Goodbye Kardashian sisters. Goodbye Oprah. Goodbye Trading Spouses. Goodbye drinking coffee in front of the morning news. I'll have to drag my sorry ass back to deep water aquafit for some reality tv entertainment along the lines of Biggest Losers.
What can I tell you about my exciting life on Salt Spring today? The workspace was totally dead this morning. That was cool because it allowed me to hear about my co-workers recent trip to Vegas. Then, this afternoon it was as if the office became like a miniature Gilligan's Island full of professors and Mary Anne's and too many Gilligans. It was as if a ship of asylum seekers had run aground offshore, all piled into a little dinghy, and rowed madly to reach shore (and our office) but instead of being from Cuba or India they were from Victoria and Ontario.
I'm in a strange mood. Can you tell? At lunch today, over at Volume II books, I spent some time lingering and I heard about a couple of books that might make good presents. The first was called A Vineyard in Tuscany by a guy named Ferenc Mate who it just so happened was the boyfriend of the ex girlfriend who was friends back in 1963 with the wife of the guy behind the counter at this bookstore. Yes. I admit. That sentence should keep you busy for weeks trying to decipher. The book, however, looked really enticing and the woman who came in and bought the only copy raving about the fact that this bookstore would even have such a copy at all said that the writer, Mate, is hilarious. Perfect for the wine lovers or sommelliers (love that word, use it whenever I can) on your list.
Then, I was watching Oprah and heard about her next Book Club book: It's called Freedom written by one of the rare authors who has made the cover of Time magazine and was actually summoned by Barack Obama for a 20 minute meeting. His name? Jonathan Franzen. On Oprah's show he described how he writes in an office that has no internet access, no t.v. and is cold. He says it's imperative that the environment is really quiet. That is the only way, he says, that he can really hear his inner dialogue and to quiet his mind enough to begin to get real insights into the struggles he's having and find a place where he understands that his personal struggles transcend himself and are possibly tapping into universal truths which he finds a way to weave into plot on paper. Horrible paraphrasing on my part I'm sure.
The best thing that happened to me today was a beautiful woman of First Nation's descent about 60 year old came into the office. She talked with me, I learned she was a hypnotherapist and she handed me a tiny silver angel with the words Love inscribed on the back.
I'll leave you with that beautiful vision and to think about how it is possible through a simple act of loving kindness to exchange an acknowledgement of spirit with another human being who will then surely remember the feeling that arose from your one simple action, forever.