be-musings

I realize the last post ended on a different turn than I was originally thinking. As I said, sometimes the thoughts ruminate but aren't ready to come out. Plus, it can be difficult to write about personal things that are about emotional journeys.
When I first read the Bill Cosby quote in amongst his quips, it really hit me. Then I also thought about how we screw our kids up.
It has been said that divorce is most difficult on the children. That probably is mostly true, and in part it is because they are put in the middle of two warring factions, who siphon their messages to the other parent through the children. They often tell their side of the story as to the cause of the divorce, and use the children as "spies" to gain information about what's happening in the other home, beyond what they need to know about the care and safety of the child. Many times they offhandedly make snide comments about the other parent's love interest, if there is one. The children feel they need to protect each parent's feelings by not speaking too nicely about the other one in their presence. Not always, but I suspect more often than not.
The uncertainty of the family unit would be very difficult for a child, especially a young one. My parents separated when I was 16, and I didn't fall into this category. In fact, my aloof father stepped up to the plate more after that, and made sure to begin to tell me he loved me. My mom became a more confident woman, really shining her true self. Of course there was a lot of grieving to be done, probably on both parents' sides, and that process may have taken years.
This is an area I know about. Grieving. When I was first separated, a friend of mine said it was going to be a very hard road. Not being divorced as she had been, I didn't fully understand. I do now. The physical and immediate process is devastating, no matter which partner you are. It is different for each person, and each person processes differently depending on their temperament as well as who was finally the "initiator". I use the word finally, because sometimes divorce has been a topic in a home, even of mutual consent at times, but the reality of it is much different than the theory.
I am a thinker, who takes time to work through life's emotional processes. I'm also a second-guesser, and someone who feels responsibility for any part of any action that I might be involved in. And for me, responsibility weighs on me for years, along with the memories of things I could have or should have done differently. This kind of temperament makes divorce difficult.
My divorce date was not a date of celebration. When the documents came in the mail I didn't shout, I breathed a shallow, short breath as I held the papers, tears in my eyes. I have no criticism for anyone with a more exuberant experience, but this is my story. When I saw a friend later that day I was quietly congratulated. I responded that it wasn't a thing to be congratulated on, but a thing to be grieved. The goal and dream I had since a teen, of being with one person until death was totally gone. Yes, it was a release of one sort, but still it bore sorrows. It was also a death of pride, because I enjoyed the shocked responses when I told people I had been married 22 years. Now that claim can't be made, and I have joined the divorce statistics. That's tough on the ego. But maybe it's good to work through that too. Pride isn't necessarily a good thing. I can learn and grow through this.
If you're not divorced, you know what it's like to break up with a friend. Even if you were the one to initialize the final stages of break up which usually contains dissention, disagreement, refusing to be with them any more, there is a void. First there is anger and the sense of betrayal, but there are still wonderful experiences you have shared. In some moments you might wish things were different, but not be able to change them. You might feel it's best for you not to be close any more, but that doesn't mean you don't work through that loss. It's a tricky balance, when you have loved someone so greatly, to escape a relationship breakdown without bitterness and anger.
It's a feat that I dare say, very few humans have been able to achieve. That emotion kills part of the soul, in a way we can't even see at the time. I personally have had a difficult time housing it with no direction for it to go except to my dreams. I can't let it go to my child or other people, besides an intimate circle. The poison of this emotion can be too strong for we humans, and I don't want others polluted with it. I have realized that it's too big for me and I need to continually give it to Someone who is stronger than I am.

