Having just upgraded to WordPress 3.1 from 2.9.2 (gives you some idea of how much attention I pay to such things) I thought I’d give you a small entry to kick the tires. Without further adieu, my stream of thought:
Thanks to Opal for unintentionally prompting this upgrade with her tweet today.
I keep wanting to use Twitter more, but for some reason, I just don’t. I think it’s to do with access.
If you want to follow my sporadic tweets, you can do so @machei
Five YEARS ago, I won a contest down at Rude Cactus for coming up with a tagline for the blog. Chris never sent me the prize. Although to be fair, I haven’t thought of this in ages before this month, and I still read him, so clearly, I’m not feeling all that hard done by. I just saw the trackback link thanks to the WordPress upgrade.
Today I found myself thinking that life’s lost its ‘fun’, and that maybe fun is something you only get when you’re a kid. The fact that Leonard Cohen was once quoted as saying “Sex is the sport of the young” makes me think that, depressingly, I may be on to something.
I’ve sort of lost faith in Environment Canada’s reporting ability. By no metric can what’s happened the last 12 hours be considered a snow storm.
There was a guy on the CBC this morning saying that Canada couldn’t possibly have foreseen what’s happening in Libya, so the Canadians stranded there shouldn’t be surprized the government didn’t have an exit strategy. I responded to the radio by saying, “Cripes, it’s only been three months since the events in Tunisia started, followed by the events in Egypt a month later. How could this NOT have raised a flag? Hell, I’d start putting things in place in North Korea now!” Then, I saw this news story. Hmm… domino effect indeed. And I don’t get paid to be aware of this stuff!
I am reading Anne of Green Gables. And I’m enjoying it. How in the hell did that happen?
I am seriously considering getting an e-reader. Currently the Sony Reader is in the lead, and I’d probably buy one if they actually could keep any in stock within 200km of me.
I find that lately I do not impulse buy as much. I’ve been thinking about this e-reader thing for a month and I still don’t have it. It’s a weird event that happens when I see something I would normally get and then think, “I don’t actually really want that” and to my amazement realize that I don’t really want it. It begs the question of what I’ve been feeding all this time, and makes me wonder if it’s a consequence of buying a house, or yet another ‘getting older’ thing. Either way, that’s a good thing I figure–if I can go a month and still feel like I want x, then maybe I actually do.
Freecycle (aka Full Circles) is both great and frustrating. It’s great that you can get rid of stuff. It’s frustrating that the first FOUR people who said they wanted the turntable I was giving away backed out at the last minute.
I really don’t like the general public at large. My fellow humans are a breed I often don’t understand, and for whatever reason disappoint me more often than they inspire me. This is probably why I’m an introvert. Or maybe my introversion is a consequence of that. Chicken? Egg?
I am so very ready for spring. Bring it on. Please.
The past couple weeks, an article about meditation has been circulating on pretty much all of the blogs I frequent. It’s basically a treatise explaining how in only 8 weeks of regular meditation, the brain can be altered in positive ways. It’s being referred to so much that it’s starting to feel like a desperate plea–”Look! Meditation is good it really, really is! Look! LOOOOOOOOK!” I’m kinda finding it a little disturbing how much attention it’s getting.
The first time I saw it, I liked it; it’s the sort of article that I find valuable because it contains some sort of clinical bent. While I like the flowery, “let’s all meditate and change the world” stuff because it makes me feel positive about my choices, I prefer it when someone can give me a concrete reason for what I’m doing beyond the warm and runny feelings. In short, I like it when I see the benefit–I don’t like doing things for absolutely no good reason.
So, it’s a little strange when I read articles like this one. The problem is, I can’t bear out the results on a personal level. I’ve been meditating for a while now. Certainly a year on and off, and for sure three or four months daily at this point. I do 20 minutes each and every morning, Sundays excepted. While I’m not excellent at it, I do think I do pretty well.
I started this practice for various reasons, not the least was clinical evidence of the sort presented in the above article. But also because people recommended it, and I’d read a lot about it. Thankfully, I read enough non-clinical texts (i.e. Buddhist) about meditating that I went into it with absolutely no expectation of gain. I’m doing it because I think it’s a good thing to do. Don’t ask me why… beyond that, it’s probably more an act of faith.
But I can tell you, in all of my eight weeks+ I have not noticed what this study is on about. I totally get the concept, but I don’t see a real change. I’m still tried, edgy, negative, etc. etc. I know I have seen some benefits of my regular meditation practice, but it’s not what people are professing.
Hmm. What am I trying to say? It was important enough to start a blog entry…
I think it’s a combination of feeling a little miffed that “facts” aren’t always what they say, and the belief that if you want to meditate, you need to come at it from a different place than expectation.
