Things one should never outgrow:

Jessica Hagy's The Art of War Visualized

turning stones.

Get out.

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Leopards can’t change their spots, right? I mean, we all know that’s impossible, right? Plus it would be messy, right? Right. But wait a minute. Why can’t they?

Maybe leopards just don’t want to. But WHY not?  (What follows are several other pea-brained questions BUT I will tell you right now I am indeed not really talking about leopards at all if you catch my drift).  

Is it because being spotless might be a disadvantage?

Maybe the other leopards might not think you’re cool?

Is it because losing your spots might mean losing other things?

In other words, is fear keeping you spotty?

Can’t see the benefit of going spotless?

Maybe you like hanging out with Cheetahs? Dalmatians? Holsteins? Giraffes?

Is it a pride thing?

A control thing?

Is it something else?

Ok. I’ve annoyed you again, so here’s my point. Sort of. Leopards have spots because it’s great forest camouflage. Spots mean protection and protection means survival (at least in the short term). Plus, I bet all the other leopards think spots are hot. One problem though: get out of the forest.

Get out.

(Again, I am not talking about the real forest here.) The world needs you. So keep your spots if they are so necessary but don’t stay in the forest so long. If you remain in the forest you will remain in the forest. How will you ever see the wonderful rest of this world? And worse yet, how will you ever change it (or yourself) for the better? 

Things one should never outgrow:

family road trips.

Determined not to go down that road. What's the worst that could happen? (I will make a list if once we return.)

Wordfuse (Wordlers Edition)

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The world needs more literary ambassadors and the like, people who make us think and think again, people with thoughtful diction, keen word-sense, (wordlers?) people who can shift worldview through wordview, wordly people who specialize in word makeovers. Dare I call them dictionairdressers?

My Barber's Story

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Just yesterday, my barber shared a story about one of his three boys, the one who plays hockey. I’ve never met his boys but I have a son so I can relate. I don’t know what compelled him to tell me the story because we are not exactly what one might typically define as friends. When I say that, I intend no disrespect whatsoever. I would be happy to be friends if our paths crossed more than once every six weeks for twenty minutes or so while, quite expertly, he cuts my hair. These are just the circumstances, the details. I believe everyone we encounter is a potential friend. I’m naïve this way but I don’t care. Given these circumstances, I was surprised by his story because it turned out to be about disillusionment, about heartbreak. Like all Canadians right now, maybe he was feeling a little fragile. When someone, basically a stranger, tells a story like that, it seems to me that it’s so very important I pay attention and listen.

As I mentioned, his son (not yet a teenager) plays hockey and is old enough now to attend tournaments in different communities. Only once, explained his Dad (and not since) did he ever allow his son permission to travel without him to a hockey tournament overnight with a family he trusted. But it was a mistake. His son returned and told his Dad that the kids spent hours in the hotel room by themselves while the family he trusted to supervise his son spent the evening in the bar getting drunk, one of them passing out later in the hotel room. Like his own father, my barber explained that alcohol has never touched his lips. He would never have acted this way, “My wife and I are Muslim.” And then he said,

“It seems to me that when you are caring for someone else’s kid you should be even more careful and cautious about that child’s well-being.”

Listening carefully, I let that sink in and agreed. Who could argue with that?

After I paid my barber and left, I reflected on what he said and listened to the radio news: “increasing exploitation and radicalization of our youth targeted by extremists…in their search for identity, acceptance and purpose, socially isolated, disenchanted young men turn to extremism…the stereotype of a terrorist as a foreigner striking out from a disadvantaged country is fading…”

Writing this, I’m still thinking about my barber, his kids, my kids, our community, our country. His story is my story too. Call me hokey but I bet that goes for every parent out there. Dads and sons and daughters and Moms all over Canada (all of us, everywhere) playing hockey, or soccer, or playing music, whatever, watching out for their own children, watching out for their neighbours’kids too. It’s simple really but perhaps the most important thing. 