I recently finished reading Fatherhood, by Bill Cosby. It's an easy read; anecdotal, funny, yet also thought provoking. In one of the sections he talks about why people have children. The chapter title is "Sweet Insanity". Among the jokes, he has this to say:
Some people call a baby a 'symbol of our love', feeling that just the two of them would not be symbol enough. The sad truth is, there are people who marry, grow away from each other, get divorced, and then take this symbol of their love and tell it to hate the other mate.
Ouch. Now if you're separated or divorced and reading this, you might understand what it means. Usually we see that truth in others more than in ourselves, but it is often truth none-the-less. And to be honest, you don't have to be in a break up to wield the sword of playing children against the other parent.
At times I think that we grown ups are children in bigger bodies. Immature in our weak moments, when we're hurt or we want someone to like us who doesn't. I can be competitive, and hold it back to not let that nature creep into relationships. A relationship is best when each person serves the other, not themselves.
I have had some other thoughts which aren't fusing together, so I'll end there. The rest will come in the right time.

Our dog Angus is afraid of the vacuum. He dashes around trying when we use it, making sure he stays far away.
The same dog, who never used to shed, now is making up for the previous 5 months of not losing hair. Every day we sweep up handfuls of the black stuff. So, Scott had a brilliant idea. Skip the middle part of shedding and vacuum it off instead. You can imagine how well that went over with Angus. Ben held him while Scott vacuumed, and out of mercy they gave up easily and let him go to run away, looking behind him the whole time.
It reminds me of Matthew. When he was a toddler he too was afraid of the vacuum. No, I didn't put it on his hair and turn it on, but I did try getting him to touch it when it was turned off, while I used high pitched reassuring tones to let him know it was okay. This also reminds me of another Matthew moment.
For his first birthday, he got a lot of cute toys. He was mostly interested in the boxes, but I tried to help him learn to play with what he got. One such item was a Thomas the Tank Engine train with cabooses. As it was pulled, it chugged and whistled. Matthew was freaked out.
I liked this toy, and thought I could help Matthew to conquer his fear like I did the vacuum cleaner. I held Matthew's hand while I pulled the toy. He looked apprehensive and kept darting glances at it. When he seemed calmer I put the string in his hand but he wouldn't pull it. By this time I had a goal. After a few days I was determined to help my son conquer his fear. But how could he, if he never used the toy? So, I tied the string to a button on his pyjamas one night. Then he would see that it isn't scary, and we could make a game of chasing each other around the house with the train in tow.
I took him into the kitchen and switched it on, to the sound of a "choo-choo"! Matthew's eyes went big, and he started moving, to escape the scary thing. As he moved though, it came with him, chasing him. He ended up at a cupboard, hanging onto the knob, trying to climb straight up. Cornered by Thomas. What a sad sight.
I quickly unleashed the grip of terror, laughing the whole time. I don't think he bears any emotional scars of it...I hope he doesn't. Maybe I'll take him on Via Rail sometime just to see.

I made a fabulous soup the other day. Whenever I say this kind of thing understand that what I mean is the recipe is so tasty. This soup keeps for two days. It is great for supper, and especially after a chilly day working outside or snowboarding. It serves 8 small portions, or 5 liberal portions. It looks lengthy, but don't be disheartened. It's easy. If you don't have all these spices and don't know if you'll use them again, check out the bulk foods section for small amounts. Allow about an hour total cook time.








1 lb Italian sausage (we bought the kind with basil in it)
1 tsp vegetable oil
1 chopped onion
4 cloves minced garlic
1 large chopped carrot
1 stalk chopped celery
2 thinly sliced Jalapeno peppers, or 1/4 tsp cayenne/hot pepper flakes
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp each ground coriander and paprika
1/4 tsp each chili powder and pepper
1 can (19 ox/540 ml) chick-peas
3 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 avocado
2 limes

Remove casings from sausages; cut into slices or break into chunks. In large pot, heat oil over medium heat; cook sausage for 5 minutes. You don't need to stir. Add onion, garlic, carrot and celery; cook, stirring often, for about 10 minutes or until vegetables are softened and sausage is cooked through. Skim off any excess fat.
Stir in jalapeno peppers, cumin, ground coriander, paprika, chili powder and pepper; cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Pour in tomatoes, breaking up into small pieces with back of spoon; bing to boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, drain and rinse chickpeas; stir into pot along with stock and 2 Tbsp of the fresh parsley. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, half avocado and remove pit. Cut through flesh to skin lengthwise and crosswise to dice; with spoon, scoop out cubes into bowl. Squeeze juice from 1 of the limes; toss juice with avocado. Slice remaining lime into 8 wedges. Garnish each serving with avocado and lime wedge. Sprinkle with remaining parsley.

