I just had a visit with my Venezuelan friend. She recently immigrated to Canada, no longer able to endure the many problems brought on by the regime of Victor Maduro. Like her compatriots in Venezuela she lost a lot of weight while coping with food shortages. We had a wonderful visit for two hours in a coffee shop. She is already feeling better now that she is in a country she finds to be safe, stable and welcoming.
I have long had mixed feelings about the Hugo Chavez revolution in Venezuela. The social progressive in me lauded all his policies to help the many poor in his country which, during its past, enjoyed tremendous prosperity but woeful socio-economic inequality. I have to admit that I never liked Chavez. He was from the military, and seemed full of himself, another Fidel Castro with his marathon four hour speeches, power-mongering and ego-on-steroids.
For a while, I tried to sympathize with this regime, if not thoroughly believing, then at least giving the benefit of the doubt to all the wonderful social and economic reforms benefiting the poorest Venezuelans. I was in those days an avid listener of Co-op Radio, especially the Spanish language broadcasts to help improve my language skills. Those same broadcasts became propaganda mouthpieces for Chavez from Venezuela as well as los hermanos Castro from Cuba. Because of their ideological perfection, neither the Cuban communist dictatorship, nor its Venezuelan wannabe clone, could do any wrong in the eyes of the neo-Marxist collective dominating the radio programming. Anything that even gently criticized Cuba or Venezuela was all false or biased reporting from the mainstream corporate news-media and only the Marxist alternative could be trusted. They also blamed the US. For everything wrong with Cuba or Venezuela. Poor Cuba. Poor Venezuela. Those nasty evil Americans making everything so bad for you.
I am not giving the US a pass, by the way. There is plenty of documentation from the most trustworthy of sources that verify their many acts of interference and covert and passive brutality in Latin American countries that don't do as they're told. However, where I lose my patience, is when some of those same regimes use evil old Uncle Sam as a convenient smokescreen while they continue to use their repressive policies to abuse power and by extension, their own people.
In a Spanish meetup group I became acquainted with a sweet young married couple working for the Venezuelan Consulate in Vancouver. They were also regular guests on one of the Spanish radio programs. They had only praise and adulation for their great leader Hugo Chavez as well as for his successor, Victor Maduro. Any economic and social problems in Venezuela were all the fault of US interference, especially from the CIA. If anyone offered any criticism or expressed concern to them about their country it was always the US and the CIA who were to blame. As true as this might have been for Chile I had to struggle a bit to swallow this as a blanket answer. I also became less than patient with their utter unwillingness or inability to hear me out when I raised concerns about the many problems Hugo and Victor have visited upon the Venezuelan people. Some people just hate being confused by logic.
I have also struggled about Venezuela's dependence upon oil exports for their economy. It always puzzled me that the so-called progressives from Co-op Radio, otherwise condemning the reliance and trade in fossil fuels as being the biggest threat to the planet (and it is), but only if it is being done by the evil American Imperialist Swine. If their beloved Chavistas or Castros are doing it, it is just fine since it promotes the glorious Bolivarian Revolution.
Of course we have to take into consideration the root causes of revolution and popular resistance movements, in Latin America and elsewhere. It is always the same set of conditions that give birth to unrest and revolution: social inequality, poverty, social and economic oppression, rampant, chronic abuses of human rights.
I think here is where we really see the toxic legacy of Mother Spain, or Mama Espana to the Americas. A violent, cruel and inhuman social hierarchy was simply imported to continue wreaking havoc and wiping out of existence entire civilizations and cultures in the Americas. This became the entrenched reality and has played such a major role in the development of Latino cultures. This also leaves a legacy of generational and collective trauma for many, if not all the peoples of Latin America, and such mistakes of humanity as the Chavista Revolution in Venezuela, the Cuban Revolution, the Dirty War in Argentina and Uruguay during the seventies and eighties, the military coup in Chile under Pinochet and the Sendero Luminoso in Peru, to name but a few, are but the deadly weeds sown by the poisonous seeds of endemic, encultured violence, imported from Spain and brought to fruition on the innocent.
Friday, 30 June 2017
Thursday, 29 June 2017
Gratuitude 109
I am thinking especially of collective trauma for one simple reason. The individual is often unfairly singled out and blamed for becoming mentally ill. The fact that we are living in a highly individualistic and individualized society has made it very difficult for many of us to think in terms of the collective, how we interconnect and interact, and how much we really influence one another. The nasty lying words of that regrettable woman, the late Dame Margaret Thatcher, former British prime minister, "there is no such thing as society"-have become prophecy. We think of ourselves and each other as scattered individuals whose lives do not touch or impact each other. Or so we would wish.
This of course takes its most toxic manifestation in the way people behave in public, each doing their utmost to blank out those around them with their dear little tech toys. Simply wear your iPod on the bus and crank up the volume and no one will bother you unless to tap you on the shoulder and ask that you turn down the volume. Most of us would simply suffer in silence or get up and move, rather than run the risk of actually connecting with a stranger. Those of us, that is, who aren't already plugged into our own personal listening device. And of course, there are the many others texting or searching or reading or talking to someone on their iPhones, often while plugged into their personal listening devices. Anything to maintain the illusion that we are each all alone in the world.
We are the bitter fruit of capitalism, of a corporate individualism, a culture of branding and conformity that keeps us all isolated from one another, entrenching in us the poisonous nonsense that our sole defining value is that we are consumers. And that we live in competition with everyone else. There is very little social glue that will bind us together as a community. If we are going to be good, compliant little consumers then we are certainly not going to be much swayed nor influenced by the most fundamental human values of mutual cooperation and fraternal love and friendship. In order to survive and continue to thrive as good little consumers of course we are all going to compete with one another for hard to land jobs that aren't necessarily going to pay very well, but will still keep us alive with just enough cash left over to spend and keep alive the Great Economy Cow.
I think we have lived always with this toxic dynamic, though it has existed before in proto form and now, thanks to global capitalism have been able to refine it to a horrifyingly destructive science. Year after year governments are elected on the strength of their promises to build a strong economy. The only time in recent history that I have seen a political party actually win based on promising they would run a deficit was when Justin Trudeau swept his renewed federal Liberal party into power as he promised that money would be spent on renewing and developing social infrastructure: daycare, affordable housing, health care and education, to name a few.
This isn't to say that capitalism has won the day, but that enough people are waking up to the nightmare their own greed and apathy have brought upon them and actually want to return to being and treating one another like human beings, especially the most vulnerable among us. Now, here in my own province of British Columbia a similar dynamic is in place as the minority provincial Liberal government has been defeated today in a vote of none-confidence. The forces of greed and economic self-interest appear to be finally being put to flight. Or are they?
Historically these are relatively recent developments in our unfolding human story. What the late great Doris Lessing used to call our lovely liberalism is but a very recent and very tiny blip on the radar of our historic development as the human species. Democracy, as we know, enjoy and take for granted, was simply not known anywhere in the world nor any of our five hundred thousand year history. There could be, of course, minor and obscure exceptions in various hunter-gatherer societies, but for the most part, before the eighteenth century, Ancient Greece alone, under Pericles, boasted of a government that was only by courtesy a democracy, given that only free Athenian men were allowed to vote, leaving out women, slaves and foreign workers.
Our history is drenched and deeply red with the shed blood of millions, if not billions slaughtered in wars, on the scaffold, burnt at the stake, beheaded, shot, dismembered, usually after the most gruesome forms of torture imaginable. The ruling king's word was law and all his subjects lived literally at his mercy and command. Rule was always by force, whether military or religious/ecclesiastical or police. Everyone but the aristocracy and the more successful burghers was equally poor and equally oppressed. Literacy was limited to the elite, usually the clergy.
Such is the medieval legacy of Spain. The country that sent its thugs into unknown lands in the Americas and the Philippines to subjugate and slaughter the natives, shove their degraded form of Catholic Christianity down their throats, and plunder their gold and the wealth of their land. This is the same Spain that ruled ruthlessly and viciously from afar these conquered lands, with virtually none of the modifying influence of the Enlightenment nor the Protestant Reformation. They remained their own entity, their own private Iberian universe, sheltered by the Pyrenees and the insular ignorance of their own roots of Ancient Roman brutality and Dark Ages ignorance from the progress and reforms that were already transforming the face of Europe.
This is the dark and bloody legacy of violence that has played such a pivotal role in the historical and cultural development of Latin American nations. And this is what has systematically traumatized entire societies and communities of individuals, from the Inca of Peru and the Aztec of Mexico to the impoverished campesinos today running the gamut in Central American countries between gangs and drug wars and the need to flee for their very lives to countries of refuge.
On an endnote, it is quite interesting that the late Dame Thatcher, and the late and deplorable Agosto Pinochet, former military dictator of Chile, were very dear and very close friends.
This of course takes its most toxic manifestation in the way people behave in public, each doing their utmost to blank out those around them with their dear little tech toys. Simply wear your iPod on the bus and crank up the volume and no one will bother you unless to tap you on the shoulder and ask that you turn down the volume. Most of us would simply suffer in silence or get up and move, rather than run the risk of actually connecting with a stranger. Those of us, that is, who aren't already plugged into our own personal listening device. And of course, there are the many others texting or searching or reading or talking to someone on their iPhones, often while plugged into their personal listening devices. Anything to maintain the illusion that we are each all alone in the world.
We are the bitter fruit of capitalism, of a corporate individualism, a culture of branding and conformity that keeps us all isolated from one another, entrenching in us the poisonous nonsense that our sole defining value is that we are consumers. And that we live in competition with everyone else. There is very little social glue that will bind us together as a community. If we are going to be good, compliant little consumers then we are certainly not going to be much swayed nor influenced by the most fundamental human values of mutual cooperation and fraternal love and friendship. In order to survive and continue to thrive as good little consumers of course we are all going to compete with one another for hard to land jobs that aren't necessarily going to pay very well, but will still keep us alive with just enough cash left over to spend and keep alive the Great Economy Cow.
I think we have lived always with this toxic dynamic, though it has existed before in proto form and now, thanks to global capitalism have been able to refine it to a horrifyingly destructive science. Year after year governments are elected on the strength of their promises to build a strong economy. The only time in recent history that I have seen a political party actually win based on promising they would run a deficit was when Justin Trudeau swept his renewed federal Liberal party into power as he promised that money would be spent on renewing and developing social infrastructure: daycare, affordable housing, health care and education, to name a few.
This isn't to say that capitalism has won the day, but that enough people are waking up to the nightmare their own greed and apathy have brought upon them and actually want to return to being and treating one another like human beings, especially the most vulnerable among us. Now, here in my own province of British Columbia a similar dynamic is in place as the minority provincial Liberal government has been defeated today in a vote of none-confidence. The forces of greed and economic self-interest appear to be finally being put to flight. Or are they?
Historically these are relatively recent developments in our unfolding human story. What the late great Doris Lessing used to call our lovely liberalism is but a very recent and very tiny blip on the radar of our historic development as the human species. Democracy, as we know, enjoy and take for granted, was simply not known anywhere in the world nor any of our five hundred thousand year history. There could be, of course, minor and obscure exceptions in various hunter-gatherer societies, but for the most part, before the eighteenth century, Ancient Greece alone, under Pericles, boasted of a government that was only by courtesy a democracy, given that only free Athenian men were allowed to vote, leaving out women, slaves and foreign workers.
Our history is drenched and deeply red with the shed blood of millions, if not billions slaughtered in wars, on the scaffold, burnt at the stake, beheaded, shot, dismembered, usually after the most gruesome forms of torture imaginable. The ruling king's word was law and all his subjects lived literally at his mercy and command. Rule was always by force, whether military or religious/ecclesiastical or police. Everyone but the aristocracy and the more successful burghers was equally poor and equally oppressed. Literacy was limited to the elite, usually the clergy.
Such is the medieval legacy of Spain. The country that sent its thugs into unknown lands in the Americas and the Philippines to subjugate and slaughter the natives, shove their degraded form of Catholic Christianity down their throats, and plunder their gold and the wealth of their land. This is the same Spain that ruled ruthlessly and viciously from afar these conquered lands, with virtually none of the modifying influence of the Enlightenment nor the Protestant Reformation. They remained their own entity, their own private Iberian universe, sheltered by the Pyrenees and the insular ignorance of their own roots of Ancient Roman brutality and Dark Ages ignorance from the progress and reforms that were already transforming the face of Europe.
This is the dark and bloody legacy of violence that has played such a pivotal role in the historical and cultural development of Latin American nations. And this is what has systematically traumatized entire societies and communities of individuals, from the Inca of Peru and the Aztec of Mexico to the impoverished campesinos today running the gamut in Central American countries between gangs and drug wars and the need to flee for their very lives to countries of refuge.