We are finally, finally done moving. Or rather, we have no more items to move from our two bedroom apartment to our new semi-detached backsplit. Even in my wildest fantasies, I never would have believed that we managed to fit so much stuff into a two bedroom apartment with no storage space. Looking around our new environment, I think there’s a good chance that as it stands, we have too much stuff even for our house, with ample storage space, to hold. But, it’s all here, and now comes the fun part, which is excavating and unpacking all of our stuff and finding places to put it all. We haven’t yet started this process because after this past weekend, we were utterly demolished, both physically and emotionally.
The first order of business was to set up the TV and veg out in front of it. That picture up there, by the way, is me about to assemble the TV stand and hook up the stereo and speakers. This was followed in short order by hooking up the computers and getting the internet to work. In a flurry of shortsightedness, I had the Rogers technician hook up our internet in the basement, thinking it was central and out of the way and the WiFi would service the whole house. It does, and all works brilliantly with the exception of the printer. I forgot that in order for us to use it as a network printer it needs to run through the router, which means that we need to go clear into the basement every time we want to retrieve a document. Thinking things through was one of the things I should have done more of in this whole process.
See, we knew we had the house at the end of November. We took possession on the 14th of January, and that left us with two full weeks to move from the apartment (where our lease expired on the 31st of January) to the house. All that time gave us a totally misguided sense of complacency. “We’ve got LOADS of time! We don’t need to do anything today! Besides, it’s the holidays–who does stuff then?” Jesus. In retrospect, I have to ask, how could two highly educated people be so friggin’ stupid? As it happened, we didn’t even start to get the items needed to pack (boxes, tape) until the first week of January, to say nothing of beginning to organize stuff.
While I’m very happy to report that we moved without anything getting broken or any lives getting lost or anything really going monumentally wrong, I have to say this was the worst move in my life so far, and was pretty disastrous compared to how it might have gone. A little over a year ago, I saw my mom move from a spacious three bedroom house with a finished basement and two sheds in the yard to a two bedroom apartment that’s smaller than the one Suz and I just came from with virtually no issues at all. When I think of that, it seems totally magical to me. I don’t know how they did it–I don’t understand it any more than I’d understand someone setting fire to something using only their mind. Considering we have far, far more space now, our move was orders of magnitude more painful.
So, I’ll take a minute to put down some thoughts and hopefully take away some lessons from this whole experience:
First and foremost: we have too much damned stuff. Not just a little–a whole lot. Two people, I don’t care who they are, should not have as much stuff as Suz and I have. I can’t speak for Suz, but for me, I have become the living embodiment of excess. In one generation, I’ve become a consummate consumer and sentimental hoarder. My parents would have totally balked at the level of excess I now have. It’s ridiculous, and quite frankly insulting to the world I steal from to have all this crap and it speaks to my unhealthy attachment to ‘things’. I define myself by my possessions, and have become the poster boy for the famous quote from Fight Club, “the things you own, end up owning you”. For years, I’ve found my environment to be stressful and depressing beyond belief. One of my greatest fears at this point, having achieved at long last a dream of home ownership I’ve had for more than 25 years, is that in spite of the fact that I know intellectually that it’s bad for me on every conceivable level, I will see all this extra space and somehow make it okay to fill it. I fear that it’ll be a compulsive, unconscious act. It has to be. There’s no way I had this level of stuff when I moved into the apartment 7 years ago. I’m terrified that the level of crap will up itself proportionately and the next time I need to move will be that much worse than this time was. It makes me want to sit and cry just thinking of that. When the movers started moving stuff out of our space and saw how much stuff we’d already brought, I heard one of them remark, “Jesus, how did they fit so much shit into a two bedroom apartment?”. My mom’s partner repeatedly shook his head looking at all of the stuff and looked at me like I was nuts every time I tried to explain to him why we ‘needed’ it all. It’s all a wake up call that I have been totally ignoring and rationalizing away.
But this is it. I’m declaring war. I can’t do this anymore. It’s unhealthy on so many levels and I am literally sick of it. The move has put all of this into stark relief. I’ve been reading decluttering and minimalist blogs for years now. I have studied Buddhist teachings since my second year undergrad and I know all about the badness that is attachment, and the suffering it brings. I didn’t start this year with any resolutions, but I’m making one now: In a year, I will have less possessions than I have now. Henceforth, any non-consumable item I bring in comes at the consequence of at least one, and preferably two items going out. That, and I will purge going forward. I should have done all of this before the move, but what’s done is done. Everything’s in boxes now, and I intend to unpack mindfully. This shit ends here.
Other lessons:
Professional movers are like a colony of ants. They come through, and with an efficiency that I couldn’t keep up with, cleaned out everything we had ready to go, piano and all, in less time than I imagined. Sadly, because of our aforementioned unpreparedness, not everything was in boxes or ready to go. Next time, have things ready.
It would have been SO much easier having the movers do what I actually paid them to do than have them just do the stuff we had ready and leave us with a protracted, carload by carload, weeks-long trickle move. Next time, we do this in one shot.
