Just the Right Amount

A sister to M & L, 
and a cousin to I. 

Especially after false labour way back in the first week of August, it's been quite a holding-pattern of a month waiting for our newest (third) granddaughter: 9 lbs and 9 days late! I'm so impressed by my daughter's resolve.  

But she's finally here: another M, her name a nod to my Grandmother and her middle name for my daughter's grandmother. Imagine being so fortunate to be named after two grandmas...that seems to me like just the right amount of grammatude, and I can't wait.   

Parched?

Flowers? Collectively adored. 

At his film's release, director Michael Angelo Covino, said this about his latest project (Splitsville) and the theatre-going experience: "it is so important that we [have spaces to] laugh together." 

That resonated. 

When was the last time you laughed together with a group of strangers? 

Thanks to our phones, it seems to me that modern collective experiences are typically fragmented, often encountered alone. Plus, they seem predominantly negative, rife with distractions, misinformation, political upheaval, and disasters, thus the modern desire to withdraw, isolate, and protect ourselves...alone.

A Gen X kid I definitely grew up alone, but I also recall sharing most of life's emotional experiences collectively, both positive and negative. We all watched the same weekly TV shows and imitated them. We all knew the Vulcan salute and said, "Nanoo, nanoo." I grew up loving The $6 Million Dollar Man so fervently that most of the playground stunts my classmates and I did, were in slow motion. Even outside my grade, these behaviours were common to my entire school community, and I suspect some of you reading this can relate? That's a key difference between then and now: community. 

A couple of weeks ago, I asked my adult son if we could watch Happy Gilmore 2 together. He grew up on Adam Sandler movies and, back then, we watched many comedies together. The film, as expected, was delightfully stupid, a genre we can both get behind. But the point of that experience? Nostalgic bonding.  

It seems to me that the modern world is sorely parched for bonding opportunities, especially among strangers. This made me wonder: what do we all collectively adore? Flowers? Kittens? Will Farrell? Silent Book Clubs? Hockey-playoffs?...?

And how might we bring back bonding? 

Things one should never outgrow:

Itchy for kitschy?

 

 

recess.

I've heard it said that travel is like recess for adults. You don't have to go far to enjoy recess, do you? 

Are you enjoying a recess (staycation) this year? 

A Field

Cindy Revell

On impulse, I bought a little painting. The artist is someone I grew up with. We lived across a field from each other. This field. Or so it seems to me. As soon as I saw the painting, I remembered biking along my childhood road looking across the yellow to her house.

There can be much ado about a field. As poet James Hearst says in Truth, "How the devil do I know if there are rocks in your field? Plow it and find out."

It seems to me that when you leave a place—especially that first place—you carry it with you: the sky, the soil, its rocks (turned and unturned), the light, the heavy, the love, and the pain. 

It seems to me that art carries all this too, that interiority, acting as a kind of proxy for the told and untold stories, and ultimately a means to plow a field in one's heart. 

Ready.

I was texting with a friend—she parents slightly younger adults than I do—and she shared that her youngest son's first year of university was rough AND THEN he was diagnosed with ADHD. But that information changed everything: the meds greatly improved his life. She's celebrating his improved health with simultaneous relief but also that parenting classic: regret. She wondered, what if I had helped him sooner? Yup, another parenting classic: wished-for clairvoyance. 

Like all honest parents, she needed some encouragement, so I reminded her that we parent in draft-mode. In this life-long research project called raising adults, we sometimes (oftentimes) don't know what to do. Beta-mode means that parenting is perpetually under development and yet the important, timely decisions must often be launched without adequate testing. Toss into the chaos all the ever-changing variables (age, gender, personality, knowledge, skills, experiences, finances, support or lack there of...) and it's a wonder it ever works. As a therapist once explained to me, "AT THAT TIME few resources were available." True. So, I also reminded my friend that parenting is fucking hard and heartbreaking and fantastic and worth it and like the weather (sometimes) it's all these things in the span of 24 hours. 

She thanked me for being wise, LOL. Nope. I just know this is true. She does too. 

But. 

She will continue to worry. 

And so will I.

Parenting will TEST you like nothing else, and you will fail repeatedly. Experience taught me that to be a good parent, you need to understand your own shit first: fears, anxieties, trauma, prejudices, flawed thinking, magical thinking, blind spots.... (I did not.) And you need strategies. (I had few.) Nevertheless, you will need to believe your influence has worth even when all the evidence says it means shit. And by the time you have all this knowledge and all these skills, they've already moved out. 

So fellow regretful parents out there, chins up, okay? Because here's the more important thing: despite our own entangled feelings, our young adults still need us sometimes, and we better be ready. 

Rewards?

Just as tasty as these scones. 

My chocolate scones? Let's just say they were here one minute, the next, scone!

Understanding this joke depends on whether you rhyme scone with Gone Girl or Game of Thrones. Either way, delish, also compelling entertainment. (Isn't it the worst when someone explains a joke? Sorry.)

