Author Archives: Elissa Timothy

I Think Therefore I Am

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I am wondering what sense it is making when you say, “I think, therefore I am.”  I am not sure if it is as much as a definition of being human as much as it is a definition of life.  If you watch your dog sniffing, scratching, digging, and, of course, excitedly greeting you with licks from his tongue, violently-wagging tail, and even barking to get your un-divided attention, there is no other explanation other than that he is thinking.  Cats are even more complex.  They are cats when they leave you at any time, going to find someplace to sleep, or, when they are loose, they become like wild animals, running from sounds and other people–frightened, of who knows what.  Then, as they like, they will seek your attention, and purr, satisfied, when it is given to them.

And, I continue to think.  Even plants–unable to move or make sound–almost seem to have the ability to think.  All plants and trees grow upwards, towards the sun.  So, if they are nearby a window, in the house, they will lean, from the pot, towards the sunlight.  If you play the plants music, or even talk to the plant, they will flourish, and grow with amazing, miracle-like, speed and health.  The thing with plants and trees is that they have no real ability to defend themselves.  So, unable to cling to life, they are at the mercy of the more able.

So, is being smarter, a more accurate definition of being human?

Really, is being smarter only useful in taking tests and trying to get the score of 100%?  Is happiness made of brains?  I can  only guess that cat and dog are both happy animals.  And that human beings, being more dominant, and smarter, perhaps the word is complex–Are we smarter or dumber?  The thing with us is that we both create happiness and sorrow, both from being smarter and dumber too.

Is there any such thing as living a perfect life?  Like a pitcher in baseball, who can pitch a full game, without one hit nor base run, can we also live a perfect life?  Perfect, being 100%.  Perfect, being happy with whatever it is you have, even if it is not perfect.  Have any of us ever seen an unhappy dog?  An unhappy cat?  Do all we do, with a dying and dead plant, is put it into the recycling–the green compost?  Are we happier, because we know what to do?

As summer vacation is coming to being half over, I think of the plans that I had at the beginning, and how everything happened differently.  Even I, cannot predict, with all my thought and experience, the things I plan for.  Things start somewhere, and I remember these starts again, and again, and I tell myself and my kids that soon, yes, we will do everything soon.

So, happily, I am going to try to get out into the sun, with sunscreen, and try to just soak up the warmth that doesn’t happen in the winter.  I cherish such beautiful days.  And I remember that happiness sometimes is just the sun rising and setting and the moon at night.

Working Hard To Make Things Work

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I try to get to the  gym when I can.  It is one of those things that reaps rewards, but before getting there, I often prefer to sit at home and eat an ice cream sandwich.  Basically, it defeats the point of  going to the gym on the other days, as well.  It is only guild that gets me to pack my gym bag, get a good and clean sports bra, sport socks, and the parking pass.  As time has passed, this routine has almost become practice, as now, I associate both doing the laundry, as well as staining all my gym clothes, to be part of the life of visiting gyms.  The workout, if I can get to that point, is definitely, something I look forward to too.

I miss the days when I was in school when it was so easy to put on a pair of runners and just go out to the field and spend time throwing a Frisbee. Often, we would also toss with each other.  A football I once tried, and I can’t do it, but I’ve been able to put on a glove and toss a baseball.  On sunny days, I would run the track around the field, and if I felt daring, I would hit the sidewalk pavement and run a few kilometers in the neighborhood.

Those days are past and gone now.  My time is not a lot of time any more.  I am stretched very thin between kids, husband, work, and any time for myself.  Yes…  I often lose count of how many times I’ve given over my own personal time to all those other people who need me.  It is almost like I purposely martyr myself.   But I also know that they wouldn’t ask me to spend some of my time with them.  I am the all-knowing, all-capable, mother of all things, and they rely on me in this role I have.  I did not choose to take this job, but, as part of my life, I have this role….  Unpaid.

The reward is truly great.  When I get angry and start to yell at these people, for, they got me angry, I will come again, and again, across the fact that no payment, and no money, is involved.  It works both ways… and the bottom line is that we are stuck together, and it will take much more than a cheque to separate us.

