THE WORLD IS A STAGE

Posted on October 25, 2017 by hafong

I am fresh back from a little roadtrip. It was an interruption of the everyday grind, a little jolt from the taken- for- granted joys of home. Now I must use my new frame of reference to appreciate what I have here in the moment. Nothing stays the same, life is changing as we live it. As the moments pass, so do many things – some beautiful, some not. Or so it seems.

Life is and is not what it seems. I becry about its adversities so much. I find so much fault with people and relationships. But now, in this moment, I find that it is I, seeing the world with the wrong pair of eyes. My vision has cleared momentarily. Everything is as it should be. The world and life is a stage. We are but a temporary cast. The story lines and players are complex and forever changing.

I’ve come to appreciate all of life’s acts – the happy and tragic. They are all necessary and beautiful as one transitions into the next. There is flow. We cannot stop it. We have to play our part.

SO HAPPY TO SEE YOU

Posted on October 24, 2017 by hafong

We should all be like our pet dogs. We were gone for just 2 days. It could have been weeks. When we got back to pick up Sheba at the sitter’s, she was beside herself with happiness. She ran out the door and galloped around Carol’s front yard. Back and forth she ran, kicking up her heels like a donkey, squealing with delight. She let us know that she was so happy to see us.

Why can’t we be like that, not afraid to show our feelings. If you care about someone, don’t hide and be coy about it. Show your appreciation. We might say and do all the right/polite things, but our body language gives us away. Let me tell you, there’s no mistaking Sheba’s body language. She loves us and she’s not afraid to show it.

Sheba has taught me much in our lives together. Love transcend many boundaries. You cannot measure love in the dollars or sense. Love touches you in that special space inside. And she surely has touched us there.

SOME KIND OF CHANGE

Posted on October 23, 2017 by hafong

A change of pace, a change of scene is always good for the soul. It breaks up the routine. It breaks up thoughts. You can’t rely on the same old, same old. You are forced to see something different if not differently.

So here we are in another city, in a hotel. In recent days we’ve experienced the loss of family members. That alone has changed our lives forever. Our days are somehow never going to be the same. The thought makes the losses unbearable and the memories all the more precious.

I see those moments frozen in time. It is as if I could reach out my hand and touch those people. I can almost hear their voices and laughter. So I have not lost them really. I still have had the experience of them in my being. They are still part of who I am.

I am a little sad but I’m also full of their love and my love for them. So really I am happy after all.

THESE LITTLE STARS OF MINE

Posted on October 22, 2017 by hafong

It’s one thing to talk about getting real but another to do it. I was readily led off into cyberspace first thing this morning. I was off again chasing others’ lives rather than my own. But it’s out of the way now (I hope). I’ll work on getting back into my own now.

The morning is as gloomy as can be. I’ll try to rise above my inertia and shine this little light of mine. I can’t sit and count others to do it for me. It has never happened. Why would it now? I better sit up and polish up my stars so they can twinkle and light up my world. I’ve folded up some laundry and a load is in the washer. Some ripe tomatoes are sorted, washed, bagged and in the freezer. The heavy traffic floors are vacuumed. I’m sipping my second cup of tea here, tapping out my thoughts and progress.

What I know for sure is it is difficult to be in the here and now. Seems like my natural inclination to drift anywhere but here. It feels uncomfortable to deal with whatever it is in front of me. I can’t quite understand it but that’s the thing. I don’t know about you, but I push it (whatever it is) aside, behind me – in avoidance. Not that it helps. I still have that uncomfortable, nagging, dreading feeling all the while.

I’m beginning to think all these feelings of avoidance and dread come from the habit of avoidance. It’s a well worn groove now and I need some muscle power to boost myself out. I’ve been spinning and spinning, tap and tapping about it all this time. I fall back in time after time. I need to tell a new story. I need new and better habits. I just have to start with one – now.

STIRRING THE POT

Posted on October 21, 2017 by hafong

I can’t say I’ve done any better today. It’s been a cloudy, wet Saturday. It was one of those days to curl up with a good book and a mug of hot chocolate. And I did – sort of. But I was easily distracted by other things like stories on social media. The book is abandoned and I was chasing a story about a horrific murder. And how did that benefit me? I was not a better person having read it. It darkened my soul and wasted time I could have been reading good literature.

Such is life. Live and learn. How often have I said that? It is the truth though. No use crying over spilt milk. I wasted some time but my morning was well spent. I did the necessities of life. I was in the real world of doing laundry, ridding dog hair and making lunch. I have to make an effort to be more grounded. It’s so easy to lose oneself in virtual reality.

So how am I going to do that? Pinch myself, blink once for yes, twice for no. How am I going to perform the magic of being alive in my own life? I have to admit I have been on the periphery of my own life for the most part. How do you make yourself count when you are an immigrant child of immigrant parents? You don’t speak the language. Your culture is different. You look different. You might be in a melting pot but the ingredients do not blend.

That was my beginning. I’m not crying over spilt milk. I’m stirring the pot to refresh my memories, to find stories, answers, solutions and whatever that comes up. The purpose of this blog, after all, is an archeology dig. But enough digging for now. Tomorrow is another day.

IN MY OWN SPACE

Posted on October 20, 2017 by hafong

Some days it is hard to do anything. Today is one of those days. I feel like I’m just dragging my butt around. It is heavy but I’m moving it somehow. Now I’m trying to write. My wrist is limp and achy. It would be easy not to bother and just sink into my lethargy. I have many days feeling like this. It would be disastrous if I give into my rathers. I’m such a whiner but at least I’m doing it in my own space. Nobody has to listen. They can tune out or turn me off and I wouldn’t be any the wiser.

