we had pretty much solved the problems of the world – according to us – she quoted something she heard from Oprah that had stuck with her, something like: enjoy what’s good while it lasts, because it won’t last forever. And – know that what’s bad also won’t last forever.

It’s the kind of wisdom that at first blush, sounds icky, like a parent admonishing a child: Be THANKFUL, dammit! But then, the wise-ness seeps in, especially if you’re not a toddler or a teenager, because growing older teaches us the hard and the good way that this piece of advice is TRUE.

Do I wish that my mom, gone these seven years now, was here so we could enjoy another one of her special Christmas Eves? Or that, for heaven’s sake, we could go back to proceeding as normal without masks and admonitions, that Covid and all its iterations would just skedaddle already? Or even that it might warm up to oh – minus 5? – so that my front door would shut properly again and my kids don’t have to worry about their cars starting?

Well, sure. But in the grand scheme of things, I wouldn’t know such goodness if I hadn’t already witnessed it for myself, in all its smallness and bigness.

Here’s wishing that your ten minutes of goodness this Christmas feels like three hours – and even more.

About Plan A and a Half

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It was a dark and….well, it was just a dark night in November. Which isn’t surprising anytime after 5 pm once Daylight Savings Time ends. Rick and I were on our way on to Edmonton, heading up to my first in-person Oilers hockey game of the season, of the past two years almost, because you know: COVID. We knew we were probably not going to get there in time for the first period, but that was okay. Life happens.

And then, we hit a deer.

Or, more accurately, the deer hit us. I’m pretty sure we had the right of way, but then again, TELL THAT TO THE DEER. Initially, I thought that we missed “the” deer but then as per usual, this guy was not travelling alone. I barely had time to be flabbergasted before “second deer” made first contact.

And second contact, and then probably third. I dunno, it all happened pretty fast, y’know? Rick did some excellent maneuvering to minimize damage to both deer and car. You can infer all you want about speed limits – which Rick likes to think of as speed suggestions – but really, speed wasn’t the issue. The ISSUE was a couple of dang deer deciding to play chicken on Highway 16.

So many idioms to mess with: Why did the deer cross the road? Was the grass tastier on the other side? Was this where the rutter hits the road?

We got off pretty lucky. We assessed the car at the side of the road first and then deemed it safe to drive to the Innisfree truck stop so we could further inspect it under the bright lights of the gas station. And after pulling a few random pieces of plastic off my poor car – which some nincompoop at Ford named AN ESCAPE (talk about misleading advertising) – we decided to proceed with Plan A. The car was pretty beat up on the drivers’ side, the front headlight looked like alien eyes on a fourth grader’s art project and one of the doors made a gunshot sound when you opened it. But you know, still driveable.

PLUS: we had a hockey game to get to. The car got us to our destination in time for the second period and surprisingly neither Rick nor I was all that shook up with the evening’s events thus far. Well, until Connor McDavid scored another one of his ridiculous goals. That’s enough to get your heart rate going.

I think he was going faster than the deer. Just sayin.

About What’s Saving My Life Right Now

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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 Walking the Pond

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One of the hidden blessings of our move just a few blocks west in our town is how close we are to The Pond. While we have lived for the last 16 or so years on the edge of Vermilion Provincial Park and have enjoyed the trails immensely, the five minutes it takes to walk to The Pond from where we currently live has been a true serendipity. Even when Rick gets home from work tired, once we get out the door for our constitutional, we are never sorry when we get to The Pond.

We’ve always been Walkers but the lockdown last March definitely cemented that distinction. With everything closed, the great outdoors became our gymnasium. With extra people in the house, each one of us used the park as our personal retreat. For the sake of just exercise, walking anywhere will do, but I find that the spiritual and emotional benefits of beautiful scenery definitely amplify the physical.

Walking the pond in the fall and winter is quieter – although we do see a lot of action from the muskrats. AND THE CRAZY BEAVERS.

But in the spring, it’s like Nature cannot contain herself. The leaves erupt from the trees like a time-elapsed video. And the beavers get chased away, it seems, by the influx of ducks and blackbirds. And maybe people – because we’re not the only ones who appreciate the finer points of The Pond.

I missed the crocuses this year, but yesterday I saw my first buffalo bean at The Pond!

And there’s always a lot of unreasonably paranoid gopher citizens on patrol.

Last year, Rick and I witnessed the hilarious mating rituals of the Red-Winged Blackbirds as the males danced crazily along the path totally oblivious to us as we walked by. However, I learned that a little later in June, they’re not so oblivious anymore and I stay away from the pond for awhile to avoid the protective dive-bombing parents.

But the best part, in the early morning, is the orchestra of frogs and birds and critters. Sound on!

About Canadian Geese

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Photo by Crystal Jo on Unsplash

We’re not travelling very much these days with The Whole Covid Thing. And we’re certainly not crossing any borders except maybe past the big red border markers in Lloydminster. So it’s kind of fascinating to think about how the Canadian geese that proliferate the fields and sloughs at this time of year make their semi-annual trek north and south without any regard for travel bans.