So, as I sit here, composing this particular letter to no one in particular, I have already made a list of things I have to do–for next week, Monday to Sunday, and there is no room to change any of this schedule, unless some of the people I martyr for, are willing to change the schedule.  I am lucky, this week.  I may be able to get to the gym.

Time keeps going even if I stop.  I am afraid that if I stop, I will become a very large mountain of fat and flesh.  And even if time continues to march, I will be a putrid, heavy, smelly, mountain.  There is nothing that can stop time, just as there is nothing that can change time.  We must keep our eyes and senses open, and look to the things that are ours to have and to keep.  And thus, we would have power to change.  when I get stuck, and unsure, I remind myself of this essential fact of life.  And I approach the problem, the issue, the opportunity, with my mind clear and sure.  Sometimes I have to sleep on these things, until I find the answer that works.  And, I remind myself, that no matter how large and difficult a problem is, there is some way to work on it….

Have I given enough time to a problem?  It’s something I’m never sure of, until the problem doesn’t come back.  And when this happens, I celebrate, like a cancer patient becoming cured, declared cancer-free, because it is in remission.  Each time, I hope, I pray, for the miraculous, even while I do everything in my power, knowing that it is truly luck, serendipity, and prayer, that work to change life, after you have given everything and all that you are.

It is frightening to contemplate why we have life or why we even have consciousness.  But, life, is int he details, as much as the devil is too.

My Memory of the Most Fun

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The most fun I have ever had was a very, very long time ago.  We were at the theme park, not for the first time that summer… probably it was our third or fourth time there.  The fun was that I had the whole map of the park in my head… Not just where the front entrance was of where the Smurf Village was… but detailed locations of each ride and the direction of the water rides and the baby rides too.  It was amazing, to command such personal power.  I felt I could go anywhere, without feeling like I was guessing and getting myself lost.

I still remember that day.  I traveled the whole park and had fun knowing where I was going to meet up with so-and-so, or him, or her.  We did not have cells phones, and no one actually bought walkie-talkies.  After playing with toys like connected phones, batteried walkie-talkies, and anything as fun and futuristic, we knew the real thing was worth waiting for.  So, in this dark age, we had our maps, our watches to tell time, and the promise to be back at the main gates, if, God forbid, we were to get lost.

What mad this “routine day at the park” the most fun, was that our parents let us run free.  Nowadays, with cell phones, there is no way to recreate the “free feeling” coupled with the “a sense of fear and excitement” from the possibility of becoming lost and never found again except as a chopped up corpse at the back of the theme park where a swampy forest grew.

The real fun, of course, was being out of sight and getting on the “best” rides, again and again, if we were so enamored.  We could also buy all the funnel cakes with double ice cream and strawberry sauce with nuts and pieces of chocolate cookies as well… Without our parents warning that we would never be able to eat dinner.  For some reason, this was before my first job (I got one as soon as I could lawfully be paid), and I think my mom was generous on this day.  So, with what I thought was enough money to ransom a mouse from a cat, I had fun all day…  Getting lost, buying everything I wanted, and staying until the sky got dark and the crickets and the stars came out.

I feel lucky that I have a memory of fun that is actually officially sanctioned by adults and by the law.  I now look for fun things with a mind much more attentive to how slow things go rather than how fast things go.  I wander the liquor stores to find “Vintage” rather than “50 Proof.”  I pay money to watch athletes, professional acrobats, and other people pushing the limits of living, so that I can laugh at them.  And sometimes, the laughs don’t come until the final score is made.

So,  as the height of summer approaches, I am going to slowly sit in my Muskoka Chair by the lake, and sip a cocktail that I hand make from several bottles of beer and liquor, and enjoy the fact that it will take the sun several hours to set. I won’t go back into the cottage until I hear the lonely, forlorn, cry of the loon for its mate.

Going Drinking

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It was evening, and one of my friends had got the four of us together to go to mid-town to what he said was a party at his friend’s house.  We took the subway down and met just at the entrance.  We were barely sixteen, being all in the same grade at the same school.  When we got there, he said that he wasn’t sure of the exact house, but he knew the street.  So, with full confidence in the situation and in our friend, we began to walk towards the side streets.  As we turned a few corners, we noticed that the houses took on a certain air.  They were on large plots of land, with long driveways, green lawns, neatly manicured, and the houses themselves were a beautiful Tudor style and color.  I began to wonder if I had dressed well enough.  At sixteen, I didn’t have enough in my paid job to dress like I came from money.  But, my friend had never actually been wrong in anything, and I trusted that I wouldn’t be a pariah at the party.