Professional painters cost a fortune, even when they come recommended as great for a great price. We didn’t even get to the walls because we could only afford the ceilings, which are immaculately done. We’re now on for painting it ourselves with the help of some truly great friends and family. Next time, set aside more cash for painting.
It is excessively difficult to air out a house to get the paint fumes and crap out of the air in the winter. It is also a PITA to slog through snow and ice when moving. Next time, we do not do this in January or February.
Low flush toilets are awesome on paper, but totally suck in practical terms. I am seriously thinking of replacing the ones we have, water conservation be damned. It’s fine to use only a trickle to deal with some stuff but overall. Yeah, TMI-but I’m sure you get the idea. Maybe there’s some way to set them to not be *quite* so frugal. Next time, we get regular toilets.
OTOH, Front loading washers totally rock. I got ours on sale in December, and they are terrific. Would buy again. Next time, we take these with us.
I think that smart thermostats are OK, but I’ve yet to figure out what schedule we have, or how to set it. Other people do not have the same schedule as me, and I need to learn how to use my appliances.
Other trivia:
The internet is monumentally important when I don’t have cable. I got antsy without it for a single day. That’s really telling.
First meal: Kam Yin take out on a blanket sitting in the living room.
First Pizza: Boston Pizza up the street. Never had them before but it was both ridiculously expensive and extremely tasty.
First morning realization: I can see crows flying outside without getting out of bed, and it makes me happy for some reason. Also, we have bunnies in our back yard. I bet that’ll be less endearing once the garden goes in.
I’m sure there’ll be more as time goes on. A HUGE thank you to my parents, big brothers, and in-laws who moved, sorted, painted and accepted our ridiculous need to have all this stuff moved. Another huge thanks to Suz’s friend Leah, who helped in painting our space… it looks great! All your time is such a lovely gift, and I appreciate it. Also thanks to everyone who offered encouraging words from afar on my Facebook page. It’s nice to have some positive feedback in the chaos.
Once again, into the breach. It’s time to check in and put out there for all who care to read it thoughts at the end of this year as I reflect back on the year. I wanted to fill out the customary form again, but I also have some other things floating about my head that I hope to write about in a future entry. For now, let’s look back:
What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before?
Seems like I did a lot that I’d never done before. From the standpoint of trying new things, that’s great. I’m not sure, however, how I feel yet about most of the things that I did.
Did you keep your new years resolutions and will you make more for next year?
Sorta. I really didn’t make any conscious new year’s resolutions this year, but I did start out with some ideas that I wanted to get into the fruition stage, one of the main ones being to start meditating regularly, and another being to get on my bicycle more. I can honestly and happily say that these I have done.
Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yup. Erik welcomed a son into his now ‘million-dollar family’. I have yet to meet the little tike. We were going to go yesterday, but Suz and I both got sick. Blah.
Did anyone close to you die?
No. It was a blissfully death-free year.
What countries did you visit?
Heh. Yeah.
What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
This bullet point, and those like it are what most disturbed me about my review last year. I poured a lot of time into changing that, even though I had no idea exactly how to do it. And, in spite of my efforts, I have seen very little change. I can honestly say that I feel a little more… peaceful than I have in the past. The peace though, is a little melancholic. It’s more a peace that comes from acceptance than anything that I have created for myself. I suppose that it is a start, but it doesn’t exactly make me do cartwheels. Things like happiness, security, joy and true serenity are still sorta abstract things. I’m starting to wonder if I know what it is I’m really asking for when I offer these wishes to the Universe. Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree, and have been forever. I don’t know. In any case, all this is the long way around saying that I’d like a better understanding of all the things that I feel would make life a nicer place for me and those I share it with. Perhaps this understanding would lead more directly to the things that I’ve been wanting all along.
What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
November 20. That was the day the people in our soon-to-be new home agreed to sell it to us.
What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I would say it was the house, if it felt like I did anything more than go around and look for a place, and fill out paperwork. I guess that ‘achievement’ is more a product of being able to get a job and be wise with money. Somehow, the bigger achievement seems like the NaNoWriMo. I wrote 50,000 words in a month. It really felt like an accomplishment.
What was your biggest failure?
Probably just not following the correct paths to the things I feel like I want.
Did you suffer illness or injury?
Pretty good year. I was healthy most of the time, save for a weird heart thing early in February and my current cold. No one seems to know what in the heck that heart thing was, if anything, and I breezed right through a battery of subsequent tests that all indicated I wasn’t just fine, but better than I have been. I guess I’m okay.
What was the best thing you bought?
As far as purchases go, it’s a cross between my iMac and the 70-200mm L glass for my camera. I’m not saying the house, because to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure what in the heck I’ve gotten myself into yet, and it isn’t bought. The house technically won’t be bought for a couple decades at least if I follow the payment plan. Meh.