I love Canadian geese. When I was driving some distance in the car recently, I was able to enjoy mile after mile of geese flying in the air and dancing on small ice floes. Plus I witnessed a few cow-and-goose get-togethers in some pastures, the two species standing around a grain buffet like it was a cocktail party. Maybe it’s the “Canadian” moniker that makes me so affectionate towards them, both patriotic and possessive. Maybe it’s just that they are one of the first happy heralds to spring, arriving while there’s still ice on the pond and the threat of a spring blizzard. It’s like they don’t care, they just want to get home even if they didn’t send anyone ahead to turn up the heat in house after a long time away.

There’s also the whole “mates for life” thing. The deeper into spring we get, the less often you see whole flocks. Instead, you witness couples scouting out a place to nest or just having tea for two. I’m a little sad when I see three geese hanging out, because I assume some heartbreak must have occurred for one (or all three). I actually saw one silly goose lolling about in the rocks and muddy leftovers of a former snow pile in a Superstore parking lot like he was the last customer in the pub, maybe looking for love where there was none to be found. Eventually he flew away, drunkenly.

My assumptions may be completely off base. Maybe some geese don’t want to be hitched, tied down or coupled – just like some humans . Geese are known for their adaptability, so why not their individuality, too? I mean, I can’t tell apart one from the other but they certainly know who their significant other is, if they have one. Some enjoy living in the country, others make their nests on the roofs of high-rises. They always seem to figure things out.

Nearly twenty years ago, there was a terrible drought around here. The sloughs dried up and the geese, it seemed, went away. But no, they didn’t. They just figured out where they had to go to find water. My boys and I would find thousands of them congregated in the Vermilion Provincial Park where the river swells at the bottom of the toboggan hill, a whole convention of geese (loudly) discussing their ideas of what they should do next.

Every day, we turn on the news and listen to all the silly geese talking about what’s going to happen – as if anyone really knows. The real geese have it figured out: head to north in the spring, find someone to love and include a lonely third. Don’t judge where others live. And eventually plan a big trip with a bunch of friends or family to someplace warm. Not so silly after all.

About the Farm (and Some Pigs)

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“Pigs by the Radiator” Copyright Sharlie Donily

One thing I have been using a lot more during the pandemic is a nice little library app called Libby. It’s like a one-stop shop for all my digital library needs – especially audiobooks. Sometimes when I just want to listen to something while I walk or cook or exercise, I check out what’s available right now – kind of like Russian library roulette. And so, I found myself listening to Charlotte’s Web. The bonus: it was read by the author E. B. White himself.

I came to this classic book kind of late, not reading it until I was in my thirties. I was enchanted then and was enchanted again as I listened last week to a story about a couple of unlikely best friends: a pig and a spider. The setting however, was not unfamiliar to me: a barn with lots of other residents. In the story there are cows, geese, even a rat who goes through his own story arc. And I reminisced a little about when I had a barn to visit like Fern, the girl who saved Wilbur the pig from an early demise.

One of my favorite memories about living on the farm, however, isn’t about me visiting the animals in the barn but the other way around. In the early spring, when a litter of baby pigs arrived but the temperature dipped too low for their safety, my Dad or my brothers would bring a cardboard box of piggies into the house for the night. The box would be placed next to the wall register in my bedroom off the kitchen and I was lulled to sleep by the gentle squeaks of warm baby piggies. (I would pay cash money for a sleep app that featured a “warm newborn piglets in a cardboard box” soundtrack.)

I’m so thankful for having grown up on the farm. Although it was never my ambition to keep being a farm girl, I am glad that I know where my bread and butter actually do come from. I’m re-reading another favorite right now – Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver – about her family’s year-long chronicle with eating a diet of only locally sourced foods, much of which was grown on their own farm. I decided to read this book slowly, enjoying the corresponding chapters with each ensuing month. It starts in March. Kingsolver, an wonderful writer, but also a botanist and a vigilante gardener outlines in the introduction how very far removed most people are from the source of their food. Even a biologist friend, hearing Kingsolver recap over the phone the goings-on in her garden was surprised to hear that the potatoes were “up”: she thought that potatoes only had bottoms, no tops.

Most of us who grow up on the farm know that you name your pets with caution, understanding the caveat that having a name doesn’t mean they will escape their eventual fate like Wilbur the Pig does. (And zero of us knows a spider who managed it.) But there’s something very gratifying about knowing where your Easter ham comes from or the colored eggs (hint: not a bunny) or the asparagus that Kingsolver rhapsodizes about in her March chapter.

Thank goodness for farmers and writers who remind us of these simple life-giving things.

(Oh, and Instagrammers, too!)

