Privileged - but not Biased

New dad Jon (my grandson)with
new born Rylie (my great granddaughter)

Grandpa Jason (my youngest son) with Rylie
just a couple of weeks later

While standing still and completing my ironing this morning, privilege was the thought that rolled around as my iron passed back and forth to smooth any wrinkles. Privilege, in its social context, is not particularly popular! It is often used sarcastically, sardonically and with just a hint of derision. Years ago, my son Jeff (now a Great Uncle) suggested to me that owning a car was a privilege. He did not say that with any note of derision. At the time, I had only been about six months without a vehicle. My faithful old car of over twenty years had been donated to the Kidney Foundation for parts. It really was a sad loss for me, losing this convenient and costly privilege.

Privilege has gained layers over the years. A couple of those layers are economic status and educational status. If anything interferes with one’s ability to achieve a high tax bracket or even one educational degree, people are shunted aside to form a queue - and it best be orderly. However, that is only if we accept that privilege comes with lots of money or formal education. I must admit I give into both of those things on days when I’m certain that there is an insurmountable lack of something or someone in my life.

But there is a greater privilege that transcends any amount of money or any number of degrees of education. It is that of being a new member of a family. That privilege is offered to all of us the day we are born and throughout life. Unfortunately, for some, this is not a blessing that many of us are given. Even if families have started out with most of the right stuff, the vagaries of life may change it all. Being appreciative of a loving but imperfect privilege, grateful for what we have been entered into and never taking it for granted is a challenge. A challenge when we are so focussed on social privilege. A challenge to maintain loving relationships within our families, no matter any unfortunate circumstance. It is, however, my opinion that family, parents, children are the base of anything else - cars, dollars or education with a capital E. This foundational layer of privilege has been stressed to me in this past month by the birth of my Great Granddaughter and the gathering of family around that beautiful soul. 

“Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.”

~ Michael J. Fox

Six Months Already!!

In the past couple of weeks, each day my writing has involved some form of privilege. I have avoided using the word in an attempt to describe some of the many privileges of life. Not always as successfully as I’d like them, however that in itself is a privilege. To be able to write what I want and when I want. Writing badly, or maybe even with some skill from time to time. 

In the past six months, as of 1900 hours this evening, I have been privileged to enjoy the beginnings of a comfortable retirement. Purposely, I have stayed away from my previous worksite to give me distance from my ‘home’ for the last many years here in Victoria. Also on purpose, I haven't approached volunteering, until I my feet are really and truly on the ground. I've enjoyed this vacation city in my daily afternoon walks outside. In the first couple of months, there was some discomfort. It was great to have no early mornings unless I chose them. At the same time, the lack of those scheduled early mornings also left a void in my life. Different employers and different schedules had been a part of my life since 1968 when I graduated from nursing school, so it was not unexpected that this would occur. What I hadn’t expected was figuring out when to do laundry, how different my purchase of groceries would be, and all the things bookending a work life. I learned: Do the laundry when the hamper is full and buy the groceries you want because you’re not making lunches any more. As I write this, each of those gaps and difficulties are privileges. Privileges for which I am truly grateful.

Many conversations with nursing colleagues often started with: ‘I don’t know what I’d do if it wasn’t nursing!’  So, as retirees, we are stuck only with ourselves and no one to tell us what to do or when to do it. A privilege that is not recognized right away. But now that I have recognized it! Wow! Reading, a favourite of mine since childhood, is at the top of my list of things to do. Well, not quite at the top because writing is at the top. In short, I have learned and am learning what to do that is not nursing. (I've crocheted at least three baby blankets, and planning another this winter for a grand-niece.)