Where did most of your money go?
Photocopiers, gentlemen: Rent. Bills. Eating out. I have a feeling that will change dramatically in the coming year.
What did you get really, really, really excited about?
If we were to transplant “excited” with “terrified”, working under the assumption that they are very nearly the same root emotion and change depending upon where one places one’s attention, I’d say it was the whole house thing.
What song will always remind you of 2010
Don’t really have one. I guess the nicest song I ‘found’ this year is a tie between Krista Detor’s Clock Of The World and Catherine McLellan’s Long Time. Both make me feel appropriately sad in a way that reflects the year.
Compared to this time last year, are you:a. happier or sadder? Sadder, but not in a conventional way.
b. thinner or fatter? Probably about the same.
c. richer or poorer? Depends. I am house poor, but have about the same amount of wealth. You choose.
What do you wish you’d done more of?
Used my intellect and emotions in ways that serve myself and the world in better ways. I’m starting to think that I owe that much to God, whoever God is.
What do you wish you’d done less of?
Wasting time on surfing, and being alone in negative ways.
How did you spend Christmas?
Mom’s now more crowded, but equally as homey space for traditional dinner. It was nice, and felt like a good time. I also spent five times as long with Suzanne’s family, which was also nice, but I don’t do nearly as well in throngs of people as I do in small groups. No surprize there.
Did you fall in love in 2010?
Nope.
How many one-night stands?
This question gets stupider every year. I’m removing the question for next year, unless something really weird happens.
What was your favorite TV program?
Have to say it was Big Bang Theory. I’m honestly hopeful that David R. Kelly or Rick Berman or Joss Whedon or someone will create my next favourite whimsical drama or sci-fi program this year sometime. The shows the networks are putting out now are complete ass from all I’ve been able to take in.
Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Nope.
What was the best book you read?
This was the year I finally slogged through Full Catastrophe Living, and it was well worth it.
What was your greatest musical discovery of 2010?
I guess it’d be Catherine McLellan. I think hers was the only disc I bought all year… wow, that’s saying something.
What did you want and get?
A meditation routine.
New glass for my camera.
New house.
What did you want and not get?
Lingering happiness.
Control over my desires.
What was your favorite film of this year?
I think my fav, weirdly, was either Toy Story 3 or Harry Potter 7.1, or The King’s Speech. That said, I’m behind on my cinema for this time of year, and I’ve yet to see Black Swan, Winter’s Bone or The Social Network. Kick Ass was entertaining, but no movie of the year. I guess I’m in the minority in thinking that Inception wasn’t the best piece of cinema in an age. I honestly had no trouble following it, and it was in my thinking, lacking in plot because of all of the layers it had to get through.
What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Not telling my age. I took the day off. I spent the time in introspection, coming up with a couple of sad realities.
What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
I can honestly say I don’t know. I did a lot this year, and yet the satisfaction was lacking.
How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?
Unchanged, really. In fact, it’s sort of disturbing to realize when I look at photos from 2002 that I still wear some of that stuff.
What kept you sane?
Meditation. Seriously, it is weird in an entirely ineffable way, but things like meditation have an impact, and one of them is to keep one sane.
Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
None. I couldn’t care less about all that rot.
What political issue stirred you the most?
Actually, on the level of politics, I was pretty damned ignorant this year. Not much happened in my country except for Harper disappointing me time and again, but I expected that. Of late, the dogs of the internet have been barking about the CBC and how Harper wants to cut it and commercialize it or whatnot, and if that actually comes to pass, it’ll be a huge issue for me. The larger part of me hopes that this year will see the end of him, but I guess I don’t know.
Who did you miss?
Not so much a who, but a what, and not so easily defined. It’s more an absence od something I feel should be here but cannot put a name to it. Whatever that is, I miss it–a lot.
Who was the best new person you met?
It finally happened. I don’t think I met anyone new at all this year. Not one single person.
Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010:
The flow. It seems that life has a flow. Now, that’s nothing new really. Back in the day, Litke spoke of the flow in my philosophy courses, and my religious studies have often hinted at some sort of coursing progression that sort of goes along with linear time and enmeshes itself uniquely into each life. People talk about going against the flow, and in radical terms that may be a good thing because the flow is changeable and sometimes in fact it needs to change. On some level, I’ve been a silent radical. I don’t generally like the status quo, and I don’t generally socialize well partly because I am painfully introverted, and partly because I go against this flow. There’s an irreverence and entitlement about me that requires a certain acceptance from any given person I interact with, or you’ll think less of me. But I find that the older I get, the more this silent radicalism is isolating. The flow does not like radicals… even silent ones. And when it hits me back, it hits at a level that even I wasn’t sure existed. Be mindful of the flow, oh ye radicals, both silent and loud. This foe, like the Balrog in Lord of the Rings, is ‘beyond any of you’. Better to befriend, if you can.
