random yappy-ness

two simple threads
one is mine
the other is yours
begin to unravel in technicolour
wrapping like ivy around a trellis
leaving little purple blooms
in their wake.

I have a confession to make. I'm a random talker. In my mind it seems better than being a close talker or a slow starter or a non thinking talker I guess, but I believe it may be as irritating to some, especially those who have the strong need to begin and end one thought before they move onto another. Personally, those anal retentive types drive me to drink. In fact, when I find myself face to face with someone like this, I have a very difficult time focusing on the one note they need to play. I lose my train of thought. I have to really concentrate, especially if it's in a social situation, because my brain is tick ticking off in tangents.......so much so that i have to stifle the urge to WHOOOOSH.........take off on one of those topic tributaries.

I love the tributaries I guess.....stay on the main river and it's all been seen and heard before, but paddle down into an inlet and you never know where you'll find yourself.

It's not like I can't be linear when I'm communicating with someone. I am counsellor and trainer by trade for goodness sake. I have to be a bit disciplined. Though when I think about it now, the best counselling and training moments have been when things just flowed as it unfolded. However, as the lead in those situations I do have to be "on my game" or it would never make sense. I have to know what tributaries to pursue.

Writing is the same. If I want to get my point across, I have to stay within some kind of parameter or no one would read the tripe I write about. Not only that, I'd never finish anything. Random communication, whether it's speaking or writing has to have some concreteness to it. But if I had to describe my comfort zone, the place where I feel the most relaxed, it's when I don't have to reign myself in. I can let it fly, firing on all synapses without feeling like I have to slow down my ideas and thoughts.

I have a friend who used to be my supervisor and is now a sounding board support when I need him the most. What I love about him is his enthusiasm for ideas and his encouragement. He always takes the time to help me generate my abstract thoughts and the pictures in my head and somehow manages to encapsulate them and reflect them back to me. He allows me to be free to take flight, and I must admit that it always blows my mind when he is able to make some sense of what I have had to share with him! I always leave his office feeling so good.......especially after a long time in between connecting with him because as a random talker, I have a tendancy of storing it up until I have a chance to let it all hang out. Months can go by, and all of a sudden I wake up and have this unquenching urge to phone him and arrange to meet. It's like I've hit a saturation point and need to vent. Because he encourages me to use my brain and to unravel the ball of wool inside my head, I figure he must get some satisfaction out of the mental exercise. Or perhaps he's being nice. Maybe, he takes a swig of scotch just before I arrive in order to cope with my verbal discourse and then takes a nap when I leave!

Random talkers and thinkers definately need people in their lives who ground them. Thank God there are a few around me. What's interesting is that I am considered a "grounder" for some who seek me out. Maybe that's what mentoring is really about.

I also have a few friends socially whom I would label as random talkers. Its a breath of fresh air when I'm around them, and I have a feeling they feel the same way because they too can relax and let it flow as it unfolds. Tonight, one such friend was over for dinner......and it was an impromptu arrangement too. Personally I love spontaneity like that........to me it goes with the randomness. But for her, it was a huge deal to simple say yes on the spur of the moment. Maybe she also needed a night of random yapping. Well, I know she did, because we flew through 50 different topics all in one conversation. It was grand!

What is so interesting, and I realized this tonight in the middle of talking about something completely different is that most random conversations usually do have a theme, or they have a core to the subject matter which seems to rise up from the debris to be revisited time and again throughout an evening. This is what usually happens..........

The conversation will start up without any effort whatsoever.......usually beginning with sharing a common interest thing............"have you read that article..........." or "did you hear so and so interviewed the other day........." or "I saw something the other day and I thought of you because......" It's usually seems like it's going to be a one trick pony kind of chat, but with two random talkers? It turns into a buffet table covered in too many treats to consume. And yet, there is one big blossoming centrepiece which is revisited over and over. You just see it from different angles.

Tonight, the theme was the presence of faith and how it underlies all of our decisions, whether it's embraced or not. DEEEEEP! However it didn't have a feel of a dissertation. Rather, it was a culmination of shared thoughts that began the moment she arrived while standing in the kitchen as I poured the wine and prepared dinner and never stopped. It was GREAT.

Can I just make an aside point here in the middle of this post? Do you know difficult it is to write about random talking in a linear fashion?? HOLY! I have about 30 different examples and stories I want to explore and to share firing through my brain right now. Oh, and yes I have been asked if I was ever diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder.......by two random talkers! My response to them both? "I know you are but what am i??!" I mean really, who are they to ask such a question? :)

OK, back to the post......hmmmmmm.............

I'm thinking right now............right at this very minute.........that perhaps random isn't the way to describe it. From an insider view, it doesn't seem random at all. In fact, it seems more logical and more linear than other kinds of conversations. It just looks like it from the outside, because two random yappers somehow form a bubble around them. It's like the world has ceased as they connect on a level that transports. When you're in the bubble of thought, theres a union of the mind. Time races by unnoticed. Music playing in the background floats by. A whole drive somewhere happens without much gawking out the window of the car.