Before we left the station, when all of us had arrived, our friend announced that he had brought a few bottles of beer with him, so that we wouldn’t have to worry about bringing something to the party.  Again, I trusted my friend.  I felt as if we were doing the right things and that there would not be sudden embarrassment and trouble, with anyone, let alone the police.

It was summer and the evening was turning to dusk, and we were excited, talking about the things that just jumped to mind.  We had been to parties with our friend before and there was definitely, always, bound to be alcohol and some marijuana.  We were the type to usually just arrive with nothing much, let alone a few bottles of beer.  So, being the mooches, we relied on our friend to cover for us.

So, this time we were excited, anticipating, hopeful, and imagining the rest of the night.  Because we were in such an affluent neighborhood, I think we were imagining bar service, a separate room where you would go to smoke up, and just about everything else including a pool out in the back that would be lit for the night.  The strange thing, however, was our friend.  He said, every now and then during conversation, that he couldn’t remember the address, but that he could recognize the house.  This was worrying me a little, as all the houses looked the same to me.  But, the excitement of being in such a rich place, in summer, with a few bottles of beer rattling in the backpack of our friend, at the age of sixteen, made the worry less and the excitement more.

As time was passing, the sky was dimming, and the dusk was turning to a darker night.  Some of the houses had front lights that were turned on, now.  The street had been quiet since we had walked into the neighborhood, and for the whole time we were there.  I noticed, because we were practically walking in the middle of the asphalt road since there were no sidewalks.  It felt unusual that there was no car traffic, or bicycles, or other pedestrians, or people around the houses, at all.  We were all, as a collective conscious, becoming aware of the strangeness of the situation and we were becoming worried.  We all had already said to our friend that we thought it would be alright if we didn’t show up at the party.  I think we felt that the neighborhood had a fakeness about it.

At about this time, our friend changed the direction of our intent.  He suggested that we just stop by at the playground he knew was nearby and just hang out on the jungle gym and playsets.  With the added incentive of drinking a bottle of beer.  We, as a collective, became discouraged. The reason for a house party was being able to avoid the police, and now, our friend was suggesting exactly the opposite.  He wanted to go to the playground where the police would for sure come and question us.  So, we began to suggest just forgetting everything and going back to the subway and all just going home again.

As we turned a few more corners and got close to the subway entrance again, we stopped in a partly empty parking lot. WE sat on the raised curbs and just started the last talk.  We were partly disappointed as we thought we could’ve had fun that night, and in the height of summer on a beautiful night.  Our friend rattled the bottles of beer in his backpack again, but we didn’t take.

Soon as night was on us, we thanked our friend, anyway, for just being the one to do everything.  He said he was sorry, but that next time he would make sure he knew the address.  In disappointment, although with a light heart, we all parted ways, hugging each other, and promising to call.  As I was leaving, I couldn’t decide if I was disappointed, as I would’ve liked being at such a cool place at such a cool party.  I also knew that I was only surviving in this world.

I still remember this particular night, though.  It was one of the few nights where we never made it to the party.  Usually, we could find our way to having fun, as the more people having fun, the more fun everything is, which is why when there is a party, people just invite everyone.  I think of this night as one of the missed opportunities.  It was a rich and beautiful neighborhood, which signified safety.  It was somewhere where we would fit, as sixteen year olds.  And we were already “baptized” in the vices of the underworld, so, we knew we would have fun, and that we would fit in.  So, missing the house, missing the party, and missing the “amenities” at the party, made us feel like losers.  We didn’t know whether we should blame our friend for not remembering the address, or the phone number, or for creating this particular situation where we felt like “losers.”

As we sat in the partly filled parking lot, and the street lights all came on, we all said our goodbyes to each other.  We promised to call.  Next week.  And everyone just left.  As for me, I just planned to go home, which I did.  I knew that even the end of the world would not be something I missed.  So, cheers to that night, and cheers to summer parties that happen in the warm dark, being surrounded by friends and a beautiful house.

