Yearn-to-Run

jet propulsion

   Back on Father's Day, I was surprised by Doralyn and the boys with the gift of a Running Room Learn-to-Run clinic membership. These clinics are designed for people who are interested in entering the "running life" or at least testing the waters. As added incentive and moral support, she also signed herself up!
   We showed up together at the Running Room store in downtown London in early August and met Kathryn, our instructor, and a handful of other "newbies". The structure of these clinics is that you receive in-store instruction for the first half hour or so and then you actually get out and run. You run in increments; run a minute, walk a minute up to a total of twenty minutes and then, the following week, you run two minutes and walk one minute up to twenty and so on, over consecutive weeks. Eventually, you end up walking one minute and running ten and, at this point, you have finished the Learn-to-Run clinic.
   They actually teach you how to run properly; what part of your foot needs to land first, how high the knees should be, how long the stride, where your head should point, even what direction your thumbs should face. Apparently all these things make a difference.
   For me, the toughest thing to learn was not to have your heel land first. We were taught what they call a "mid-foot strike", where your foot lands much closer to your toes than your heels. This felt very unnatural to me until I got used to it. Now, it feels unnatural to do it the old way.

I will need different motivation, however

   Right at the moment, we are at the end of the clinic and are looking towards out target race. It is called the "Gobbler Gallop" and most of us are entered in the 3K race. The in-store teaching session this week touched on race strategy and etiquette. My strategy is to not drop dead and to be polite while I am not doing that!
   Doralyn, by the way, was amazing in the way she supported me in this. We went to the first two or three sessions together and then would go out on regular training runs in our neighbourhood. Quickly, though, she developed shin splints and this greatly decreased her ability to both run and get any enjoyment out of it. She plugged on, even through all that, like a trooper. Eventually, though, it didn't make much sense to continue if all it was going to do was cause pain. So I have continued on my own, with her encouraging me from afar.

What MOST of the "Gobbler Gallopers" will see...

   Where I go from the "Gobbler Gallop" is any body's guess. I've been asked to join the 5K clinic which seems to be the natural progression from the Learn-to-Run. This, however, will take me right into the winter and I'm not sure I'm quite ready for snow and ice yet. Something about broken legs... On top of everything else, ball hockey will start soon and many nights it would conflict with the running. So I don't know, we'll see. I'm not sure if eventually I will wind up being one of those guys who needs to get and run three or four times a week, or not. I suspect not but, once again, we'll see.


...but what I hope at least ONE "Gobbler Galloper" will see.

   Whether I become a runner or not, the idea of being in a race (though it'll be more like a fun run) is kind of intriguing, though. I hadn't even thought about it (or signed up, for that matter) until we started talking strategy this week. We're not talking huge strategy, if you must know, more like "don't run too fast at the beginning or you'll die near the start line instead of the finish line". Not much but enough to fuel the little bit of competitive spirit in me. Right now, I'm imagining being right at the back of the pack with about half a kilometer to go. And then passing one person...
  
    
  

Cemetery Truth

   Okay, there is something kind of creepy about 'the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth'.
   I say this because I don't believe any of us actually want to be weighted down by the truth. The whole truth, that is.
   Here is an example of what I mean by the 'whole truth'.
   I drive past a couple of cemeteries on my way to and from work each day. I was stopped in traffic once beside one of these cemeteries and found myself gazing out over it. There were hundreds of headstones, many pathways, and beautiful shrubbery. All in all, a pretty landscape. My imagination, however, kicked in while I was sitting there and I started to picture what I actually would be looking at if there was no grass, no dirt, no trees and no shrubs, if somehow all those things were invisible. I realized I would be looking at thousands of caskets, just suspended there. I then imagined what I'd be faced with if those same caskets were invisible. I would be looking out over a sea of decayed or decaying corpses. That is the 'whole truth' I am talking about.