A Recent Selfie

Yup. It's me.

At the end of this month, both my teens will move away to University/College. This recent selfie will help them remember what I look like (and what I mostly do.)

Free

by Nate X

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." ~Maya Angelou

If stories are birds then inside us are both hummingbirds and pterodactyls. Which ones will you set free?

Things one should never outgrow:

not-much-of-a-road road-trips.

Things one should outgrow:

self-doubt.

#reflectionyes
#doubtno

Things one should never outgrow:

silly string.

#parkinglotambush

Things one should never outgrow:

driving your truck through the monstrous mud-puddles.

#what16yearoldsdo

Things one should never outgrow:

walking in the rain.

#watchwhereyouaregoing

Sometimes

Sometimes, for me, hearing a new song is like a troubled dream where I'm hiking and hiking and hiking up a mountain and then finally, finally I am able to turn around and see exactly where I am.

And then suddenly here, here, all that struggling was worth it.

And everything else has melted away or it's hidden by fog. And it doesn't matter anymore. At all....

If you could choose someone to live forever, who would you choose?

Forget all the variables that would affect your decision. Don't worry about everyone else; they would still have the opportunity to live long, happy lives. Don't worry about the potential problems with living forever either. Don't worry about goodbyes. Don't worry about anything. Imagine it's your one opportunity to save that one person. The one. Forever.

Who would it be?

Things one should never outgrow:

Helen

Look who's baaaaack.

Yet something seems different. Helen's changed. She's been deadheaded. And she's trimmer too, likely due to the equivalent of the The Kidnapping Diet® (similar to the Survivor Diet but without mudwrestling-type challenges). She clearly looks healthier but it's more than her physical transformation. She seems more...contrite. After enduring her harrowing plantknapping, I hope that humbled Helen will finally show some gratitude for the life we've provided for her here with us.

Now all we need is for someone to kidnap our teenagers so they too will undergo this transformation and thus appreciate their wonderful parents.

Oh I'm just joshing of course!

But maybe next time the plantknappers need two uh, babysitters they might consider hiring our teens and just drive onto our lawn, storm our house while wearing balaclavas and uh, throw them in the back of their jeep? Just an idea.

Necessary.

Seeds hide orchards.

Sometimes random and shocking and hurtful things just seem to happen. And those events seem so pointless and overwhelming and frustrating. Mother's Day last year was awful. For my wife and for me. I couldn't even write about it. And I still can't. Not yet. It doesn't matter anyway; it's not the point of this. We've all had heartbreaking experiences. Sometimes what can we do but cry?

And then a year goes by.

This Mother's Day was much different. I planted a tree. It was not intended to be symbolic. It had nothing to do with my Mom or my wife or with anything really. Our Mayday was dying. I knew I had to remove it but, maybe we could save it somehow? For the past ten years, that tree would typically bud close to my daughter's birthday in April and flower by my son's birthday in May. That tree meant something to me. And everything in life is supposed to mean something, isn't it?

But my son and I cut it down, chopped out the roots with an axe. It was all so violent. And I realize now, necessary.

Just like last year. Necessary.

Bathroom Acoustics

This is going to sound a little strange but I overheard a kid proudly singing a song in an otherwise empty public bathroom recently and I had to stop outside the door and listen. Enhanced by the bathroom acoustics she was singing a lyrically mixed-up version of Amazing Grace. I felt a little weird planted there eavesdropping, but I just couldn't move. 

Soon I had shuffled off all the years, all of my a-ged-ness and became the little boy I once was sitting on the toilet, legs swinging back and forth, I too singing my own song with abandonment, bolstered by the echo in the bathroom. Free. Totally free to be who I was then. When exactly does the freedom to be who we truly are so insidiously slip away from us?

When we hear pure innocence, I think it's important to pause and pay attention. And maybe, just for a moment, let that voice inside us sing along.