On an endnote, it is quite interesting that the late Dame Thatcher, and the late and deplorable Agosto Pinochet, former military dictator of Chile, were very dear and very close friends.
Wednesday, 28 June 2017
Gratitude 108
Gentle Reader, please follow this link by cutting and pasting it and then click and there you go.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/165IQid-HD7cB__ifHRb4mIOBsSP6zJOZ4YrNGm-kwFk/edit
Tuesday, 27 June 2017
Gratitude 107
As some wise person whose name now eludes me once said, Life is that happens while we're busy making other plans. Or something like that. This happened yet again yesterday, just after dinner. The fire alarm in my building went off and off we all, or some of us anyway, filed out of the building to gather together on the sidewalk. No one seemed to be coping well. No one complained really, they all just stood there on the pavement looking grim and kind of miserable. Some lit cigarettes, not even troubling to create some kind of safe and courteous distance from their nonsmoking neighbours. I was already set. I had thrown my sketchbook and colouring things into my knapsack, in case I wanted to stop somewhere for a cold beverage and a bit of artwork, and decided that I was not going to be numbered as one of the miserable among the miserable. It was a beautiful summer evening and, fire or no fire, I was going to enjoy the fresh air and late sunshine.
I wasn't particularly worried about the fire, knowing that it was likely a smouldering kitchen disaster from a tenant trying to cook something. Confident that everything would be resolved quickly and promptly, I mentioned to one of my neighbours "I'm going for a walk." When he nodded indifferently this rather confirmed to me that it would be a waste of breath inviting him along. I would simply have to keep my joy to myself and go walking alone.
I found myself feeling rather sorry for my neighbours, and for people in general. I don't know if too many would embrace this kind of emergency as an opportunity to find or create some legitimate sense of enjoyment in life. Most people tend to be creatures of habit, and slaves to routine. I am guilty as charged. I also think that most of us live in a spirit of fear and that this fear hobbles us in so many ways. The very idea of exploiting an emergency for one's own growth and enjoyment simply does not occur to most of us. We would far rather cower under our beds, frightened and timid, whimpering and praying that soon it will be all over.
It was, by the way, an absolutely enjoyable walk. I got to chat a bit of Spanish with a visiting Mexican family of tourists and I also redirected them so they wouldn't be lost. Then I petted a friendly dog, a Rottweiler- Husky cross, and chatted a bit with his equally friendly human. I sat on a bench in a little park and savoured the view of trees brilliant with golden evening light and the contrast of cobalt blue shadow. I said hi to other friendly people and found my way back to the building, still standing and without scorch marks. I returned to my apartment following a half hour walk and resumed my usual routine as though nothing had happened.
But something did happen. I took a potentially troubling and stressful situation and turned it into something positive and enjoyable. I got some exercise, enjoyed the evening sunlight in the leaves and was able to somehow touch my community. I feel that much richer.
I wasn't particularly worried about the fire, knowing that it was likely a smouldering kitchen disaster from a tenant trying to cook something. Confident that everything would be resolved quickly and promptly, I mentioned to one of my neighbours "I'm going for a walk." When he nodded indifferently this rather confirmed to me that it would be a waste of breath inviting him along. I would simply have to keep my joy to myself and go walking alone.
I found myself feeling rather sorry for my neighbours, and for people in general. I don't know if too many would embrace this kind of emergency as an opportunity to find or create some legitimate sense of enjoyment in life. Most people tend to be creatures of habit, and slaves to routine. I am guilty as charged. I also think that most of us live in a spirit of fear and that this fear hobbles us in so many ways. The very idea of exploiting an emergency for one's own growth and enjoyment simply does not occur to most of us. We would far rather cower under our beds, frightened and timid, whimpering and praying that soon it will be all over.
It was, by the way, an absolutely enjoyable walk. I got to chat a bit of Spanish with a visiting Mexican family of tourists and I also redirected them so they wouldn't be lost. Then I petted a friendly dog, a Rottweiler- Husky cross, and chatted a bit with his equally friendly human. I sat on a bench in a little park and savoured the view of trees brilliant with golden evening light and the contrast of cobalt blue shadow. I said hi to other friendly people and found my way back to the building, still standing and without scorch marks. I returned to my apartment following a half hour walk and resumed my usual routine as though nothing had happened.
But something did happen. I took a potentially troubling and stressful situation and turned it into something positive and enjoyable. I got some exercise, enjoyed the evening sunlight in the leaves and was able to somehow touch my community. I feel that much richer.
Monday, 26 June 2017
Gratitude 106
Gratitude while walking is about as subversive as you can get. When you think of the many different forms of transformation, or should I say transportation, as this must be a Freudian slip. Walking as well as transportation, is transformative or a means of transformation. It is a spiritual, moral and psychological exercise as much as physical. Whether we go by car, transit, bicycle, roller blades, skateboard, to name a few, we have at our disposal this most natural, ordinary and unappreciated mode of travel: our own two legs. It is the easiest and healthiest way to go.
I walk everywhere. I take the bus for longer distances, but unless I need to be anywhere in a hurry, anything less than four miles or seven kilometres is fair game for walking. I walk in all kinds of weather, fair and foul, cold, warm, wet and dry. Of course I prefer warm and dry, or even cool and dry. Hot can be unpleasant, and unhealthy if it`s much over thirty. Horizontal rain can also be a deal breaker, especially in winter.
I have mentioned in other parts of this blog that I try to cover more than five miles, or, eight kilometres a day on foot. I think this is at least partly why I enjoy good health and fitness at my age. My daily ten thousand steps. I've walked like this all my life and I think that now it's paying off.
I have always equated walking with power, with having a sense of control over my life. This is how I explore and this is how I get to know the many diverse neighbourhoods in my city. This is also how I travel. I will find a city or region in a foreign country that seems interesting enough. I get off the plane, arrive at my hotel, and as soon as I'm feeling a bit rested there is no stopping me. I walk miles and miles and miles into strange neighbourhoods, poor and rich, safe and dangerous, noisy and tranquil, urban and natural. I.see everything, hear everything and smell everything. I observe people. Sometimes I greet them. Occasionally there is an opportunity to stop and chat, perhaps even to make a new friend. I am always learning and every venture out, whether in places known or unknown becomes for me a perpetual classroom.
I never travel with tech toys. I don't have a smart phone nor private listening device. I want to hear and be aware of my environment. I want to spy effectively. I want to know my city or the place I am visiting as intimately as legally possible. I want to hear the voices around me, even if they are loud, strident and maddening. I want to smell the cigarette smoke that I shun, revile and curse against. I always want my nose rubbed in real ordinary life, and in real ordinary time.
This is where walking comes to feel subversive. I often walk in the same neighbourhoods, because they are pleasant, interesting, convenient, or all of the above. Sometimes, as today, I am asked if I live there. If you do not live there but you are seen there once or twice a week, the locals can get suspicious, or at least rather curious. It is because no one really walks, or not very far, or not at all adventurously. Most of us are scared of life, lazy and very self-centred. Walking requires courage, effort and a generous spirit.
Adventurous walking can lead us to some very interesting places, people and discoveries. It will even lead you to yourself.
I walk everywhere. I take the bus for longer distances, but unless I need to be anywhere in a hurry, anything less than four miles or seven kilometres is fair game for walking. I walk in all kinds of weather, fair and foul, cold, warm, wet and dry. Of course I prefer warm and dry, or even cool and dry. Hot can be unpleasant, and unhealthy if it`s much over thirty. Horizontal rain can also be a deal breaker, especially in winter.
I have mentioned in other parts of this blog that I try to cover more than five miles, or, eight kilometres a day on foot. I think this is at least partly why I enjoy good health and fitness at my age. My daily ten thousand steps. I've walked like this all my life and I think that now it's paying off.
I have always equated walking with power, with having a sense of control over my life. This is how I explore and this is how I get to know the many diverse neighbourhoods in my city. This is also how I travel. I will find a city or region in a foreign country that seems interesting enough. I get off the plane, arrive at my hotel, and as soon as I'm feeling a bit rested there is no stopping me. I walk miles and miles and miles into strange neighbourhoods, poor and rich, safe and dangerous, noisy and tranquil, urban and natural. I.see everything, hear everything and smell everything. I observe people. Sometimes I greet them. Occasionally there is an opportunity to stop and chat, perhaps even to make a new friend. I am always learning and every venture out, whether in places known or unknown becomes for me a perpetual classroom.
I never travel with tech toys. I don't have a smart phone nor private listening device. I want to hear and be aware of my environment. I want to spy effectively. I want to know my city or the place I am visiting as intimately as legally possible. I want to hear the voices around me, even if they are loud, strident and maddening. I want to smell the cigarette smoke that I shun, revile and curse against. I always want my nose rubbed in real ordinary life, and in real ordinary time.
This is where walking comes to feel subversive. I often walk in the same neighbourhoods, because they are pleasant, interesting, convenient, or all of the above. Sometimes, as today, I am asked if I live there. If you do not live there but you are seen there once or twice a week, the locals can get suspicious, or at least rather curious. It is because no one really walks, or not very far, or not at all adventurously. Most of us are scared of life, lazy and very self-centred. Walking requires courage, effort and a generous spirit.
Adventurous walking can lead us to some very interesting places, people and discoveries. It will even lead you to yourself.
Sunday, 25 June 2017
Gratitude 105
Today I went to church again, my second time in as many weeks. It didn't go so well this time. There was a woman priest or deacon visiting who has had it in for me for years. Basically, around six years ago when she was doing a practicum at my former parish church she took someone's side against me, a rather objectionable individual who verbally attacked me. I defended myself. She took his side against me, I think because this person is a transman and she assumed that as a progressive and fashionable young Anglican her duty was to take the side of the oppressed minority against the evil white and (presumably but not necessarily) straight male. She never apologized and there has been bad blood between us ever since.
Today at church she refused to give me communion. Nothing was said. I stood there next to the other people and she completely ignored me and went to the people on the other side. Rather than give her the satisfaction I simply walked back to my seat, knowing that God's presence is not dependent upon eating a piece of bread and drinking a sip of wine, no matter who has blessed the elements. This same woman, instead of checking in on me to see if there were any problems, simply ignored me afterward. I did have enjoyable conversations with a couple of people, one the new curate who is an awesome individual, the other a very cool elderly woman who told me about her experiences teaching in Turkey for two years, then I left.
I have since emailed the priest of this parish, who was absent at the time, and the bishop. I wonder what kind of lies she will tell them should they confront her.
This is not going to be an easy re-entry for me. I cannot go every Sunday. It is just too intense and too difficult. There are still people in the church who have it in for me. No one has ever explained why. These, after all, are Anglicans, and generally they can be passive-aggressive cowards who will stab the back of anyone who gets in their way.
Why have I returned to this wretched denomination, given all the problems I have encountered in the Anglican Church? For one simple reason. Better the devil I know than the one I don't. All the Christian denominations are equally bad. They are also all equally good. But I would rather deal with an enemy I already know, and have some skill in having to deal with, than have to start all over again in a completely alien environment where it would be total open season on me? I also believe in and endorse the concept of public witness. This isn't to say that I'm obligated to attend church, rather this is something that sometimes I will want to be able to do.
Why do I have so many problems with church? Likely because I have a prophetic calling, which means calling them on things they don't want to hear. And even when I keep my mouth shut, which is nearly all the time now, they still sense and smell me as the enemy, God's agent to somehow keep them on the straight and narrow. Or maybe I'm just a disagreeable jerk and I really get the treatment I deserve.
I think both are true. All I can do is learn from past mistakes, make some new mistakes, learn from them, and work a little bit harder and more skilfully at covering my ass should they release their hounds on me again. And they probably will. One thing I have learned about Christians. All the talk they make about forgiveness is just that: talk. Empty talk. You piss them off once, even or maybe especially for totally legitimate reasons, and there will be no forgiveness. Except for a few authentic saints among them they will never let me forget, they will never welcome me and they will always keep excluding me. Thank God I do have some friends there.
In the meantime, it's going to be one Sunday at a time. And I will do what I can to reach out to others in a spirit of forgiveness, which isn't the same as giving them a free pass. I will be friendly, but they will also have to see that my friendship cannot be cheaply bought.
I find it quite ironical that the Anglican Church is very skilled at making public scenes and displays of handwringing, whimpering repentance when it comes to their historic mistreatment and abuse of our indigenous peoples. This is all for public consumption and it's largely display to make them look good. But when it comes to the interpersonal harm they inflict on vulnerable individuals when they get in their way? They really couldn't give a shit. Unless someone seems to be watching. And that someone, Gentle Reader, is you.