I suppose that this year was overall good in most respects, and I learned that I do still wield a certain amount of power. From this base, I have options, and I hope that I’ve used those options wisely this year. I guess in the coming year I will pray that the base doesn’t shift, and if things remain the same for the most part, I’ll continue to try to make the best choices I can. In the end, whatever the base, I guess that’s the best thing to do. Choice is a blessing, and it works tongue and groove with change.
Happy New Year, everyone. I wish you all the very best.
Hi all! I have risen from my self-imposed month of insanity and come out of it better for the experience, I hope. It’s sort of funny, actually. I recall a time in my life a number of years ago that was pretty dark. In fact, I suppose life cycles for everyone, and there’s dark times and then there’s awesome times, and there’s a lot of in-between, wherein one can easily find one’s place on the bell curve or sine wave if one stops for a moment and takes a look. Anyway, just after the dark time, one of my friends said that I should commission a small statue of myself grinning maniacally as I crawl naked out of a cesspool. I thought this was a hilarious image. If I knew any gifted sculptors, I’d have commissioned it by now. But the meaning for me is sorta true. I get stuff tossed at me, and I make much of it, but at the end of the day, somehow, I seem to crawl into the light yet again, smiling in my way that makes people think I must be a gifted trickster or just mildly insane. I won’t reveal the truth.
This month was huge for me for a number of reasons. When I first started out, it seemed pretty simple, albeit a little daunting: write 50,000 words this month. This isn’t something that would particularly scare me as a concept. I’ve been a writer all my life, both professionally and personally. If there’s one thing that seems true of me, I like to write. I like everything about it. I like software that lets me do cool publishing things as much as I like having paper and ink to write with longhand. There’s so many awesome things about writing, not the least of which is that it’s stopping point Alpha (#1) for where something that was in my head first becomes manifest. Writing is sorta god-like, and I love the rush. So, 50K words? Probably not an issue. However, 50K words when I need to work full time and have other responsibilities of life going on. Well, that was a little daunting. It wasn’t about “can I do it?” but rather about “can I find the time?”
That was made even more hairy when one of my evenings for writing (a very good one, too, because Suz has a class all evening leaving me with no distractions) filled up with an unexpected opportunity. As it happened, I was able to get back into radio on some small level. Some of you may recall my decade-long stint doing radio at U of W’s campus radio station CKMS. CKMS is not the thing it used to be these days, but I hope they at least can stay afloat going forward–but I digress. Well, I was missing it. I liked the sliders and the microphones and the whole feel of a radio station. So, when someone said, “how’d you like to engineer a Monday night Arts program on CKWR?” I said, “hell, yes!” So, every Monday from 7:30 to 8:30 for the foreseeable future, I’m taking a part in making radio yet again. This role is extremely different from the one I had at CKMS. There, I was the on-air personality, and I spun whatever record I wanted, and said anything I pleased. The 2 hours I was on the air were utterly mine. Here at the new place, things are regimented down to the minute, songs are all preselected, and I’m not on the air at all–that’s the host’s job. My job’s now making her and all the guests and music sound good to the outside. Very different, and far more challenging, but still pretty damned cool. It keeps me pushing buttons and sliding sliders, and that, I have found also keeps me a little bit happier. So, add that to the mix.
And last, but absolutely not least, I finally, finally found a house I liked. Long time readers of this blog in all its incarnations will know just how long this one’s been in coming. But, Suz and I put the dang intention in gear and lo and behold, it manifested, just like a novel going from an idea to a full-blown reality. It’s a reality that still doesn’t feel all that real yet, although all the paperwork and legalities and mostly the ‘sold’ sign out front of it assures me that it is, in fact, real. I’m a homeowner, and starting middle of January, I’ll be writing all my wonderful ideas into fruition from that new home base.
Who’d have thunk it?
So yeah, new radio show, and I bought a house. Oh, and I hit 50,000 words in my novel, but my characters still have a ways to go before I finish and then publish. But for now, it’s time to take a nice, slow, deep breath and see if I can’t float through December on its own ebb and flow. I think I’ve had the engine in the water long enough.
So, I’ve done something potentially rediculous and signed up for the Nanowrimo. The first time I heard about this was many years ago when my friend Opal did it, and then again after University was done and some of my otehr friends tried. Thankfully, most of the attempts I’ve heard of have succeeded inhitting the 50K mark. Time will tell if I am that strong. I did do some preliminary work. In what I hope is a magical kind of event, the idea for the story I’m writing came to me while I was listening to Lawrence Hill speak about and read from some of his novels. Then, through a couple of writing talks and brainstorming sessions with Selene, the I felt the spark of life actually spring from the idea. It became clear to me that I had something. So, because Selene was doing the ‘wrimo as well as Shannon out in Clinton, I decided to jump on board for the first time. Suzanne told me I should have done this thing a few years back when I was unemployed and looking for stuff to do in November, rather than at a particularly hectic time where work is ramping up, we are looking for new lodgings, and I have other stuff on the go too (more on that in a later entry, I’m sure). She’s right of course. Thing is, I have this feeling that this may be the last chance I get, and since the past few years have ended off with me feeling like I haven’t done anything new, I thought this might be a good feather in the cap… assuming I can pull it off.