Most of the time, I'm aware of the fact when I'm with someone who isn't comfortable with this type of tete a tete. They find it tiring and mostly intimidating and if i'm not careful I can blow them away. I know this, because it's happened in the past when I have found myself on some tangent or am feeling restless and in need of a blood letting of thought. Can you see how writing and blogging is a friend for someone like me? It's a gift from the Big Guy, let me tell you.

Oh, I can spend inordinate amounts of time in my head and be very quiet. I love time alone not talking to anyone. I love spending time with someone I care about and not utter a word. I can putter about my day and not have a single indepth conversation and I'm completely fine about it. I hate talking on the phone, especially during the week after counselling/teaching all day long and when I'm in the middle of teaching a workshop, the last thing I want to do is head out for lunch with a group to rehash. I need to stay in the zone so to speak..........to stay focused so that I am at my best to lead a group through a learning process that will include many trips down tributaries.

Last night, one of the topics covered was my friend's recent trip with her husband to Victoria BC(who btw was having a random talk with my husband who I personally love having long undulating conversations with, he woo'd me that way). It's been many years since I spent a summer there working, so I had many questions and wanted to know much about their trip. She spoke of the long walk she and her husband took along the coast of the city. Such a beautiful place. Anyways, it reminded me of the boyfriend I had that summer and a walk we took and after my company had gone home, I started to unravel the memory.

We met in a bar. Nice start eh? Oh, and I should also add that he was a sailor. Yes, I met a sailor in a bar......big strappy muscle man sailor guy with a smile as.........? He asked me to dance. I consented. We danced one song and while we waited for the music to begin again, we began chatting........name, rank and serial number stuff.......for about 30 seconds and then he jumped into some topic of some sort and we were off to the races. We stood on the dance floor surrounded by others (can't remember if we danced again........I think we did) but we ended up talking and talking and talking, flying from one topic to another. We yapped for so long that all of his sailor buddies (who had dared him to ask me to dance) had left the BAR! After we got off the dance floor, we sat down at the empty table and continued until last call. We covered the gamut.....including as I recall a long conversation about morse code of all things! He had just placed first in some morse code competition, which personally I found hilarious but also curious about and given that his buddies had filled him up with good west coast beer, and given that he was way more extroverted than even me, he regaled me with story upon hilarious story!

A couple of weeks later, after he returned to port..........does this not sound like a dime store novel???.......... he called me and asked me out. We decided to meet downtown in Victoria at a tearoom since we lived on opposite ends of the city. We sat in the corner drinking tea..........drinking tea with a sailor!..........and the time flew by. We had much in common........ interests, where we had grown up, dreams etc. After what seemed like 5 minutes but was more like three hours, we closed the tearoom and headed out for a walk. Our random chatter accompanied us as we walked along the cliffs of the Victoria harbour taking in the view of Mount Baker located across the way in Washington state. The wind was blowing, the sky was big and the path we walked on was sometimes so narrow that we had to go single file. At one point, we crossed a crevice walking along a huge log. We continued sharing our thoughts over the din of the wind until we found an alcove cut into the side of the cliff looking outward.......big enough for the two of us to sit in and take in the view. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

We both went comfortably silent in the blare of the wind....the randomness had left us while we took in the view of the crashing waves and moving clouds. My own thoughts revolved around how large the universe looked from this vantage point and how small I felt in the middle of it. I also felt so alive and knew i would never forget the moment as i lived it. My random talking sailor? He turned to me and echoed my own thoughts.........."even though I feel so small right now in this big vast world, I feel so alive. There is no other place I'd rather be." Just what a girl wants to hear from her sailor man. :)

We had begun our conversation jumping around like two crazy people, but we ended up in just the right place. This is what happens most of the time with two random talkers. It may not look like they know where they are going, but for the most part they end up where they should be.

ps. I welcome you to check out my other blog, Awareness..............

the wicked slight of indifference

In a democracy some are guilty but all are responsible.

The opposite of good is not evil.

The opposite of good is indifference.

Abraham Heschel

It seems to me that we are becoming more and more hardened and weary by the blinders we wear. Though it may be out of sheer survival as we continue to be inundated with the barrage of horrors infiltrating our global village with no end in sight. It's just too overwhelming and too enormous to even know where to begin to search for solutions....war, poverty, hunger, terrorism, abuse, gun violence, gang violence, family violence, dictatorship, child soldiers, child labour, torture.....the list of human driven evil is endless. So, we turn away. We stop reading the newspaper. We turn off the evening news. We rationalize our closed minds by distancing ourselves to the realities that our fellow human beings are facing.

What I don't know won't affect me. What I don't know won't hurt me.

Why havent we learned from even recent world history that this is never the case?

Indifference. "Don't care." "Not interested." "Why bother? I can't do anything about it." "It's not my problem. If they have a problem, why don't they do something about it?" "Nothings stopping them. They made those choices to live there. Let them clean up their own messes." "Let the politicians deal with it. That's why they were elected in the first place." "Did I vote? Why would I bother? They are all criminals anyway. I'm not wasting my time."