   I suspect that, if we were faced with this particular 'whole truth' on a regular basis, most of us would find a way to avoid driving past cemeteries. Ever.
   This,then, is what I mean when I say 'truth', in this blog.
   It's not just cemeteries. I am sure there are vegetarians out there who looked down at the meat they were eating and realized what the truth of it was simply by going backwards to the cow. In between the live cow and the dead meat there were a million other truths as well while that steak made its way to us. The server who brought it to us or the butcher at the supermarket or the cashier who rang it in all have their own truths and, in a truthful world, we would know what those are. We know what they are thinking, where they've been, and what went on in their bathrooms this morning. We know what their hopes and aspirations are, we know what their plans are for the rest of the day. We know what their fleeting thoughts about us are.
   What would it be like going to work in a truthful world? How much more difficult would it be to function there if you knew what your co-workers were thinking about you. No, what they were REALLY thinking about you! How much altered would your work life be if you knew that no-one there trusted you? On the other hand, how might things change if you knew that the majority of the company's employees thought you were a top-notch worker? What if you knew one of them hated you? How would it be different if one of them was in love with you? I'm thinking that it would end up being almost impossible to work there, anymore.

   If the concrete in high rise apartment buildings was invisible what would you see, looking up? A little bit of everything, I imagine, most of it boring and likely a lot of it would be stuff you didn't really want to see; people going to the bathroom, taking out the garbage, vacuuming, having sex, beating on each other, and on and on. Much of it, I suspect, would be people just sitting there in front of one screen or another, ruminating. Or worse.
   I occasionally (constantly) find myself stopped in traffic, surrounded by people in cars on all four sides. It's hard not to wonder where they're headed and why. Sometimes I find myself wondering at the sheer numbers of them. I often try and imagine what kind of a mood they're in and what disasters or triumphs have recently occurred. I assume that in the vast number of fellow drivers I've had the occasion to share a stoplight with there were one or two who had just committed a crime, another two or three who were about to, several who'd just received a cancer diagnosis, a few who'd just been proposed to, some on their way to brand new jobs, some who'd just been been fired, a handful who were on their way back to get that thing they'd forgotten, some who were driving for the first time and some who were driving for the last.
   Were we to know all these truths, how easy would it be to sit there at that light and simply wait for it to change? Probably not very.

   So I am thankful for the dark earth and the green plants in cemeteries and I am thankful for the impenetrable concrete in buildings and I am thankful for the steel in my car which shields me from its machinations and I am thankful for the thousands of miles between me and starving children and I am thankful for occasional blank stares and forced smiles. They all help me get from here to there and back again.
     
  
   

Loved Ones

   I am under the impression that there is a possibility I may run into some of my loved ones after I pass away. You certainly hear and see this talked about. Generally, it is talked about in a hopeful, comforting kind of way.
   I am thinking it would be nice to see a friendly face when I arrive on the "other side" and there are many of my loved ones whose faces I would be happy to see again. Any time that I have seen a medium on T.V., talking to the departed, it seems as though our loved ones are there and eagerly waiting our arrival.
   I can't tell you how many questions this raises in my mind, the idea that there may be an afterlife full of spirits and that there might be people here on earth who can communicate with them. So I will only raise one of them here.
   Who is a "loved one"?
   I have a pretty good idea of who a lot of my loved ones are I could potentially be seeing again. There are all sorts of family members, aunts, uncles, parents, grandparents and so on who have passed and could be there waiting for me.
   There are, however, a large number of people who I've been very close to as well who weren't relatives and isn't it quite possible I could run into them also? I have worked with people who have passed away, both staff and people our agency supports and I have been involved with many of them on an almost daily basis and it would almost make sense that if there is an afterlife then they would be partaking of it. Perhaps with me.