We shall see.
The other thing is I’ve started to try to teach myself to touch type so I can finally write without looking at the keyboard. Meh. I picked the wrong month for that. There’s no way in hell I could write my novel touch-typing now. I’d take a month just to get through the first 20 pages. Still, it seems that with enough time, I can do it. Maybe next year at this time I’ll be able to go whole hog.
Anyway, don’t be surprized if I vanish for a bit. Seems like November’s fixin’ to be a busy one.
OK, I just wanted to share this one. Today the local newspaper reported a story about people taking part in a ‘campaign’ to see what it’s like to live off of $20 a week for food, like what people on social assistance have to do. A long, long time ago, I was one of those people. In the middle of my miserable time on social assistance in Ontario Mike Harris, may he rot in hell, and his “common sense” agenda cut social assistance by 22%. Apparently, this was “common sense” because giving people money would just encourage them to stay on the system.
Now we see people taking part in this campaign and oh my god, what a surprize, $20 a week isn’t enough. And now we want to ‘try’ to get an extra $100 a month per adult for people in need.
You know what would make me feel just about right? Let’s make Mike take part in this campaign for a year. I want him to feel just what he did to people. These days, I’m lucky. I am not starving or worrying about what my lunch will look like, or if indeed I even have one. But I promise you, I don’t care how rich I get, I am never going to take away from the poorest people in my community, especially not under the umbrella of “common sense”. The truly terrifying thing about the whole mess was that enough people agreed with him that he saw it done, and now we have to fight to get it back–even a little. Evil. Fucking sadistic.
I know how fine the line is between have and have not. None of us are that high and mighty. Give the people some more money. I’ll take a small hit on my pay if that’s what it takes.
So lately, I’ve been having problems with the meditation routine I started out at the beginning of the year. The whole thing began well, then I fell off the wagon for a while and now, I’ve been on it for a good few months. I meditate for 15 minutes each day, weekends excepted. Every now and again, I do try to get in some time on the weekends. In addition to all of that, I make it a point to “drop into the minute” throughout each day. Sometimes I meet with more success than other times, but it is something I find I can do, and I guess it’s slowly, at a glacial pace, increasing in frequency. All this, I guess is a good thing.
When I started out on this whole meditation racket it was because I was drawn there through various channels, both online, literary and medical. We’ll get to all that. The thing that I didn’t get starting out what how to do it at all. Apparently, that’s a common thing to not know. “You mean, you just sorta… sit there?” I was pretty befuddled by the whole idea. Even after I got into it and started, it still was a little weird. I have Jon Kabat-Zinn to thank for clarifying what, exactly, I’m doing. I’m sure there’s loads of blogs out there that will tell you what to do in detail, but the essence is to stop your mind from thinking all over the damned place, which apparently, is how most minds work. People say that you should choose to concentrate on your breathing just because it’s always happening, and always nearby. Makes sense. That’s still what I do most of all, but I think that you could choose any damned thing to concentrate on.
I was watching a little girl at a cafe a few weeks back when Suz and I were out for breakfast, and it occurred to me that kids have this shit down cold. At least, normal, non-ADD kids. They seem to have this capacity for focus that engages in ways I remember being able to do, but can’t seem to do anymore at will. Daydreaming, essentially. In the cafe, there were these ornamental runners on the ceiling. I think they were supposed to represent branches or vines or something, and the girl was following them all around the room with her eyes. I can only imagine what was going through her head. Who knows what her imagination was making of these things, but one thing was sure. She wasn’t thinking about the day at school or the TV program she’d watch at home, or if there was gas in the car, or any other of a million things she could have been thinking of. Rather, she was right there with the ornamental art, zooming around the room, and that’s what her mind was doing. One thing. Focused, imagining. I think that’s the sort of mind set you need to have when you’re meditating. Tich Nhat Hanh once wrote of spending a long time “talking” to a leaf about life and seeing what he could learn from it. I didn’t have a clue when I read that what in the hell the man was on about. Initially, I thought that was the sort of new age mumbo-jumbo that turns cynics like me off the whole meditation thing, dismissing it as just plain weird; but I think I know now. He was doing what the girl was doing, only allowing the leaf to ‘speak’ through the thoughts that came to him when he was considering it.
