Dear Protesting Teens

Dear Teens: I find it a profound pleasure to know that teens are backing what we adults, including the politicians that you berate today, are attempting to make happen. Today, teens like you are taking to the streets to show deep concern for the environment: particularly the climate crisis that we all face. At the same time, I hope that you, personally, each and every one, see this as a life commitment not just a day off school and time to celebrate after with your peers. What I hear on the media is that we adults are blamed for not doing enough for your future and that politicians and big business is not doing the work of change fast enough. Your angst is correct. We all, old and young, feel the same frustrations. While you are genuinely worried about the world and its lagging changes apparently due entirely to man's insensitivity to its biological delicacy and also to feed its greedy habits, please know that we elders, also inhabitants of the planet, are just as upset about it as you. We admire that young people are stepping up and supporting all that we are trying to do. But. Carrying signs and shouting and singing slogans one day, does not do the actual job of effecting what you seek. You know this of course, especially those of you who do not pollute by tossing beer cans for others to pick up after grad parties or chuck your paper coffee mugs on the sidewalks or spend hours driving fast cars going nowhere. Those in the crowds of you, today, who are going to, later, celebrate with  friends and congratulate yourselves over the global success of your planned day of "protest", have, however, something to take away from it. Your protest is way more than one day of promise and commitment. As those of us you blame for ruining your world to come, who recycle, who either ride bikes, drive electric or walk or take public transport, pay our taxes for your education, medical care and practice responsible consumerism and have a vote, know. We don't carry signs or sing and shout. We are too occupied doing the job. It's a great struggle being the ones you blame. Sure we are not perfect but we do our best because we love you and do it for you every day of our lives of going to work, caring for our families and being the best we can be for a better world. It's not easy. What are you doing? Make a list. Saving the world is not a one day protest, it's an everyday protest. While it's joyful to demonstrate, there is a tougher side. Do you make sure the clothing your parents pay for is made by responsible societies? Do you frequent food outlets and grocery stores that are responsible businesses? Do you do the recycling in your home and see that all of the products there are those that agree with responsible consumerism? Do you walk or ride a bike instead of tool around in your car? Do you help in your home by ensuring your parents get products with "green" ingredients? Do you work alongside your family to make sure your home is environmentally clean? Or not?

Colouring Books

I am flesh coloured. But now I am told that I have done a whole lot of bad things to people who are flesh coloured also. When I started school in a milltown community where my dad worked with people of all flesh tones, I didn't know about different coloured skins. No one in our house ever talked about it. When we went shopping in the city when I looked around as a small child, there were lots of people and that was it. I didn't think to question who had what coloured skin. They were "people". At home we had a wood pile because we burned it as fuel in our wood furnace. I could read before I started school and had my friends over so we could sit on the top of the wood pile while I read them stories from a fairy tale book. There was Clark, a boy from Ireland, Mahinder Singh whose dad worked with mine, Joycie who was rich, Dawnie my cousin and Roger, the French boy who lived next door and had 12 brothers and sisters. We bought wonderful bread from Roger's mother who yelled at her kids all day long. We learned how to say "be quiet", "come home"in French. We also had a vegetable man who sold from his truck and had a long braid that hung down his back. They were all my neighbours whom we lived with happily. We were all just people. We kids, played in the trees and bushes on our property that had a little brook that I learned later was Brunette Creek. One day in Grade Two, I came home and told my mother that Mahinder was crying because someone took off his hat. No one told me it was a turban. It was simply part of who Mahinder was. My mother just said how mean and sad, but did not go into the racism that was evident in that action.  But the school brought up the subject. It was my first knowledge of racism. I didn't know about those kinds of "differences". When we went shopping in the big city, I couldn't help staring at a man who had no legs ( it was wartime) but skin colour hadn't enter my head. My dad had friends and fellow workers from all nations. They laboured and sweated along side each other and at home, there was no talk about some being better than others. I know that it is unusual now, but then, it just didn't seem to matter. The first time I found out that there was such cruelty was over poor Mahinder's experience. Racism and colour prejudice is obviously learned behaviour. It must be something learned early for another child to do that to my friend. It is tragic for our young because children accept all that is around them as natural and normal. Think what a precious opportunity it is for parents to offer their kids the enlightenment and the joy of loving all humans regardless of their skin colour or race and to appreciate them for their own stories. Each one is unique. I am called white and sadly, lately, I am blamed for my so-called colour for things I didn't personally do or think. Like everyone else, I can't help my colour. I am only human and flesh toned. I don't want to be called "white".

