20 things to be thankful for

For almost two years now I've had a list on my computer of things I am thankful for. When my computer broke last year I had to start over on the new one but I tried to remember most of the things I had written before. I just write more every once in a blue moon so my progress is slow but I have 610 so far. My list is very specific but I just wanted to summarize it here for you. Think of this as a) a reminder of the good stuff and b) inspiration to notice things even if you don't write them down. I was reading "Seeing" by Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek the other day for school and I came across this: "The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand." She was using pennies to represent all of the free gifts in the natural world that could be enjoyed if people would take the time. But she laments "Who gets excited by a penny" saying "It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won't stoop to pick up a penny."

My own list is categorized to make things easier to find, but the following is just a summary.

1. Hope
2. Forgiveness
3. Help
4. Friendship
5. Babies and children
6. Animals
7. Laughing
8. Great conversations
9. Beautiful natural sights
10. Beautiful natural smells
11. Cooking and baking smells!
12. Beautiful noises (some natural like laughter and ice melting, others are man made like the sound of coffee percolating)
13. Soup! Coffee! Tea! - Pretty much any warm liquid
14. Sweet things!
15. Salty things.
16. Art (books, movies, paintings, photography, singing sculpture, plays, spoken word etcetera etcetera etcetera! I just love how art makes me feel!)
17.  Good health
18. A roof over my head
19. Access to food
20. Light bulb moments

Sunshine in my Bones

Something rings deep inside

When these words touch my eyes

Like sunshine in my bones

 

Just what I’ve been wanting

 

There’s a yearning

I’ve been searching

This viewing is a finding

 

I’m coming home

 

All the children of the earth

Search for home with loving arms

Just for somewhere to grow

 

As water fills our souls

 

Complicated Love: It is Hard to Know How to Help

       I really hate it when people try to simplify love, as though it were the answer to every problem. For starters, none of us are capable of true love if you define true love as putting another's needs ahead of yourself. We are all a little selfish.

       But even if we COULD love selflessly, how would we go about that? It isn't just as simple as caring about someone more than we care about ourselves (which unfortunately isn't simple at all because we have to ask ourselves why we care about someone and usually at the bottom there is a selfish reason and because of the human condition we usually can't help but be selfish). Even if we can get past our selfishness there are more complications. What do other people need? That is a big one because we are all different and sometimes we need and want different things or the same thing in a different way or sometimes we don't know what we need.

       For example: death or depression. Everybody deals with it differently. When someone dies or is sick I like facts. When things go wrong  - like REALLY wrong - the emotional part of my brain shuts down and goes into hiding. I never cry at the really big things. That might be hard to believe because I cry all the time for the little things, but when something goes really wrong I can't even deal, so all I want is facts. I hate it because no one gets this, except my mother but usually when something goes really wrong someone else is sent to take care of me and they think "oh we should give positivity or hugs or try to make things seem less horrible or something" and I'm just like "Uhm no, you should tell me exactly what happened and answer all my questions" I find facts very reassuring when something goes wrong. I also like to talk about things, but not right away, later when most people assume that things are just magically ok now and stop talking about it. I would love if we could just sit and I could talk instead of all my thoughts and emotions which have finally come out of hiding being forced to stay forever in my own head. Another thing I like closer to when something really bad happens is just being together and not talking about what just happened, but like just watching a movie or hanging out or something really chill. Things I don't like are encouragement. I hate being told that everything is going to be ok. Sometimes things aren't ok. I mean ultimately things might be ok, but sometimes it FEELS like the world has crumbled, and rather than being told that the world hasn't crumbled (which I already know deep down in my toes) I would like you to try to understand that it FEELS like the world has crumbled. I don't like being told to be strong. I think it is not healthy to always try to be strong. If we never acknowledge our weaknesses the pain will be greater later when our weaknesses over take us. If we acknowledge our weaknesses we can get the help we need. I hate it when people try to refer me to someone else. I understand that you are human too, maybe you don't feel capable of love and so I try not to get too made about it, but it bothers me. It feels like quick simple fake love, like sweeping dust under the couch instead of really dealing with it.

      The problem is that I know what I want, but I don't necessarily know what other people want. Some people can't handle all the details and find no peace or safety in factual information. Some people find that overwhelming. Some people can cry right away and need a hug. Some people would be comforted if you offered a tissue, even though I've always thought that was akin to yelling "shut up" in someone's face. Some people want to talk about it right away and some people never want to talk about it. Some people WANT to be reminded that the world hasn't crumbled even though it feels like it has. Some people want to be encouraged and assisted with attempting strength. Some people want to be left alone. Some people want to be referred to someone else with the skills to help.

