Where's M?! I've looked EVERYWHERE! *giggles* |
Sunday, April 16, 2023
Things one should never outgrow:

Saturday, April 15, 2023
Sorry
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Whether a painting or a poem, a film or a farce, I'm always energized by analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating text—all genres and mediums. It's a classic English teacher flex. I love to poke around in story: inciting incidents, character motivations, internal forces, flaws, and consequences.
It's like dissecting a frog. One of my favourite essays highlights the serendipitous yet ultimately meaningful nature of the scientific process. Entomologist Samuel H. Scudder's professor advised him repeatedly to "look at your fish" (c) 1874. Scudder wondered, for what, exactly? Like Scudder, I am rarely certain what I'm looking for but I know when my nervous system reacts, there's something to be found. Whether a frog, a fish, or text, I must examine how tiny organs connect, otherwise how would I find the life within them? And that's the most important part in understanding anything: the looking.
ASL inspires me to look at text anew: it's a window into language I stopped gazing at. ASL's "sorry" wisely connotes both the act and the outcome of a long-churning heart. In other words, without examining the churning that prompted it, "sorry" may be rote, or empty, or even unnecessary.
Poet Mary Oliver famously said, "you do not have to be good, you do not have to walk on your knees, for a hundred miles through the desert repenting." 100% agree. I am tired of people claiming to be the arbiters of good. (I've made that mistake many times too.) At this stage in my life, I am more interested in being real than good. "Good" by whose definition? Black and white notions of good and evil may make things simple, but life has taught me that if I truly hope to understand myself and others, I should look for the spectrums where I once saw categories.
In my ongoing quest to avoid the atrophy I call "becoming a grumpy, old man" (old yes, grumpy no) I aim to embrace evolution and that requires applying a little Socrates-inspired self-examination; to "know thyself" means I must do the hard work: dissect my churning heart.

Wednesday, January 4, 2023
Fave Reads 2022
Happy Hogmanay. I'll be honest: the last several years, my reading criteria has narrowed. Is it under 250 pages? Did someone I love recommend it? Life is too short to finish an underwhelming book. None of these underwhelmed me for one second. In no order (three are Canadian), I loved these books and these authors made me miss books, again. and I'm grateful for their lessons.
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It will gut you. Like its comedian-actor-author, this memoir is painfully & proudly honest as well as ferociously funny. This is grief dialed up and it will heal people. |
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Come for the truth & the reconciliation; stay for these characters' resilience, hope, and humour. |
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These Canadian children and those who love them will break your heart. This Canadian novel should be the first read in a social work degree. |

Friday, October 7, 2022
In the Field
The experience conjured some long-ago memories of my brothers, my parents, and my grandparents—all farmers—during those early years on fields I haven't visited for decades, among people long gone. As the youngest child, I had few duties on those busy and oftentimes chaotic Fall days and evenings, yet (like always) I observed and I listened and learned the meaning of physical labour, the satisfaction of hard-earned accomplishment, the patient ache of waiting for the weather to change, and how to put my needs second. While we ate in those fields of my youth (my father's one eye on the sunset), it often felt like something I did not know how to name then: appreciation.
Friends, if you can, thank a farmer.

Sunday, September 11, 2022
Things that deserve the stink-eye:
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Uh this signal is, indeed, unknown. |
While walking to work the other day, I noticed this random marker...um, are the kids from Stranger Things meeting here at some point? Because, I am absolutely in favour of that.

Tuesday, August 23, 2022
Forgot

Sunday, August 7, 2022
Receipts
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In an early scene in that film, her character, IRS inspector Deirdre Beaubeirdra, says this to her client, the film's lead, about the financial information before her: "Now you may only see a pile of boring forms and numbers, but I see a story." I believe this is the core of the film, a story waiting to be uncovered in the shoe box of loose receipts that is our current lives.
It's hard work to sort through those receipts, isn't it? And yet, if we don some "googly eyes" we might just gain some perspective and clarity about the dominant forces—those "everything bagels" in our lives. We've been experiencing intensified disorder for a decade now. We are inundated with negative voices vying for our clicks and likes. People weaponize flags and honk to breed skepticism, to destabilize, to divide. Cynicism is like a new religion. This film reminds me to put my energy into who and what matters in life, to tear down less and create more.
Sure, I'm just one guy, so what can I do? Even the film acknowledges, "we are all small and stupid." Yet is also proposes that "seeing the good side of things" is "strategic, and necessary." Check those receipts, my friends—like this innovative film, maybe there's another story, a better one.

Friday, July 8, 2022
Things one should never outgrow:
M. |

Wednesday, June 15, 2022
Things that deserve the stink-eye:
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This beaut of a jackhammer got me thinking. Typically, my most often-used power tools enable me to create. Good stuff. Yet this tool allowed me to dismantle, and it felt powerful. Did the conquer-and-destroy aspect boost my brain's mental state more than say, a palm-sander, or a chop saw? 100%! That seems like a good reminder to use tools responsibly, and like most people, I do. Yet my brain wanted more: what else could I destroy with this jackhammer? Wait. Can dopamine override people's better judgment?
Dear friends: dopamine. It's no joke.
Monday, May 16, 2022
Let's be honest...