My colleagues blessed me with wonderful retirement memories ~ balloons, cookies (thank you Sharlene), brilliant and hilarious conversations, many fantastic gifts, as well as a beautiful rocking chair. I’m afraid that rocking chair right now is merely decorative. It hasn’t become my reading chair just yet and my brand new great granddaughter is 1,813.1 km. away! In my career, I was privileged to know and work with so many amazing people from all disciplines. In retirement, I am privileged to have a lovely pink bucket full of best wishes from my colleagues at VIHA and my family. To pull them out and read them again warms my heart. Will I be driving a race car (one suggestion)? Something I've always felt I should do, but writing a story about driving a race car would be much safer ~ for everyone else on the road or the track.

“Oh, the places you’ll go.”

~ Dr. Seuss

The Privilege of Basil

How does one tell one story when story is all around us? When we bought a plant. Why we bought that particular plant. Is anyone really interested? Does that make a difference? Making a story interesting, involves context. I could just tell you that I forgot to buy basil but the whole story tells so much more than that. Here is my story of buying a basil plant.

I needed fresh basil for a salad I was taking to a birthday dinner. Our birthday dinners, for the past ten or more years had been a group effort. The hostess sets the menu, and each of us, except the birthday girl, prepare and bring a part of that menu. For my contribution, it was a green bean salad with black olives, onion, and grape tomatoes and finished with a mustard and red wine vinegar dressing. And fresh basil which I had forgotten to buy when buying groceries for our celebratory birthday dinner. I hadn’t followed my grocery list completely. Busy grocery stores want me to hurry up and get home and a basil plant was not a typical purchase. They need so much water, they are kind of a nuisance. In the back of my mind, I suspect I didn’t really want a whole plant. Once I was home and preparing to make my salad, I first reviewed the recipe I had been given and there, in clear black and white was ‘a large handful of basil’. I promptly pushed that detail aside until taking my afternoon walk in quaint and treed Cook Street Village on a lovely summers day. A brilliant light bulb moment to equal the brilliant sunshine shone around me. I can get a basil plant at the grocery store, or, better yet, at Seaberry. It’s a lovely little plant and garden store where I’ve donated a fair few dollars. I have a little cactus and succulent garden that is just beautiful because of my many sojourns there. But, I digress. After rejecting a typical small basil plant, I spied a beautiful green, lush and large basil plant, which I purchased - some for the salad and the rest for me - at least that was my rationale. (I avoided, with great restraint, anymore succulent plants - for now.) Was my salad a success? It received great reviews despite my forgetting to put the basil in! The peppery anise flavour of fresh basil on my sandwiches or in my own salads are a special treat. Each time I smell the delicious basil aroma as lovely green plant sits quietly on my dining room table, I feel privileged. That humble plant reminds me of a summer's walk in the Village, a browse in favourite stores along the way, and an elegant and fun birthday celebration, with friends, for a good friend.

“But how could you live and have no story to tell?
~ Fyodor Dostoevsky,  White Nights

Dad's Old Trowel

Dad's Old Trowel

The trowel was old. Scratched and worn from years of digging deeply into hard scrabble soil, rich loamy soil or soil so filled with rocks it sharpened the edges of the blade every time it was used. Matt remembered the day his dad brought it home. It had a green painted handle and a shiny shovel end - he learned to call it by its proper name. A blade, much tinier than his dad’s big shovel that he used to dig the big holes. He had no idea why he had kept this old and rusted tool in with the rest of his garden tools. Matt often used it. The shape of its blade was not one of the many modern shapes, but wide enough to start a good sized hole for the spring time tomato plants. His dad’s trowel did have a depth gauge on the back. Matt was standing on a stool beside him on his workbench the day his dad scratched all the levels and inches on the back of it. He was curious, because it looked like he was damaging that shiny surface, and all the kids had been told never to damage any tools. To keep them as much in their new condition as possible. Here he was going against the rules he had laid down. Patiently, he explained that he wanted to measure the depth of a hole for particular plants. His dad said he could have driven back into town for one that already had neat engraving, but that would take too much time and a few more dollars. He had wanted to get planting.

