Finders Keepers

Other than abusiveness and unfaithfulness that are simply not acceptable, most men are worth keeping. Some are more perfect than others. There is much to weigh when dropping a guy. Finding that balance is the key. Questions to ask are: what would I do without him, are his faults worse than my being alone, is there some way I can tolerate the faults and still feel happy? Sometimes being alone is the best choice. Phone calls don't count - they are too easy and usually end up with you calling him instead of the other way around. Men love women calling them. It's a power trip. "See what I made her do?" kind of thing. Being alone is good if your support system works but we all know that pals just aren't the same. They go home after the bucket of ice-cream and the bottle of wine. Work? Sure that's nice but it doesn't cuddle after hours. Knitting? Nope. Too much time between knit and purl to think about the good old days. What does work when you are trying to drop him permanently? No calls, no e mails, no contact. That works and the pain, though intense, is relatively short term. Personally, I like writing. You can purge if you have a blog but it's public and takes courage to fend off the pests or perhaps you might start a file you can lock to keep your innermost thoughts pouring out freely. Holding them in, is poisonous. Going out and about? Yes, but hard on the shoe leather. My new high heeled patent boots need tips already.  Don't expect a queue of suitors lined up around the block. You'll find a new guy, but it is an accidental phenomenon perhaps occurring  at the deli counter, the local coffee den or in the bar code line at the library.  There is always another lonely soul out there waiting to be found. Take heart.

Ego? We Go

Ego is like the ghost buster ghost: big, puffed-up and composed of little else than gas. Mostly hot. To know someone with an ego, large and colourful, is at first, overwhelming. Wow, you think, if this ego considers itself as highly as it does, how fortunate I am to be accepted into its sphere. You belong. You are charmed. You are wafted in, impressed  and soar on its powerful attraction and vastness. But gradually your sense of smell takes over and the experience, begins to lose its hue and substance and the cloud of white glory, turns into reality, a very bad fog, one from which you want, fervently, to escape. But how do you get rid of the thing when you have been permeated by its stench? Airing? Yes! That's the answer. Give it a good shaking, open all the windows, bring in clean atmosphere and trust it will blow away. It won't be easy at first, but eventually you will have the "free, fresh wind in your hair" -as the song goes, and once again  breathe  freedom from The Ego's magnetic oppression.

Wax On

We keep things shiny: gold, diamonds, crystal, windows. We're always polishing up floors and cars and silver but love? Nope. There's something about human nature that ignores what is most precious until it's gone. Love is the perfect commodity. It earns interest if we let it. It can't be traded and yet it is bandied about as though it is a toy. Sure, it becomes worn in time like everything else, but when it is no longer there it is sadly missed. Why didn't I ? What could I have done? Where did it go? How did I go wrong? When it's too late, these questions, if we're honest, seem, all, to point in one direction. Straight back at you. Love is complicated and very hard sometimes. Forgiveness is easy to say but very difficult to do. Tolerance is even harder. Ego and pride keep us from what will fix love turned sour.  But all these are requirements to keeping love alive.Oh sure, there are some relationships that are over and dead and buried, but mostly love has simply died of starvation. It has to be  nurtured and polished until it shines. Only you know how to do that if you just remember the beginning. Remembering is the glue that puts it all back together and makes love stronger than ever. Polish out pride and prejudice and give your love a new life. When it's gone...

Grand Mother

Grandmothers who are able and want children, should be able to adopt babies. It's not such a stupid idea. Many grandmothers are looking after their working children's children as it is. They walk the babies and go shopping with them, they cart them off to play schools and school and tell them family stories. They hang out with their grandchildren all day, teaching them favorite recipes and gardening and about nature and conservation. They have something parents do not have. Time without boundaries. And their elder health would improve as well. They would be out walking and moving about chasing the little ones. They are up at night anyway so babies and their night howls would work in beautifully. From the lack of all-day parenting I see around me, I think elders who want to and can, would make excellent parents. It would fend off loneliness and lack of anything to do but talk about their aging ills. Many have money to indulge the child with small things that children love such as going on little trips to the zoo or the park or window shopping. Elders have patience borne of experience. They have life's natural wisdom. They can attend all the child's day school functions  or volunteer as helpers at the schools. I think grand parents would make fine parents. Death, you say? What if you should die or become ill? I say what happens to children in a natural family today? What of divorce or neglect or parental abuse or simply a baby brought up basically by a babysitter who knows nothing of family tradition or cares? It is a thought to be taken seriously by those who can find no homes for unwanted babies while grandparents, especially those alone, crave to have a family again.  