   I sometimes wonder if, in amongst the people I know, I might also run into total strangers. Or do you only come across loved ones? What if you "loved" someone but they didn't love you back? What if you only used to love someone, or vice-versa?
   Mediums make you believe that your loved ones who have passed are watching over you, on almost a constant basis. Do they choose to do this or are they compelled to do so, by some sort of other-worldly job description? I wonder if they ever get a break, maybe watch over a stranger's shoulder for awhile. I wonder how emotional they get as their loved ones continue on after them. Do they sense the passing of time and do they get impatient, waiting?
   As I sit here and write this, I wonder if I'm the only entity reading the words on the screen. Perhaps I should type a message...
   Any time I have seen a medium on T.V., one of the most consistent messages the departed seem to want to convey to their loved ones is don't be sad, get on with your life and everything is okay here. Somehow, this rings true with me, I can almost imagine wanting to comfort my loved ones back on earth this way after I've passed. Although I don't particularly believe in God, I do tend to believe in the afterlife and I see it as something not to be feared.
   I'm just not sure who I'm going to see there.
  
  

Pointing

   I was at a BBQ with my family just recently and my youngest stepson became engaged in an extremely mild....well, for the lack of a better word...tantrum.
   He was in the middle of an exchange with Doralyn when, all of the sudden, he pointed a finger at her. I think he might even have actually touched her with it.

   I feel strongly about finger-pointing, of the literal variety, and having anyone point a finger at my wife or perhaps even poke her with it elicits a strong response. So I was very briefly all over my stepson and that was the end of it. The finger-pointing part, anyway.
   There is something about an angry interaction between two people which eventually escalates into either one or both of them pointing the finger. It is almost as if all the pent up hostility funnels down to one narrow, almost-rifled aperture. The words have become almost useless and the pointed finger has taken over.
   I am as prone as the next person to using a pointed finger. It is almost as if I'm saying I'm really angry and right now all that anger is pointed directly at YOU!

Aahhh, if only to have this power...

   Generally, when I have sunk to the level of pointing my finger at someone during a heated exchange, my mind is engaged in either one or both of two thought processes; either I am right or I am the boss. This is rather ironic, as I only ever actually think I'm right and I'm almost never actually the boss but my mind works in funny ways sometimes.
   I was engaged in an exchange once with someone who was angrier than I was when, in the middle of it, he pointed his finger at me. And then cocked the trigger of his imaginary gun. This had taken finger-pointing to a whole new, imaginarily-lethal, level. I did what I usually do--I pointed my finger back at him, thereby creating a "standoff". Fortunately, no-one was hurt.
   I occasionally use my pointed finger for less conflict-related issues. Often, I find myself looking for someone in particular out of a crowd of people. When I find that person, I point. I then turn my hand over and slowly make the beckoning gesture. And, magically, they rise and follow. At other times, I can be passing someone at a distance, see them, and simply point and smile. Often, they simply point back. In this way, we have had a brief, yet somehow viable, conversation. I often point, in a congratulatory way, to guys who've made good plays on the ball hockey floor. Saves the voice, really. Athletes will often point skyward after a great play, apparently in praise of the god that gave them this ability. I am waiting for the athlete who, after making a horrendous play, also points skyward. Only seems appropriate...


"HE did it!" "No, HE did it!"

   I haven't even touched on finger-pointing of the non-literal variety; the blame-laying and whistle-blowing. I purposely have not done this because it really has nothing to do with...well...your finger. Perhaps another day and another blog.
   Now, I hope after all this you don't have the impression I'm a finger-pointing hothead. Far from it, if anything I'm probably too passive. That's why, when you reach the finger-pointing stage with me, you've probably strayed just a touch. So WATCH IT!!
  
  
  

  