That is the beauty of having my own space to come to. I can tap my heart out, exuberantly if I’m excited and enthused. I can cry and whine if I am sad. I’m letting off steam either way. No one is bothered. I’m not hurting anyone. It’s all my own stuff. Then I could move on to the next best thing.

Some days the next best thing is just picking up the pieces. Today I picked up a lot of dog hair. On days like today, they’re everywhere – in clumps. That’s what you have when you have a dog. But she is so precious and loving. She’s worth all that hair. She gets me out whether I want to or not. And that’s a good thing.

Well, that’s about it. Nothing more to say.

HOW TO LIVE IN EQUANIMITY

Posted on October 18, 2017 by hafong

I’ve come to accept that I am a striver, always trying, to do better, to be more. I am a restless soul. In this life, I will always be busy trying and trying. I will rest later – in my next life.

It’s not for lack of trying that I don’t get along with people. I’m feeling I’ve failed miserably in that department. It seems that I’m always thinking, thinking and thinking what else can I do, how else can I be, to get along, to please people. I feel I’m always lacking, that it’s all my fault. I should have. I ought to. Why didn’t I?

I am exhausted by it all now – this getting along with people, this pleasing them. There seems to be no pleasing. What about me? Don’t I deserve some consideration after all I HAVE done. I felt incensed. I felt like screaming. I did scream yesterday. I felt caught between a rock and a hard place. I was damned if I do and damned if I don’t. Trapped! So often in life, trying to live in equanimity, turning the other cheek.

I was harvesting my carrots in the raised bed yesterday. I kept seeing those little spruce trees wherever I stepped. In frustration and anger I stomped on them. The neighbour had planted them in our yard. She claims that it’s part of her yard. She weeds the strip along her driveway on our side and said she will probably until she dies. She hates weeds. She also has the Weed Man spray herbicide along the strip – right where we have our vegetable bed.

I have called the Weed Man office to complain that it is actually our property they are spraying and we have food growing there. They have put the information on the file but I will follow up in spring. Trying to deal with the neighbour directly in the past have not successful. It only made things worse. She comes back at you in a different direction. What is best is no interaction whatsoever. Sometimes I forget and then there’s hell to pay. It gets exhausting sometimes. I’m trying to look at it in a different way.

Those little spruce trees will grow taller. They’ll be a fence and barrier against the snow she likes to shovel into our yard. Take a breath. There’s a silver lining in every problem. Take another breath. She is teaching me a lesson. There is no pleasing other people. I have to take care of myself, living up to my own personal code of conduct. Take another breath. I’m over the frustration and anger.

LIKE A TRAINED SEAL

Posted on October 15, 2017 by hafong

There are more days than not that I don’t feel like doing anything. Days where I feel I need a shovel to pry me off the couch. I’ve gone through a bout of insomnia. Now I feel like I have sleeping sickness. I’m sleepy as soon as I get out of bed. Life is difficult as M. Scott Peck says in The Road Less Travelled. He wasn’t kidding.

The reason I don’t stay down is it is more exhausting resting than not. So I pushed myself up and out. By now I have trained myself well to get up, dress up and show up even somnolent. I am like a trained seal, performing in life’s circus. Don’t worry if I do sound dark and sardonic. This is my tapping voice. I’m speaking mostly to myself, sorting out feelings and problem solving. I’m feeling the hibernation response – nature’s call to slow down. I should have been a bear.

But I am not. I must rise to the call of being human as best as I can. I am probably not as slow and despondent as I feel. My chili peppers are dehydrating on the deck, the tomatoes are saucing on the stove and the pork roast is in the oven. I will finish my tea, Dyson the floor. Then Sheba and I will head out for our walk and some sunshine. The fresh air will perk us up. Another day.

NO MORE FLOUNDERING

Posted on October 14, 2017 by hafong

I always look forward to my Saturday morning swim no matter the weather. It was a chilly -8 Celsius at 7 am. The petunias are maybe blooming their last hurrah. They have done well, cheering and showering me with their brightness into October. They have earned their rest.

As always, it is relaxing and restful to glide into the pool and let the warmth of the water wash over me. More so when I have the luxury of a lane to myself. I can just swim back and forth at my own pace. I don’t have to worry about anyone grabbing my toes because I am too slow.

I went into the fast lane as it was the only one empty. It was on the opposite side of where I am used to – the slow lane. There is always something different for me to work up to. Even the flow of the water felt different. It was all good though. I practiced at accepting and working with all these ‘differences’. I tried not to worry about a fast swimmer arriving and kicking me out of the lane. When I worry and panick, I flouder. I would get water up my nose. Then I would be coughing and struggling more.

Today, I worked at not panicking and floundering. Ok, I tell myself. I have a right to be here. I stilled my thoughts. I stopped thrashing around. I slowed my kick and swam steadily up and down the lance. No one booted me out of the lane.

NOT DESPERATELY SEEKING

Posted on October 13, 2017 by hafong

I’m slipping, sliding on the slippery slope. Hard to find traction though I’m digging my heels in. Hope I don’t fall too far down the hill. There’s no Jack around to catch me. Well, what can I do but my best?

From experience, when I’m feeling like this, it is best not to do anything grand, daring or new. It is best to just hunker down, read, knit, doodle and other such safe activities. This is not the time to go desperately seeking happiness or feeling good. It is also not the time to contemplate what it all means. And by all means, I should not try to solve those world problems. Just breathe. Put one foot in front of the other. And smile. Smiling relaxes you. That’s what the yoga lady says. I smile. It works. It breaks up my face and scatters pesky thoughts.

Now it is evening. I’m fed, watered and showered. I’m in the home stretch. I’m going to doodle and call it a day. Tomorrow I can try for better.

onethousandandtwo

Looking at Infinity