Library Books

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One year, when I was working for the winter in the Public Library, due to my contract there, I travelled to one of their central branches–the storied branches that held more than the usual books on more than the usual topics.  I noticed, quite early on in the contract, that there was a little room run by volunteers (little old ladies with white hair and light blue smocks on) where books that had been withdrawn from circulation and donated books, were being sold at the incredibly cheap prices of $1, $2 and $5.  Even, now, with inflation, these are cheap prices.  The books were not necessarily current, and they had never been on the bestseller list, but there was appeal in their timelessness, and anyone studying on any topic could probably get a very good start in understanding it–much more than taking the introductory 101  could, at the local university.

So, one afternoon, as I was finishing up for the day, I decided to see what this little room was all about.  When I say little, I mean, very small and cramped.  All it was missing was the musty smell and the dim lighting famous in many university libraries.  The two little old ladies were by the door where there was a desk and a little money box. They did not pry, as, I guess, they were not librarians.  So, I disregarded them after a smile, and proceeded to look at the shelves to see what this room was about.  Not the Dewey Decimal System.  (I was relieved.  I would have walked out without any interest lost.)  The shelves were labelled with English words (and not universal numbers) that described broadly what the subject of the books were. There was an entire book case where each shelf on it was reserved for several of the more languages in the city.  I can’t read anything other than English, so I skipped it entirely.

Even though the room was small, three walls were filled plus two long rows down the middle.  Some books were old and breaking, almost beyond repair, and I guess people looking for a gem, even if it were slightly damaged, would pay the $1 or $2 for it.  There was also a good collection of children’s books.  I did look through it, at the time, because I already had a niece, but I didn’t happen to find anything.  There were two shelves reserved for random movies, and because I am not overly interested in this genre of entertainment, I gave the most cursory glance and moved on.

I got to the bottom shelf on the bookcase against the back wall, and I gasped in delight.  It was filled with large books of photographs on various topics.  My experience with large books of photographs, even if the photographs were not taken by famous photographers, is that they are very expensive.  Many a time I have spent over one hundred dollars on any of a number of impressive books.  And, the hobby of photography is incredibly expensive, even now, in today’s world when you don’t have to rent space at a local darkroom to get the photograph you want developed.

So here, I felt as if had found the fount of gold, and the river just kept flowing out with the gold.  Even just glancing at the shelf I could see several books I was interested in.  My limitation, today, was the weight of the books, as, at the time, I had taken transit to the library (it was in the central part of the city.)  I knew that they would not be so nice as to hold on to the books I bought, and that whatever I bought today, I would have to take with me… even if I bought ten.  So, I began to calculate, in my head, the best way to solve this problem of space and muscle and strength.  In the end, I settled on three very large books, with photographs on every single page in between the covers.  They must weigh at least twenty pounds each.  The way I decided to let go of any of the others?  Easy, I chose every single book on the country.  One, about the United States, one about Canada, and one about the mid-West.  The pictures were priceless, and I only paid $5 for each book.  I find that when I go to the commercial book stores, the photography and art books appeal to the greater public and that the topics are therefore very broad and have no subjects that would involve any great and deep understanding of politics, color theory, history, or a foreign point of view.  All that is needed is the ability  to see and understand beauty.  So, now, armed with this new theory as to the type of photographers and the domain covered by certain books and experts, I found beauty in the books that day.  I still have these three books today.  They communicate, more, than what words alone can.  My favorite from the three books is in the catalogue of the mid-west.  The picture is of a winter evening on a small hill looking downwards to the small valley, and the rise beyond where the setting sun sits in command of it all.  The evening coats the thin layer of snow in a regal, purple-lish glow, and the bench in the foreground in relief as almost only a shadow.

I am quite content with my purchases, considering that they are not the usual fare.  I find the older I get, the more I value the things I couldn’t understand before.   I value what it is that others have and what others are.  So, to this July’s celebration of the incorporation of the country, grow older happier and richer in experience!

Why Thunder Storms Thrill Me

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Men are big, like a thunder head.  As frightening and as surprising.  I stop and laugh and breathe in my laugh.  Then in three seconds I see the lightening.