Credentials

  
   I have none, really. Unless you count my S.S.H.G.D. (secondary school honours graduation diploma) and, by the way, most people don't.
   Most of the staff where I work have a DSW diploma, indicating they have graduated from the Developmental Services Worker program. I was in this program at one time, aced the academic part of it, but was unable to do the placement component because I was already working full-time. So I guess that part of my academic career is on hold. Likely forever.
   This has never really bothered me. There is nothing in particular about a DSW behind your name that makes you a good worker. Some of the worst workers I've seen over the years had a DSW and some of the best didn't.
   A credential, from the Latin root, is simply something which lends you credibility. There are lots of things that lend you credibility that have nothing to do with letters after your name or college attendance in your resumé. Things like creativity, energy, thoughtfulness, compassion, introspection, patience and common sense.
   I suppose if the above characteristics lend you credibility then other characteristics might detract from your credibility. These could possibly include laziness, dishonesty, aggression, mean-spiritedness and manipulation.
   If only there was some way of de-valuing a person's credentials based on how well they actually did their job over specified periods of time. I'm sorry Dr.(oops, I meant Mister) Jamieson, but four of your patients have died this week and we really need that "M.D." back! At the same time, wouldn't it be cool if you could somehow acquire credentials through the excellence of your hard work? I can hear it now...Okay, man, you've been doing great for 15 years now, here's your PhD!

   So I realize that you may be potentially incredulous that I am essentially credential-less but, really, I am not having a problem with it. We had some stuff in storage for awhile but then moved it back and as I was sorting the piles of paper this produced I actually ran across my forty-year-old high school graduation diploma. Briefly, I thought I should frame this and hang it on the wall in my office if I ever get one. I may still do that, it could hang there alongside my 1972 Volleyball MVP trophy and all my Grade Eight award patches and, if there was remaining space, I could also add my First Aid re-certification card. At least people would feel safe in my office.
   I was talking to someone a couple of weeks ago who I think was working on her doctorate in musicology. We talked about dissertations and doctorates and theses and the like and agreed that you could spend up to eight years of your life getting a credential. It was not hard to sit there and think of all the good you could do in the world with eight years of a life not being devoted to obtaining a credential of one kind or another.

   You could start by doing one good thing. One good thing generally leads to another. Before you know it there is a mountain of good things on your resumé, you have a valued, self-fulfilling career and life and there is not a credential to be found.
  
  

  
  
  

Anxiety

   About a month ago, I was asked to give a short speech at a work gathering. I was fine with this when asked and agreed to take on the responsibility.
   I was still fine with this right up until the day before the work gathering when all of the sudden it hit me--holy crap, I have to give a speech at a work gathering!
   At this point my anxiety simply took off. I began to visualize standing up there in front of the crowd and everything going wrong. Originally, I had envisioned doing a very informal, off-the-cuff type of speech, using perhaps only point form reminders on a piece of paper. I then envisioned looking down and not having any idea what the point forms meant. I envisioned my papers flying away. I envisioned the worse case of dry mouth, totally incapacitating me. More than anything, I envisioned the dreaded pause. The dreaded pause as over a hundred people are staring at me, waiting for me to say...anything. At this point, I actually envisioned having to leave the microphone, make up some half-baked excuse for why I was unable to continue and then never face those people again. Ever.
   At times, I was able to convince myself that I was going to be talking in front of a group of people I'd known for almost my entire adult life and that they would understand and not be judgemental, if anything did go wrong. Momentarily, thinking this way set me more at ease. Of course, then I remembered that if anything did go wrong, I would somehow be reminded of it daily, because these were people I saw every day.
   The end result of all this was that I spent much of the day with my stomach tied in knots. I wasn't hungry (unusual for me) and I couldn't force myself to actually do anything around the house. To escape this feeling, I actually went back to bed, in the middle of the day and pulled the covers up over my head. All this over a little, informal speech, in front of friends!
   My boss, Ken, asked me to do this speech, mainly because he didn't want to do it mainly because he feels the same as I do and neither one of us can really figure this one out. It doesn't really make a lot of sense, this suffocating sense of anxiety around public speaking. I've had it ever since I can remember, way back in public school. Once a year, we all were forced to do a 5-minute speech, topic of our choice. I never had much of a problem writing the speech, of course. It was the five minutes I had to spend at the front of the class that terrified me. I knew we were all in the same boat together but that didn't really make it feel any better. We would draw numbers to determine the speaking order and I was never quite sure whether I wanted to put it off to the end or get it over and done with near the beginning. One thing was for sure--I never even heard the people who spoke ahead of me. Once I was done, though, I was able to sit back and actually listen to what was going on.