Cell Hell

There is nothing worse than being at an event and suddenly yours or someone else's cell goes off.  I thought I turned it off, we say, and blush profusely. It takes at least two fumbles before you can find the cell phone and silence it. In the meantime everyone turns toward the sound or gropes for their own device thinking it was theirs doing the offending. There is also the nuisance of someone invading your private time with their inane cell prattling or texting. Exes are famous for this. Or smother mothers.  You could cheerfully take either the phone or the caller and toss them into next week. That kind of idiot knows perfectly well that a particular time is yours, but there is some perverse purpose  to annoy you.  Like a mosquito drilling into the night, too late, they have achieved their goal.  You want to, but you can't swat this trouble-maker in the gills as you would a bug.  Alas, that would give the perp something to whine about. No, you screen the pest and make sure that your cell phone, next time, is located in a place where it can't be  heard.  I love my phone and it can be a lifesaver - if only others had the common courtesy and maturity to ahere to good cell phone manners.

Really

All wives fantacize about being a widow. Maybe they know it is their destiny, if not divorce. Divorce is different. You know HE is somewhere even though you might hate him. You see him occasionally or speak to him and you have, at least, that even if it is torturous. Death is not the same. It is an end, a finality  deep. There is no one there and there never will be again. When you used to fantacize, you thought how fine it would be to make all the decisions and have all the resources and do all of the managing. It would be a powerful experience, you guessed. No, no. It isn't at all a matter of power.  Death happens and when the sad rites are over, you find yourself more alone than you ever imagined and there is a void in which you live day by day, hour by hour and minute by minute. It is a silent emptiness and, no, the memories are not a comfort. They are something to forget. You must move on, others say. What else can you do? But you do it. You learn which end of the screwdriver is which and how to use it. Oh I know, some widows become the classic pest and bother their children and neighbours endlessly to come and help.  Good widows don't. They DIY or hire. Romantically, you miss a man in your life but you aren't supposed to look around and anyway, most men, the good ones, are taken or want to be - for a ride - something to avoid. Still, you hope that someday, someone will come along and your wifely life will resume and be happy once again. Some think that you are a threat to their marriage and your celebratory invitations stop. The world is a couple world. Widows understand that. Widows Not Welcome. Some men you meet are shopping for a wife and mostly you aren't it. You spend a lot of evenings alone and when the phone rings, you answer and pretend to be happy and love your new life but you want the old one back. There are tearful times but they are impractical. They're a waste of time. The walls won't listen. Days and nights stretch out on a horizon that is long and empty but you use your imagination and your inner strength to keep on.  Some advise you to join in, go out, have fun. What do they know? They have security in a marriage or relationship. It isn't like what they believe it to be and you can't explain it.  Life will never be easy again, but you learn to cope. You put aside your own wants and simply act and react. You try to look your best and behave kindly and bravely, but you aren't. You are like a small boat in the middle of a vast sea with almost  no hope of seeing shore again and you watch the sky for storms and wonder if you can survive them. You learn little by little to get over your fears and ride the waves and stop worrying about tomorrow. It never comes. You do it because you have to. It doesn't get better but you get used to it.

What? No God?

If one says there is no God, it means that there must have been one? Atheists speak constantly and knowlegably about God and deny God. On the one hand, a bystander thinks, if the atheist is so adamant that there is no God, why then spend so much time saying no to the idea? If God doesn't exist, why worry about it? Why bother even denying what is not there? On the other hand, Atheism itself is a religion. It gives reasons for not believing, mostly second hand, and in so doing, attempts to find converts. It takes a lot of research because to say that something does not exist, you must first know what exists about it. It would follow that there must be some substance to the former in order to deny the latter. If there is substance, there is life, is there not? It is all a mystery to me this saying something is not there if it is there to say no to.

Choose How?

We are taught by our parents that there are subjects NOT to discuss. Among these are, religion and politics for example.  In this country there are endless choices. But are they free choices?  People deeply involved in them for the most part, try to convince others, including their kids that their choice is the best one. But how prepared are new adults to make the choices with open minds, minds that are not like traps already full but ones that are clean, empty and searching?  Schools perhaps, instead of loading kids up with the useless pastime of homework, which I have never understood, might give courses on how to go about the basics of selecting and I don't mean drugs,  instead of hammering out candlesticks or stitching duffel bags which almost no one does in the real world anyway.   And how about the matter of ethics so one can fit into all the chaos outside the school walls while making the important life choices? We talk about freedom all the time and how it's being broken, but what do we know about how to handle it?Wouldn't it be lovely if the young could walk into adulthood not being pulled and pushed in every direction but simply, without a lot of influence, enjoy the freedom of searching openly and confident in knowing how to go about it?