     Even though I spend a lot of time being angry at the people who call themselves my friends because it feels like they don't care, I realise that I've never been very good at showing I care when roles get reversed. My tongue gets tied and my arms feel like noodles and I stand there thinking "what should I do what should I say what does this person want what do they need." And failing and doing or saying the wrong thing is usually such a scary thought that I end up doing the worst thing of all which is nothing. So all I'm trying to say is don't tell us to love one another like it is the easiest thing in the world. Love is complicated and confusing.

3 Big Reasons Why I`m NOT a Fan of Positive Thinking

1. I agree, it's probably not good to constantly say "I can't do this, I'm going to fail." BUT it isn't very much more helpful to constantly say "I got this, I'm awesome" Because you might not, and you aren't always so wonderful. My mom is the first to tell me there are things I can't do (like sing in key and succeed at any sort of athletic endeavour), but she's also the first to tell me that if I work hard I could surprise myself with success in some other areas like academics, creative writing, and working with kids. It's like my little cousin used to tell me "keep your nose level" don't put it up in the sky so that you have to look down at others, but don't stare at your shoes all the time. You aren't great, but you're getting better. Right now, you're ok. I need to tell myself that more but I'm really bad at happy mediums, I'm very extreme.


2. I don't like this culture that acts like we need happy faces all the time. It encourages strength and fighting for joy which just turns into suppression of natural sadness which will just bubble up later on in a really bad way. Face your dragons and make friends with them. Cry with them for a time. Admit that you are discouraged and angry and this is not how you wanted life to turn out. Then, when YOU are ready (not just when your friends are) get up and move forward, your dragon will still be there, but you've stared him in the face so long you know it isn't going to be as scary as you think to keep going.


3. Positive thinking has made us horrible not only at dealing with our own grief but with helping our friends through theirs. Just a few months ago someone I love dearly lost someone she loved dearly, because I know what it's like what with losing my dad at 15 she asked me to come hang out when she didn't want to put real clothes on and face the world. So we ate popcorn in sweatpants and watched the life of pi and cuddled, because (even though I sometimes forget and am just as bad at this as anyone else) I have learned that sometimes a cheerful clichéd lesson is not what people need. They need someone around whom they can take of their mask and just be sad. Sadness has become a great taboo. We are encouraged to ask for help rather than kill ourselves, but it has been my experience that if you tell someone ``Every time I wake up, I immediately wish I was dead`` this is what will happen: An awkward silence followed by either
a) an attempt to cheer you up because they can't handle your sadness
b) a denial and minimization of your sadness because they can`t handle your sadness
c) a referral to a paid other who will try to set you straight because neither of them can handle your sadness
d) a rant about all you have to be happy about and the importance of positive thinking because they can`t handle your sadness


I don`t think anyone has ever said ``That sucks want to talk about it`` in a way that I actually felt comfortable talking about it with them, usually I pick up that they don`t want to talk about it, so I don`t. The problem with keeping sadness in your head is that it grows.

Sometimes All We Need Is To Know We're Not Alone

 

The following is a lyric from a French song that has been in my head all day and which I have here translated into English:

Au pire on rira ensemble on mangera du kraft dinner, c'est tout ce qu'on a de besoin.

At worst we laugh together we eat Kraft Dinner, that's all we needed.

As this lyric went round and round inside my head it made me think of a very random short story that I wrote when I was fourteen. I have since lost the story, but it was so strongly in my head today that I re-wrote a bit of it.

Do you remember the summer you were afraid of the sun. We never knew why, but one day you just refused to go outside or even anywhere close to the windows. He tried so hard to reason with you, he always thought logic was the best tool. He gave you some powerful sunscreen, he thought that would be enough but it wasn’t. She was the one who said she wouldn’t leave you. If you wanted to spend the whole summer in the basement with the blinds down, that was ok, she would stay down there with you. In the end we brought the beach to you. I remember roasting marshmallows over candles and playing guitar in the dark of your basement. It was just that one summer that you were so afraid. The next year you were ok and we went camping together and those are good memories, but the summer we spent hiding from the sun together will always be one of my favourites.  

I think the reason the Kraft Dinner song by Lisa Leblanc makes me think of this story is because they are both about times when you just don’t know what to do for another person, but at the very least you can just be together and that can sometimes be enough.

  

I am really proud of this even though it probably sucks I don't know what to call it but you should read it

When I was younger there was a man I called uncle who always insisted he was a pirate. I say now that I never believed him, but, every time I say that, I am lying. I believed him with my whole heart. I don’t remember much about that man. He is definitely not technically related to me. He must have been a friend of my parents. I can’t even remember his name, but I remember that he had a glass eye that he could take out but he never would do so in front of me, even though I begged him to. Oh how that eye used to transfix my poor ignorant child mind. The only other thing I remember about this man is that he was an excellent story teller. I must have shelved away most of the stories he told me in the same forgotten and lost file of my brain as the one in which I stored his name, but there is one story that somehow got misplaced into another folder which inadvertently get’s opened from time to time.