Today at church she refused to give me communion. Nothing was said. I stood there next to the other people and she completely ignored me and went to the people on the other side. Rather than give her the satisfaction I simply walked back to my seat, knowing that God's presence is not dependent upon eating a piece of bread and drinking a sip of wine, no matter who has blessed the elements. This same woman, instead of checking in on me to see if there were any problems, simply ignored me afterward. I did have enjoyable conversations with a couple of people, one the new curate who is an awesome individual, the other a very cool elderly woman who told me about her experiences teaching in Turkey for two years, then I left.
I have since emailed the priest of this parish, who was absent at the time, and the bishop. I wonder what kind of lies she will tell them should they confront her.
This is not going to be an easy re-entry for me. I cannot go every Sunday. It is just too intense and too difficult. There are still people in the church who have it in for me. No one has ever explained why. These, after all, are Anglicans, and generally they can be passive-aggressive cowards who will stab the back of anyone who gets in their way.
Why have I returned to this wretched denomination, given all the problems I have encountered in the Anglican Church? For one simple reason. Better the devil I know than the one I don't. All the Christian denominations are equally bad. They are also all equally good. But I would rather deal with an enemy I already know, and have some skill in having to deal with, than have to start all over again in a completely alien environment where it would be total open season on me? I also believe in and endorse the concept of public witness. This isn't to say that I'm obligated to attend church, rather this is something that sometimes I will want to be able to do.
Why do I have so many problems with church? Likely because I have a prophetic calling, which means calling them on things they don't want to hear. And even when I keep my mouth shut, which is nearly all the time now, they still sense and smell me as the enemy, God's agent to somehow keep them on the straight and narrow. Or maybe I'm just a disagreeable jerk and I really get the treatment I deserve.
I think both are true. All I can do is learn from past mistakes, make some new mistakes, learn from them, and work a little bit harder and more skilfully at covering my ass should they release their hounds on me again. And they probably will. One thing I have learned about Christians. All the talk they make about forgiveness is just that: talk. Empty talk. You piss them off once, even or maybe especially for totally legitimate reasons, and there will be no forgiveness. Except for a few authentic saints among them they will never let me forget, they will never welcome me and they will always keep excluding me. Thank God I do have some friends there.
In the meantime, it's going to be one Sunday at a time. And I will do what I can to reach out to others in a spirit of forgiveness, which isn't the same as giving them a free pass. I will be friendly, but they will also have to see that my friendship cannot be cheaply bought.
I find it quite ironical that the Anglican Church is very skilled at making public scenes and displays of handwringing, whimpering repentance when it comes to their historic mistreatment and abuse of our indigenous peoples. This is all for public consumption and it's largely display to make them look good. But when it comes to the interpersonal harm they inflict on vulnerable individuals when they get in their way? They really couldn't give a shit. Unless someone seems to be watching. And that someone, Gentle Reader, is you.
Saturday, 24 June 2017
Gratitude 104
I am grateful for chutzpah, which I am told, I tend to have a lot of. At times, anyway. I don't really give it a lot of thought. I don't even think of it as chutzpah, nor its English equivalent, brazenness. First, a station break for a little definition:
Chutzpah:
Chutzpah (/ˈhÊŠtspÉ™/ or /ˈxÊŠtspÉ™/)[1][2] is the quality of audacity, for good or for bad. The Yiddish word derives from the Hebrew word ḥutspâ (×—ֻצְפָּ×”), meaning "insolence", "cheek" or "audacity". Thus the original Yiddish word has a strongly negative connotation but the form which entered English through Ameridish has taken on a broader meaning, having been popularized through vernacular use in film, literature, and television. The word is sometimes interpreted—particularly in business parlance—as meaning the amount of courage, mettle or ardor that an individual has.
(Don't you just love those little links, Gentle Reader? From Wiki, of course.)
Brazen:
brazen (comparative more brazen, superlative most brazen)
Chutzpah:
Chutzpah (/ˈhÊŠtspÉ™/ or /ˈxÊŠtspÉ™/)[1][2] is the quality of audacity, for good or for bad. The Yiddish word derives from the Hebrew word ḥutspâ (×—ֻצְפָּ×”), meaning "insolence", "cheek" or "audacity". Thus the original Yiddish word has a strongly negative connotation but the form which entered English through Ameridish has taken on a broader meaning, having been popularized through vernacular use in film, literature, and television. The word is sometimes interpreted—particularly in business parlance—as meaning the amount of courage, mettle or ardor that an individual has.
(Don't you just love those little links, Gentle Reader? From Wiki, of course.)
Brazen:
brazen (comparative more brazen, superlative most brazen)
- (archaic) Pertaining to, made of, or resembling brass (in color or strength). [quotations ▼]
- Sounding harsh and loud, like brass cymbals or brass instruments. [quotations ▼]
- (archaic) Extremely strong; impenetrable; resolute. [quotations ▼]
- Shamelessly shocking and offensive; audacious; impudent; barefaced; immodest, unblushing. [from 1570s.] [quotations ▼]
- She was brazen enough to deny stealing the handbag even though she was caught on closed-circuit television doing so.
(Thanks again, Wiki!)
Both words, and their Spanish equivalent, could accurately describe me, in the best and in the worst possible ways. I have always been on the bold side, not blushing about telling others what's on my mind, what I think of them and their attitudes, behaviours and personalities, not shying from expressing like and dislike. I have channelled my chutzpah and brazenness into social and political activism, telling politicians, to their faces if I have to, what their mean-spirited, selfish and short-sighted policies are doing to impact the vulnerable. I have openly rebuked public smokers for endangering public health and sidewalk cyclists for endangering pedestrians. I have openly shamed fit (or dubiously fit) young bus riders into giving up their seats for the elderly and disabled.
I suppose I've mellowed a bit. I like to think of it as picking my battles. Especially if I'm on my way to work, I don't have time or energy for getting sworn at by idiots who desperately need to be re-parented. It isn't that I'm afraid of this. I'm just sick and tired of it, and besides, my clients need me in more or less good, sound and healthy form if I'm to deliver good care and support to them.
I still openly defy crappy motorists. This is a skill I have had to hone on the mean streets of Mexico City and Bogota, Colombia, where negotiating traffic is a blood sport. I have had to wade through slowly, and sometimes not-so-slowly moving cars, often responding to the drivers' verbal abuse in Spanish in equally eloquent Spanish profanity. "Pendejo!" "Callete, puta ramera!
(No, Gentle Reader, I am not going to translate for you!)
It isn't that difficult really, dealing with drivers in Vancouver, as they still have a sense of human decency and courtesy towards other sentient beings. However, sometimes I have to be a little bit bold if I want to get across that street. One day I was approaching West King Edward Drive from Angus Drive where two cyclists were so pathetically waiting for some kind driver to stop for them. I waded right in, looked right in the eye of the first motorist, waved for them to stop, which they did. The other cars did the same. I waved to the two cyclists, who happily road across the street. I felt like Moses, parting the waters of the Red Sea. They both thanked me and I said that I learned my traffic skills on the streets of Mexico City.
I used to think that my chutzpah, brazenness and osado came out of courage and bravery. I now have my doubts about this. It probably really means that I'm scared shitless, that I already know the consequences if I just let things go without confronting them. My courage, if that's what you want to call it, was forged in the wildfires of fear.
Friday, 23 June 2017
Gratitude 103
I have just had a wonderful time in bed. Oh, Gentle Reader, put please, do, do get your little mind out of the gutter. I slept alone last night, as I always do. But I had the most incredible dream and I would like to share it with you:
I was on my way home from a long trip somewhere. It turned out that my home was full of bookshelves all crammed with old and secondhand books. My apartment had been transformed into a large antiquarian bookstore. And there were people there. Dozens of strangers, all looking at my books. The place suddenly was bigger, like a really big warehouse-size bookstore. There was also art on the walls in between bookshelves. I went from group to group throughout the space and made the same basic announcement, welcoming them, thanking them for their interest in my place, and also advising them that this is my private home, but they are all welcome to keep returning to look at and buy books at their pleasure. I stepped outside and saw two slightly immature scarlet ibises (they weren't quite fully red, showing a bit of mottled plumage. It was nighttime and I was somewhere in the south part of the city. I looked up at the sky and saw thousands of stars, like the Milky Way, but bigger and brighter stars and I commented to someone that it's unusual to see so many stars from the city. Then I saw the constellation Orion. I returned inside my apartment and talked with more customers. Then I saw the two scarlet ibises indoors. Knowing that I would be soon receiving visitors every day because of the books I felt a small sense of dread for fear of exhausting myself. There appeared to be someone there, a man, offering to help me.
I have no idea what this dream is about. It feels very positive and all the images (I just did some research) are favourable omens. Apart from all that, I really don't know. I am really grateful for dreams, for what they tell us, and for what they don't tell us, for the sense of mystery and wonder they hold us in because the language of dreams remains largely indecipherable.
I dream frequently and vividly. In my dreams I often meet people I have never known. Often we appear to be working on projects together, or we are offering one another support and friendship. I believe that in many cases these are real people whom I haven't met and that others are people who once were alive and have passed to the other side. I have written elsewhere, I believe about the Mexican doctor, a woman, I saw and spoke with in a dream. She told me her name and when I looked her up on YouTube, there she was giving a presentation at a conference.
I will conclude with this little gem I had when I was twenty-one. I was lying down for a rest on a Sunday afternoon. I fell asleep then had a dream that my mother, in the next room was giving birth to a new baby. I saw her that evening for dinner. She told me that she had a dream while taking a nap earlier in the day. She was giving birth. I asked her what time the dream. It corresponded perfectly with the time of my nap while I was dreaming the same thing. Of course I told her about it, and of course we were both simply amazed!
I was on my way home from a long trip somewhere. It turned out that my home was full of bookshelves all crammed with old and secondhand books. My apartment had been transformed into a large antiquarian bookstore. And there were people there. Dozens of strangers, all looking at my books. The place suddenly was bigger, like a really big warehouse-size bookstore. There was also art on the walls in between bookshelves. I went from group to group throughout the space and made the same basic announcement, welcoming them, thanking them for their interest in my place, and also advising them that this is my private home, but they are all welcome to keep returning to look at and buy books at their pleasure. I stepped outside and saw two slightly immature scarlet ibises (they weren't quite fully red, showing a bit of mottled plumage. It was nighttime and I was somewhere in the south part of the city. I looked up at the sky and saw thousands of stars, like the Milky Way, but bigger and brighter stars and I commented to someone that it's unusual to see so many stars from the city. Then I saw the constellation Orion. I returned inside my apartment and talked with more customers. Then I saw the two scarlet ibises indoors. Knowing that I would be soon receiving visitors every day because of the books I felt a small sense of dread for fear of exhausting myself. There appeared to be someone there, a man, offering to help me.
I have no idea what this dream is about. It feels very positive and all the images (I just did some research) are favourable omens. Apart from all that, I really don't know. I am really grateful for dreams, for what they tell us, and for what they don't tell us, for the sense of mystery and wonder they hold us in because the language of dreams remains largely indecipherable.
I dream frequently and vividly. In my dreams I often meet people I have never known. Often we appear to be working on projects together, or we are offering one another support and friendship. I believe that in many cases these are real people whom I haven't met and that others are people who once were alive and have passed to the other side. I have written elsewhere, I believe about the Mexican doctor, a woman, I saw and spoke with in a dream. She told me her name and when I looked her up on YouTube, there she was giving a presentation at a conference.
I will conclude with this little gem I had when I was twenty-one. I was lying down for a rest on a Sunday afternoon. I fell asleep then had a dream that my mother, in the next room was giving birth to a new baby. I saw her that evening for dinner. She told me that she had a dream while taking a nap earlier in the day. She was giving birth. I asked her what time the dream. It corresponded perfectly with the time of my nap while I was dreaming the same thing. Of course I told her about it, and of course we were both simply amazed!
Thursday, 22 June 2017
Gratitude 102
I am also grateful for the challenges of having to be flexible. In my work I have gained, and I believed have earned, a reputation for being an artist, a traveller, tenacious and resourceful. I would like to begin with an examination of how all these four characteristics dovetail and intersect with one another. To do well as an artist and a traveller one would have to be both tenacious and resourceful. You have to let your creativity move beyond art making and touch every facet of life if you are going to travel well. By the same token you also have to be tenacious. There is so much to have to endure and get through and get past in order to travel well, especially if you are living on a tight budget as I am.
This begins months in advance with researching the places you want to visit. What are the attractions? What are the risks? The dangers? How much time and money am I able and willing to invest? What kind of tradeoffs as a budget traveller am I prepared to live with? This also involves researching and contacting potential accommodations, making the necessary reservations, then booking a flight with a travel agent, getting something that fits in my budget that won't also be absolute torture (never easy and often impossible when flying economy, or, third class steerage in the air).