Burdens of Age

The burdens of aging are mainly the indebtedness of having lived. Lived at all. The burdens aren't the things most people consider them to be. Some feel burdened by things on the down side, but I feel wholly burdened by those people and times I loved and continue to love. But in a different way. I almost fall under the weight of love, my love of the life I have been so privileged to possess for a time. It used to feel like a very long time but looking back on life's pathway, it's rather short now and filled with beauty and affection both received and given, of memories of small objects and scenes and seconds you remember that become clearer and clearer. Wealth or comforts or possessions, once yearned over, don't really count for much. For some reason all of the bad stuff disappears and only the personally fine times of feelings and people and things, shine. It makes it quite wonderful to have these images to hold and sort through and savour.  It is pure joy. The incredible number of changes over time, the advancements in science and art and humanity, of generosity and modelling, are those that become huge and awe inspiring. Our so many human wonders to admire. The down sides, once intense, sort of drop or drift away as we approach our farewell date and what makes the brilliant "light at the end of the tunnel" is the good and beautiful and true things of our lives. It has nothing to do with riches or fame or status. All of that flattens into a great, sweeping plain like a two dimensional poster with your name somewhere on it. Everything like that doesn't matter at all. The things once we thought were so very important are mere print. That's why seeing your friends who are still alive and to remember with them, is so great a pleasure. They're not two dimensional.  It's why sillinesses such as "the best and the latest" are not that which you find most appealing as once you might have. Gradually, you see what you didn't see previously. You, in your aging, are equipped quite surprisingly  with a sense of new reality that those younger have yet to gain. They don't know about it. You do, but you aren't going to tell them. You want them to discover it someday just as you have this joyous moment. They, embroiled in the impetus of its day-to-day rigors, don't have time to sit and stare into the past as we do. This vision erases what was once so bothersome or challenging or we thought, vitally necessary for happiness. Happiness, now, is very simple. It's very easy and present. But it's a secret that only the aged share.  A lot of it is remembering those small moments that were rather fuzzy then, but are now so vividly coloured in mind and so suddenly important. "Ah", you think, "So that's what it all meant."

Why Oh Why?

We don't need frustration in our lives. Why oh why don't manufacturers make things that work without failure and difficulties built in? When my old metal sewing machine developed a problem, I turned it in for a new model that did a whole lot of things I didn't need. I wanted to fix things, not create them. It looks swish but if it falls off the table or a little bit of its plastic this and that breaks, it's over. My mother could take her old machine apart and put it back together. Why oh why are these machines still not made of metal and made to last? My washing machine broke down yesterday. Apparently, if you don't pander to its need for a "balanced load",  it kills itself. I can't see inside the thing when it's going because some designer decided the lid should lock. Bang, and now a service call that will cost half of what the machine is worth and likely he'll tell me I should get a new one. It's not that old. My mother had her mother's washer and she offered it to me. Not that I wanted it but it still worked.  I don't need ones like the latest, that access from the front on  hands and knees. Or ones that use two inches of water and pretend to get things clean. Why oh why? My glasses and sun glasses have a habit of losing their screws. Can't the screws be sealed in there so they won't sneak their way out. Seems simple enough. I don't want to use my polluting car to run down and have someone screw it back in, free service or not.  Why oh why? Then this morning I had to open a vitamin bottle and the lid was child proof, and also adult proof. You have to contort your hands painfully and push down and turn at the same time which children seem to have no problem with. When you are with arthritis in your pinkies, the opening contortion is well nigh impossible. Why oh why? Recently, I bought a steamer oven. It was foolish because how hard is it to plop a steamer basket into the wok and carry on. The new oven has lights and buttons to press and read outs and pictures of what it can do. After studying the manual written by someone from a place where English is exotic, I gave up and played with the display window. I learned the first lesson: how to make toast. The rest, unless I can find a translator, will have to wait. Why oh why? My cell phone has all the bells and whistles and I love it for various reasons, but to text on it with fingers that are not made to hit the miniscule letters, makes it scary. Some of the typos are insulting. My step father, Miron, got tired of being called Moron not to mention some of the other insults. I had a phone once, now out of fashion, that  had a stylus attached. No more like that. Why oh why? The younger set tackle everything with great ease and enthusiasm but that changes when they have an aging body that insists on its own rationale. Every single human gets to that stage eventually, and designers could make all of it easy to manipulate sans pain. Why oh why not?