   A little later on in my life, I occasionally found myself reading poems I'd written at poetry recitals. This, again, was agony. The agony was in the waiting, more than anything, once I got started I would quickly relax and actually begin to enjoy myself. This is pretty common with me, once I am in the middle of whatever kind of presentation I am doing I'm okay. Unfortunately, it's almost like I need drugs to get there.
   At some point, the day before my work speech, I decided to abandon the "off the cuff" approach and simply write out exactly what I was planning on saying and then read it out loud, to the assembled masses. Once I changed my plan of attack, the anxiety (the debilitating part of it) seemed to more or less melt away, much to my relief.
   I don't do a lot of public speaking so I have never really spent a lot of time working on strategies to avoid this kind of anxiety. I greatly admire people who are able to get up there and just talk comfortably, without having to read right off a page and perhaps that is the ideal I was aspiring to when I got so off track. Perhaps I will never be a professional emcee. If not, no big deal.
   My brief little anxiety attack now has me truly wondering how people with real anxiety cope, on a regular basis. What must it be like to wake up every day and be so totally paralyzed that all you can do is crawl back under the covers. It's also not hard to understand why some people don't cope, at all. My biggest fear about my speech was that I would not perform to an acceptable standard. I wonder what life would be like if not performing to an acceptable standard meant you got the crap beaten out of you on a daily basis. Or that you were constantly on the edge of losing your job. Or that someone might die. And no covers to hide under. Contemplating such things certainly put my little work speech in its rightful place.
   My life has returned to normal thank goodness. Actually, it was back to normal about five seconds after the speech ended. My boss, bless him, has promised me many more of these speaking assignments. For my part, I have promised only to ghost-write!
  
  
  
  
  

100th Blog!!

   As the title suggests, this is my 100th blog! The beauty of this is that I don't have to think of something to write about, it is its own subject!
   Having something to write about is not generally an issue, I have given myself free rein to write about whatever strikes my fancy and there's usually something going on upstairs (in my head) so no problems there, for the most part.
   The other memorable thing which likely will happen tonight or tomorrow is that I will have reached 5,000 page views. At this point, as well, people from 47 different countries have visited, at least once. As I've stated before, it's not hard to get here accidentally, the internet being what it is, but I'm still impressed to see the world map covered as much as it is.
   In the world of blogging, I'm not sure that 100 blogs and 5,000 page views is particularly extraordinary, so I'm not going to celebrate a heck of a lot, just yet. I probably would have been surprised a year and a half ago when I started this if I'd been told I was still be doing this, this much later. There is something slightly addictive to the process, however, so I am still writing away.

   I do look at other people's blogs and think to myself hmmm...you could be doing so much more...so it could well be the look of the blog will change in the future. I am, however, thinking it's about time to sit down and do some serious writing for a change, something along the line of "Fifty Tinges of Beige" or something like that, you know, a huge money-maker! Unfortunately, this would also mean staying on the same topic for a long time and I'm guessing I'd have a hard time doing this.
   Speaking of staying on topic, as happy as I am with the number of people who have visited "Neanderings" since I started, I suspect I'd probably have a lot more page views if I picked a topic and more or less stuck with it. Like, if I picked "opera" as an example (bad example) and basically only wrote about opera eventually I'd have tons of opera fans out there who couldn't wait to see my next post. But I don't do that, I just kind of flitter around all over the place. I'm also happy flittering and I suspect it provides more to talk about (there is a finite number of operas out there) so I suspect not much will change anytime soon.
   It would be cool to get a few more comments, right on the blog itself. It does occasionally feel like I'm writing in a vacuum and a comment, negative or otherwise, would be awesome. There is a spot at the very bottom of each blog to post comments and I think it's pretty simple to do, so...feel free! There is also a menu to the right of the blog which takes you to past entries. Even just clicking on a date will open up a whole list of posts made during that time frame. So if you're at all surprised and had no idea that there's been 100 blogs, feel free to click and browse (and comment!)
   To those of you who have been faithful readers, I thank you greatly. I know there's so much stuff that shows up on the internet these days that it's pretty easy to see a link to something and just ignore it--I'm guilty of that myself. I also know that some of my blogs take a little time to read and I appreciate the fact that anybody does take the time, believe me!