An Alberta cowboy was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"

The cowboy looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, Why not?"
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an Exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany .

Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel Spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, Miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and Says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says the Cowboy. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car. Then the cowboy says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?"

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?" "You're a member of parliament for the Canadian Government", says the cowboy. "Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?" "No guessing required." answered the cowboy.
"You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about cows...this is a herd of sheep. Now give me back my dog."

"The Summer of Love was the peak of the Haight Ashbury experience," wrote founding editor Allen Cohen in his essay on the Summer of Love. "Over 100,000 youth came to the Haight. Hoards of reporters, movie makers, FBI agents, undercover police, drug addicts, provocateurs, Mafioso and about 100,000 more tourists to watch them all followed in their wake."

I've been to Haight Street, when I lived in LA. You might be too young to remember, but there was quite a hippie movement in Haight in the mid 1960's. I saw a documentary on it several years ago, probably a biased one. But I think some of the things that were highlighted were probably also accurate.
The Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Free Love, "weekend marriages", psychedelic drug trips, tie dye, syphilis, dropping out of society, protesting the Vietnam War gone bad (whose beginning was never good), bumming around in the park.
What did the hippies stand for, besides anarchy and sefishness? Peace with each other. Nature - especially the kind you could smoke, ingest, or inhale. Communal living, including sharing women. Children by any male in the commune. We have a slanted picture of these movements. They spoke out too much and didn't bathe enough. They talked of degradation of the earth and it's resources and the need to stop big business from taking over the world and the land. Worthless, drugged illusions. Or........
Turns out some of the things the drop outs were complaining about are actually true. Recently a report on global warming was published, which states mankind is primarily responsible for the changes in the temperature of the earth, ice caps, ozone gas. We didn't think this made sense when big business was beginning to surge in the 1960's. But the hippies talked about it. Society just figured they were anti-success losers. Who could blame them, with the image of long hair and disease and welfare?

From 1964 to 1968, there swelled a gigantic wave of cultural and political change that swept first San Francisco, then the whole United States, and then the world. What was fermenting in the Haight-Ashbury section of San Francisco was a powerful brew that would ultimately stop a war.

Saturday night Scott and I went to a Barenaked Ladies concert. During the pre-concert video footage, facts about global warming and alternate power sources kept flashing on the screen. They made statements about their part in reducing harmful emissions and being energy smart with their tour. I had no idea it was so cool to be so --- hippie. U2 speaks for the Red Campaign. I don't know what other bands are doing, but they're getting onto it. Great PR and a better planet must be the result, right?
Where are the Haight-Ashbury hippies today? They're in their 60's now, and probably telling their grandchildren a few stories about how they warned people things would go this way. Maybe they didn't have all the facts, but they sensed it. I also wonder if those same people became big-business in their 40's and helped contribute to the problem the earth has. Maybe they didn't heed their own advice during the money-making years.

Last week at church we had a fashion show highlighting horrible labour practises around the world. A friend of mine said that sweatshops exist here too, relative to our employment standards. That is probably true. I can't do something about everything, but I can do a few small things. I can't reverse the greenhouse effect, especially by myself. And I'm not a soapbox person. I just agree with a couple of my friends who say we can't tackle the world, but we can make choices with parts of our actions. I won't live in the bush, growing my own garden, using an alternative heat source that reduces emissions, weaving my own hemp clothes. But I can wash with hot water a little less, make fewer trips in the car, look at options for some "sweatshopless" clothes. Maybe that makes me a hippie.
Will you be a hippie too?