"I've got bills to pay. Let someone else donate their money." "I don't watch the news. It's too depressing." "We don't get the newspaper anymore. It's too depressing." Africa? Ah, it'll never change.....I'm so sick of hearing about it. We keeping pouring money and sending them food and they never get over their problems. Why don't they just get over it?" "I can't think about that right now. I'm too busy."

Wow.......I'm sure you've heard these statements or similar ones uttered. They are flipped out into the air so frequently that I'm afraid we as a collective society have begun to believe them. It has led us down a wicked path of indifference as we insultate our individual nests to hide away from responsibility.

Cynicism eats the flesh of our souls. It feeds an "I don't care" attitude. Indifference is the enabler of evil. Just like the buddy who drinks with their alcoholic friend instead of trying to help the friend overcome his addiction, indifferent behaviour is interpreted as consent. Better to stick your head in the sand than to take your turn making a stand?

It's not as black and white as I'm portraying though is it? We may be able to trace this lackadaisical stance to the beginning of time, we are now living in a multi-media ocean of news. It IS too much. It IS mindblowingly awful. We have evolved into a global village where the horrors of Darfur may be a top news story one day only to be shoved off the front page and out of our consciousness by a terrorist attack in Glasgow the next day, followed by bombing in Pakistan, a plane crash in Brazil, and a list of casualities as a result of yet another terror bombing in a village in Iraq. Who can keep up with the conflicts in the Middle East? As much as I try, I am one confused person. And what is completely and utterly lost in the onslaught learning about death and gore and torture? The good.

The good. We dont hear or read enough of it.

The consequence? We tune out just to handle the dooming glooming wicked. Our media thrives because of sensational stories of evil. Though someone must be reading them or watching the news because we are the ones who obviously perpetuate this and expect it, the collective "we" remains passive and indifferent. We are informed and indifferent? It's a vicious circle which has left us feeling impotent. Instead of seeking balance, of learning about some of the good things happening in the world, our constant feed of evil has turned into a sense of learned helplessness. Too may bad guys. Too many bad stories has left us bereft of knowing and understanding the goodness. Just like a victim of abuse, we have lost our confidence in doing something about it. Given that the knowledge and understanding of good and bad, of right and wrong is the essence of our moral construct, it leads me to wonder if our society is clinically depressed. Depression manifests itself by exhibiting indifferent behaviour doesn't it?

So, where do we find the balance? How do we dig out of the depression and indifference which seems to have rendered us incapable of reacting? How do we find the motivational drive to overcome apathy?

Desmond Tutu stated, "Do your little bit of good where you are; its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world." That's how he started, right? He wasn't born a famous spiritual and political leader. He started by doing a little bit of good. Look where it got him?

Last summer, in the midst of the evil driven news stories was one powerfully positive story which floated to the top....the story which actually instigated this long run-on thought. Stephanie Nolen, an author and journalist who writes for the Globe and Mail on topics mostly related to Africa, but in a manner which always brings whatever story she is writing about right into my own cloistered world and makes me think, wrote a wonderful story about a new group of people called the Elders. Did you hear about them? An excerpt............

"The official order of business Wednesday was the introduction of The Elders: convened at the request of Nelson Mandela, a collection of former leaders that has begun to work together to advance the causes of peace and global justice.
Five Nobel Laureates and a handful of other eminences gathered on the stage in Johannesburg as Mr. Mandela announced that they would seek to fulfill the traditional role of elders in a village, providing wisdom and leadership and attempting to resolve conflicts, taking on everything from climate change to the fighting in Darfur.
A symbolic empty chair was left on stage for Aung San Suu Kyi, the activist who will join the group when she is free of government-imposed house arrest in Myanmar (formerly known as Burma). But as the Elders sat in a row and spoke about their very serious work, a current – of irreverence, of resilience, of what looked very much like joy – kept bubbling up through the formality. And Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who chairs this elders' council, voiced the true theme of the gathering: “Goodness will prevail.”

here is a link to The Elders' website

Abraham Heschel was right. Indifference is the opposite of good. He learned this as a strong opponent of racism and war, as a man and a religious leader who walked alongside Martin Luther King and who stated that when he was marching against the savagery of racism, his legs were doing his praying. His moral compass fed his action. As ours must do too. A little good at a time and we will overwhelm the world.

We can overwhelm the world.

We need to regard our leaders, the more famous ones as well as the people in our community who are assuming stances and demanding goodness, who can provide us with balance in an imbalanced world, who can motivate and stimulate and generate activity which takes us away from the depression of indifference. Because the more you hear something, and the more you read it............the more you SAY IT OUT LOUD, the more you will believe it.

Goodness will prevail..........has a wonderful ring to it, doesn't it? Let's let our feet and our hearts and our minds and our actions be the prayer.

it's where the light comes in........

Our own personal faults may remain dark caverns unchartered by our refusal to see them. Who wants to admit something about themselves that produces a feeling of shame over the imperfection? Who wants to love a pock marked blemish on our own character when all around us is a message that only beauty counts? Who wants to reveal a fault which when it is admitted to, completely alters our way of looking at ourselves..........and if it is revealed, how do you overcome the shameful ugliness of it?