Do you ever make something SO TASTY, you are tempted to immediately snarf it all down your gullet? If so, relatable. Humble brag newsflash however: I did not eat them all, nor did I even taste one before I shared them. Yes indeed, I'm a hero. Or maybe it's just progress? Or is it something else? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I mention this because my latest scones have me pondering short and long term rewards/goals. 

Let's be honest: I HEART SHORT TERM REWARDS, but I know the marshmallow test has proved that those who can resist quick temptation (1 out of 3) have better long-term psychological, health, even professional outcomes. Or that's what we've been told...hmm...maybe this experiment is just another conspiracy orchestrated by Obama and Hillary Clinton? *rolls eyes*

I jest; my aim is not to undermine this experiment's key role in extending our collective understanding about deferred gratification and success, but let's be honest: if I had been one of the original marshmallow test children, I WOULD HAVE FAILED IMMEDIATELY (maybe even made s'mores). 

Why you ask? Because at any moment my much older brothers could have burst into that two-way-mirrored room, threatened violence, and SNATCHED my marshmallows, then slowly and dramatically eaten them in my face (without consequences) like every other day of my childhood. Again, I jest (kinda), but culturally, what if you were a deprived, neglected, or anxious child? I suspect a few others can relate? (I'm talking to you kids whose youth was more Stranger Things than Bluey.) 

Hmm, now I'm imagining the adult versions of those long-ago (1972) well-adjusted gratification deferer-ers aka kids with matching socks. I bet they all work for Big Pharma Long Term Reward Ltd., or some other nefarious corporation filled with superiority-complex, pearl-clutchers...er, never mind: given the current state of politics, I retract this statement unequivocally. Please PLEASE please OUT with the glut of ME FIRST ME NOW ME FOREVER leaders addled by unrelenting vainglory. 

Sigh, I digress. Here's my point: perhaps some instant gratification is less pathology, and more (just enough) self-care. With that and happiness in mind, here are some short term rewards I'm currently indulging:

• reading.
• journaling and blogging.
• YouTube travel vlogs & comedians.
• eating healthy, trying new recipes, & sharing treats with others.
• wearing my flat cap on walks.
• hanging out with those mini-masters of self-gratification, kids & toddlers.
• adding a new song to my playlist every day. 
• sawing.🤣
• remembering.
• paying attention.

Wordfuse (golf-edition)

“Did that go in? I wasn’t watching...."
Happy Gilmore & also me

fairway + wayward = fairwayward (adj) If you golf, the definition is obvious. Sigh. 

Once weekly yearly I golf, and yet I'm still shite. It's shocking because I'm a sporty guy. By sporty I mean I'm a good sport, but I can't do any actual sports. 

Sports I've tried: skiing and cornhole. 

Sports I like: skiing, walking, floating, lifting rocks to examine what's underneath. Sure, only one of these is deemed an official sport but let's be honest, that sounds symptomatic of a poor imagination. Isn't picking saskatoons a kind of sport? Snowmobiling? Reading? Painting? Lawn-mowing? Surviving Winter? Not to brag, but I excel at these. 😜

What do you "excel" at? 

Places to Go

Clever.

On their way through Saskatchewan, some good friends texted this hilarious t-shirt design, lol. Well done Tourism Saskatchewan. 

These friends are currently moving home to Nova Scotia after 30 years employed in Alberta. Working for decades in the Canadian West is a familiar story for those of us born out of the province, but especially those from the stunning Maritime provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland. I'm sad to see them go, but we will visit them someday soon. I'm also a bit jealous of their cross-Canada travels, a dream many of us Canadians possess although the east west trip alone is about 8000 kilometers. (This reminds me dear Canadian friends, did you know you can now buy Terry Fox's shoes?!!)

Their trip is more necessity than tourism, but like many Canadians choosing not to travel to the US this year, it's an opportunity and the right time to explore a corner or two of Canada's 10 million square kilometers. This summer, our new federal government initiated the Canada Strong Pass, so Canadians (especially young Canadians) can experience our country by rail. There's so much to marvel at here at home. 

For US friends interested in visiting "The [Forever] True North Strong and Free" this summer, there are many wonderful places to see and experience. And if you find yourself in Saskatchewan, you must get the t-shirt, AND if you want a unique, some-say-weird, one-of-a-kind experience, visit my favourite Saskatchewan oddity. If you dare. ;)

Wordfuse (shut-eye edition)

 (noun): slept + skeptic = those who doubt they'll sleep through the entire night, or whose history has shown proper uninterrupted shut-eye to be elusive aka more four winks than forty winks. Sigh.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Tree Gazing

As my oldest granddaughter once said, "Happy New Day, Pops." It is indeed. The saskatoons are ripening— my favourite sign of Canadian summer. Happy Canada Day, friends.  

Science says even looking at trees boosts your mental health. What's your favourite tree? Or berry?