The cynic in me can actually see how this works, and that was a huge thing for me. It was the sort of thing that made me keep up with it, because I actually saw the value in it for the first time. It meshed perfectly with my ideas of spirituality, and of God in general. God speaks only through the unformed thoughts you have yet to think. When you pray, you get to listen, and then it’s all about Jesus’s pontifications about “let those who have ears to hear listen!” stuff. He sorta had it right, but I’m not going to get in Christ. That’s just a hornet’s nest.
The whole business of “dropping into the minute” throughout a day is actually one of the more powerful devices, because those are the moments that hit really hard to exemplify that my thinking is totally whack. Or rather, that there’s other stuff going on that I’m not seeing. Yeah, I know, no one can concentrate on everything at once so that’s hardly in the realm of revelation for anyone with a decent IQ. The thing is, it’s about what’s happening with ME proper. If I drop into the minute, I invariably find that my shoulders are all hunched up, and I’m tensed like I’m about to do battle or something most of the time. When I actually drop in and realize this, I can make a point of relaxing, even if only for a few seconds. At the very least, those few seconds are seconds that I wouldn’t have otherwise relaxed. That’s the danger of letting one’s mind run the roost unchecked, I think.
My brain is like a damned monkey let loose in the house of my body. If I don’t keep an eye on it, it’ll run around and poop all over the place, smash furniture and scream endlessly. If I look at it, it pretty much goes tharn, and the screaming stops, I can fix the furniture and open the windows. Trouble is, who in the hell can keep an eye on the monkey all the time? We sorta rely on the autonomic nervous system to prevent the need to have to concentrate on breathing to stay alive, or digesting to get energy.
And that’s my conundrum at the moment. I can’t keep an eye on the monkey all the time. In fact, I’m pretty damned godawful at it. In fact, I think that if anything, meditation’s made me realize just how far gone I am. I honestly think that there may be an argument for my having some form of mild ADD myself at this point. In a real clinical sort of way. I can’t keep my mind on a damned thing. The minute I start in on something, I want to check my email, I want to go get a drink, I want to head to the bathroom, I need to worry about the strange feeling in my stomach or I need to check my internet feeds. Depending upon where I am at any given moment, I need to clean the house, or plan a route to wherever or worry about who is calling when or what’s on Suzanne’s schedule for the week or which frequency the damned CBC is on in Waterloo, and can I look that up on my phone? Jesus H. Christ, my head is a mess. When I lie down to meditate in the morning (I have been lying on my back rather than sitting so that I can keep an aligned spine and shoulders easier than trying to maintain posture while seated) my brain goes friggin’ everywhere.
I remember when I was a kid and I first considered my breathing, I was paranoid that if I stopped thinking about it, I’d die. Or when one of my classmates told me not to think of my tongue just so that I did think about it, and then I couldn’t stop thinking about it for a while (because as I said, kids of the sort I was seem to be able to focus better). Now it’s like even if I want to think about my breathing and nothing else, I can’t do it. You’d think it’d be simplicity itself to just think about your breath for 10 minutes or so. It’s really, really hard for me.
All the wisdom on the topic I’ve read to date seems to state that getting this simple thing to occur becomes easier with practice, and when you get it to happen with greater frequency, you find a trickle effect into other facets. I’m still waiting to be able to concentrate on my documentation tasks without distraction.
And the real irony? A lot of my distraction comes in the form of the very blogs that I read to get me started on this. I’ve been reading the pop-culture blogosphere giants for years now in the hope of learning something more. All those blogs like Zen Habits or Wildmind meditation or A Flourishing Life or Unclutterer or Becoming Minimalist or any number of others are exactly what distracts me from doing what they profess to help me do. My little Android device that I bought to help streamline my organization and communication has become more of a distraction because now I can check and update Facebook anywhere, anytime and get my emails the minute they’re sent.
Honestly, a part of me wants to get rid of the internet entirely and downgrade to a base level blackberry that can’t surf the net worth a damn or run MSN but can still message the people in my immediate circle and let me make a phone call.
But I know that’s be disastrous for me. This neverending flow of information… somehow, it’s a narcotic. I have come to need it. I’m pretty sure that’s a bad thing. The question becomes how in the hell does one regulate that? It isn’t like heroin where I could say, “no, you don’t need that at all” and take it away. I do actually use the net for more than an information drip into the Wireless IV in my head. I can’t get rid of it entirely, but having even a little of it becomes a distraction. If I didn’t have it at all, then I’d know everyone else did, and I’d be miserable. Well, more miserable than I am now.
I dunno. This entry went all over everywhere. It’s just a few of the things that have been rolling around my skull, dumped out in record time to see if I could focus on just one thing, right now, for even a few moments. I guess I was successful. I just don’t really know how to measure that success. Meh.
To continue my ‘living in season’ sort of bent from last entry, I wonder if any of you go through seasonal physical discomfort at this time of the year. Nothing huge, mind you… just a feeling of ‘ick’ that seems to happen in the spring and fall.