Then there is arriving there, learning the terrain, facing with the locals, taking risk after risk after risk, especially with the possibility, and often inevitability of making new friendships, and there is dealing well with the language. Will my Spanish be good enough? I will be living for thirty-one days in Spanish while seeking to improve my language abilities, and meeting people and learning more about their lives, the country, city, culture, history, the ecology. There is also sourcing adequate food, always a challenge, given that I'm vegetarian.
It isn't all happy-happy, joy-joy. Travel at times for me can be challenging, sometimes miserable. Any one of you brave enough to read my travel stories on this blog will know what I'm talking about. Despite my many complaints at times, it is always worth it. I always come home feeling, if tired, also wiser, humbler, and more enriched.
To do this kind of travel well I have to be resourceful and tenacious. I always carry art materials with me and spend hours drawing and colouring in coffee shops and restaurants, often meeting a lot of great and interesting locals onsite. This can only do wonders for my neurotransmitters, especially at the age of sixty-one at which a lot of people tend to opt more for comfort, ease, convenience and the path of least resistance: one of the surest paths to contracting early Alzheimer's or dementia.
I am happy to say that the many challenges and risks that I embrace on my travels I am adapting again to my daily life at home. I seem again to be becoming more creative, spontaneous and adaptable to unexpected exigencies. Today for example, following a session with my client and a student I have been mentoring, I walked as usual to one of my favourite local coffee shops for my iced coffee and chocolate cookie. On the way, I realized that I needed to stop and pick up a prescription in the BC Cancer Agency building I was passing. This is a medication I have to take to keep the tumour on my pituitary and dangerously close to my brain from growing and endangering my life. Then I remembered that I had forgotten my paperwork today, because I was needing to hand it in early, otherwise it might be a challenge coming up with enough food money until my other sites pay me for the month's work. I was kicking my ass and complaining bitterly to God while trying to figure out an alternative strategy, then decided I would borrow from my savings account, which I really don't want to deplete, needing the funds for my travels. I decided I'd live with it just the same. Then, due to a miscommunication, I had to cancel my next appointment, affording me just enough time to go home immediately, pick up the paperwork, finish filling it out on the bus and hand it in immediately at the office, making me only a little bit late for my third and final assignment on the other side of town.
Following my last professional appointment, I waited ten minutes for the bus and it didn't appear to be coming. Rather that wait and get frustrated and try not to feel sorry for myself along with the other people standing at the bus stop, some of whom would likely get to where they were going walking but were just too lazy or didn't have the imagination, I got walking. Seven blocks later, at Broadway and Alma, there was still no bus in sight, but I did catch immediately a 99 express bus, transferred to a Granville bus that I only had to run a little bit to catch, and got home much faster than had I stayed at that bus stop.
This is much closer to the way I used to live when I was younger, and the way I have learned to travel. Foreign travel has helped return me to the flexible creativity and adaptability that I enjoyed before I was fifty. Now, more than ten years later, I am glad to have it back again.
This begins months in advance with researching the places you want to visit. What are the attractions? What are the risks? The dangers? How much time and money am I able and willing to invest? What kind of tradeoffs as a budget traveller am I prepared to live with? This also involves researching and contacting potential accommodations, making the necessary reservations, then booking a flight with a travel agent, getting something that fits in my budget that won't also be absolute torture (never easy and often impossible when flying economy, or, third class steerage in the air).
Then there is arriving there, learning the terrain, facing with the locals, taking risk after risk after risk, especially with the possibility, and often inevitability of making new friendships, and there is dealing well with the language. Will my Spanish be good enough? I will be living for thirty-one days in Spanish while seeking to improve my language abilities, and meeting people and learning more about their lives, the country, city, culture, history, the ecology. There is also sourcing adequate food, always a challenge, given that I'm vegetarian.
It isn't all happy-happy, joy-joy. Travel at times for me can be challenging, sometimes miserable. Any one of you brave enough to read my travel stories on this blog will know what I'm talking about. Despite my many complaints at times, it is always worth it. I always come home feeling, if tired, also wiser, humbler, and more enriched.
To do this kind of travel well I have to be resourceful and tenacious. I always carry art materials with me and spend hours drawing and colouring in coffee shops and restaurants, often meeting a lot of great and interesting locals onsite. This can only do wonders for my neurotransmitters, especially at the age of sixty-one at which a lot of people tend to opt more for comfort, ease, convenience and the path of least resistance: one of the surest paths to contracting early Alzheimer's or dementia.
I am happy to say that the many challenges and risks that I embrace on my travels I am adapting again to my daily life at home. I seem again to be becoming more creative, spontaneous and adaptable to unexpected exigencies. Today for example, following a session with my client and a student I have been mentoring, I walked as usual to one of my favourite local coffee shops for my iced coffee and chocolate cookie. On the way, I realized that I needed to stop and pick up a prescription in the BC Cancer Agency building I was passing. This is a medication I have to take to keep the tumour on my pituitary and dangerously close to my brain from growing and endangering my life. Then I remembered that I had forgotten my paperwork today, because I was needing to hand it in early, otherwise it might be a challenge coming up with enough food money until my other sites pay me for the month's work. I was kicking my ass and complaining bitterly to God while trying to figure out an alternative strategy, then decided I would borrow from my savings account, which I really don't want to deplete, needing the funds for my travels. I decided I'd live with it just the same. Then, due to a miscommunication, I had to cancel my next appointment, affording me just enough time to go home immediately, pick up the paperwork, finish filling it out on the bus and hand it in immediately at the office, making me only a little bit late for my third and final assignment on the other side of town.
Following my last professional appointment, I waited ten minutes for the bus and it didn't appear to be coming. Rather that wait and get frustrated and try not to feel sorry for myself along with the other people standing at the bus stop, some of whom would likely get to where they were going walking but were just too lazy or didn't have the imagination, I got walking. Seven blocks later, at Broadway and Alma, there was still no bus in sight, but I did catch immediately a 99 express bus, transferred to a Granville bus that I only had to run a little bit to catch, and got home much faster than had I stayed at that bus stop.
This is much closer to the way I used to live when I was younger, and the way I have learned to travel. Foreign travel has helped return me to the flexible creativity and adaptability that I enjoyed before I was fifty. Now, more than ten years later, I am glad to have it back again.
Wednesday, 21 June 2017
Gratitude 101
Well, Gentle Reader, one would think that after one hundred blogposts on gratitude that it might be time to move on to something else, but you know something? We ain't finished yet. This is the thing with gratitude. It is a divine, and by extension, an eternal value, gratitude is one of the pillars of the universe, and therefore we can never run out of things to centre around this wonderful theme. It is the gift that goes on giving. Gratitude is a living principal.
Today, I am grateful for easily accessible universal healthcare, primarily because I will be seeing my doctor this evening at seven, at the community health clinic just two blocks from where I live. I feel particularly grateful that I can see my doctor outside of work hours, since my employers do not pay me for time off for medical appointments. I have already had this argument with the secretary of my endocrinologist. I said I could only keep our appointment if the good doctor was prepared to not keep me waiting longer than five minutes, otherwise I would have to cancel with my client and lose two hours pay, which is nothing to sneeze at when you are living from paycheque to paycheque.
Those people are incredible in their arrogance and their stubborn refusal to respect that many of their patients have to work for a living, often for low wages, and that we can ill afford to take time off from work to see them. They express absolute zero flexibility about seeing us outside of working hours. Besides all that, I have felt marvelously well these last two years since my hospitalization and for this reason I have decided to ask my family doctor/health clinic to be my go-to guy concerning my endocrinal needs, knowing that the medication is already doing all it needs to do.
I would be fibbing if I were to say that I don't have mixed emotions about our medical system. For some reason, when you reach a certain age (say, fifty-five or older), no matter how good and robust your state of health, you are presumed to be sick. Simply by being of a certain age. We get diagnosed, and over diagnosed and sometimes misdiagnosed because our good doctors have to have some concrete excuse for all their efforts they expend on us. Yes, statistically speaking, we are much likelier than our younger cohorts to be sick, disabled and chronically ill. We are also more likely to die soon.
That said, I really wish that our health care providers would start to focus more on wellness, maintaining wellness and preventing the ravages of old age. So much energy, time and money gets flushed down the pharmaceutical toilet and I really think we all deserve better.
And no, assisted suicide is not the option I have in mind. That is not how we are going to save money on health care. You first read it here, Gentle Reader.
In the meantime I am grateful for every single moment that I enjoy of good robust health, of feeling energetic, healthy and full of wellbeing. Life is truly a gift and our health is indeed a gift that cannot be taken for granted. I think that if we were to get younger people, especially young twenty-something males, to take better care of themselves and to understand that they are not immortal, that one day they too are going to die, then many people would not be developing by osmosis of neglect the many problems, symptoms and conditions that later in life manifest as a Grim Reaper's Scythe in the form of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure.
Etc.
I am truly grateful, Gentle Reader.
Today, I am grateful for easily accessible universal healthcare, primarily because I will be seeing my doctor this evening at seven, at the community health clinic just two blocks from where I live. I feel particularly grateful that I can see my doctor outside of work hours, since my employers do not pay me for time off for medical appointments. I have already had this argument with the secretary of my endocrinologist. I said I could only keep our appointment if the good doctor was prepared to not keep me waiting longer than five minutes, otherwise I would have to cancel with my client and lose two hours pay, which is nothing to sneeze at when you are living from paycheque to paycheque.
Those people are incredible in their arrogance and their stubborn refusal to respect that many of their patients have to work for a living, often for low wages, and that we can ill afford to take time off from work to see them. They express absolute zero flexibility about seeing us outside of working hours. Besides all that, I have felt marvelously well these last two years since my hospitalization and for this reason I have decided to ask my family doctor/health clinic to be my go-to guy concerning my endocrinal needs, knowing that the medication is already doing all it needs to do.
I would be fibbing if I were to say that I don't have mixed emotions about our medical system. For some reason, when you reach a certain age (say, fifty-five or older), no matter how good and robust your state of health, you are presumed to be sick. Simply by being of a certain age. We get diagnosed, and over diagnosed and sometimes misdiagnosed because our good doctors have to have some concrete excuse for all their efforts they expend on us. Yes, statistically speaking, we are much likelier than our younger cohorts to be sick, disabled and chronically ill. We are also more likely to die soon.
That said, I really wish that our health care providers would start to focus more on wellness, maintaining wellness and preventing the ravages of old age. So much energy, time and money gets flushed down the pharmaceutical toilet and I really think we all deserve better.
And no, assisted suicide is not the option I have in mind. That is not how we are going to save money on health care. You first read it here, Gentle Reader.
In the meantime I am grateful for every single moment that I enjoy of good robust health, of feeling energetic, healthy and full of wellbeing. Life is truly a gift and our health is indeed a gift that cannot be taken for granted. I think that if we were to get younger people, especially young twenty-something males, to take better care of themselves and to understand that they are not immortal, that one day they too are going to die, then many people would not be developing by osmosis of neglect the many problems, symptoms and conditions that later in life manifest as a Grim Reaper's Scythe in the form of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure.
Etc.
I am truly grateful, Gentle Reader.
Tuesday, 20 June 2017
Gratitude 100
I am grateful for the unexpected and for how it can test my resourcefulness. Today I enjoyed a longer than usual walk to work, three and a half miles, to Commercial Drive where I had time to stop in an Italian market to buy a slab of Asiago. There is a Spanish woman working there who is pleasant and we often pause to chat in Spanish. For a Spaniard her accent is incredibly good and clear. It is an irony of the language of Lorca that while the grammar of Spain is superior to the Latin American countries, the Iberian accent in Spanish is often something atrocious.
Following my time with my client, shortly after getting on the bus it began to rain quite hard. I detoured to my apartment to my apartment downtown where I picked up an umbrella. I was late getting to my next client, complicated by a bus driver missing my stop (being an express bus, the following stop would be almost a mile away). While on the phone with another client and standing by the back door, waiting for the bus to finally stop, I shouted from the back "Driver! You missed Arbutus." Now I have often noticed that when a transit operator misses a stop or fails to properly open the back door, I'm the only passenger present loud enough for them to hear. This is odd, given that I am told that I almost always speak in a very soft voice. But when it has to carry I tend to drown everyone out. So I don't shout in a polite little Canadian voicy-poo, and then apologize for raising my voice by one-tenth of a decibel. I shout out loud like a professional auctioneer or game show host " DRIVER! YOU MISSED THE STOP!" People always thank me for this.