Snow Job

We've all been snowed. Remember that friend who promised to take you to lunch if you'd look after her brood for the weekend? Or the car salesman who said the expensive one was owned by an old lady who drove it only to church on Sundays? Well, real snow, like the other kind, is just that, a pile of white that soon melts and there it is, the same old same old dirt underneath. In the sales pitch world, the snow job is a pile of little white lies that covers everything. You are enchanted. Then there is the romance snow job where the pitch is so honed that you believe every LWL until you are up to the neck in it. Well, you know what I mean.  So, how to deal with snow jobbers? Number one, stay cool. That shouldn't be a problem with snow. Don't let the LWL pile up too high. Dig out the truth. Or go along with it and out LWL the perp. It can work both ways, darlin'. Three, when the melt down happens, get out fast. If you don't you'll drown and maybe even like it! Crawl out of the igloo. You'll feel the bite at first but persevere, Spring can't help itself. It's always on the way.

Dead Air

You all know it, Dead Air. It's when you call and there is only the message machine. But, you think, there is the cell phone. You call. More dead air, the message machine. You give up. You are beaten. You are the loser. But, are you? You have learned something from the Dead Air specialist. You have learned what not to do. You have learned that there are other "airs" and other more polite people who answer their cell phones and don't lie. The lies are voluminous. "I was driving and couldn't pick up". "I fell asleep and didn't hear the ring". They are legion. Or Legion. You are not the loser, you are the winner. You delete the number forever. That makes you the winner.

Passing On

"Passing on" in this case, is not about death although it is closely associated when the thought crosses your mind if you have been a victim. No. It is the unfortunate matter of passing on personal information told to one privately. When you tell your secrets, you assume - assumptions are dangerous things - that you don't have to say FYO, or in this case. FYEO. There are rules in the professional media about passing on information but in the real world, it is open season. The worst of it is, that the passing on colours and distorts your little revelation so that it has become something juicier and larger, and like the spectre in Ghost Busters, huge and plodding and dangerous. It might be mere trivia, but now it has taken on a life of its own. To deny what is being broadcast, only makes it worse. Aha, the sympathizer thinks, soooo it is true after all, because now he/she is covering up. What to do? Don't. Don't tell what you don't want bandied about. Don't reveal your secrets. They are yours, keep 'em and let the gossips weep. Or, and there is always an "or", spread one that you want to be expanded and published. You could try, as so many others do, saying the popular one:  that you are actually related to the queen, "but don't tell anyone".  That is impressive. Or, that you just might be the missing Anastasia, raising your eyebrows and looking around furtively.  It worked for my elderly aunt who stated that she was Prussian and then whispered the rest while flashing an enormous antique diamond ring on her whithered finger. Then again, the rugged romantic might just drop the family secret that he is related to Blackbeard the Pirate or Ghengis Khan while flexing his pecs and tightening his abs. The one I like best though, is the sheep stealer version. A Scot does this very well and visions of him, running about the moors in a tweedy kilt flailing his sword, emerges. We've all been victims of "passings on" and yes, even perpetrators of this nasty habit. Passing on secrets would be missed if it were somehow banished from the face of the earth,  but by the way, did you hear that...

Poison Walking

What is it about women and men who continue relationships with poisonous partners? The victim doesn't see the realities of what is happening. Normal people are there for each other. They don't hide away and pop out only on special occasions - the ones of their choice. They love and express that love. They turn their lives around to meet their loved ones. They have sincerity. The poison men and women, are like the Cinderella apple:  deliciously red and tempting. It is impossible not to take a bite. The flavour is lovely but the bitter finish devastates and destroys. The wise poisonous man or woman knows just how to lie and enchant and deceive. Their destructions go on and one until there is nothing left of victims.  They care not because their dangerous elixir has done its work. They move on and find yet another feckless one to feign love and the whole process begins again. Poisonous people are the worst kind of human creature and the most dangerous animals. The gentlest creatures and the most vulnerable ones are too easily caught in their lethal nets.

Generation Gap?