You may have many mirrors in your home, but when was the last time you REALLY looked at yourself in one? Like me, do you just take a fleeting glance simply to make sure you don't have spinach in your teeth, or that your hair isn't sticking up like Alfalfa? It's a habit. I could be standing in front of the mirror for a good 20 mintues blow drying my hair, putting on my make up and brushing my teeth in the morning and still not REALLY look at me. I'd prefer to keep the picture I have of myself as a vibrant person in her early 20's than recognize that this was a long time ago. But who am I kidding? No one else sees me that way anymore and no one seems to shy away from me because i look the way i do, why would I continue not to look more deeply? I'm only fooling myself.

When I conciously have a looksee.........when I register the reflection of who I am now, a woman on the upper end of her 40's my initial reaction is one of shock. WHO is that person looking back at me? Where did that young woman go..........the one whose face was thinner and wrinkle free.........the one who used to have smaller perky breasts and not ones stretched by nursing two babies............the one without the stretch marks on her belly. When did her skin lose some of it's elasticity all over? And what's with the seemingly extra skin on the eyelids?


What about the faults found within? The scars and fissures..........we were born with or have collected during our struggles? Some of them as well are more visible to others than to ourselves and for the same reasons. We try so hard not to reveal to ourselves fully for fear of being rejected. We'd rather remain blind? Our fault lines, like the ones found under the surface of the earth, our gaping holes like the ones found in old apple trees leave us tremoring with the very idea that it may be the thing that turns off the people around us. What if they find out? Will they stop loving us? So, we keep ourselves in the dark.


In the dark......where light is absorbed.

There is still light in there. It's just busy being absorbed.



Our awareness of ourselves, of how we interact with the world around us increases as we get older, mostly because of the experiences we have accumulated along the way. This makes sense. The farther we skip, jump, run, walk, limp, crawl, roll down the path of life, we collect a whole bunch of things to put in our backpack. Though awareness is always sprinkled with enlightenment which accompanies learning, it sometimes isn't satisfying because, well..........it may be really ugly. It may be hard to swallow. In fact when you think about it there are many things in life that are hard to swallow....some bigger than others. The cracks, the fissures, the bumps, scars and scratches on the surface may not be as pretty or handsome as we want to be. Leonard Cohen, that craggy old beautiful man sings in his song Anthem:

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what has passed away
or what is yet to be.

He understood the importance of letting go and moving on. He also had the insight to realize that perhaps our very own fault lines werent just ornaments to wear or to try to hide in the closet. They have a purpose........

Ring the bells
that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

Is this how His light can get into us? Perhaps we accumulate these experiential openings to let in God's love. Perhaps those same ugly marks where light is absorbed is the access God uses to fill us with truth of love? And if we feel this wildly unconditional love, will this not lead us to understanding the mystery? How beautiful is that?

Still, I wish I still had perky breasts.

***Also posted on my Awareness blog......here's the link..........I welcome you to join me there as well.

Saturday morning.....to market, to market

By far my favourite time during the week is early Saturday morning. I LOVE waking up knowing that a whole weekend is ahead of me, and knowing that the local Boyce Farmer's Market has been up and running for a couple of hours already. And I love getting there relatively early, before the onslaught of people. Today was no different. I pulled on my comfie clothes, grabbed my red fleecy poncho, slipped on my topsiders, grabbed my camera and cash and headed out the door without waking a soul in the house. I was there before 8 am..... in time to enjoy it all without the crowds.

Familiar faces who had taken the winter off were there with full energy as they prepared deliciously missed market goodies to eat right there or take home to the sleeping family. The political guys were there sitting at their chosen tables inside the market chatting away on the latest games and gaffaws of the legislature and of city hall and welcoming anyone to join them for coffee. I stopped for hellos and a quick catch up on the rumour mill updates, but carried on my way to pick up a few items...................feta cheese, fresh biscuits, a dozen eggs and some of Joey's Thai spring rolls and sweet potato slices.

Throughout my ramblings, I wondered if this place was about to be affected by the changes in the air, and hoped the changes would be to enhance rather than to eliminate.

This morning, The Daily Gleaner ran a story about the potential sale of the Market. Turns out, the place has been appraised for WAY less than the published asking price. There's a big difference between 1.5 million dollars and 800 thousand! Rumours that the market was a money losing venture were false.........it breaks even. Wish I had the money................ the Board of Directors who have managed the market for years are throwing out pseudo-calming statements like how they won't sell it to some developer.....that it will always be the market. They can't guarantee that. No one can, unless it's clearly and legally written down as so.

Are discussions happening behind closed doors???....... it's too hot an issue for these talks NOT to be taking place.

Last fall, I jumped on an opportunity to spend a full morning working with a friend at a produce stall selling for a local farmer. Set up began at 5 am, well ahead of dawn's early light. This was when all of the vendors arrived, quietly pulling up their trailers and trucks laden with the last of the season's offerings. It was wonderful to see the comraderie of this community sipping coffee, chatting all the while laying out their goods for sale. It was very late in the season, and you could feel the tiredness of long days that had overlapped with one another from the first spring clearing. There was a sense of completion, along with the "thought full" forward looking of a long winter where no money would be coming into the coffers.

