Things that deserve the stink-eye:

alien carrots.

#eatorbeeaten

Circus

“Find your circus.” ~Jessica Hagy

We humans seem to always be running. 

There are things people run FROM in life:

1. Big spiders.

2. Liver and onions.

3. Buckley’s cough syrup.

4. Public speaking.

5. Not feeling wanted.

6. Obnoxiousness.

7. People who tell us the truth.

8. Overdue bills.

9. A job we hate.

10. Waiting in line.

11. Negative people.

12. Violence.

13. Racism.

14. War.

15. People who swear to do something about everything that’s wrong but they never do.

16. People who lie.

17. Cleaning toilets.

18. Mice.

19. Diets.

20. And countless others.

And there are things people run TOWARD in life:

Ice-cream, cute people, the beach, the liquor store, etc, etc...Too many to count. But above all...that which doesn't feel like work. And what does that add up to? Your “circus.”

Dear people not yet grown-up (age 18-81), 

Have you determined what your circus is yet? Find that enjoyable thing and those enjoyable people living their dreams and then you’ll find your circus and then the running won’t seem so exhausting anymore.

Things one should never outgrow:

the garden.

"You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt." ~unknown

Things one should never outgrow:

"A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou.” ~Omar Khayyam

#sherri

Lonely?

Things one should never outgrow:

throwing the sopping-with-saliva barely-recognizable tennis ball for the dog and yelling fetch! even when one is pretty sure it's teeming with what might be either medical waste juice or level four diphtheria.

My Dad always said a dog's mouth is cleaner than a human's but then again my Dad was a pretty big bullshitter. (I had to learn it somewhere.)

#knox&mason&mel

Hide and Seek?

This culvert was one of my favourite places to play when I was a kid. Yeah. I know. Kinda weird.

I've always liked hiding spaces. After we outgrow peek-a-boo, what kid doesn't enjoy hide and seek? There's the choice about where to hide. The suspense of finding. The anticipation of being found. And above all, we get found. Someone actually cares enough to find us.

Unless they don't. And that's a lesson too.

I don't recall anyone looking for me here. I didn't want to be found. (Well, maybe a little bit.) And who knows? Maybe someone was looking from a window or from the front yard? But I needed the solitude. The culvert afforded that. Plus it exhilarated me. Hiding inside the culvert when someone drove over thrilled me. And once, during Spring, I worked at both ends to unplug this culvert and get the water flowing. Water and the way it moves has always fascinated me. This culvert taught me perseverance. And self-reliance. And loneliness, much of it self-imposed. I think we introverts alternately crave that, even wallow in it and then suddenly we are yet again surprised by how fantastic other people can be. But then we forget again. Or get scared. Or ache to be alone. To think. To plan. To problem-solve. To make the water flow.

"Water is taught by thirst." ~Emily Dickinson

Things one should never outgrow:

not-much-of-a-road road-trips.

Things one should never outgrow:

revisiting your childhood.

Things that deserve the stink-eye:

My cousin Tracey says this is a salad aka corn chips + cheese + salad dressing. Voila. Salad. She also says "you can call anything a salad if you need to."

I like the way she thinks.

Things I've decided about technology:

      1.  I’m done with passwords. DONE. “Your password must be 68 characters in length and must include two numbers, punctuation, alternating upper and lower case, the capital of South Korea and the name of the least favourite pet of your first crush.”

      2.  My wireless printer wanted a password the other day and I actually knew it (mostly because it was a variation on the same password I use for everything and let’s be honest, this is what everyone is doing). However, I needed to enter a number and the keypad on the printer would only enter letters so then I spent fifteen minutes searching for the printer’s manual hoping that somehow a unicorn would just magically deliver it to my front door because I had absolutely no idea where it was. That didn’t work so I began randomly hammering the keypad with my fingers and somehow numbers appeared and suddenly I could enter the password correctly. “Connected.” How does this relate to decisions? Well. I’ve decided that printers shouldn’t require passwords. I mean, c’mon, who would park in front of my house and use my wi-fi code to send 800 copies to my printer? (Warning: if anyone is indeed planning something so nefarious, be aware that usually there’s no paper in my printer. Or ink.)