It's been a more tedious than usual day without sufficient break or rest time, but this can be typical when I am working with three clients back to back in different parts of the city. I am feeling more tired than usual, rather drained, not because my clients are particularly needy, but because some days it does all feel rather intense. This is part of my job. My clients are, first and foremost, believe it or not, human beings, or should I say, persons? They are not file cases, they are not collections of symptoms, they are not diagnoses. Each one has a life, has been through their own share of life experience, and is each on their own journey. Whether my clients present as very well, or ill, I try to and always succeed to see them as persons, without referring to them through the filter of mental illness. If there is any core, unifying principal in my style of work that makes me good at what I do, that would be it. I do not judge them as being sick or well, I think' for the simple reason that everyone I know and encounter outside of work also manifests symptoms of having a potential mental wellness disorder. By the same token, I almost always see manifestations of wellness in my clients. For this reason I often try to treat my friends like clients, just as in many ways I treat my clients like friends. This isn't the same as claiming them as personal friends as that would be an unfair burden to place on them.
Do I enjoy my work? Yes. Is it always happy happy joy joy and kumbaya? Don't be ridiculous. It is seldom enough like that with any of my closest friends, so why would I place on my clients the burden to entertain me and make my life enjoyable? What really matters is serving well the people I work with. Sometimes there is an emotional payoff. Not always. If that's all I was interested in I'd probably be using drugs, instead.
By the way, I never did need the umbrella. The rain stopped and now the sun is shining. I was still glad to have it along if but for a prop for feeling safe from the rain, from any rain whether it should ever fall or not.
Following my time with my client, shortly after getting on the bus it began to rain quite hard. I detoured to my apartment to my apartment downtown where I picked up an umbrella. I was late getting to my next client, complicated by a bus driver missing my stop (being an express bus, the following stop would be almost a mile away). While on the phone with another client and standing by the back door, waiting for the bus to finally stop, I shouted from the back "Driver! You missed Arbutus." Now I have often noticed that when a transit operator misses a stop or fails to properly open the back door, I'm the only passenger present loud enough for them to hear. This is odd, given that I am told that I almost always speak in a very soft voice. But when it has to carry I tend to drown everyone out. So I don't shout in a polite little Canadian voicy-poo, and then apologize for raising my voice by one-tenth of a decibel. I shout out loud like a professional auctioneer or game show host " DRIVER! YOU MISSED THE STOP!" People always thank me for this.
It's been a more tedious than usual day without sufficient break or rest time, but this can be typical when I am working with three clients back to back in different parts of the city. I am feeling more tired than usual, rather drained, not because my clients are particularly needy, but because some days it does all feel rather intense. This is part of my job. My clients are, first and foremost, believe it or not, human beings, or should I say, persons? They are not file cases, they are not collections of symptoms, they are not diagnoses. Each one has a life, has been through their own share of life experience, and is each on their own journey. Whether my clients present as very well, or ill, I try to and always succeed to see them as persons, without referring to them through the filter of mental illness. If there is any core, unifying principal in my style of work that makes me good at what I do, that would be it. I do not judge them as being sick or well, I think' for the simple reason that everyone I know and encounter outside of work also manifests symptoms of having a potential mental wellness disorder. By the same token, I almost always see manifestations of wellness in my clients. For this reason I often try to treat my friends like clients, just as in many ways I treat my clients like friends. This isn't the same as claiming them as personal friends as that would be an unfair burden to place on them.
Do I enjoy my work? Yes. Is it always happy happy joy joy and kumbaya? Don't be ridiculous. It is seldom enough like that with any of my closest friends, so why would I place on my clients the burden to entertain me and make my life enjoyable? What really matters is serving well the people I work with. Sometimes there is an emotional payoff. Not always. If that's all I was interested in I'd probably be using drugs, instead.
By the way, I never did need the umbrella. The rain stopped and now the sun is shining. I was still glad to have it along if but for a prop for feeling safe from the rain, from any rain whether it should ever fall or not.
Monday, 19 June 2017
Gratitude 99
I am especially grateful, Gentle Reader, for the absolute and ineffable beauty of absolute everything. No, I haven't been smoking anything, and no you can't have any. It's been a thoroughly positive day, despite the angry and aggressive crazy man on the bus this morning. He was frightening, an older, burly guy wearing dark glasses, pacing back and forth, yelling at vehicles out the window for following and watching him, then making threatening comments to the poor driver as he approached him and got in his face. He eventually settled down. There were only a few passengers on board and of course we all looked like we'd just been assaulted, because we had been. I wondered, despite my fear reaction, about saying something to him, then thought that discretion might be the better part of valour, not wondering if he might be carrying a knife, or worse, packing heat, or that he would simply get all the more aggressive and maybe physically violent. Since I was on my way to work, I thought it better to keep my mouth shut and pray and hope for the best. I have learned in the past that when I am foolish enough to confront bad behaviour on a work day that the resulting stress ends up getting carried to my clients and this is something that they, already vulnerable, do not need from me. I was glad to get off the bus.
Of course, I would be challenged to find anything good or of beauty in this kind of individual. But I do not know this person. I do not know how or when or why he became mentally ill. I do not know what he's like when he's not decompensating. I do not know what he was like as a child, as a baby. He was a baby once. We all were.
Still, I was very glad to get off the bus and there was plenty of time left over to walk for half an hour to see my first client of the day. I cannot write here about my clients because of confidentiality and privacy concerns, but we did enjoy a better than average visit. We took a walk past the neighbourhood Anglican church, where there was a fire on the weekend, likely arson. The church building is unaffected but the hall has been badly damaged. This is a huge loss to the community because many poor and marginalized people have come to depend on this place for meals and a sense of community. This is what I mean when I say there is beauty in the world. As for the poor loser who set the fire, who knows what kind of hate and fear, what kind of cold relentless shadow, has been oppressing and destroying his life. He also was once a baby and I would like to pray for this person through this blogpost that he find a place of repentance and a sense of forgiveness and peace in his life and that something truly good and beautiful might finally happen for him.
I walked afterward to one of my favourite cafes where I sheltered with a big cookie, an iced Americano and more than an hour of working on a drawing. Here is my bird de jour:
It's called a seven coloured tanager. They live in Brazil.
Then I walked through the pleasant leafy neighbourhood again to see another client. Following a particularly positive session with my client, I went walking for around five miles through the most beautiful (and pricey) residential neighbourhoods in my city, bought two tins of fair trade cocoa powder at the Ten Thousand Villages shop on Granville Island and bussed home where I made a pot of cocoa, the last half of which I have been enjoying iced.
It's been rather an ordinary day. There has been some ugliness along the way, but great beauty as well. I sometimes like to think that we have to take care to really look into and deconstruct the ugly to find the thing of beauty that lies within. It can be a lot of work but in the end I think it's worth it, eh?
Of course, I would be challenged to find anything good or of beauty in this kind of individual. But I do not know this person. I do not know how or when or why he became mentally ill. I do not know what he's like when he's not decompensating. I do not know what he was like as a child, as a baby. He was a baby once. We all were.
Still, I was very glad to get off the bus and there was plenty of time left over to walk for half an hour to see my first client of the day. I cannot write here about my clients because of confidentiality and privacy concerns, but we did enjoy a better than average visit. We took a walk past the neighbourhood Anglican church, where there was a fire on the weekend, likely arson. The church building is unaffected but the hall has been badly damaged. This is a huge loss to the community because many poor and marginalized people have come to depend on this place for meals and a sense of community. This is what I mean when I say there is beauty in the world. As for the poor loser who set the fire, who knows what kind of hate and fear, what kind of cold relentless shadow, has been oppressing and destroying his life. He also was once a baby and I would like to pray for this person through this blogpost that he find a place of repentance and a sense of forgiveness and peace in his life and that something truly good and beautiful might finally happen for him.
I walked afterward to one of my favourite cafes where I sheltered with a big cookie, an iced Americano and more than an hour of working on a drawing. Here is my bird de jour:
It's called a seven coloured tanager. They live in Brazil.
Then I walked through the pleasant leafy neighbourhood again to see another client. Following a particularly positive session with my client, I went walking for around five miles through the most beautiful (and pricey) residential neighbourhoods in my city, bought two tins of fair trade cocoa powder at the Ten Thousand Villages shop on Granville Island and bussed home where I made a pot of cocoa, the last half of which I have been enjoying iced.
It's been rather an ordinary day. There has been some ugliness along the way, but great beauty as well. I sometimes like to think that we have to take care to really look into and deconstruct the ugly to find the thing of beauty that lies within. It can be a lot of work but in the end I think it's worth it, eh?
Sunday, 18 June 2017
Gratitude 98
I shouldn't be able to travel. Not on what I earn every year. Every year I travel. This is a privilege that has turned into a necessity. How did this happen? I remember when I first began to travel. It was in the spring of 1990 when I went to Ottawa and Toronto for a week. I took the train back as far as Winnipeg where I stayed overnight then flew back to Vancouver. I was able to do this because my Christian community had money, thanks to one of our members selling her condo and our pooling all our resources. Then my mother died seven months later. I inherited money thanks to her insurance then off I went to Europe for over two months. I would have stayed longer but I had helped create some problems in Vancouver, necessitating that I accept some responsibility and return to help resolve some issues.
Eventually I was poor again. Then I sold some paintings, following reading a travel article in the Globe and Mail about the Monteverde region in Costa Rica. I flew down there for twelve days.
These three trips were life-changing experiences and when I was poor again I grieved over the loss. Being able to return to Monteverde became both an obsession with me, and an unreachable dream. I began to learn Spanish, harbouring the hope that one day I could get there again. I went from poor to destitute and eventually homeless. I didn't think I would ever be on an airplane again. My mental health went sideways and I couldn't work. I could say there was no way out, except to do the very best with my very limited circumstances.
This is when God began to move on my behalf. While living in an unsafe situation in a shared house I began running often into Judy Graves, the housing advocate for the city of Vancouver. She asked me about my housing then helped me get on a number of wait lists. I ended up in an affordable apartment, where I have been living for the past fifteen years. I began seeing a psychiatrist for four years who helped walk me through my issues of trauma from childhood to the present. I was already doing volunteer work with a church shelter program for the homeless. I entered a job preparation program through which I became eventually employed. Money began to accumulate in my bank account. I soon noticed that I had only to get a passport and I would be travelling again.
One year later I lost my job. I didn't know if I would be able to travel. I was learning Spanish, rapidly, and already was able to converse in the language. In 1997 an old man I had never seen before had approached me to give me a small Spanish dictionary which I took as a clear sign from God. In 2004, while my bank balance was quickly going south, I took new job training which got me employed in my current field of the past thirteen years, mental health peer support work.
I am still working in this field. I have also been on nine trips to Latin America since 2008: three more times in Costa Rica, five in Mexico, and two visits to Bogota, Colombia. My first trip was, of course, back to Costa Rica. I wanted to see if I could ever live there, decided that would not be happening then sprained my ankle on the uneven pavements of San Jose. Then I went up to Monteverde where I limped and hobbled on along jungle trails in the rain. My two subsequent visits have been without consequence and joyous. In Mexico I was sometimes ill, once very sick in San Cristobal de las Casas, and occasionally menaced and stalked by young criminals. I absorbed Mexican and Aztec and Mayan culture like a dry sponge absorbs rainwater and went from enchantment to frustration and back to enchantment again often one hundred fifty times on the same day. In Bogota I exulted in the most dramatic, violent thunderstorms I have ever seen, dazzled by the vibrant green in this land of eternal May and the tropical flowers festooning every single surface, and both amazed and saddened by the chronic presence of the military and seeing the impacts of war on trauma on the people all around me. I was also threatened by criminals posing as police and stalked and followed by obscure strangers. I have made more new friends in these places than ever I might have imagined and my Spanish has improved immeasurably by immersing myself for a month every year in the language of Cervantes.
Foreign travel gives me one month away from everything, one month to rest and recover from the many emotional and mental demands of my employment, one month to appreciate and learn new ways in a different country, one month for my friends and I to rest and recover from each other, and one month less winter because I'm always in the tropical regions of Latin America. I always return home with a new, refreshed and sharpened perspective on things, and of course a new sense of appreciation for my own city and country.
I would like to be able to go on doing this, but life brings us no guarantees. I like to be able to think that I would not perish from not travelling for a year or two, so dependent I have become on this recourse of escape. I am confident that if I am not able to continue travelling, for whatever reason, that I will still cope well and without difficulty find plenty to occupy my time and attention. As far as I can see, I will go on doing this, either until my health gives out, or until I get bored with travel, or until I kick the bucket. Whatever comes first.