The whole experience, albeit a skin soaked one since the heavens opened up and it poured unrelenting rain down on us all morning, gave me a chance to see this community's market from a much different angle. It left me with sore muscles from hauling pumpkins and potatos, a ton of respect, and a stronger desire to support the hardworking people who are there every weekend, rain or snow or shine. It fed this inkling in me of wanting to be a part of this community whose lives were so different than my day to day life, who had a strong livelihood connection to a place I frequented as an escape. This was their reality. The market is a necessity.

I also thought about how many hours the artisans, flower growers, bakers, and cooks spend preparing for the handful of operating hours. Their dedication as well as their reliance on the market must be recognized as THE priority when the people behind closed doors are making their decisions. Families and individuals rely on this wonderful interactive place as an integral part of their lifework. I hope that the politicians and board members remember the faces of the human beings, the key players of this marvellous place frequented by many, many people every weekend, and take the time to know the stories and struggles behind what it takes to fill their tables and stalls.

I wish I had the money. I wish I could buy the place..................

Our heritage is up for sale.

Close to the centre of my little city of Fredericton is a special place that opens it's wares every Saturday morning all year long.......Boyce Farmer's Market. Like many towns and cities, it is where people congregate to buy locally grown or locally created products. Farmers from up and down the valley rely on the Market to sell their goods to the crowds who make a point of starting their weekend at this downtown location since 1951 when the land was donated by Walter Boyce for this very purpose. Market vending has been going on in this city since the early 1800's in different locales all within walking distance of the present location. It has always been a key component of the best that Fredericton and the Saint John River Valley have to offer.

Boyce Farmer's Market is also the place where vendors test the waters with new products which include organically grown produce to fancy cupcakes to hemp clothing to jewelry and in fact this particular market is a perfect place to find out if your business plan is viable. Several small business have begun at a small stall over a stretch of Saturday mornings. Local authors, artisans, cheesemakers, knitters, and even jugglers are enthusiastic players that add richness to the fabric which continues to ensure that the farmers are the heart and soul, the raison d'etre of this community.

It is such a special place as the historical touchstone of this community. It is the crossroads chosen by the residents that pulls together people from all corners of the area..............urban, rural, acadmic, blue collar, political, business.......farmers, artists, musicians, tourists, babies, families, entrepreneurs, students, kids, politicians. Arguably, it is THE year round tourist attraction in the city. The Boyce Market represents the merging of the Saint John River Valley in a way that nothing else does.

But, guess what? It's up for SALE!

It's no wonder that people around here are both worried and angry that there is a possibility of ruining such a remarkable historical establishment. Yesterday, York Development, owners and landlord of the Boyce Market, announced that they are planning to put the place up for sale. They are not interested anymore in managing the property as they have set their sites on the ever expanding possibilities in the nursing home "industry" now that the provincial government is opening up the $$ coffers to build more of them.

The City of Fredericton, presently in the throes of a municipal election has turned down the offer of being the first to bid on it. Not interested they have said.........they are into too many other projects right now to even consider it. So, it's going to be up for grabs for anyone with the cash. This piece of downtown property has the potential to be a KA-CHING goldmine for some real estate developer. For $1.5 million bucks, the humble buildings could easily be torn down in favour of a condo development with a blink of a greedy eye.

Granted the place sits idle most of the week, except for the odd event in the evening. It's used as a parking lot for civil servants from Monday to Friday which must bring in some money. From my vantage point I can't imagine the place brings in a truckload of money. So, why would anyone in their right mind fork out that much money when it would really only be considered a good deed? It has to be viable, but I believe it can be if dedicated people rallied to help develop a business plan to use the premises when it is not being utilized on Saturday mornings.

This is one issue which the people of this Valley can't sit back and allow someone else to take it on. Markets represent community........ ideally, they are an example of grassroots cooperative interactions. It's the basis for the very basics of economics. Everyone needs to take ownership, to speak out that this is an untouchable commodity........ priceless in value, necessary for our downtown core to retain any sense of vibrancy. Our elected officials, who are all up for re-election are being extremely myopic if they think that the only role for them would be to buy the place. Their role is to invite many key players to a planning meeting to LEAD this change in order to ensure our Market remains exactly where Walter Boyce wanted it...........in the very heart of our town.

Our Market needs to be tied into the BIG picture planning already in play. We need to look at HOW we can retain it's integrity while moving forward with viable ideas that would support it's vibrant vitality. This can't be left to a handful of people behind closed doors. This has to be an integrated community driven initiative that represents exactly what our Market represents......a pulling together of all the grassroot people from all facets of this community.