Well, it wasn’t spring time and his tomatoes were ripening nicely. The old trowel had grabbed his attention. He kind of compared it to wanting to dig deeply for a work project that had been assigned to him. But how deeply, he had yet to figure out. Matt had no gauge like the one on the back of the trowel. He certainly couldn’t go out to the garden and dig out all the information he needed. Matt pushed back the wide brimmed straw hat he always wore in the sun. Like his dad, he pulled out a big red kerchief and wiped the sweat from his brow. Well-worn blue jeans and a plaid shirt with the sleeves cut off, his garden ‘uniform’.Taking the trowel with him, he decided that he may not be able to dig up any answers, but thick weeds choking out some of his garden needed rearranging. A big swig of water refreshed him. Hot sun, butterflies and birds beckoned. Work needed to stay at work. He needed to get outside and dig some real soil.

“To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

Inspired Writing ~ 2

Inspiration evolves 

when I slow down and think

when I search for a synonym.

when a sound becomes clear

when just right words pop up.

Inspiration evolves from 

my experiences

my preferences

my abilities and

gradual development.

Inspiration evolves like a balloon filling with air

so that it floats above the surface of the earth to be seen,

felt, and touched until it goes higher 

than I can reach but floats away 

and all I remember is 

its beauty but not the words

Inspiration evolves and revolves

but does not devolve and peter out 

into a colourless nothingness that

makes no sense, or sound, 

but paints my heart’s wishes 

in pastel shades or brilliant hues.

Inspiration evolves when

I put my back into 

an idea or a plan and

with elbow grease and

writer’s cramp I develop

a plan, an idea and have a project

that projects my self into the world.

Inspiration evolves in 

one more piece of writing, 

one more mark on the page

some that I crumple up

and toss into the trash,

others released into the sky.

“Do one thing everyday that scares you.”

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

Skill Check

Streaming my consciousness 

on the page ~ squiggles and curlicues try to make sense of thoughts and ideas swirling through my mind.

The tip of the pen, a focal point

on the shape and meaning of 

just the right word.

Spellcheck is my own knowledge - no little red caterpillars in sight.

Grammar does not come underlined with green caterpillars 

No alerts when I might create a line of gobbledy-gook.

Random people in coffee shops and libraries notice my hand moving back and forth 

drawing my thoughts out, 

surprised and pleased to see that ‘someone still writes!

My pen points the way across the page so that

~ right to left ~

I fill each line dutifully until 

I reach the end of the line and then 

like a silent typewriter

my arm moves gently back 

to the beginning of the next line to continue my thought.

Hand writing requires attention 

away from alerts and notifications

so that only my thoughts enter the world 

via a trail of ink or graphite. 

Printing learned in Grade One 

in exercise books with open spaced lines 

shape each A B C until printing gave way to:

Cursive shapes of words.

Spelling and grammar next so 

our primary skill of talking 

could be sketched in the words we spoke ~ 

our learning of language

took a step forward to 

wield our pens like flashing swords.

Too many swords are rusty, 

put down in favour of 

modern hieroglyphics in emoticons and cartoon figures

until we don’t know our words are a part of us. 

Our ideas can be shaped rather that tapped

Tapping is more expedient and efficient 

but do we need to be in a world only expedient and efficient 

or 

do we need the beauty of handwriting 

taking the time to talk on the page.

Maybe both.......

“My spelling is Wobbly. It’s good spelling but it Wobbles, 

and the letters get in the wrong places

~ A.A.Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Passages ~ 2

Embedded in our stories

are tales of mystery leading us down dark alleyways, over snow-capped mountains and through whitewater rapids, 

with tales of treasure hunts, lost loves and wonder.

Embedded in our stories are 

pebbled paths we’ve walked 

rocky roads we’ve travelled

and thirsty treks across open prairies.

Embedded in our stories is

newness, growing pains and maturity ~

but the growing pains are the most important

for they become our strength and courage to keep on.

“We have to be able to grow up. Our wrinkles are our medals of the passage

 of life. They are what we have been through and who we want to be. “

~ Lauren Hutton