Things one should never outgrow:

goodwill.

My wife peeled a pomegranate for me today. In this season of gifts, a small gift can be such a big gift. I hope you receive such gifts as I do.

Things that deserve the stink-eye:

exhausting all methods to commercialize and novelty-brand pretty much anything and everything. Unnecessary. See bottled water.

And in December, it really ramps up, doesn't it? As comedian Jim Gaffigan says, "everyone has the unspoken agreement that what happens in December, stays in December."

Well said Jim. Which is why I should never have mentioned this.

Nevermind. Carry on.

Luck?

source

Driving in the early morning Northern Alberta darkness last Friday, I hit a deer.

I'd say five trotted out of the ditch all at once; there was no way to avoid it. It bounced onto the hood of my car and then slipped off to the side to remain on the highway.

Despite that initial shock, I felt oddly calm.

This happens often where I live. Everyone I know who chooses to share this big beautiful Alberta wilderness with wildlife has one or even two of these stories to tell.

One person stopped immediately; I expected a stranger but it was a friend. She listened politely as I rambled on. My car seemed relatively unscathed but it was definitely not safe to be on the side of the highway even with our flashers blinking so I urged her to go on her way. I jumped back in my car to let someone past but instead someone else stopped, also a friend. She gave me a hug. We talked briefly. After a semi-trailer blew by us like a slap in the face, I urged her to travel on to work.

I still hadn't had an opportunity to actually go look at the deer. Honestly, I was avoiding it. Before I could, another driver stopped and in that morning dark I saw him grab something from the back of his truck, a shovel. He pushed the deer off the road and then came over to my car. A stranger, I shook his hand and thanked him for that. At least the road would be safe for drivers again. He said there's only one problem: the deer was still alive.

The calm drained out of me.

I thanked him again so he left and then it was just the two of us waiting for the sun to rise on that warm December morning, one alive, one dying.

Or maybe both? Not me, this time. I called Alberta Fish & Wildlife and was told someone was already traveling in the area and that he would euthanize the animal. My calm mostly returned but there was another feeling too.

The entire incident from collision to conclusion? Fifteen minutes. Although the repair bill will be costly, my car is drive-able. I'm alive and uninjured. It could have been much worse. At least for me. I even arrived to work on time. That's why something about this whole thing feels too easy.

Brandon Mull wrote "luck has a way of evaporating when you lean on it." I've think I've been leaning on luck, and luck is something I don't much believe in. Because if I did, then I'd probably learn nothing from this lesson about strangers, about mercy, about myself, and about every other ordinary extraordinary day when everything I touched, lived.

Just so you know, the answer is no.

When you can't even can't even for one more minute, should you give up?

Okay. Maybe sometimes the answer is indeed yes. And yet...I have no idea what this toy is supposed to do. But when I noticed it stuck in the ice and gravel along the pavement the other day, it said one thing to me: determination.

Despite what it's endured since some child lost it, this plastic figure continues to do the victory pose.

Okay you little shit piece of plastic: if you can do it, so can I. (And so can you.)

Grr.

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Everyone has a dark(ish) side. Even me. Sure, I’m a nice guy. Almost always. Someone actually gave me this advice once: “you’re too nice.” Well well. There are worse things to be accused of, so I have chosen to live with that diagnosis. Yet, as with everyone, my dark side surfaces. It lifts its furrowed head and looks around. And what does it see?

Idiots.

Let me explain. People claim that true selves emerge in trying circumstances. Like in a disaster. Like when threatened with death. Like when faced with a grizzly, or a very large snake or a massive tax-bill or especially a turkey. (Sorry. That last example is a little more science-ish than science.) According to real science, there is truth to this reactive behaviour. During calm, we typically manage our lives using the frontal lobe, the rational decision-making portion of the brain. However, during great threat, the amygdala, the small inner core of the brain, trumps all rational thinking and instead, we act based on intense emotion: fight, flight, or freeze. This is designed to save our lives but yet also ruin our lives, because well, idiots idiot things up.

So when does the amygdala transform us into idiots? Is it when our grandparents ask us to fix their computers? Is it when surveys are requested during supper? Is it when our phones are missing? All of the above. And more. Quite honestly, we’ve all lost our shit here and there and that one time at that family reunion. Ahem. But I digress.