About Small Talk

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I went to the grocery store this morning for some basics: bananas (because: BANANAS), cream for my coffee, some pasta and a tomato for tonight’s supper. I don’t usually go to this particular grocery store out of the two in my small town – it’s a whole five minutes further by car and that’s usually enough of a deterrent, but I also don’t think the loss leaders are very enticing. And finally, I don’t find the cashiers there overly… well, happy to see me. Not me, specifically, just me as a customer in general.

Except for today. As I unfolded my re-useable grocery bag to scarf away my purchases, the cashier became overly animated about the fact that my bag sported a Cookies By George logo. She positively gushed about how much she loved those cookies – which I confess I also have a weakness for, so much so that I try to donate blood at the Canadian Blood Services location near the U of A in Edmonton because they (pre-Covid) usually serve Cookies By George leftovers. Which I feel no guilt in eating after trading in a pint of my lifeblood.

A couple of things took me by the surprise. First, was the gushing. My previously unengaged food checker suddenly developed a personality and we were bonding over (just the thought of ) a yummy treat. My trip to the grocery store had become like reminiscing about a holiday with its standard observance for consumption of chocolate eggs or shortbread cookies or pumpkin spice lattes.

The second thing was more surprising. I was almost moved to tears by the whole cookie conversation because: COVID. I’m just so tired of the anonymity of wearing masks, the 6-foot distant conversations, the leaning away and the crossing of streets. I am missing small talk and the clerk suddenly disclosing the cookie thing made me like her a little more.

Now, to be clear, I’m not tired of following the rules for the safety of all concerned, including myself. I just am missing the nuances of our Pre-Covid Life: the jostling of elbows in a crowd, the passing of the peace in church, the easy hugs from family and sometimes virtual (the pre-pandemic kind of virtual) strangers. Post-Covid Life is a little less spicy, less interesting and less filled with inane conversations about cookies. But inane conversations that nonetheless make me feel incredibly connected to the world again for Just. One. Moment.

Too often small talk has been given a bad rap. Although I do like to “interview people”, as my husband says, sometimes conversation amongst strangers and acquaintances does not come so easily. But there can be a lot of potential in spontaneous chatter: it can spark a friendship or a romance, it can send out a warning signal (“This is not the friend you are looking for.”), it can lead you to a good restaurant recommendation or indie bookstore when you’re travelling and it can very possibly help you to feel human, like you are included and like you belong.

So here’s three cheers (or at least one) for small talk.

About 2020

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https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/edmonton-ad-agency-sums-up-2020-with-xmas-dumpster-fire-channel-1.5224958

This year, on Christmas Eve, instead of tuning in our television screen to the standard fireplace channel to set the mood for a magical evening, we opted for a dumpster fire that we queued up on YouTube which had been produced by an Edmonton graphic design firm.

And so we come to the end of The Year That Nobody Expected, Not In A Million Years. Let’s see: there was a world-wide pandemic, premature death, economic chaos and, ugh, social distancing. You mean to say that throughout this sh*tstorm, we don’t even get to cry on other people’s shoulders, pull them in close for a hug or sit side-by-side just to have the feeling that someone else is with you? Isn’t that what shoulders are for? So, yes, the appropriate response might be to throw it all into the dumpster and, for good measure, douse it in gasoline and light it up.

Is it possible that there’s another response?

Easy for me to say. Yes, there have been difficult moments for me this year. There was uncertainty, there was frustration, there was fatigue with the whole dang situation – and that all continues as we move into a new year. But I/we have been “lucky”: our business has survived and none of my immediate family got “The Vid”. (Although Simon claims he can still feel the swab they stuck up his nose to test him back in May.)

The last few months of 2020 I’ve been reading through Barbara Brown Taylor’s An Altar in the World about different ways to practice faith…well, practically. The last chapter is about pronouncing blessings, which is something that anyone can do. BBT says she’s not even sure you have to believe in God to pronounce something blessed, that “it may be enough to see the thing for what it is and pronounce it good.”

AND THEN she goes on to say that you blessing something doesn’t confer the holiness – it already is just there – that maybe we have no business deciding if something is a blessing or not. One can say a blessing “when you break a bone the same as you do when you win the lottery. The two events may be more alike than you know.“

Hmm.

I remember the first time I was challenged with this concept. It was while I was attending university and had stopped in to visit my spiritual mentor at the time. I overstayed my parking welcome and when I found a (not-a-lottery) ticket on my windshield, he called out from the front door where he and his wife were waving goodbye to me: “Call it a blessing!”

Okaaaaay…how could I do that? Well, first of all, it wasn’t enough to erase the happy feeling I had of the good, long visit we had just enjoyed. I got a ticket, but I was also lucky enough to own my own car. I got a ticket but I probably didn’t starve to pay it. I got a ticket and it taught me to be more careful next time. Apparently, there were myriad blessings in the thing.

The dumpster fire can consume a lot of crap. But it can give off a lot of warmth and light, too, which is Not All Bad. Wishing you a Happy New Year and pronouncing it Already Blessed, No Matter What.