Generation gap? Whatever it is, I haven't fallen into it. Yet. I hear this often: "the older generation doesn't understand", "the older generation is the problem", "the older generation doesn't think like we do". First of all, I am still alive last time I checked. I breathe, I pay taxes, I walk the sidewalks and donate to my society. I AM this generation and will be until the day I die. Live with it kids. And no, my thinking isn't frozen in the fifties. I have an i phone, a number of computers and I am informed daily about what is going on in the world and in my neighbourhood. Don't treat me like an idiot - at least not yet. For sure, one day I will droop and scrape and not remember but today, here I am and I am IN this generation whether you think so or not. Like you one day when YOU grow older, I vote, I buy, I even volunteer. You work, you pay, you hope for a better future. You do everything I do albeit a little faster but sometimes you trip over your young ego a bit, kiddo. It takes all of us: the old, the young, the handicapped, the sick, the well and the nut cases. We ARE this generation.

Take The Fall

Falling in love isn't always a two-way thing. It can be a solitary occupation and as a result be quite appealing in that it is what you want it to be.  It began in Grade One when I saw Clark for the first time. He was short even for a First Grader but there was something about his tow-headed cowlick and his freckled smile that melted my heart. The fact that I was a skinny, mousy kid with straight short hair and Clark's heart throb was a blonde braided, chubby, immaculately neat child, rankled me to no end. Edith's fat braids and her crayons, the better ones, my practical mother wouldn't buy for me, added to the misery. Edith lent Clark her crayons. He didn't take a second look at mine. Also, the fact that Clark and Edith lived only a few houses apart while my house was up on the hill, added to my despair. One day, driven to desperation, I couldn't help but pencil a note to Edith. It read, in the most perfect Grade Two printing, two spaces high, "I hat you". Just before recess when there was no one in the classroom, I dropped it on her desk. But during recess, I suddenly realized, having studied only that morning, the long vowel when there is an e at the end of a word, I had written "hate" incorrectly. I was so embarrassed, it made love flee from my mind. The only consolation was that I had not signed my name to the flawed document.  From that day on, I kept my amours to myself realizing that love, even the fantasy kind, can be a dangerous thing. Moving from the school only months later, left me relieved - I need not feel guilty every time I laid eyes on the beautiful Edith. At my new school, however, it wasn't long before I spotted Teddy and another secret love ensued.  Teddy was tall and dark but an after school spin-the-bottle meet when Teddy spun, and the bottle pointed at me, had me jumping up and running all the way home. I was not ready to take the fall.  The realities of real love were too much for me.

The L Word

What makes people either over use the L word or fear to?  Frankly, I prefer the latter. Love is not an easy word.  To say it, is a promise, an obligation.  There is strata. You open yourself to rejection, inundation, even damnation.  At first, love is all encompassing. It disallows clear consideration of direction or consequences. But always, like new blown glass, it cools. It has dangers. It can shatter suddenly or grow mis-shapen or rarely, become strong and clear. Also, like glass, it's complex: sometimes, showing trapped flaws or mysterious shades or bubbles of air not meant to be there. You have to accept what you have created. It forms. Only time and use can clear and verify its meaning. Love like glass, can be placed on a shelf to admire and be seen or with use, create a unique patina. It can be hidden in a dark place, occasionally, to be admired for its once beauty.  Above all, if you are fortunate enough to have love, hold it lightly and well, tightly so not to let it break.

Stupid Smart People

The parties are over, thankfully. No longer do you have to put up with the Stupid Smart Person. No more, when you are trapped by one, must you wish you had a pocket large enough to hold a deck of cards or a good book. Then again, at a cocktail party where would you find a place to spread your cards or tuck up with a book?  And playing Mario Brothers VI on your i phone is not cool unless you are under twenty. You are destined, therefore, a chance of falling into the clutches of a Stupid Smart person. They are easy to spot. Standing in front of the fireplace, they peer through bushy brows, swirling the best Scotch in the house, waiting for an audience.  If you are desperate enough to approach, they are ready. They begin by posing a rhetorical question and while you are thinking desperately how to answer it intelligently, they do it themselves.  Thus begins a lengthy reguritation of borrowed information and citings whether you need them or not. You want to escape, but how? A coughing fit works well. Fainting doesn't, although there was a time when it did. Feigning a vibrating cell phone works, especially if you take it out and point "Sorry, it's Mother." Instead of Stupid Smart People, one would rather listen to the fat used car salesman talking about his latest golf game or the fisherman, his best catch or your ancient aunt, her latest medical report.  Then again, its better than being stuck solo with the potted palm in the corner.