I am not going to take this privilege, this incredible opportunity, this gift from God, for granted. No, Gentle Reader, not at my age.
Eventually I was poor again. Then I sold some paintings, following reading a travel article in the Globe and Mail about the Monteverde region in Costa Rica. I flew down there for twelve days.
These three trips were life-changing experiences and when I was poor again I grieved over the loss. Being able to return to Monteverde became both an obsession with me, and an unreachable dream. I began to learn Spanish, harbouring the hope that one day I could get there again. I went from poor to destitute and eventually homeless. I didn't think I would ever be on an airplane again. My mental health went sideways and I couldn't work. I could say there was no way out, except to do the very best with my very limited circumstances.
This is when God began to move on my behalf. While living in an unsafe situation in a shared house I began running often into Judy Graves, the housing advocate for the city of Vancouver. She asked me about my housing then helped me get on a number of wait lists. I ended up in an affordable apartment, where I have been living for the past fifteen years. I began seeing a psychiatrist for four years who helped walk me through my issues of trauma from childhood to the present. I was already doing volunteer work with a church shelter program for the homeless. I entered a job preparation program through which I became eventually employed. Money began to accumulate in my bank account. I soon noticed that I had only to get a passport and I would be travelling again.
One year later I lost my job. I didn't know if I would be able to travel. I was learning Spanish, rapidly, and already was able to converse in the language. In 1997 an old man I had never seen before had approached me to give me a small Spanish dictionary which I took as a clear sign from God. In 2004, while my bank balance was quickly going south, I took new job training which got me employed in my current field of the past thirteen years, mental health peer support work.
I am still working in this field. I have also been on nine trips to Latin America since 2008: three more times in Costa Rica, five in Mexico, and two visits to Bogota, Colombia. My first trip was, of course, back to Costa Rica. I wanted to see if I could ever live there, decided that would not be happening then sprained my ankle on the uneven pavements of San Jose. Then I went up to Monteverde where I limped and hobbled on along jungle trails in the rain. My two subsequent visits have been without consequence and joyous. In Mexico I was sometimes ill, once very sick in San Cristobal de las Casas, and occasionally menaced and stalked by young criminals. I absorbed Mexican and Aztec and Mayan culture like a dry sponge absorbs rainwater and went from enchantment to frustration and back to enchantment again often one hundred fifty times on the same day. In Bogota I exulted in the most dramatic, violent thunderstorms I have ever seen, dazzled by the vibrant green in this land of eternal May and the tropical flowers festooning every single surface, and both amazed and saddened by the chronic presence of the military and seeing the impacts of war on trauma on the people all around me. I was also threatened by criminals posing as police and stalked and followed by obscure strangers. I have made more new friends in these places than ever I might have imagined and my Spanish has improved immeasurably by immersing myself for a month every year in the language of Cervantes.
Foreign travel gives me one month away from everything, one month to rest and recover from the many emotional and mental demands of my employment, one month to appreciate and learn new ways in a different country, one month for my friends and I to rest and recover from each other, and one month less winter because I'm always in the tropical regions of Latin America. I always return home with a new, refreshed and sharpened perspective on things, and of course a new sense of appreciation for my own city and country.
I would like to be able to go on doing this, but life brings us no guarantees. I like to be able to think that I would not perish from not travelling for a year or two, so dependent I have become on this recourse of escape. I am confident that if I am not able to continue travelling, for whatever reason, that I will still cope well and without difficulty find plenty to occupy my time and attention. As far as I can see, I will go on doing this, either until my health gives out, or until I get bored with travel, or until I kick the bucket. Whatever comes first.
I am not going to take this privilege, this incredible opportunity, this gift from God, for granted. No, Gentle Reader, not at my age.
Saturday, 17 June 2017
Gratitude 97
Some of you might find this difficult to swallow, but, now that I'm officially old, I actually feel younger than I did while in my fifties. One person has suggested that it's because I no longer work at one particularly toxic site from where I resigned two months ago. This could be. I don't know what else to owe to this new sense of wellbeing.
If there are any concessions I make for being older, they're all around getting adequate and appropriate rest. I especially need this if I want to function well emotionally and mentally. I seem to have lost very little of my physical stamina and walking long distances and climbing stairs and steep hills is not harder than it was ten years ago. I think what has really changed is that I tend to use a lot more common sense than when I was younger.
For one thing, I am a lot more disciplined now. As well as ensuring that I get enough sleep at night, I try to be in bed with the lights out before ten-thirty every night, often before ten. Knowing that I sometimes have difficulty getting back to sleep should I wake in the night, this allows me more rest time for getting the sleep that I need. I am also much stricter about hygiene, making sure that I get everything done that needs doing, every day, without fail, always within minutes of getting out of bed in the morning. I also clean my place every day and try to prevent things from falling into too much disorder. Every day I take out recycling and other garbage, as needed. I work on my art daily. Likewise my Spanish, and of course, Gentle Reader, this precious little blog that I write every day. I am also more careful about other projects, such as rereading and further editing my novel and reading and researching for my future up-and-coming project: Latin America, the Spanish Legacy and Collective Trauma. This I will be exploring with you in future pages of this blog, so stay tuned everyone.
I am equally assiduous about diet, making sure that I get between five and ten portions of fresh fruit and veggies every day. I also walk every day, making sure that I'm putting in a bare minimum of five miles every day, usually more than that. I am also careful to cultivate and maintain good, healthy, mutually respectful and vibrant friendships with really good people. I try to see at least someone every week for coffee, maybe a walk or a meal together, as well. I also try to email or text, phone or Skype with someone, doing any one of these things at least every day, to maintain and enlarge my social circle and simply to remind others that they are being thought of with kindness and love. And I make an effort to reach out to strangers, if it means saying hi to a stranger on the street, or chatting with the person next to me on the bus or in the grocery checkout, or in the café, be they staff or other patrons, always in a respectful and friendly way of course. I work hard at staying well-informed about the world and trying to do my part of activism, even if it means emailing politicians and journalists about such matters as poverty, homelessness, the environment, to name but a few.
My spiritual life is particularly important. I take care daily to pray, wait in the presence of God and maintain a strict regimen of devotional readings. This is the real fuel that keeps me going: the fuel of love as shown to us in the life and ministry and ongoing presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
I also maintain an ongoing appreciation of other people and of the natural world around me. Where people are concerned, I have lately been taking particular care to try not to judge those whose behaviour troubles me, but to approach them with compassion, mercy and respect. This is often very difficult, as, my desire to smack some of those idiots upside the head still runs through me in some very deep and strong currents. But I am still working against this tide and this can only make me stronger. It is often much easier to see God in nature than in other people, but when I do see the Divine in others it is always a bonus.
I really try to stay well-focussed and completely professional in my work, maintaining good and friendly relations with my coworkers and clients. I take joy in what I do and really enjoy the people I work with and help care for. By the same token I have noticed that my sense of humour seems to have greatly improved over the years and I really don't take myself as seriously as I used to.
Last but not least, I always appreciate the breathing space, the downtime and the alone time, as I happily wander around outside in nature, or focus on my art, reading, research and writing here at home. Good self-care is essential to aging well. Also an attitude of gratitude, as you can see by these ninety-seven Gratitude posts. Do you think I can make it to a hundred? I wouldn't be at all surprised. Life is full of blessing and really when we allow ourselves this treat, life itself is a blessing. Shove over, Pollyanna!
If there are any concessions I make for being older, they're all around getting adequate and appropriate rest. I especially need this if I want to function well emotionally and mentally. I seem to have lost very little of my physical stamina and walking long distances and climbing stairs and steep hills is not harder than it was ten years ago. I think what has really changed is that I tend to use a lot more common sense than when I was younger.
For one thing, I am a lot more disciplined now. As well as ensuring that I get enough sleep at night, I try to be in bed with the lights out before ten-thirty every night, often before ten. Knowing that I sometimes have difficulty getting back to sleep should I wake in the night, this allows me more rest time for getting the sleep that I need. I am also much stricter about hygiene, making sure that I get everything done that needs doing, every day, without fail, always within minutes of getting out of bed in the morning. I also clean my place every day and try to prevent things from falling into too much disorder. Every day I take out recycling and other garbage, as needed. I work on my art daily. Likewise my Spanish, and of course, Gentle Reader, this precious little blog that I write every day. I am also more careful about other projects, such as rereading and further editing my novel and reading and researching for my future up-and-coming project: Latin America, the Spanish Legacy and Collective Trauma. This I will be exploring with you in future pages of this blog, so stay tuned everyone.
I am equally assiduous about diet, making sure that I get between five and ten portions of fresh fruit and veggies every day. I also walk every day, making sure that I'm putting in a bare minimum of five miles every day, usually more than that. I am also careful to cultivate and maintain good, healthy, mutually respectful and vibrant friendships with really good people. I try to see at least someone every week for coffee, maybe a walk or a meal together, as well. I also try to email or text, phone or Skype with someone, doing any one of these things at least every day, to maintain and enlarge my social circle and simply to remind others that they are being thought of with kindness and love. And I make an effort to reach out to strangers, if it means saying hi to a stranger on the street, or chatting with the person next to me on the bus or in the grocery checkout, or in the café, be they staff or other patrons, always in a respectful and friendly way of course. I work hard at staying well-informed about the world and trying to do my part of activism, even if it means emailing politicians and journalists about such matters as poverty, homelessness, the environment, to name but a few.
My spiritual life is particularly important. I take care daily to pray, wait in the presence of God and maintain a strict regimen of devotional readings. This is the real fuel that keeps me going: the fuel of love as shown to us in the life and ministry and ongoing presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
I also maintain an ongoing appreciation of other people and of the natural world around me. Where people are concerned, I have lately been taking particular care to try not to judge those whose behaviour troubles me, but to approach them with compassion, mercy and respect. This is often very difficult, as, my desire to smack some of those idiots upside the head still runs through me in some very deep and strong currents. But I am still working against this tide and this can only make me stronger. It is often much easier to see God in nature than in other people, but when I do see the Divine in others it is always a bonus.
I really try to stay well-focussed and completely professional in my work, maintaining good and friendly relations with my coworkers and clients. I take joy in what I do and really enjoy the people I work with and help care for. By the same token I have noticed that my sense of humour seems to have greatly improved over the years and I really don't take myself as seriously as I used to.
Last but not least, I always appreciate the breathing space, the downtime and the alone time, as I happily wander around outside in nature, or focus on my art, reading, research and writing here at home. Good self-care is essential to aging well. Also an attitude of gratitude, as you can see by these ninety-seven Gratitude posts. Do you think I can make it to a hundred? I wouldn't be at all surprised. Life is full of blessing and really when we allow ourselves this treat, life itself is a blessing. Shove over, Pollyanna!
Friday, 16 June 2017
Gratitude 96
It is nesting season for the crows and it is at this time that they become particularly aggressive. If they were much bigger they would be downright dangerous. They all turn into mother bears with feathers and wings and they have no scruples about attacking any living thing that pisses them off no matter how big or scary it might be.
I used to hate crows. I have grown to admire and respect them. They are such incredibly intelligent beings and once, they even saved my life. I have already written about this. To put it concisely, three cawing crows alerted me to three rather scary looking guys approaching me from behind in the forest of Stanley Park. They did not have to do this for me. But I had been careful to befriend the local crow population, speaking to them gently and courteously. They seemed to respond with friendly curiosity.
Ever since I successfully calmed a pair of parent crows by feeding berries to their nestling in the forest I have thought of extending this action while walking on residential streets. These are the places where the crows become particularly obnoxious, chasing and dive-bombing any and everyone who walks through their nesting territory.
Crows appear to have their own community, or nation, or perhaps we could call it a city. They are a parallel community that lives not with us but beside us. Being highly intelligent, social and communicative birds, they must also have their own unique social and political organization. Like it or not, we coexist and we need to recognize and respect this.
I have been feeding the crows off and on for over a year, now. I try not to do this too often, nor too generously. On one occasion they took my generosity way too for granted and I was caught in my own Hitchcock moment as a flock of up to thirty crows came flying at me one day, all with the expectation of being fed. I now try to take care to not offer food oftener than once a week in the same neighbourhood, with but this exception....
Being their nesting season, the birds are particularly edgy right now, and will start cawing and freaking out neurotically at the presence of any human walking, biking or skateboarding through their nesting territory, Whenever I notice the crows getting restless, especially if I see one of their chicks present, I pull out the trail mix and gently call to them in Spanish (they seem to respond well to the rhythm and sound of the language of Cervantes). I will sprinkle just a little bit on the ground then continue walking. They calm right down, and then go for their free little snack. I so far have not been attacked by one single crow this nesting season, not while feeding them from time to time. Coincidence? Time will tell.