My amygdala typically gets rage-y when I’m driving. It’s emotional. People cut you off. They don’t always remember their signal lights. They drive too slowly. So no offence but I probably called you an idiot. I’m not the only one though. See, I conducted an official math(ish) poll and it turns out that literally seven out of ten people also think you drivers are idiots. You do not want to know what the other three people called you.

Hmm. I discovered yesterday that I’ve been driving with only one headlight. I wonder what you called me?

See? Everyone does have a dark(ish) side.

Pass it on.

I will. I promise. 

There was a knock. But no one was there. Instead, this, on my doorstep.

Everyone should live in a neighbourhood like mine.

(Directions for a good life: pass it on.)

Sometimes

Sometimes one sentence says so much. And no period is needed because it won't stop anyway.

Sometimes it's hard to think about anything but that one thing that's missing.

Sometimes all the wonders can be overwhelming.

Sometimes blank paper invites the deepest conversations we have with ourselves.

Sometimes, if I listen carefully, I can hear the past run up the stairs.

Things one should never outgrow:

(Thanks Sherri.)

moxie.

This is my 92-year-old Gma's first selfie.

"Say yes and you'll figure it out afterwards." ~Tina Fey

Change

I remember thinking she was really thin. Pale too. Sickly? There was something else too. And then the cashier asked her for like, $36.74, and when she kindly joked that she wanted to pay with spare change, I suddenly realized who she was: my Mom.

Well, not really my Mom because my mother died last year. Yet this woman was the right age and the right build and the right look. Plus she wore a hat, definitely function over fashion, just like my Mom did. And she wasn’t joking. Despite the four other people in line, she was determined to use all her coins. And so she counted them out: toonies, loonies, quarters, dimes, nickels. Just like my Mom would do sometimes. And it was kind of funny. And also annoying. Especially when she realized she didn’t have enough change so she inquired if she could pay the difference with her debit card. Distracted by this little spectacle, this little gift of something like a memory that seemed to be somehow entirely made for me, my impatience faded and I smiled and positioned myself fully in the moment. I suspect everyone else in that cashier’s line seethed but I was tickled to see her again if only in the form of a stranger.

I know how memory works. Science says this experience is the type of memory triggered by recognition. In other words, something familiar unconsciously triggers recall and when this happens we live in the then and the now, sort of straddling two worlds, a sort of re-imagination rather than a remembering.

I like that. I like that there’s a diary inside us all, a journal we can never quite read the same way twice. And life, like a gust of wind, sometimes opens it quite unexpectedly. And when it opens, it loosens, it undoes, it unfurls, it unwinds, it airs. 

All. One.

In response to terrorism, I saw this simple but sad and profound sign: “humans, but no humanity.” When people forget their humanity, I say, start with the dictionary. Humanity (noun) can be defined four ways:

1. All human beings collectively; the human race; humankind.

The key word here is ALL. I’ll say it again. ALL.

2. The quality or condition of being human; human nature.

After becoming wheel-chair bound due to Multiple Sclerosis, my Grandmother came to live with us for a while. Losing much of her mobility and her independence, she seemed understandably bitter at times, but when she pushed through her struggles, she gave me drawing lessons. Human nature balances somewhere between selfishness and altruism but it always tips toward the right thing. Thankfully. Unlike animals, we humans have a moral predisposition and scorn violence and contempt. Except when we forget. See history.

3. The quality of being humane; kindness; benevolence.

I missed the bus in Grade 1 once. A Grade 6 girl waited with me while my Mom drove to town. She sat very close to me, quietly. I don’t recall her name but when my Mom finally arrived, a Popsicle in her hand, I ran to greet her and quite honestly, I doubt if I even glanced back to thank that girl for essentially being my family while I sat and cried on the front steps of our school for thirty minutes. We were strangers but kindness and benevolence prevailed. As it should. When we don’t forget.

4. The humanities: the study of languages, literature, Latin and Greek classics, philosophy, art, etc., as distinguished from the natural sciences.

I have always found my heart and my truth in stories and in writing and in art. I believe it’s our ability to read and to write and to draw that leads to understanding, to wisdom, to action. One of my early literature obsessions was Shel Silverstein. He said, “Many leaves, one tree.” The key here is ONE. I’ll say it again. ONE.