Seems like the start of school triggers off a spate of illness. Whatever little diseased brat out there that someone’s been keeping in the basement up to now has to go back to school, and then becomes patient zero. Within a week all the kids touch everything and themselves and the germs fly like never before. Inside of a few days everyone’s symptomatic, and parents get ill, and then around this time, the office buildings start to empty.
But even for those of us who are exempt from the kid petri-dish phenomenon, and who somehow manage to avoid the colds and whatever that everyone else tracks around, there’s this feeling. And I’ve got it. I feel blah, tired, dehydrated. My skin’s not at all happy with me, and my digestive tract is experiencing an overarching generalized sense of ‘meh’. Psychologically, I feel listless and I don’t want to do a damned thing. After enjoying a stunning sunrise this morning, it started to piss rain and hasn’t stopped much all day. It was a day pretty much made for rolling around in bed, semiconscious.
I’m trying to decide what to do to reconcile this. Should I improve my diet with a bit of a cleanse, or get more sleep, or tidy up the place as much as I can, or… what? What’s going to make me feel better, save for taking a month off of work (not going to happen).
Well, I think I’ll try to give up a little of the caffeine and sugar. Never a bad thing, and my skin will probably thank me for it once my withdrawal headache subsides. I dunno.
I read or heard a legend some time ago that involved the changing of the seasons from Winter to Spring. It had to be either an Inuit or Native American legend. I don’t recall exactly who the players were, but they were animal spirits. One of the seasons was represented by a Great Bear. The other I don’t recall. The Oracle came up with nothing I could use. Anyway, it’s sort of a violent legend, with the main point being that whichever animal represents spring “breaks the back” of the other animal in a battle. This happens sometime in late February or early March. In spite of the savage imagery, I always thought this little legend was particularly apt. That’s what that time of year feels like. It feels like Winter is a mighty beast. Strong, worthy, hard to beat. But it is irrevocable–Spring will come along and battle it, and it will beat the strong Winter. It does so though in an interesting way. It doesn’t kill it outright–it breaks its back. Winter is left wounded, crawling away slowly. It’s defeated, but it isn’t gone. It will take a while to retreat to its cave to heal its wounds and become strong again. The weather around that time still looks very much like Winter, but there’s something different in the air. Icicles start to drip, and the wind loses its teeth. There seems to be a relaxing that carries some nearly subliminal joy–like a promise that you know will be fulfilled because you can feel it more than anything else. I love it when every year, I get that feeling–like the back of Winter has been broken.
I never really before thought that there must be some sort of complementary summertime battle. I don’t know if there’s any legend that is a counterpart; some time when another mighty beast comes to defeat the hold of Summer. But I realized for the first time in my life on any conscious level that whatever this complementary battle is, it has taken place. I have the same feeling now as I do in February. I feel it somehow. It’s still utterly gorgeous outside–there’s no real hint of anything like Winter anywhere. Heck, even Autumn is feeling a few weeks away yet. But this morning, there was something else going on, and I think the Pagan in me for whatever reason picked up on it.
This morning, the apartment was cooler than I recall. I have been sleeping with the windows open for months now (except on the rare occasions where the A/C was on), and my body sorta felt a temperature difference when I got out of bed that wasn’t the norm. Seems like the last couple weeks have just been a cooker, and sometime early this week, the fever broke, and Summer let out a tremendous exhale. On the way to work on my bike today, I noticed things that might be analogous to the icicles and the teeth of the wind.
There is a work crew tarring the roof of the public school I bike past on Keats Way. I didn’t consciously realize it until today, but that mostly unpleasant smell is a marker. I recall that smell as a precursor to going back to school. I recall being on my bike and going to the school yards during summer vacation and smelling that. It’s the scent of a time.
And apples. The smell of apples. Seems the crab apple trees on the U of W campus are quite fragrant, and it’s this smell that isn’t like the one you get from cutting open an apple–it’s way more intense. Apples on the ground, some rotting. When I was a kid, my dad used to rent a cottage from a colleague of his in the summer time up in Midland, and we’d go there for a week or so, hang out at the beach, eat at Dock Lunch and just sorta chill. There was a huge apple tree that grew on the side of the driveway opposite the house and it would routinely be laden with apples that no one ate when we were up at the cottage. It would frequently drop the apples, or a bird or squirrel would pick one off and the apple would either land with a damp thud on the dirt or with a mighty resounding WHAM! on the roof of the cottage, followed by a roll off. And that smell I smelled this morning, that was the very same one that was all around the cottage. I forgot about it until today. But that smell is another marker. Whatever beast that rules the Summer has been defeated, and it is slowly retreating.
It won’t be long until we start to really see the change. Kids with new backpacks, evenings in nice long sleeved hoodies, leaves changing colour, and pumpkins ripening on the vine. It’s like they’re all just sorta on the other side of a window, waving and beckoning me out to play.
Sigh. Resting in this sort of awareness can be sublime.