I am reminded of one crow last winter who almost dropped a scrap soup bone on my head. I have absolutely no doubt that that was one of the birds I fed, and this was his way of saying thank you.
I used to hate crows. I have grown to admire and respect them. They are such incredibly intelligent beings and once, they even saved my life. I have already written about this. To put it concisely, three cawing crows alerted me to three rather scary looking guys approaching me from behind in the forest of Stanley Park. They did not have to do this for me. But I had been careful to befriend the local crow population, speaking to them gently and courteously. They seemed to respond with friendly curiosity.
Ever since I successfully calmed a pair of parent crows by feeding berries to their nestling in the forest I have thought of extending this action while walking on residential streets. These are the places where the crows become particularly obnoxious, chasing and dive-bombing any and everyone who walks through their nesting territory.
Crows appear to have their own community, or nation, or perhaps we could call it a city. They are a parallel community that lives not with us but beside us. Being highly intelligent, social and communicative birds, they must also have their own unique social and political organization. Like it or not, we coexist and we need to recognize and respect this.
I have been feeding the crows off and on for over a year, now. I try not to do this too often, nor too generously. On one occasion they took my generosity way too for granted and I was caught in my own Hitchcock moment as a flock of up to thirty crows came flying at me one day, all with the expectation of being fed. I now try to take care to not offer food oftener than once a week in the same neighbourhood, with but this exception....
Being their nesting season, the birds are particularly edgy right now, and will start cawing and freaking out neurotically at the presence of any human walking, biking or skateboarding through their nesting territory, Whenever I notice the crows getting restless, especially if I see one of their chicks present, I pull out the trail mix and gently call to them in Spanish (they seem to respond well to the rhythm and sound of the language of Cervantes). I will sprinkle just a little bit on the ground then continue walking. They calm right down, and then go for their free little snack. I so far have not been attacked by one single crow this nesting season, not while feeding them from time to time. Coincidence? Time will tell.
I am reminded of one crow last winter who almost dropped a scrap soup bone on my head. I have absolutely no doubt that that was one of the birds I fed, and this was his way of saying thank you.
Thursday, 15 June 2017
Gratitude 95
I am grateful for porta potties, especially when they just seem to appear when I'm really needing to pee. I have mentioned many times on these pages, Gentle Reader, how I enjoy walking through our wealthy, leafy, beautifully treed and landscaped neighbourhoods. There is of course in such rarefied climes, shall we say, a frightful lack of amenities? The local wealthy home-owners and house flippers don't really want the hoi poloi wandering and oohing and awing in their exclusive neighbourhood, and I'm sure that if they'd could legally get away with it, they would turn these into gated communities with armed guards to keep myself and the rest of the great unwashed as far away from there lovely ostentatious refuge as possible. I try to cut back on my consumption of coffee and other liquids on my Shaughnessy walking days, and this is a little bit counterintuitive, given that walking a lot necessitates water and hydration. This is where I am particularly grateful for the porta potties. There is a lot of new construction going on in this neighbourhood as beautiful heritage homes are bulldozed to make way for hulking monster houses. All those construction workers are, naturally, going to need a place to go. Enter the porta potties.
I generally will not use one of the plastic toilets if the work crew happens to be on duty that day. Sometimes they're not. And they're never padlocked. What could be more convenient?
I saw two flying shithouses just this morning. The Tate condo tower going up a block away from my place, which I love complaining about sometimes, occasionally treats us to this vision. There they were, two ascending plastic shithouses, being hauled up to the roof some twenty floors up. One was blue, the other was pink. One for the boys, one for the girls. Can it get any cuter, Gentle Reader?
The Tate tower is an ongoing nuisance. Very typical of Mayor Moonbeam's and critically endangered premier Christy the Clown Clark's vision for Vancouver. As well as the many incredibly stupid people who inhabit this city, such as someone who replied when I complained one day about living next door to construction racket, "People have to live somewhere." I didn't bother to dignify her dumb remark with a reply because fighting with a stupid person is like wrestling with a pig: you both get dirty, and besides, the pig enjoys it. I probably shouldn't even be judging this person as stupid, perhaps uniformed, or ignorant, or simply unaware of issues that matter to some people. And I have also seen this person be very warm and kind to people, other than me, of course. Still, not necessarily an excuse for being terminally dumb.
But really, they don't build these monstrosities to provide housing but investment material to (mostly) offshore shadow flippers who just help drive up the cost of housing, and their unbridled kind of greed makes this city, Vancouver, yet less affordable.
Survival guilt be damned, I am grateful that I can still live here. That I have a safe and pleasant apartment in a decent and secure building that is affordable. I am grateful for double glazing, making it possible to block out the worst of the racket by simply closing the window. I am grateful for my electric fan that cools my apartment when I have to do this. And I am grateful for my earplugs that have never failed me yet.
I generally will not use one of the plastic toilets if the work crew happens to be on duty that day. Sometimes they're not. And they're never padlocked. What could be more convenient?
I saw two flying shithouses just this morning. The Tate condo tower going up a block away from my place, which I love complaining about sometimes, occasionally treats us to this vision. There they were, two ascending plastic shithouses, being hauled up to the roof some twenty floors up. One was blue, the other was pink. One for the boys, one for the girls. Can it get any cuter, Gentle Reader?
The Tate tower is an ongoing nuisance. Very typical of Mayor Moonbeam's and critically endangered premier Christy the Clown Clark's vision for Vancouver. As well as the many incredibly stupid people who inhabit this city, such as someone who replied when I complained one day about living next door to construction racket, "People have to live somewhere." I didn't bother to dignify her dumb remark with a reply because fighting with a stupid person is like wrestling with a pig: you both get dirty, and besides, the pig enjoys it. I probably shouldn't even be judging this person as stupid, perhaps uniformed, or ignorant, or simply unaware of issues that matter to some people. And I have also seen this person be very warm and kind to people, other than me, of course. Still, not necessarily an excuse for being terminally dumb.
But really, they don't build these monstrosities to provide housing but investment material to (mostly) offshore shadow flippers who just help drive up the cost of housing, and their unbridled kind of greed makes this city, Vancouver, yet less affordable.
Survival guilt be damned, I am grateful that I can still live here. That I have a safe and pleasant apartment in a decent and secure building that is affordable. I am grateful for double glazing, making it possible to block out the worst of the racket by simply closing the window. I am grateful for my electric fan that cools my apartment when I have to do this. And I am grateful for my earplugs that have never failed me yet.
Wednesday, 14 June 2017
Gratitude 94
I am grateful for money. I am grateful that I have enough to pay my rent on time every month, enough to buy all the food I need, enough money to take care of all my needs, as well as having enough left over to travel every year. I am grateful that despite my low wage I am still able to do well.
I do not adore money. It is a means to an end. We use it to take care of our needs and to help others who don't have enough for their own needs. Everything else is negotiable. We don't need huge bank accounts. I have a savings account, for emergencies and for travel, as well as for my retirement. I have perhaps enough saved to survive on for up to eight months. But to have more than I need? It's not in the picture. I am among the poorest demographic in my country, yet I don't feel poor and I don't live like a pauper.
I am fortunate that my expenses are few. I have no bad habits and no nightlife, nor do I want one. I am happy to stay home in the evenings or to meet my friends in coffee shops or go for long walks together.
I feel sometimes conflicted: should I simply be content with my lot and not struggle to earn or obtain more money? But what would I use it for? I already have enough. Does this mean that they should raise the minimum wage? Of course it should be raised. Some people would find my lifestyle impossibly austere and I don't think it's fair to expect that everyone is going to turn overnight into a vegetarian, quit smoking, give up going out to concerts, plays and movies, and not want to live in relative luxury while on holiday, just because I can do it, neither should others be expected to live the way I do.
Do I think that people could afford to learn to live more modestly? Well, I don't know. I used to believe this but I find this idea to be more nuanced than before. I do believe that those who have more money should be paying a higher proportion of taxes. Somehow I have always had what I needed. Even when I was homeless for ten and a half months, I never spent a single night outside. I have always trusted God to provide, and God has always provided for my every need. I never passed one single day without food and shelter.
I don't know why I've been so fortunate when there are so many others who sleep rough and go hungry in this wealthy and prosperous nation, Canada. I am not gong to make the arrogant mistake of others by claiming that if it went well for me it will go well for anybody; if I can do it so can you. Life isn't that simple. There are always different variables at work. Life is always full of unequal outcomes. And even if I do believe that God was providing for me, why doesn't he provide for everyone else? But such is the nature of life, which is always going to be less than fair. Because we humans have made this world the mess that it is we cannot just expect that God is going to come in, wave a magic wand and make everything nice again. How would we learn responsibility if he did everything for us, including wiping our pathetic little asses for us?
I remember once getting into a nasty quarrel with a very angry anti-poverty activist. We were both collecting social assistance. When he heard me claim that through very careful budgeting I was able to feed myself decently if modestly while on welfare, he refused to believe me, even calling me a liar. I honestly don't know how I did it, Gentle Reader. But I did it and even if I can't credit God with helping others I give him the glory for helping me. And even if I have next to nothing I still have the responsibility to reach out to my neighbour and help him within my means when he is in need.
Life is a mystery and we will never know the answers to these and many other questions. But this doesn't mean that one day we won't know.
I do not adore money. It is a means to an end. We use it to take care of our needs and to help others who don't have enough for their own needs. Everything else is negotiable. We don't need huge bank accounts. I have a savings account, for emergencies and for travel, as well as for my retirement. I have perhaps enough saved to survive on for up to eight months. But to have more than I need? It's not in the picture. I am among the poorest demographic in my country, yet I don't feel poor and I don't live like a pauper.
I am fortunate that my expenses are few. I have no bad habits and no nightlife, nor do I want one. I am happy to stay home in the evenings or to meet my friends in coffee shops or go for long walks together.
I feel sometimes conflicted: should I simply be content with my lot and not struggle to earn or obtain more money? But what would I use it for? I already have enough. Does this mean that they should raise the minimum wage? Of course it should be raised. Some people would find my lifestyle impossibly austere and I don't think it's fair to expect that everyone is going to turn overnight into a vegetarian, quit smoking, give up going out to concerts, plays and movies, and not want to live in relative luxury while on holiday, just because I can do it, neither should others be expected to live the way I do.
Do I think that people could afford to learn to live more modestly? Well, I don't know. I used to believe this but I find this idea to be more nuanced than before. I do believe that those who have more money should be paying a higher proportion of taxes. Somehow I have always had what I needed. Even when I was homeless for ten and a half months, I never spent a single night outside. I have always trusted God to provide, and God has always provided for my every need. I never passed one single day without food and shelter.
I don't know why I've been so fortunate when there are so many others who sleep rough and go hungry in this wealthy and prosperous nation, Canada. I am not gong to make the arrogant mistake of others by claiming that if it went well for me it will go well for anybody; if I can do it so can you. Life isn't that simple. There are always different variables at work. Life is always full of unequal outcomes. And even if I do believe that God was providing for me, why doesn't he provide for everyone else? But such is the nature of life, which is always going to be less than fair. Because we humans have made this world the mess that it is we cannot just expect that God is going to come in, wave a magic wand and make everything nice again. How would we learn responsibility if he did everything for us, including wiping our pathetic little asses for us?
I remember once getting into a nasty quarrel with a very angry anti-poverty activist. We were both collecting social assistance. When he heard me claim that through very careful budgeting I was able to feed myself decently if modestly while on welfare, he refused to believe me, even calling me a liar. I honestly don't know how I did it, Gentle Reader. But I did it and even if I can't credit God with helping others I give him the glory for helping me. And even if I have next to nothing I still have the responsibility to reach out to my neighbour and help him within my means when he is in need.
Life is a mystery and we will never know the answers to these and many other questions. But this doesn't mean that one day we won't know.
Tuesday, 13 June 2017
Gratitude 93
Every now and then, Gentle Reader, comes a day when I really can't think of anything worth writing about. That day has arrived, again. I am thankful for the brain farts. They free me from any sense of obligation to have to write anything on these pages, if I don't feel like it. Well, I might be having a brain fart, but I still feel like writing.
Here are some examples of what I won't be writing about today, and why. I am not writing about work today, simply because I have signed an oath of confidentiality and I am rather interested in keeping my job as I am in maintaining a good and healthy relationship with my clients and my coworkers. So, I am not writing about work today. I also, generally refuse to write about the Great Deplorable in the Oval Office. Why encourage the child. I never write about finances or economics because they're boring and besides, the economy only works for some (the wealthy) while screwing up the backside of almost everyone else.