I have learned to fall asleep in a thunder-storm–the noise and the light a soothing background outside my curtained window.  This is the type of beauty that is heard first–the rolling noise, and sometimes the bang–coming first to be followed by the bright flash of light.

Sometimes I miss these thunderstorm days, which make making decisions and trying to find something to do automatically done and decided.  If you go outside during a thunder and lightening storm, you risk being struck dead by lightening, and this probably is more likely if you carry an umbrella.  (Metal attracts electricity.)  The umbrella, being standing high and tall, is a seeker of the lightening, especially on a golf course.

So, take care, if you have to be outside.  I often cancel all my plans for some relaxing nap time.  If I am on a schedule, and I have to go out, I will rush from door to car and then drive very carefully and then rush from car to door.  Even though I feel secure in the car, because of the four rubber wheels that insulate from electricity, I am afraid of the wet roads and front windshield full of rainwater running down.  Almost no visibility and wet rubber slipping and sliding make me nervous.  Brakes and engines do not respond like hands and feet.

So, when I have the luxury to reschedule and just fall flat  into bed, I do.

I f I am with my husband, he is guaranteed to drive.  In fact, it makes me nervous having him beside me in the passenger’s seat.  So, a happy house and home is me in the passenger seat, yelling at the kids to keep quiet while we are driving!  My husband…  God bless him, does the dangerous thing of yelling too…  I warn him again, and again, that he might as well be texting when he takes his mind off the road!  So, we risk our lives every time we get into this contraption that is the car.

I also know, that even when he uses his membership at the race car track to drive a speeds imagined vicariously on iMax screens, that that is not really enough.  He denies it, but I know when we are not in the car with him, that he races between the stoplights.  On the highways, he waits for the fun curvy part, turns on his police radar, and races.

It is so dangerous.  It is frightening.  And I cannot stop him.  It is an argument we have… both for real and both for the sake of arguing facts..  Sometimes I just give up.  Sometimes, I become affected and I have to yell very loudly at him before I can calm down and just let my thoughts and sentiments be known in a precisely said word.

So, if you happen to be reading this…, please…. please….  Stop racing the car!!!!  Stupid.

These things are just the things that nature makes.  I ponder and think, and still cannot come to an understanding.  Where is all the sense?  Where is all the reason?  Where are these things of the brain and the mind?  Well, I have to agree with most people, reading a book is not the same thing as watching the movie.  Movies have come a long way since the nineteen-twenties.  There is sound, color, foley artists, and magical flying brooms.  I wouldn’t know what a magical flying is if I didn’t watch it on a movie screen.  The safe thing about watching it in a movie, it that we know the actors are not likely to die to the real world and never appear again.  If we attempt the magic at home, we also attempt suicide.   So, this is my sense, and this is my reason.  We can still live and have a good time even if we do not carry AK-47‘s and fly fighter planes into an air battle.  We can stop pretending to be on a race car track in between the stop lights, as that… driving at track speeds on a narrow road where stopped cars, slow cars, and cars that are changing lanes, is what will kill you and the other driver.

So, husband of mine, please drive like a normal person!!!  He is spoilt and has access to too many gadgets.  He knows too many tricks.  And a crazy, ability to figure out any type of engineering.  Stupid.

So, I welcome thunder and lightening storms.  We are in agreement that when there is one, I will drive, otherwise we stay at house and home and have a nap.

Heroes

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My hero for the longest time was Mighty Mouse, and even now, today, I do not hesitate to name him as my hero.  He was strong, could fly, and always saved the damsel in distress.  I remember Mighty Mouse first, even before Popeye, who came on and replaced my Mighty Mouse infatuation.  That is to say with the figure of a real man–a man  with a wife and a family.  He resembled, in some way, Fred Flintstone.  A sort of Fred Flintstone with supernatural power whenever there was a can of spinach.

These heroes have formed my view of men ever since.  Cute, funny, willing. able, trustworthy, dependable, and yet, man enough to command friends and armies and lead them all to success and victory.