Where it all happens--at least the "blogging" part...

   Well, the other thing I've taken up lately is running and it's just about time to head out there with my Sweetie (who, by the way, has always been very supportive of "Neanderings" and the time that gets devoted to it--just one of the many reasons why I love her so much) so I'm going to "sign off" now and, hopefully, if I survive the run, will blog again another day! Cheers! And thanks for reading!
  
  
  

Prayer

   Every now and then, it feels like you should pray. Sometimes you get asked to pray, occasionally someone will offer up a reason for prayer which seems unavoidably worthwhile so you pray. Generally this means that someone is quite ill or is facing very dire circumstances. Because we are all so interconnected these days, quite often many people end up praying, more or less at the same time and for the same reason.

   The interesting thing to consider is what prayer means to each individual doing the praying and how the process of prayer might differ from person to person.
   I am not a religious person by any means and yet I still believe prayer is a worthwhile thing. Prayer, for me, consists of stopping what I'm doing and simply concentrating on whatever needs tending to at the time. I am not directing my prayer anywhere but right straight to the person or thing that needs it at the moment. There is no communion with a god, I am not sending my prayer off to a supreme being and asking him or her to consider it. No, I send it right to where it is needed the most. As far as I know.

   I tend to believe there is some power in prayer. I believe this because I think we've all dipped into the same energy that was created billions of years ago when the universe was created. That same energy is still around, in one form or another and we all belong to it. I believe this more for the sheer physics of it than anything. That is why I think it doesn't hurt to try and send some healing energy one way or the other. Now, I didn't have a guru tell me any of this, it is simply my own personal belief. That I just foisted on you...

   You can pray in the car, you can pray in the bathroom, you can pray at the end of the team bench, you can pray at the foot of your own bed just before you crawl in. You can use the conventional "clasped hands" prayer method or you can fold them behind your head while you're lying there in the hammock. You can pray and brush your teeth at the same time. Pray to a god or to no god in particular. Pray a lot or pray a little. Don't pray at all, if you don't believe in prayer. Do a good deed for someone who needs it. You wouldn't need to call it a prayer...but it almost is.
  
  
  

Screens

   There is a scene from the movie "Poltergeist" where a little girl in a terrorized family sits in front of the family T.V. and senses, through the screen, the re-appearance of demonic spirits.
   It is this way in our house every day.
   You simply cannot get away from screens; little ones, big ones, bright ones, dull ones, American ones and Japanese ones, folding ones and sliding ones.

The screen will get you!

   They are ever-present and ever-functioning. They are in every room in the house and every seat in the car, in every pocket and every purse. They are on your desk and on your lap. You can't get away from them.
   These screens bring different things into our lives. Some of what they bring is information; the news, weather, current events. Some of them bring security and communication, the sense that you can be reached in an emergency or that plans can be made or changed. Mostly, though, they bring entertainment.
   Some of the entertainment is pure escapist fun. Some of it is thought-provoking and informative. Much of it is simply mindless.

   It is the mindless stuff emanating from the screens around us that concerns me. If you watch too much of it for too long, your jaw will actually begin to slacken. There is simply a long list of people behaving badly onscreen these days, from cat fights to casual sex to mobsters wives to a thousand ways of dying to cake-baking to which warriors kill the best to self-absorbed housewives from all over the continent. You have shows about polygamy and shows about vehicle repossessions. There are shows about parking enforcement and how to hurt someone as a practical joke, for goodness sake! And, in all of these, there are the afore-mentioned people behaving badly.