I'm not writing about travel because I'm home in Vancouver right now. My future trip is in the early stages of planning and that's all I'm going to say for now. Neither am I writing about my apartment building because, really, nothing ever changes here and I am always grateful that here in criminally expensive Vancouver I have a decent place to live. I refuse to write about hipsters. They're too pathetic.
I will write a little bit about nature. I have taken again to watching documentary YouTube videos in Spanish about the wildlife of tropical Latin America. I am also enjoying our cool weather here in June which often seems to switch every few days back and forth from April, or even March. The leaves, the flowers and the trees and gardens are all in their greatest splendour as we move towards the summer solstice. I am grateful for the gorgeous red wild poppies I have been seeing in sidewalk gardens that remind me of the poppy fields I have seen in rural England.
I am grateful for food, and for the easy availability of broccoli and other good, nutritious fruits and vegetables. I am grateful for my friends from church whom I encountered this afternoon in a No Frills grocery store just after I finished with my last client. It's really serendipity, as we were able also to confirm a coffee visit for next week.
I am grateful that I seem to be already returning to church, to the Anglican church, the same parish that I abandoned almost two years ago. Despite the things I have written on these pages about the Anglican Church I can accept being there again because I sense that God is calling me back. I still agree with all the bad things I wrote about the Anglican Church, but I also accept that there are also good people there with a sincere desire to serve God and maybe I would like to be one of them.
Here are some examples of what I won't be writing about today, and why. I am not writing about work today, simply because I have signed an oath of confidentiality and I am rather interested in keeping my job as I am in maintaining a good and healthy relationship with my clients and my coworkers. So, I am not writing about work today. I also, generally refuse to write about the Great Deplorable in the Oval Office. Why encourage the child. I never write about finances or economics because they're boring and besides, the economy only works for some (the wealthy) while screwing up the backside of almost everyone else.
I'm not writing about travel because I'm home in Vancouver right now. My future trip is in the early stages of planning and that's all I'm going to say for now. Neither am I writing about my apartment building because, really, nothing ever changes here and I am always grateful that here in criminally expensive Vancouver I have a decent place to live. I refuse to write about hipsters. They're too pathetic.
I will write a little bit about nature. I have taken again to watching documentary YouTube videos in Spanish about the wildlife of tropical Latin America. I am also enjoying our cool weather here in June which often seems to switch every few days back and forth from April, or even March. The leaves, the flowers and the trees and gardens are all in their greatest splendour as we move towards the summer solstice. I am grateful for the gorgeous red wild poppies I have been seeing in sidewalk gardens that remind me of the poppy fields I have seen in rural England.
I am grateful for food, and for the easy availability of broccoli and other good, nutritious fruits and vegetables. I am grateful for my friends from church whom I encountered this afternoon in a No Frills grocery store just after I finished with my last client. It's really serendipity, as we were able also to confirm a coffee visit for next week.
I am grateful that I seem to be already returning to church, to the Anglican church, the same parish that I abandoned almost two years ago. Despite the things I have written on these pages about the Anglican Church I can accept being there again because I sense that God is calling me back. I still agree with all the bad things I wrote about the Anglican Church, but I also accept that there are also good people there with a sincere desire to serve God and maybe I would like to be one of them.
Monday, 12 June 2017
Gratitude 92
I am grateful for each and every waking and sleeping moment. I love the drama that unfolds every night in the many bizarre and awesome dreams I am treated to, some of which turn out to be premonitory, clairvoyant and otherwise prescient. I am also grateful for God's gift of the ordinary in every waking moment that I spend on this earth. I just mentioned to a friend in an email that each moment is full of God, and if we think just a little bit we can see and enjoy the wonderful truth of this.
I mentioned to one of my clients today that really the beauty that surrounds us is so immense as to be something monstrous. We live in a universe of wonder. Even if you happen to be seated at a wooden table, you need only engage in a little bit of connective meditation and you will find yourself wondrously transported to the forest where that table was once a tree and to see the thrush that built its nest in the branches and the squirrel that scampered up its trunk.
Or you could look out a window and think of the technological marvel that is glass. A product of the earth, in this case, white quartz, rock reduced to sand then melted down and transformed into great transparent sheets that protect us from the weather while allowing us to see outside. The glass also protects our senses in a way from getting too overwhelmed by direct contact with the world outside.
We do need contact with the world outside. Without that connection we are never truly affirmed of being really human. But there comes the time to retreat, not completely, but to stay reminded of what's really out there. The glass protects us from direct contact but we stay connected by sight and in the meantime we can rest and restore our overwhelmed senses.
The beauty that surrounds, and fills, us is indeed something monstrous. In the Old Testament it is written that no one can see God and live. The intense power and beauty would reduce us to cinders. But we can gently touch on the divine reality through our interactions with nature, through treating one another with love, gentleness and courtesy, and by slowly but surely opening our eyes to the beauty and glory that holds it all together.
Think of breathing as a spiritual exercise. I am not thinking of the Buddha babble of mindfulness. This is a rather different approach. Imagine the air pouring down into your lungs and the oxygen being absorbed into your blood which carries those life giving atoms to nourish and energize ever cell of your body. Now imagine the miracle of air. Statistically, the chances that this earth would be swaddled by a living blanket of life-giving gases, with this perfect proportion of elements, and just the right proportion of oxygen, are so narrow as to render absolutely impossible that this could have happened by accident.
Even if you don't believe in God, nor in a first cause, nor in a sustaining divine principal, at least give thanks to the highest good you can conceive for the wonder, the miracle, the intolerable, unbearable, exquisite and monstrous beauty that is our earthly existence.
I mentioned to one of my clients today that really the beauty that surrounds us is so immense as to be something monstrous. We live in a universe of wonder. Even if you happen to be seated at a wooden table, you need only engage in a little bit of connective meditation and you will find yourself wondrously transported to the forest where that table was once a tree and to see the thrush that built its nest in the branches and the squirrel that scampered up its trunk.
Or you could look out a window and think of the technological marvel that is glass. A product of the earth, in this case, white quartz, rock reduced to sand then melted down and transformed into great transparent sheets that protect us from the weather while allowing us to see outside. The glass also protects our senses in a way from getting too overwhelmed by direct contact with the world outside.
We do need contact with the world outside. Without that connection we are never truly affirmed of being really human. But there comes the time to retreat, not completely, but to stay reminded of what's really out there. The glass protects us from direct contact but we stay connected by sight and in the meantime we can rest and restore our overwhelmed senses.
The beauty that surrounds, and fills, us is indeed something monstrous. In the Old Testament it is written that no one can see God and live. The intense power and beauty would reduce us to cinders. But we can gently touch on the divine reality through our interactions with nature, through treating one another with love, gentleness and courtesy, and by slowly but surely opening our eyes to the beauty and glory that holds it all together.
Think of breathing as a spiritual exercise. I am not thinking of the Buddha babble of mindfulness. This is a rather different approach. Imagine the air pouring down into your lungs and the oxygen being absorbed into your blood which carries those life giving atoms to nourish and energize ever cell of your body. Now imagine the miracle of air. Statistically, the chances that this earth would be swaddled by a living blanket of life-giving gases, with this perfect proportion of elements, and just the right proportion of oxygen, are so narrow as to render absolutely impossible that this could have happened by accident.
Even if you don't believe in God, nor in a first cause, nor in a sustaining divine principal, at least give thanks to the highest good you can conceive for the wonder, the miracle, the intolerable, unbearable, exquisite and monstrous beauty that is our earthly existence.
Sunday, 11 June 2017
Gratitude 91
I am grateful for random connections and occurrences. Sometimes you could call it serendipity. At times, foreordained. Other times, Woo-woo! This happened for me while on the bus today. It was this afternoon and I was on my way home from a walk in the forest. The bus was crowded and I had to look for a vacant seat in the courtesy section, where I usually try not to sit. It isn't because I don't qualify. I am over sixty which places me securely in the seniors' category. But I am a robust and very fit senior and no I don't need to sit down on the bus, unless I'm exhausted or schlepping with me a heavy bag of groceries, in which case I am neither shy about accepting an offered seat nor from politely asking for one, even if I am likely twice as fit as the lazy twenty-something who has chosen to obey their conscience. I like to think of it as being gracious in accepting proffered kindness, as well as encouraging good behaviour in young people.
While seated, and then for a while standing, on the bus, I found myself thinking how everyone on this bus has a father or a mother, and some of them likely have children of their own. That thought kept returning to me, rather like a somewhat unhinged pedestrian walking round and round in a revolving door. I tried to imagine each passenger as being a member of a family. I tried to visualize their parents, for some reason especially their fathers, I think because fathers still seem to have less visibility in families. I tried to imagine what life in each of these families must have been like; how present the fathers were in the lives of their children; if these were happy families, or not; of what they enjoyed doing together; of what kinds of things they usually said to each other: all those little private and discreet rituals and passwords that signify the uniqueness of each family.
Passengers came and went. I noticed one rather short man around my age standing, clinging tightly with both hands. Twice I saw him refuse seats that were offered to him. Then a seat came available. I waited to see if he would take it, or the young twenty-something woman next to him. She seemed to be held motionless by a paralysis of conscience. He still didn`t appear to want to sit, so I said, "Okay, I'll take it, then." I checked again with the older gentleman and he gestured that we was fine standing.
I soon noticed that he was speaking in a foreign language with a young man, presumably his son, standing next to him. There was a lot of ambient noise so I couldn't tell at first that it was Spanish. I heard something identifiably Spanish spoken between the young man and his mother seated behind me and I realized by their accent that they were from Spain. I engaged the young man in a conversation in Spanish, asking first if they were from Spain, and that I enjoy eavesdropping in Spanish and identifying different national accents. He was a pleasant young man, and said he was studying English here in Vancouver and his parents were visiting him.
When I came home I thought, how interesting that after wondering about the fathers and mothers of the different passengers that I should have an encounter with this small family group. They were from Barcelona, by the way, and it could be that I couldn't understand what the father and son were saying earlier because they were likely speaking Catalan, a very distinctive language from Spanish and the second official language in Catalonia where Barcelona is the principal city. I also noticed that the young man's parents looked as though they had had rather hard and difficult lives. Being my age they would have been around twenty when el generalisimo Franco passed away, thus enabling Spain to emerge from nearly forty years of dictatorship into a thriving liberal democracy. Unlike the son, who would have been in his twenties, the parents looked restrained and restricted, obviously survivors of a brutal regime. I am very thankful that I have never lived under a dictatorship, military or otherwise.
While seated, and then for a while standing, on the bus, I found myself thinking how everyone on this bus has a father or a mother, and some of them likely have children of their own. That thought kept returning to me, rather like a somewhat unhinged pedestrian walking round and round in a revolving door. I tried to imagine each passenger as being a member of a family. I tried to visualize their parents, for some reason especially their fathers, I think because fathers still seem to have less visibility in families. I tried to imagine what life in each of these families must have been like; how present the fathers were in the lives of their children; if these were happy families, or not; of what they enjoyed doing together; of what kinds of things they usually said to each other: all those little private and discreet rituals and passwords that signify the uniqueness of each family.
Passengers came and went. I noticed one rather short man around my age standing, clinging tightly with both hands. Twice I saw him refuse seats that were offered to him. Then a seat came available. I waited to see if he would take it, or the young twenty-something woman next to him. She seemed to be held motionless by a paralysis of conscience. He still didn`t appear to want to sit, so I said, "Okay, I'll take it, then." I checked again with the older gentleman and he gestured that we was fine standing.
I soon noticed that he was speaking in a foreign language with a young man, presumably his son, standing next to him. There was a lot of ambient noise so I couldn't tell at first that it was Spanish. I heard something identifiably Spanish spoken between the young man and his mother seated behind me and I realized by their accent that they were from Spain. I engaged the young man in a conversation in Spanish, asking first if they were from Spain, and that I enjoy eavesdropping in Spanish and identifying different national accents. He was a pleasant young man, and said he was studying English here in Vancouver and his parents were visiting him.
When I came home I thought, how interesting that after wondering about the fathers and mothers of the different passengers that I should have an encounter with this small family group. They were from Barcelona, by the way, and it could be that I couldn't understand what the father and son were saying earlier because they were likely speaking Catalan, a very distinctive language from Spanish and the second official language in Catalonia where Barcelona is the principal city. I also noticed that the young man's parents looked as though they had had rather hard and difficult lives. Being my age they would have been around twenty when el generalisimo Franco passed away, thus enabling Spain to emerge from nearly forty years of dictatorship into a thriving liberal democracy. Unlike the son, who would have been in his twenties, the parents looked restrained and restricted, obviously survivors of a brutal regime. I am very thankful that I have never lived under a dictatorship, military or otherwise.
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