This is how that story goes:

Once upon a time there was a town very much like the one that we live in except that it was smaller and that the people in this village all had the same goal, unlike here where no one can ever seem to agree, even about something simple like which is the best breakfast cereal. That goal was to make a song that could always be heard from all around the village. People would wear tap shoes all day long and everyone walked in an odd jaunty way so as to keep the rhythm of the song. When a child passed a fence he or she would slap the bars of the iron gate for added percussion. Pencils tapped on tables, dogs barked in tune, people would stand and wait to slam their car door until just the right moment, and someone, somewhere in the town, was always singing. His or her friends would join in with harmonies, du waps, whistling and hums, but there was only ever one person singing the main song and it was never the same person for more than a few minutes. No one said when they would sing and when they would sleep and when they would be busy brushing their teeth, there was no big schedule, but somehow it always seemed to work out just right that just as a singer felt the need to go do something else another person would suddenly feel the need to sing.

There lived in this town a lovely little boy named Oliver who was eleven years old and had never sung the song, EVER. You see, Oliver HATED the song more than I have ever hated anything ever before in my life (even more than you hate spinach). Oliver hated the song, and he hated the people who sang it. He did not see a point in it all. He was always jabbering on about the need for a point. “Darling” his mother would say at breakfast “your brother is trying to sing. Please dear won’t you bang your spoon in time with him?” “I don’t want rhythm mother!” the boy would yell in fury “I don’t want music! I don’t want beauty! All I want in this whole wide world is for you all to wake up and realise that you don’t make sense! WHY are you singing? There is no point!”

One day poor old Oliver had finally had enough, so do you know what he did? He RAN away. It was hard at first to kiss his baby sister goodbye and think of how he’d never see his brother again as he tripped upon his stupid toy drum, but he would do ANYTHING to get away from that song! Oh how he longed for a beautiful silent place where no one ever sang and everything made sense.

So now what do you think happened to Oliver when he left the village of song? Do you think that he went back because he missed his family or because the silence drove him crazy or do you think he climbed up to a silent mountain where no noise is ever made and lives there still cherishing the silence and looking up at the stars?

Well if you think any of those things, then I regret to inform you that you are wrong because it just so happens that the world he discovered was not silent at all and he never could escape from the song. He heard it everywhere: in the screech of a rusty door hinge and the squeak of an old swing. He heard it in the honking car horns and the laughing children. It got to the place where he could even see the song in the twinkling stars which had an oh so familiar rhythm and the smiling mailman who seemed to breathe out the song from somewhere deep within him.

He could not escape the song and at first that drove him mad. There was a time when he wanted to yell at the top of his lungs every time he encountered it, but that soon passed because before he even realised it was happening he was feeling this odd surge of joy every time he recognised the song. And then one day he suddenly realised that he had been singing the song out loud for quite some time. That is the day that he decided to go back to the home of his childhood.

Well he was so excited to go back that he just danced right into the town singing at the top of his lungs until he suddenly realised that no one else was making music and for one small moment his voice faltered and the song started to die out. Then as he glanced around and noticed that everyone was trudging about their business in the most dejected sort of way something deep within him told him not to stop. He later found out that no one in the town had sung the song once in the last 10 years since he had left. Apparently it had started out slowly enough with one or two people voicing the opinion that the runaway might have had a point, but then before anyone really knew what was happening the whole town had given up their song. Until the day when Oliver returned a grown man and he stood in the middle of the town and, for reasons he couldn’t quite comprehend, he kept on singing that song. A few people yelled at him to shut up a couple kids ran over and threw rocks at him, but he kept singing. Then his mother came out of a store and stopped dead in her tracks. She knew immediately that it was him and for a few short minutes she was so shocked she could not move, but then she ran to him and she held his hand and he switched to humming and she took up the song. They walked together down the road towards their house and by the time they finally made it home  someone else was singing and a small child was banging out a rhythm on her neighbours fence while her brother teased her for it and her grandmother looked on and whispered thanks that the song had finally come back again.

Why should you read fiction?

1. It improves empathy - http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/novel-finding-reading-literary-fiction-improves-empathy/

2. Like all sources of entertainment it is a fun escape.

3. It enables one to exercise their imagination (you are given only words. The pictures, feelings, and understanding must be created by you from the tools you are provided with.)

4. It opens you up to a world of information, big words, ideas, perspectives, and experiences in a fun and engaging way.

5. By understanding the story of another, you may come to a better understanding of your own story.

6. A fun story can make you WANT to understand the words on the page and how they are working together to create meaning. If you fall in love with a character you will want to know what the things they say mean and you may start to dig deeper into really understanding a text. THIS is great, this means that by enjoying a good book you are teaching yourself skills of communication and understanding.