Game ON! I'm more than ready to get involved. I'm FULL of ideas! How about YOU?

ordinary and unnoticed

Given the over abundance of in your face reality shows where we learn the nitty gritty details of the lives of others, the soul exposing talk shows where nothing seems sacredly kept secret ..... given our collective penchant to put our personal stuff out in cyberspace through blogs, websites, on facebook and myspaces ......... given our ability to talk it up, share it, express it, promote, float and denote it all, it's surprising to consider just how many people are out there living a full and giving life unnoticed. Not only that, they don't care if they are noticed. No public recognition is wanted and none is given. No newspaper articles are written about them because the activities they perform seem so tiny..........so ordinary that it doesn't make for a good story. Their unnoticed lives don't sell papers. It's not why they do what they do. Yet, they are the solid backbone of our villlages, towns and cities doing all that they do. Their tiny offerings thread together to form the essence of what community is all about.


For an hour twice a week, a 45 year old woman steps out of her busy life and work schedule to deliver hot meals to seniors. Her family is aware that she does this, but even her friends don't know.


Every Wednesday, two university students take the bus across town to spend a couple of hours running a reading program in a public housing community centre. They had learned about the need for volunteers and decided to take up the challenge.


A retired gentleman found out last summer that a handfull of men who were living in rundown rooming houses had been given the opportunity to move into brand new one bedroom subsidized apartments. Without being asked, he rented a van and helped move them all into their new homes. This same man hand delivers Christmas hampers to 50 families in need.




Invisibly doing tiny tasks unnoticed.




A Dad takes a late lunch so he can spend an hour helping out at his son's school library on Thursday afternoons. He's grown fond of one little boy who stood apart from his classmates, a little rough around the edges. Now they meet to catch up on the latest sports scores and to read a new book they choose together.



A group of stay at home Moms meet on Tuesday mornings at the same school to count the change and to put the hot lunch orders together for the whole school. They've been doing it for a couple of years now, and have all become friends who stay in touch throughout the week.



On Sundays several people from the same congregation meet in the church kitchen to make dozens of sandwiches and sweets that they will deliver to many marginalized people who live in rooming houses throughout the city. A neighbour offers to tutor the child next door in math.


Quietly walking the talk unnoticed.

A woman who is paid minimum wage for her 20 hours a week part-time job at the Methadone clinic stretches her days into nights ensuring the local street people are all accounted for. She always checks under the bridge to make sure the guy who has a tendancy of passing out has left for the shelter.



The young couple prepare dinner together on Friday nights. Just before they sit down to enjoy their meal, one of them runs a wrapped portion of it next door to the elderly lady who lives alone.



The teenager takes it upon herself to get up early after a snowstorm to shovel her neighbour's driveway. She knows they have had a rough winter health wise.



Last summer an elderly man who had lived in the same rooming house room for close to 25 years passed away. He had lived the last years in a wheelchair, bound to oxygen because of his emphysema. Every Sunday afternoon a nice person from the church down the street showed up with a delicious sandwich and a sweet. He always looked forward to the simple meal, more so because he found it was always delivered by the same someone who was a smiling friendly angel. His death was unnoticed by many, except the others who lived in the building and the friendly faced weekly angel.

Somehow, despite living on a meagre monthly cheque, he managed to scrape and save 5oo dollars over the years..............his unnoticed life savings. A couple of weeks after he passed away, a letter arrived to the church down the street. In it was a letter from this man's son informing the church pastor that 500 dollars was donated to the sandwich program so that others would know the feeling of being served a meal by a smiling angel.

And so it goes.................quietly, signficantly magnificent.

For more stories about the extraordinary ordinary people in our lives, I invite you to visitmy other blog Awareness

early morning thoughts

It's early morning and it feels like I'm the only one awake on the planet. It always feels more intense at this time of year when the outdoors (which I can see out the window from where I'm sitting) looks so damn foreboding and COLD with all the chunks of snow piled up along the street. Even though I live in a neighbourhood, I find that late winter produces a feeling of isolation, which drives a sense of melancholy. Writing is a warming antedote for capturing the essence of aloneness on so many levels. It helps unravel the intrusively overlapping thoughts which always seem to visit during these times. Coupled with the miracle of the internet and blogging mostly on my other blog Awareness, writing offers an open door to step through and into a venue of sharing. I may be sitting here alone, with only the fridge hum, the ticking heater and the occasional snore from my dog to keep me grounded, but I can switch on my computer, open up my blog and touch fingertips with many smiling fingertips out there.
I like that. Melancholy can feel like a blanketing of woe, but it can also be a motivating channel which pushes a desire to capture its essence. Though I may feel alone and tiny in this vast world right now, I recognize that I can make the best of the silent stillness or it can make the best of me. My choice. This morning, I choose to harness the feelings circling in my system as a jumping off point for writing and thinking. Besides, if I allow myself to feel these feelings in the early morning hours, I am left with a deeper understanding of the human condition I share with everyone else. We all have been there whether we conciously recognize it or not. So, here I am feeling a little bit more connected already, and my creative juices are humming more than they have in a long time.