As the summer is coming fast this year, I am thinking of giving my husband the duty to take care of our son’s birthday party.  He requested a pool party, and, I don’t see how we can say no–he has been taking swimming lessons for six years now.  So, I think it is the perfect job for my husband, as he will have to find a life guard, and enforce the rule of no eating in the pool even if it is coming from the bar-b-cue off side of the pool.  Everyone will only be allowed on the first floor of the house, and the basement–as there is an extra washroom there.

The day can be any day, because any day in the summer is a free day.  And, of course–party favors.  My son liked the loot bags at all his parties, until suddenly last year he declared loudly that only his sister would need a loot bag after his party.  He forbade me from giving out the party loot at the end.  Alas, my son is growing up!

So, of course, no more stressing over party favors.  In fact he keeps saying no and nixing any suggestions that I have.  Balloons?  No.  New Year’s Eve noise makers and inflatable tongues?  No.  Musical chairs?  NO.  Board games?  No.  Prizes–random prizes?  For like three-legged races?  No.  And no.  So, I said no to 52-pack playing cards.  No casino chips.  Only pop and fruit punch.  And freezies.  And he said he would choose the cake.  So, now, I have a shopping trip too, soon, for this fast-coming summer.

I often tell myself that this is the perfect life.  I am not sure if it is wise of me to think so, and thus behave so–making all my decisions as if everything will continue to be fine, and perfect.  Have I given up, where a hero would look and see a way to save the world?

Then again, if I see no problem, there really may be no problem.  As the saying goes, “Don’t fix what ain’t broke.”

That was the thing about my childhood heroes.  They never actually became heroes until someone or something actually became in distress.  They would then fly in , flex their muscle, and “save the day.”  It seemed that it never occurred to them that they could create a better life.  One that didn’t yet exist, but perhaps would make a better world or a better future.  I think of things like mobile phones, the internet, and minimum wages.  I think of things like music, rap, television movies, sports stadiums and immigration and vacations to foreign countries.  This is the wealth of the world I live in, and I compare it to what I know of the past, even fifty years ago.  Progress, advancement, invention, innovation, dreaming, and hoping.

So, this Father’s Day, I celebrate all the Father’s in my life, as well as all the heroes who have created a better future.

Beauty

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Is beauty all given to youth?  Is it that the only people, and animals, perhaps, that are beautiful, are the young ones?  The beautiful ones, who exhibit, display, or create youth?  Can an old shriveled up grape, its skin wrinkled around a hard flesh, itself around a hard seed, be considered beautiful?  What sort of lighting and lens work would be needed to create the sparkle in this desiccated grape?  Is it because we know the grape at this stage, is nothing, but fibre and inedible pit?

Is even a photogenic old man, with full head of white hair, a slow gait helped along with a carried cane, and dressed in patent brown leather shoes and houndstooth jacket and pants, a sight of beauty?  Is being like this, a sign of health, or a sign of wealth… or, perhaps, a sign of wisdom and knowledge which makes a sight of this old man beautiful?  Is it his cleanliness?  Is it the fact that the clothes look familiar?  A man of strength and girth, and courage, and education, perhaps?  Or am I rating the clothing?  Is this old man beautiful because he has retired, or is it because  memories like this are kept in our minds from the time when we were young children growing up?

So, is beauty, something inside our heads?  We gather from  experience our collective knowledge or what we want to be beautiful.  Is that famous man, Hugh Hefner of the Playboy Mansion, still so virile because of the house-robe he wears in all his interviews?  Is he beautiful, for being daring, and always suggestive of sexuality, which is the domain of young, beautiful, virile, bodies, or because of his status as The Playboy who built Playboy Mansion?  This may be a tough question to ask and to answer, but it takes us one step closer to accepting… and maybe deciphering, the idea of beauty.

I have a definition in my head from one of my professors who spends his time trying to “type” human beings for a living, and it is a very good living, too.  It will take some thought, but one of the most eye-opening theories of human behavior is revealed in the simple definition of garbage.  Garbage, is actually something that does not belong where it is.  For instance, in a garden, we will plant flowers and trees and bushes.  But we always put in all our effort to dig up the weeds, and sometimes we will risk serious disease by using chemical weed killer.  And, for anything that has no more use or has expired, we will discard.