3.      Whoa. That was a lot of bitter rambling, wasn’t it? New decision: I need to suck it up about passwords. At first I salivated pondering that some Steve Jobs type must be working on making passwords obsolete, some new system that rids us of this annoyance, some new app to make our lives easier (or enslave us depending on how you look at it), and then with a little heart-thud I realized that hopefully there’s someone incredibly smart and creative working on curing cancer instead. Perspective, people, perspective. I need some.

4.      Thus, I am not DONE with passwords; there’s nothing I can do about them.

5.      And all this led me some other thoughts. What if life had a password? And what would it be? The answer? It’s a smile. It’s a “good morning.” It’s a hello. It’s a nod. It’s a wave. It’s acknowledging other people. It’s respect. Now there’s a decision.

In conclusion I am reminded that there are plenty of great things in life that don’t get screwed up by security codes. Really good things. Like s’mores with peanut butter cups. No password required. 

What did you do this morning?

This should  probably
be bigger.
P.S. It's a poppy (in case
that wasn't obvious).

1. Wake up aka heard my son sweeping. Immediately jump from bed to go access the damage. No damage? Marvel at the world.
2. Shower.
3. Oatmeal with flax seeds. Walk.
4. Crawl inside the song in my ears: Wild West Rain by Jadea Kelly.
5. Pick and eat saskatoons on my walk.
6. Mosquitoes chew on me.
7. Reflect on karma.
8. Buy bananas.
9. Errands.
10. Enjoy looking at the river while walking across the bridge hoping that drivers don't watch me like I intend to jump because I don't although when I drive by people walking across the bridge I often have this intense heart-pump moment when I am sure they are just going to hop right over the railing. Simultaneously. And then I will know the world is ending.
11. Continue walking. Ponder my freakness.
12. Crawl inside other new songs on my iPhone: Hard Way Home by Brandi Carlisle; Charlie Boy by the Lumineers, Wake me Up by Avicii.
13. Return home to fight with my printer. It wants the password which I know but it only types letters and I NEED NUMBERS. I NEED NUMBERS. Open the testosterone valve aka punch myself in the chest plus a swear in barbaric yawp form. Calm myself. Solve the issue, can't even begin to explain how.
14. Bathroom break. Rediscover fly that moved in yesterday.
15. Swat fly directly into the garbage can.
16. *MINDBLOWN*
17. Realize that I have likely just discovered my superhero powers.
18. I MUST TELL THE INTERNET. *tweets*
19. Visualize the cover of my comic book. Shake my head at my idiot-geniusness. *clap*
20. Write.

Coming this afternoon:
21. Contact my internet provider aka die inside a little.
22. Recover.
23. Yardwork.
24. House projects.
25. Paint the flower bigger. Ponder on my struggle with self-punishing perfectionism.

Things that deserve the stink-eye:

This showed up in my front yard a couple of weeks ago. Hmmm. I was stumped at first but now I think it has something to do with neighbourhood crime. I shall name it...The mobster with one eye wearing an owl costume instead of his usual Santa outfit [no longer available for parties].

#insidejoke
#missyoudingdongs

Proximity

source

Proximity is everything. Think about that. It is. How close we are to something has a profound effect on how we perceive it and how it affects our lives now. Need some examples? How close are you to…

-what happened?

-what’s happened since then?

-what you felt should have happened?

-forgiving or forgetting or finishing with?

-that mistake?

-that celebration?

-that realization?

-that lesson?

-that declaration?

-that decision?

-that forgotten decision?

-a life-changing event: a birth, a death, an illness, a move, a poke in the ribs, a punch in the gut?

-that conflict?

-that first?

-that last?

-the beginning, the end?

-starting over?

-that moment in the photograph?

-home?

-your past, your present, your future?

-that window of opportunity?

Regrets? Learn from them; let them go. Or maybe use them as leverage now. Or be stuck in time. This is why some people claim time is a blessing. We need time. We always mourn time’s passage but without its passage we wouldn’t be able to see things more clearly, with a deeper understanding. Time promises there is something new on the horizon. Something fresh. And it will pass too. But we can still get close to what is happening now. Proximity.