I have been on the road lately visiting people in their homes and have heard some heart wrenching and compelling stories. I've also met with individuals in my office recently whose personal stories have scraped at my soul. This is what I do as a counsellor. This is what moves me and drives my raison d'etre. Sometimes their sorrow and pain fills a room. Sometimes their life journey is wracked with such brutal unfairness at every single step along the way that it's difficult to know where to begin to help them figure it out. We all have burdens loaded up on our backs and shoulders which are added to by life and what it throws at us. Some of the burdens are heaped up there by our own doing as well......by the choices, sometimes impulsive in nature, we make. In the long run? It doesn't matter. Once the burden is felt, it's there. It just seems like there are some people who seem to have to carry a heavier load than others. Why is that? Often, on the way back to my office with my music playing and the scenery rushing by I process what I have just heard and experienced personally having had the honour to meet and to hear some of another human being's trauma, I get stuck in the thoughts...........how have they managed to keep it together as well as they have? How much more can they handle? Would I ever be a resiliently strong? Why do bad things happen to good people? Once I have rambled through the anger I feel for the unfairness of the uneven suffering, I usually find my thoughts end up leading me to wondering what in the hell do I do now? What is my role in helping? What can I take on.........what needs to be shared and with whom?.......... who else needs to be involved?..........and why in God's name can't people be nicer to one another?? Usually a plan is hatched by the time I reach my office, or at least a first step. Sometimes I will seek out a kindred colleague just to simply blab out the story as a way to think it through, but mostly as a way to share the load. I can't imagine counselling without that outlet. It would be way too hard on the head and heart to keep it all in. I am not at liberty to share most of what I hear or experience when I'm meeting with someone in need of counselling. That's the cardinal rule of course. When I have shared some of those stories on my blog, I usually mesh a few together. The facts are real, but the character is created. The majority of what I hear and what I am doing to help someone will never see the light of day on this medium. However, I share with my colleagues and they with me, and I often have to write up the specifics of what I've been told as a way to help them obtain my assistance from an unrelentingly rigid system. My writing skills come in handy offline too. Human stories put to words can't be ignored.
So often I end up sitting at the computer writing about optimism and hope. It's my nature, thank God. But, usually I end up there after I have had a chance to process the day through other avenues, which frees me up to write on topics which to some may seem light and fluffy. However, I don't see it that way. In fact, writing about uplifting topics, or posting photos of a what I have seen on a walk during a lunch hour? You can be assured that it is what I have been doing to find some much needed balance in my soul. My latest post of photos for example? That little lunchtime excursion lifted me up and out of the seriousness of my day. And while I was clicking those pictures, I was absolutely clearing my head that at the time seemed filled to the rafters with too much to handle. I believe that one of the prime gifts I have been offered through the work I do as a counsellor is that I have been allowed to experience depths of feelings of pain, sorrow and grief through helping others. Because of this, when I write about the flip side of life..........it comes from as deep a well. I have learned to feel joy with a deeper sense of gratitude than I think I would have known had I not chosen this field. I should also point out that I believe the people I meet with can as well because of their own life experiences. Despite the fact that for the most part our lives cross paths because of the hellish situation they are enduring, I often find myself in conversations with them where beautiful joyful stories are shared as well. This is the gift. The range is wide, and I'm grateful. Emotions drive our lives and fill it with multi sensory magic.

Writing lifts me out of melancholy. It is an avenue I use as therapy, and as a way to sit in a place of aloneness and stillness in the comfort of knowing I can feel the touch of others who happen by. Writing in the early morning when all are still slumbering? It is my opportunity of inhaling the spirit.......the breath of faith found in the holy space of silence. I used to be afraid of melancholy. I used to be afraid of being alone with my thoughts. Now, and I think this has been nurtured by the individuals who have felt safe to share their stories with me, I am not afraid to feel and to reach out in the quiet dawn to a hand I cannot hold, but a hand I know is always there cupping my tears of both joy and sorrow.

ps. I've been writing now for about an hour and a half and I'm left feeling good about what I've written. It may not be as linear as I would like, but it feels like the most open hearted piece I've let flow in a long time. ahhhh...... Dawn is about to show it's splendid colours. I can see the line of beautiful orange just above the horizon. It's morning and it's a new day. Before I wake my sleeping family, I will make myself another cup of tea and stand by my livingroom window and watch it unfold. I'm ready to take it all on again, whatever is tossed my way today.

Make the most of yours OK? Share your human touch. God is one of us....trying to make His way home....... :)

the serenity of hope

Sometimes hope is as impossible to grasp as trying "to catch the wind" as Donovan so beautifully composed in the 60's. His yearning to find solace through love encapsulates our own attempts to seek hope outside of ourselves. We have a tendancy to mesh these two together, or at least I do. Hope and love.........being loved fills us with hope. And so we go off in search of it.

love, love, love........hope, hope, hope......

There's a classic line from a movie which was spoken in angst with a strong Bronx accent by Harvey Fierstein......."I wanna be loved. Is that so wrong?" I don't know why it has always stuck in my head, and for the life of me, I can't even remember the movie if was from. But, the line was expressed in a way that made you laugh and feel eye widening compassion for his character at the same time if that's possible. I think we all can relate.
There are times in our lives when we feel terribly unloved and it's a crushing feeling. It has to be one of the loneliest sensations we can experience. It usually happens when we have done something we are ashamed or simply don't want to face, or when we are trapped in a maze of being misunderstood and dismissed by the people who matter in our lives. When the feeling washes over, it seems to strip you of hope too because it feels like the dark side of eternity.

