Month: November 2019

I started writing this blog yesterday and I lost it, it’s somewhere out there, better perhaps than what I’m about to write now, but I’m doing it anyway.

I wrote about television. I wrote about how I am working through the lovely Kerry Clare’s My Blog School and I am writing about things that I love. Television in general doesn’t make me happy but certain shows do. And those created by Mike Schur are among my favourites.

We have watched Parks and Recreation and The Office (American) with our boys who are 12 and 14. There are plenty of jokes about poop and sex (which ignite great discussions) but it’s for the character development that we watch them. It’s the writer’s way of pushing their characters to be kind, that we love.

My husband and I are watching The Good Place by ourselves because somethings need to just be for the adults. The show has a podcast for each episode, it’s usually an hour or so of various actors and writers from the show discussing that week’s plot. My favourite part is the end tradition where everyone has to say one thing at the moment that ‘is good’. It’s always something small and often can lead to guests (and me) getting choked up. Sometimes even the men (if you can imagine!)

Mike Schur and his team tend to write characters who wear their hearts their sleeves and the show’s motives are rarely subtle. But it works right now, no games. One episode lately spoke to something I’ve been thinking a lot about. It was about the need to accept that people are not ‘all good’ or ‘all bad’. Take my neighbours, they despise us and prove it often with their words and actions, but they also foster and train guide-dogs and I can’t not see that. If we don’t start recognizing this gap between people, it’s going to keep growing.

I’m not talking about the assholes who speak in the name of ‘freedom of speech’ as a means of spewing hatred and all the phobias and punching down. I don’t know, maybe they foster hamsters on the side, I don’t think I care. There is obviously a lot of hatred that is hard to see past.

Obama lately commented that:

The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids. And share certain things with you.”

The Op-ed about Obama’s view on cancel culture was seen as being pretty ‘ok boomer’ and wrote he was basically telling young people their activism was equivalent to casting stones. I doubt it was as simple as this however even if it was I think it’s something we need to seriously think about. I can’t be honest and say I don’t sometimes feel a little smug for having beliefs I know to be the ‘right ones’. And even if they are right (and I think they are) should I be able to feel superior over others instead of keeping my head down (instead of my nose up) and just keep doing the work that needs to be done?

The good line lately on The Good Place was that things don’t have to be good or bad, what matters is trying to do better today than you did yesterday. Again, perhaps another overly simplified and ‘easier said than done’ sentiment however (and back to blogging) something I love is trying to do better each day and trying to keep seeing things from different viewpoints even when it isn’t easy.

I took my dog for a walk this week during the first snow. It was cold and sunny and the snow didn’t stop for hours. My mind, instead of becoming the usual mess of worry upon worry, was taken over with images of lit fireplaces, favourite blankets and sweaters, never ending mugs of tea, so many books and the new hat from my aunt that I was already wearing (and loving!) The quiet dark lets my family relax a little, we are more free to stay in and huddle together when we need to without the guilt that we should be out making the most of things. It means warmth and although I loved (loved!) this summer, and miss my swimming (I don’t have time right now to get back in a pool but oh do I miss it!) which made me feel strong, I know I am in need of a break and just some quiet, the kind that only snowy mornings and early evening blanketed in moonlight can bring.

Both of my children we born on the cusp of seasons. When William was born after a very long labour at Mount Sinai hospital in Toronto it was the end of May. It had been cool before but while I was still there, my husband showed up in shorts and it shocked me. There was a humidex! Two days away and summer had begun.

When Rory was born (12 years ago this week!) I was in the hospital in Kitchener for only three hours with my midwives. We drove home when he was only hours old through the first snow fall, hushed and heavy, of the season.

My neighbour died this weekend. Her story is her own and it was amazing. I loved her very much and I know she loved us and watching our children grow. Every summer, until it was difficult for William to go over, we swam in her and her lovely husband’s pool. That was their Christmas present every year – just call and we’ll unlock the gate. Our relationship, for eleven years, was mostly over a fence. Food was passed over, stories and hugs. She loved our dog and watching the kids on the trampoline. She never judged me for not keeping up the glorious garden in our backyard that she had enjoyed for thirty years. She never made me feel bad for that. I remember the day she hugged me and told me it would take time for things to feel easier after my Boppa passed three years ago. On the rare occasions I would run over and have tea with her and she’d tell me stories of her childhood, her siblings. She was only 82. I wasn’t over enough, I feel bad for that now, I knew I would some day. She always understood it was difficult for me to get away.

This weekend was the start of autumn. Clocks turned back and we woke up to snow this morning. I had the task today of buying a sympathy card – you’re never prepared to feel that first welling of pain for someone you’ve lost, in an aisle of a busy Zehrs on a Sunday morning. It’s going to take time for things to feel easier.