   There are almost no shows about redemptive behaviour to be found. It didn't seem that long ago where T.V. had a plethora of shows wherein the characters actually had some character. You could name "The Cosby Show", "Little House on the Prairie", "Stairway to Heaven", "Touched By An Angel" and, before all these, you had "My Three Sons", "Leave it to Beaver", "The Andy Griffith Show", "Father Knows Best" and on and on and on.
   For the most part, people in the old shows got into predicaments and then learned how to get out of them the right way, generally through honesty, foresight, introspection and good manners. Not a lot of that kind of stuff pops out at you through screens these days. You don't even need talent to be on T.V. anymore, all you really need to know is how to chase pigs, trap vermin, shoot alligators, choose a wedding dress, renovate a house, drive poorly,or sing badly. When it comes right down to it, all you really need to have in order to be on T.V. these days is a job...
   If you're an adult and you're reading this then none of it is news. If you're an adult and you've got a house full of kids then, right at the moment, you're up against it. I'm probably a little to blame myself, I do spend an inordinate amount of time in front of a screen, generally my laptop. I'm usually checking Facebook, checking e-mails or playing games. A huge chunk of that, though, is spent doing what I'm doing right now. Blogging. At times, blogging itself is a little mindless but most of the time it's pretty heavy darn slogging with a lot of mental energy expended. I am also guilty of checking e-mails from my phone (and its little screen) throughout the day. None of this is going to leave me slack-jawed anytime soon, though, thank goodness.
   As bad as all this is now, it seems as though it can only get worse. I don't see the current young generation tiring of the things they see on screens anytime soon. People are actually dying because what they think they might see on a screen while driving is more important to them than what they might see through their car's windshield. It is not uncommon to enter a den or living room these days and have every person present there engaged with a screen of various size. Sometimes they are engaged with multiple screens.

No screen--just straight to the brain!

   It's hard to say where all this might end. Every once in awhile we force all the screens to close down and we actually do something. The strange part is, we usually enjoy whatever that activity is. Sooner or later, though, it's back to the screens. Perhaps eventually there will be no more screens, we will all have neuron implants and the information or entertainment we seek will just go straight to our brains. And, by then, we will all need our jaws wired in the closed position!
  
  

Brother Husbands?

   There is a "reality" show on T.V. these days called "Sister Wives". It revolves around the day-to-day struggles in a one man-four women marriage. Theirs is obviously a polygamous union and it falls under the auspices of the Mormon church. The man's name is Kody Brown and his wives are Janelle, Robyn, Meri and Christine. Between them, there are seventeen children. As a group they are all quite likable. Somehow or other they make the unlikely arrangement work, at least the part of it you see on T.V. There are issues, of  course, one of them being jealousy as you can imagine.
   The show also makes me quite angry, pretty well every time I watch it.

   The source of my anger stems from man-centricity of it. I'm not even sure that "man-centricity" is a word but I am going to use it anyway. Kody is a very well-spoken man who comes off as being quite charismatic. He seems to try his best at being a good father and husband to all his wives and children. When it comes right down to it, though, he runs the show. He seems quite willing to listen to all arguments but whatever he ultimately decides should happen, does. He says that the reason the relationships work is because they are based on genuine love.
   The kicker for me, though, is that I don't believe Kody Brown would even consider a relationship which was perhaps woman-centric. I cannot see him being one of four Brother Husbands, as an example. I cannot see him waiting his turn while his wife is off spending time with one of her other husbands. I do not see him likely bonding with the other husbands. I just can't, and this is the source of my anger.
   In totality, this show represents to me an essential problem with society today--men controlling women. It is not hard to look around in your everyday life and see examples of women being controlled by men. I find it especially galling that, on this one T.V. show, you have one man controlling four women at the same time.
   Whether any of the Sister Wives believe she is being controlled or not is hard to guess. In their own ways they seem like pretty strong women. They also seem to have done a pretty good job of bonding between the four of them. It's almost as if they were survivors on a life raft after a plane crash. All of the sudden you are in the same boat with strangers, nothing's going to change anytime soon, so you better learn how to get along and flourish as much as possible.
   The other part of all this which bothers me is the part the church plays. The Browns are Mormons and plural marriages are a practice condoned, at least in part, by this church. There is nothing much more man-centric than most religions and Mormonism is a leading example. In other blogs I have stated some of my concerns about organized religion and its historical place in society. One of my other concerns is the position of power it places most men in, even in these enlightened days.