As much as we may feel like the life raft needed to stay afloat is not within arms reach, as much as we sometimes feel like our arms are just too tired to tread water any longer while searching for that seemingly unreachable reassurance, as much as we don't know how we are going to cope with the onslaught of waves rolling in the windy tide because the strength in our hearts has been zapped of usefulness, we survive. There is an innate drive which can push us beyond what we perceive to be our limit. But, it doesn't come from trying to find it outside of ourselves. Hope and love are nestled in the remnants of our life experiences. I truly believe that. We have many external triggers which most definately surprise us with that uplifting sensation and these matter because they remind us that hope reawakens in every breath we take. It is in the spirit of life. And if you look at it that way, we do have the ability to catch the wind.
Easter is a celebration of capturing the wind and transforming it into our breath of life. It's like we have been given a whole new fresh bunch of air to fill our bodies with a sense of being reborn. And by just simply taking one breath at a time, we can regenerate our empty vessels with the necessary ingredients to begin anew. We can't see it or hold it.........just like hope and love, but we can breathe it into us every time we fill ourselves with fresh oxygen.

How miraculous is that? It doesn't matter who we are, or what we are coping with........it doesn't matter what colour our skin is, how disconnected we are with our own communities.....it doesn't matter what we look like, or how old we are, and it surely doesn't matter whether we attend a formal church service, or whether we seek out the meaning of life going down a different path, we are all given the same gifts to quiet our hearts. WE are offered the serenity of hope, one breath at a time. We are loved. It's in the wind around us and in us. That's not so wrong.

Happy Easter.

Channeling Tom Waits

strumming here on this cold winter night trying to wrestle getting it right numbed by reality tired of it all can't get you in focus can't get you to call

fogs rolling in blinding the trees
naked bare boned knuckles and knees
scraped by its wake
bloodied and bruised
no one will want me
torn battered up used.


I'm numbed by reality
tired of it all
can't get you in focus
can't get you to call.
I guess I don't blame you
there's no second chance
when hurt has replaced
a broken romance.


i lay here shackled wondering if He
pays any attention, hears my deep pleas
cried out sorrow
tattered old song
your love I have wasted
your trust has all gone.



I'm numbed by reality
tired of it all
can't get you in focus
can't get you to call.
I guess I don't blame you
there's no second chance
when hurt has replaced
a broken romance.



night crawls with echos of your tender voice
I long to forget, I messed up my choice
yearned and forgotten
i lie here alone
aching for nearness
chilled to the bone.


sleep is a memory fading away
replaced by loud silence covered in grey
ripped from your faith
blame shares my skin
even Jesus has left me
distrust soaked in sin.


I'm numbed by reality
tired of it all
can't get you in focus
can't get you to call.
I guess I don't blame you
there's no second chance
when hurt has replaced
a broken romance.

i know you are but what am i?

Religion, politics and outside criticism about your own family....... topics which should always come with a warning label when pulling them out of the ashes of decorum. It blows my mind how someone can passionately describe their opinions with one side of their brain while using the other side to slam the receiver's beliefs.
This is the case in political discourse. We see and hear it all the time. Where is the respect? Why have we allowed editorials, media coverage, and talking heads brandish such mean reporting? Why do we get a rise out of hearing such vicious attacks on other people, particularly the ones who are doing their best to make a difference in the world by stepping out from of the rest of us passive couch sitting fray? Has it always been nasty? It's been nasty for a while I realize, but has it always been that way?

And how has this impacted the discourse we have with one another over these topics? Is there a feeling that it's just fine thank you very much to belch out your own opinion in a manner which can only be best described as a total disregard for the feelings of others, even your friends? Has the media and the way of reporting...............has the dialogue heard on TV shows and in movies impacted the value of being polite?

We all have a bully in us. WE all know how to fight dirty. We all know that there are certain topics we need to be careful when discussing them with the people in our lives. We can be rude it we want to and even pretend that we didn't mean it.


oooops..............i wasn't thinking............


I don't buy it.......... and I can't tolerate it. It makes me angry and defensive. When I hear this or read this, especially if it somehow touches me personally, I have a tough time shaking it off because I try to be accomodating of others. If my feelings and beliefs are not accomodated the same way, it riles me and I will walk away.


I love a good debate........... what i don't love is when it gets personal and dirty. Personalized mudslinging to me is the dumbing down of debate.......it is an easy push at another person's buttons. It's a complete turn off to me. Give me a well written article on an issue I may even have a completely different perspective on, and I will read it with respect........and who knows, may even change my thinking. But, give me an article that just slams the opposite opinion with big swipes of personal badmouthing and you've lost me.

There's so much rudeness and meanness in this world. We don't need to fuel this fire. Instead, we need to move out from under that EGO umbrella and into a place where essence and spirit rein.

Either that, or we need to keep some of our opinions to ourselves.



Or, I have to develop a thicker skin.........