This brings me to why I have a little box, of wood, that I keep the bits of jewelry that I have been given to me by people in my  life.  The very first piece, a bracelet, is still in this box.  I can remember that it was summer, close to my birthday, and my mother had the box with the charm bracelet inside.  She was notorious for giving birthday presents early.  And I, immediately fell in love with it as soon as I opened the box and saw it.  I remember, being so young, looking up, and sparkly-eyed, at my mother.  I said something, like “Wow.  It’s so pretty.  Thank you.” And, to me, this bracelet and the box it is in, are young.  When I think of this box, and when I take this box out, and when I talk about this box, I am young….  That age of a child who has shiny blond hair, carefree, and able, surrounded by love and feeling free to give kisses to demonstrate that I have love to give.

So, from the examples of these five suggestions of beauty, I have a good idea of beauty.  It is most importantly, what we know to be beautiful.  Myself, I go scourging throughout flea markets, and exhibitions, looking for those things that are beautiful.  I will even pay one hundred dollars for a very small thing.  The first moment is always my most treasured thought of the thing I buy.  And, in a way, I find myself addicted to this behavior as something to fill space, to fill color, and to fill accountable time.  It is probably one of the healthiest things I do.  Eating charred meat off the bar-b-que is one the worst habits for my health.

Tomorrow, long after I will have published this to the web, I will start filling my date book with things that I need to do, with things that I have to do, and with things that will be filled in pencil that perhaps I will need to do.  And I do this every week, sometimes, with many deadlines, I will do it daily.  And in these in-between spaces of time, I look forward to finding beauty again.

Mice and Elephants

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An old Indian Guru once told me, when words and their meanings were not important to me, to remember a particular statement he had made, even if I remembered nothing from all of his flowing words of the afternoon.  It is easy to remember, as I can still repeat verbatim in all accuracy, even now, twenty years later.

“Speak like mice and learn like elephants.”  The meaning is also obvious enough.  The advantage of mice is their ability to be quick and quite piercingly loud, while elephants have their bulk in muscle which keeps them from falling over.  Lucky for us, elephants tend not to be violent, otherwise, we’d all be mashed potatoes.

At the time this was said to me, I was only concentrating on school and trying to get high enough marks to be allowed into the next grade.  And, I can tell you, unfortunately, I did not get into the next grade.  But that actually is a different story than this one.  I saw the meaning to be meant for those who were failing (or not making the grade), since it was instructional.  I am always in habit, because I have always made the grade, in one way or the other.  So, I saw all the others sitting around me in the auditorium to be the intended recipients of the free advice on making the grade.

The Indian Guru, actually explained in great detail.  It is known that elephants eat a tonne of food and water every week.  They are social and travel and live in packs.  They rear their young in families, within the larger pack that they live and travel with.  They pass their wisdom down to their young through experience and living.  Elephants are never on the endangered species list, and are not in danger of being extinct.

Well, what of mice?  They are rodents.  Very dirty rodents who live in filth and dirt and eat scraps of food that have dropped from mouths and plates.  They carry disease that is easily passed from mouse to mouse to other rodents, and if they are in your house, they will pass life endangering diseases like the Hanta Virus on to the human beings in the house.  They have their offspring in litters of up to six at once.  Only the quickness of a cat can catch the speedy mice, as they are able to hunt them out of their holes.

So, why should we try to speak like mice?  What redeeming quality would we be displaying if and when we speak like mice?  They live and act like they are in wartime situations, fighting for scarce food and only doing, eating, and squeaking for self-perseverance.  They know how to stay alive.  By using the sparse food supply and their ability to find life like lawyers are able to find life in a death sentence, they stay alive… and for us, we win the argument.  We are able to defend those values, and those things, that are important to us.  We will have our pack of elephants to travel with, thanks to our ability to be there.

So, what did I think and do with this Indian Guru’s words of wisdom that I did not consider or care about more than twenty years ago?  I thought his wisdom was out of date, from too long ago.  None of the situations that he spoke about actually applied to me at any of the times that I thought of myself in.  And, thus, my evaluation of his talk:  Only those who were not making the grade to get into the next class needed it.

