Small Moments: Some Even Worth Writing About

One of this year's favourite photos and perhaps a good approach to the year ahead.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

One useful thing about a Blog is that you can review it and remind yourself about the small moments that made up another 365 days.

"...some moments are nice, some are 

nicer, some are even worth writing about.” 

― Charles Bukowski, War All the Time

Here are a few moments that made up my year in 2011.
Until I reviewed the posts, I totally forgot that this was the year I turned 50. WOW! How could I forget that?

I celebrated 50 at  Tigh-Na-Mara with good friends.

• Enjoyed spending time at Bruce's Kitchen checking in for Twitter.
• Learned about Tai Chi through Taoist Tai Chi classes in the United Church on Salt Spring.
• Had the best time ever with sisters visiting Salt Spring for The Fall Fair.
• Absolutely loved spending time in the garden of The Harbour House Hotel watching the blooming of the seasons and taking photos and Tweeting.
• Made a 3 minute video through Reel Youth on behalf of a weekend workshop  put on through United Way Lower Mainland. 
• Enjoyed the sailing outings on the L'Orenda and the people I met.
• Where were you all these years? Finally saw The Big Lebowski
• Year's biggest realization: I should be working one on one with people. Duh!
• Took a freelance writing refresher course through The Renegade Writer
• Discovered my favourite pub: The Crow N Gate, Cedar, BC
• Favourite Coffee Shop in Vancouver: The Prophouse on Venables
• Went on a kayak trip up Indian Arm on an August weekend with Heather, Karen and Lisa.
• One of my favourite past-times throughout this year: Walking down Walkers Hook Road on Salt Spring with my camera in hand headed for the Fernwood dock. I really miss that walk already.
• I wrote a couple of articles for Boulevard Magazine 
• Twitter became a daily event.
• Enjoyed meeting Nomi.
• Had a great year this last year at the Salt Spring Saturday Market selling my photos.
• Favourite new person I met this year:  Thorsten Baumeister.
• Friend I got to know better as the year progressed: Gwen
• Really good memories of being seated in the sun room enjoying the company of my friend and 88-year-old landlady, Marjorie Martin.
• Another dream accomplished and complete: Moved off Salt Spring in November after 3 years.
• My former classmate Susan Main was a lifesaver with some timely subcontract work.
• Took a wonderful course on Salt Spring from their Hospice program that was so useful as I was with my father for two weeks until the end of his life.
• Was accepted into SFU's Writer's Studio Creative Writing program to start January.
• Experienced the end of my father's life after his 93 years on the planet.

Pay attention to the small moments in 2012. 

So Much More than an Ornament

Merry Christmas to everyone who is lucky enough to be with people they really care about and even more to those who find Christmas a huge challenge with more sadness than gladness attached to it.

We all know that the Christmas season and Christmas Day can be a really difficult time for so many people. As I heard on the CBC yesterday, there probably isn't anyone on the planet who doesn't - if only for a second - experience a moment of existential despair at some point during the holiday season.  It can be very emotional. Expectations. Music. Relatives. Memories. Estrangements. Overindulgence. Conflicting Traditions within families. Blended families. It's ripe with the potential for emotional meltdowns.

It's a time when we can't help but think of so many of the people who are no longer a part of our lives but who remain in our hearts. Or, the memories from childhood Christmases which in my case are full of magical memories; times where the dining room table required every extension inserted to accommodate aunts and uncles, cousins and friends who joined us.  My childhood Christmas memories are probably the happiest memories of my childhood which may explain why Christmas as an adult has been so much - well - less.

When I was with Peggy at The German Market this year and saw the fireplace ornament (above), it immediately transported me back to my childhood and early Christmas mornings with Gordon, my twin brother, when we'd awake long before it was "time to get up."

As children, we shared a bedroom and slept in a bunk bed. He had the top bunk. I slept on the bottom.

We'd awake in the darkness from barely sleeping because of the crescendo of anticipation and excitement. It would probably be around 6:30 am when we could wait no longer. We'd steel out of our bedroom past our parent's room. We knew how to navigate the stairs in our large house to be quiet, although I have no doubt now that they were listening to our every whispered communiques. We knew that if we could make it to the first landing we were almost home free.

Hitting the edge of the living room we'd see the mass of presents and be amazed. Sometimes the pile would slide halfway into the living room. After an awed moment of silent wonder, we'd tiptoe through the living room and head straight for the attached dining room. We were lucky enough to have a real fireplace in the dining room with a black metal grate. Along the mantle hung five stockings. We'd bypass the three that belonged to our older sisters and we'd gingerly take down our own. There would always be a mandarin orange and a candy cane inside. Those were givens. And, then a bunch of other trinkets that we'd dump out to examine.

We'd confer. We'd eat our oranges and suck the minty candy canes and delight in the moment. It was a special time of togetherness between him and I even though we never acknowledged that through words.

So, when I saw this little ornament at the German Market  with just two stockings, hanging down from a fireplace, I immediately thought of him and that time more than 40 some odd years ago that we'd spend together when the house was still silent and my mother and father and older sisters had yet to descend for breakfast and the busiest day of the year would arrive.

Now, what you need to know is that as fraternal twins, we are as different as is possible for two siblings to be.  And, as a result, as adults we have spent more Christmases and most of our adult lives apart.

I'm actually writing this blog post on Christmas Eve at 4:00 pm as I'm about to get dressed to go to his house for dinner.

I have wrapped up this seemingly ordinary ornament that was made in Germany with a note inside that tells him the same sort of thing that I'm telling you here.  I hope when he reads the note he understands how much this tiny wooden ornament  leads me back to a time when we were connected in a way we would never be again.

It would make our father, who passed away on December 2, very happy to see us together.

I hope my brother's memories of those quiet times on Christmas morning are significant enough for him as well so that this very small ornament and my very small gesture mean something to him. I'd want him to look at this ornament each year forward and think of me and our togetherness so many years ago.

Love to you if you're reading this, wherever you are and whoever you're with, especially, I should add, if you happen to find yourself alone.

Covet Peace, Not Perfection

Another year is winding down and you and I are still above the grass. Hallelujah! Lucky us.

We can feel like a princess and very cared for when a friend treats us to having our toenails painted a beautiful gold. We can think of the new friends we met this year, the friends we said good bye to, those that crossed our paths fleetingly but remain in our hearts, the dreams we accomplished  and the new ones emerging.

We've added more memories to the memory bank that will sustain us when our wandering is reduced to exploring from an armchair and recall how all the beauty, geographical and human inspired, that we witnessed  has helped fuel our imaginations or expanded our perceptions.  Perhaps there have been re-connections. Change rules. Don't swim upstream.

Here are 10 ways of being I'm mulling over as the year winds down. 

1. Genuine human connection, not ancestry, is the key factor in shaping the quality of  relationships.
2. "As you wish" is a phrase that leads to empowerment for the person uttering it and the person it was intended  to empower.
3. When both your parents are gone, it's simultaneously scary and freeing.
4. We are all in control of our own reactions to any given situation.
5. Intent that is not coming from a place of sincerity is obvious. Be aware of your intent.
6. What's just one thing that will bring me joy today? Get in the habit of asking that each morning.
7. If I was him/her how would I feel under the same circumstances? A good thing to try and gain insight into.
8. Listen  to the words people use to get a quick idea into what they are feeling - about themselves mostly.
9. Figure out what your personal gift is and recognize situations where it can most come alive.
10. Stop aiming for perfection or even agreement. Covet peace.