White Jeans Don't Care

Apparently, The fashion mag that has high fashions no one would dare to wear other than to the red carpet, tell us that white jeans are okay all year round. What a relief! I do it anyway and wear sandals all year round, too. The nonsense of paying attention to fashion "laws" such as no white after Labour Day, don't make sense and likely originated from commerce need and greed. It gives them a reason to come up with so-called seasonal garb that among the posh rich becomes garb-age later on. Jeans are popular mostly because they are said to be comfortable, but in truth they are not as comfortable as trousers for men and women made of other substances than USA cotton set with classy USA labels. I note that The fashion mag now brags of sustainable wear and inclusivity as voiced by the bob-haired queen of fashion herself. What is hilarious is that while the garments may be as touted, you need to have a sack of money to buy them. What is inclusive about that? A jacket made of sustainable fabric they advertise could cost you thousands. The inclusivity amongst the models is fine, but it is nothing new. Maybe they're paid more now and have higher opportunity. I suppose one must tolerate the biomass of the hype we are fed.  But back to the white jeans. I refuse to abandon them until Spring again. I like them because just about anything can top them: a sweater, a hoodie, a blouse, a jacket. And they aren't black leggings. Fall Fashion can be in fall/winter colours, but don't please give me bright green or dark brown. The brunettes seem to have it lately and we blondes don't. The fall faves are fashionable "ethnic" gear and a touch of snake skin. You never see, in snake prints, the dangerous end of the creature. It is as though someone skinned the lowly reptile and all we get is its back pattern in the dresses and tops and pants. Snakes are beautiful creatures with their elegant length and movement and their patterned sleeknesses are adopted by the loomers who see them as beautiful purveyors of Nature's art rather than fearful images of danger. Thus no fangs or tongues are permitted. But the colours are mostly brownish and that's a colour I dislike. Each fall, sadly, the pretty shades of pink and yellow and blue disappear and out come the browns, navys and purples. Black works for me but not the other dark colours. They are great on brunettes who are fashionable with their yards of long straight tresses. Still, I prefer my good old white jeans with sweaters and white sneakers, not the neon versions that look like regatta boats with do dads that dangle and sparkle and have three inch soles. When you are blond, short and carry those ice-cream pounds, you have to hibernate I guess.

Politically Correct Nonsense

Who came up with this term: "politically correct"? We are all aware of the matter of good and bad taste in what we say but, at times, the raw truth needs to be stated simply and clearly along with supporting proof. It doesn't involve name calling or false or rude crudeness, it means just being able to speak the truth without someone yapping out the words "that's not politically correct". We are not politicians who  have to be concerned about that.  There are some issues that politicians may have, for their reasons that are always vote influencing dodges, that we members of the public should not feel fearful of.  No issues are so"delicate". A spade doesn't have to be called a grave digger but it is still a shovel. Poet Parks said "a rose is a rose is a rose". And that's what it is. Period. Like you, I refuse to use unkind  name calling but no group should have to shy away from telling it like it is. Recently, some government reports showed errors and their corrections were done in a manner that was considered surreptitious. So what? An error is an error. Change it and get on with life. We don't need to hear about it endlessly. There is so much worry and concern and hype about the smallest of things such as governmental myopia  about how someone looks at someone else or whose hand they shake and how, or what they were thinking or hinting at or implying. Every word and expression is examined minutely and interpretations made that become nit picking to the point that one groans before x-ing out a news item. It is facts and results after actual actions that matter to citizens, not promises or apologies and visitations or what someone is wearing or if their eyebrows are plucked or their socks are matching. It is time we put politics into perspective. Political ploys and pictures and positions are not what the voter with its one paltry vote needs to make the decision to plant an X in the right place. Perhaps you, too, are insulted and weary of petty hen peckings by one politician over another or media photos of this or that face and expression. I want facts and plans to peruse, not griping and complaining and whining and spit-fighting. It's not recess on the school playground, it's real life and adult voters want the nonsense to stop and the truth to out bare, plain and simple.