Now, I am a little more circumspect.  Words have more meaning than just the meaning listed in the dictionary.  I surprised myself just the other day.  I did a college students’ favorite get-drunk-pastime:  I listed all the similar words I knew existed for “Molestation.”  Then, I looked up the dictionary definition.  None of the words were synonyms and none of the words were actually accurate of my understanding of the situation of “Molestation.”  How different this world is from that world I was in when I had access to great talks given by experts and Gurus of all kinds!  I am in wonder how I was actually able to learn anything at all!

There was a time when I considered the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language my bible.  It was the only way through which I could understand the world, and any of the articles and books that I was reading.  Now, if I were to rely on this staid and steadfast bible, I would become very lost as to what people are talking about.  I remember wisdom and I remember blessings, and I remember stories.  None of these things relies on the dictionary.  they all rely on life.  So, as the weather gets warmer, and you are looking for something to do…  Go wild one day this summer… Sit by the dock and get drunk for the afternoon and see how many words you can think of that have the same meaning!

Acting Agency Opportunity

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I am staring at a coaster right now.  This living room is in a house which serves as the head office of an agency that represents actors and actresses.  The painted picture on the coaster is a scene in Paris where the bridge crosses the Seine.  Everything is stone and lights, and the people are crowded amongst the buildings and the art that artists have put up for sale.  It is evening and dusk, a pinkish rouge color is in the sky, and only a few leaves straggle on the tall trees, thin and yet like a Japanese Jade tree.  I, of course, do not have a drink, and am waiting in this room in this house, because a friend of a friend of a friend was asked if she knew anyone who wanted a chance to act.  And, so, through the grape vine, this search for acting stars has got to me.

I was told by this friend of a friend, of a friend, that I needed to have professional headshots done–but I also had the choice to just provide all the photos in a contact sheet.  Agents and agencies are familiar with these methods.  So, I am in this room.

The house is quiet, and there is a portress who answers the door when the doorbell rings.  She shows us to this living room, just off the hall foyer to the left.  So, within minutes of my arrival, an older man is also shown in.  He is large, and quite muscular.  When he sits, he hunches, massively, on the couch, his legs and knees up, easily supporting his elbows and shoulders.

We greet each other quietly, and smile in a pleasant manner.  Then, we continue to sit in silence, waiting in the silence of the house.

After about five minutes, a middle-aged woman, thin and somewhat of a dried-out-hair blonde comes into the room.  She introduces herself, shaking hands with each of us.  Then she starts to interview us.  It is not like other job interviews, the questions are sometimes surprising.  I answer as best as I can.  And even though the interview is a dual interview, involving both me and the man, soon, the focus is only on me, and I produce the contact sheet.  The woman takes out an eye-viewer, so, looking through it, the miniaturized contact sheet pictures look larger and the details can be seen.  The funny thing is that, after she looks at the pictures, she asks me to choose the one I like best.  Unfortunately, because I did not look in detail at the pictures beforehand, I look through the eye-viewer for the first time and am overwhelmed by all the choices.  They all look similar to me, and I think, that is why she asks me to choose.

At this point, it is obvious, I am not presenting myself in a very acceptable way.  I don’t think I’ve  proven myself to be an actress.  I am more nervous than anything else, and would not know how to show someone I know how to act, let alone, have a discussion on the merits of acting.  As it dawns on me that nothing much will come from this interview, the result begins to make me slow down and be more calm.  I am already beginning to feel let down, and sad, and like I don’t have any talent.  I end up leaving the house without nervousness, but also, without hope and feeling like the world has rejected me.

By the time I am able to get back on to transit, and find my way home, I have vowed never to listen to the rumors and the too-good-to-be-true opportunities that apparently lurk everywhere, and that sometimes come right at you and seem to be tailored for you, in a specific manner of asking you directly.

I have learned, that opportunities are everywhere, but you have to be prepared to accept them in order to have them become the opportunity of a lifetime, that will change your life for having been prepared to go and take it.

So, now, the most valuable item that I have from that encounter, is a very clear memory of the painting on the coaster.  Paris is very clear to me, and the colors of evening and dusk make the memory beautiful, and I often strive, to recreate the feeling on that coaster.  I am forever in this space, of anticipation, and desire, and preparedness.  That moment of suspension, while waiting, for a big moment.