"Brother Husbands"?

   So, all in all, it's a little hard to sit there and watch four intelligent women engage in a relationship I'm pretty sure the man would have no part of. Quite frankly, if one of them upped and "divorced" him it would kind of make my day.
   I put the word "divorced" in quotation marks because my understanding is that Kody is only legally married to Meri, his first wife, and that the other three women are only married to him "spiritually". The legal authorities, however, tend to think of "spiritual" as being akin to "common law", in which case what the Browns are up to would be considered illegal. As a family, they have already found it necessary to leave Utah and move to Las Vegas, to escape possible legal ramifications.
   So whether Kody gets dumped by a wife or wives or gets thrown in jail matters little to me. If, however, somehow or other there was a reality show called "Brother Husbands" and he was on it, I'd sit down faithfully and watch, every single week! 
  

Nessun Dorma (just a little bit of opera...)

Placido Domingo, José Carreras, and Luciano Pavarotti
 

   I am not a huge opera fan. I can only actually name probably four or five of them. A few years ago, though, I accidentally ended up watching a PBS special in which "The Three Tenors" sang "Nessun Dorma", an aria from an opera called "Turandot", by Giacomo Puccini. The Three Tenors were comprised of Placido Domingo, José Carreras and Luciano Pavarotti. An aria is normally sung by one person but for this performance each of the tenors sang portions of it.

Giacomo Puccini

   By the time the song was over, I had chills running up and down my spine and you could tell that it had had the same effect on the audience. I missed the actual title of the aria and had to investigate further to find out what it was called. Since then I have heard many versions of Nessun Dorma by a wide variety of performers, both male and female. I have included the Three Tenors version here, not because its version is anymore superior to another but simply because, with one viewing, you will see three extraordinary musical talents.
   I have decided to include both the Italian words to the opera as well as their English translation below:

Nessun dorma! Nessun dorma!
Tu pure, o, Principessa,
nella tua fredda stanza.
guardi le stelle
che tremano d'amore
e di speranza.
Mal il mio mistero e chiuso in me,
il nome mio nessun sappra!
No, no, sulla tua bocca lo diro
quando la luce splendera!
Ed il mio bacio sciogliera il silenzio
che to ma fia!
(Il nome suo nessun sapra!...
e noi dovrem, ahime, morir!)
Dilegua, o notte!
Tramontate stelle!
Tramontate stelle!
All'aba vincero!
Vincero, vincero!

Nobody shall sleep!...
Nobody shall sleep!
Even you, o Princess,
In your cold room, watch the stars,
that tremble with love and with hope.
But my secret is hidden within me,
my name no one shall know...
No!...No!...
On your mouth I will tell it when the light shines.
And my kiss will dissolve the silence that makes you mine!...
(No one will know his name and we must, alas, die.)
Vanish, o night!
Set, stars! Set, stars!
At dawn, I will win! I will win! I will win!

   If there had been any hint that opera was something I might have had the slightest interest in probably it was when I was a kid and listened to Mario Lanza singing on the soundtrack album for the movie "The Student Prince". This was an album I would play over and over and much of it was simply due to Lanza's voice, it was like nothing I'd ever heard before. My favourite song on the album was "Drink, Drink, Drink", kind of a boisterous drinking/love song and his voice was magnificent, towering over the men's chorus.
   Until running into the Three Tenors on PBS, however, whatever interest I might have had in opera lay extremely dormant.
   The human vocal cords can be an utterly astonishing thing. Nowhere is this demonstrated as clearly as when you listen to the highly-trained operatic voice. Whether you are an opera fan or not, it is impossible to not be impressed. In researching this one aria alone I ran into the likes of José Cura, Jussi Bjorling and Giuseppe di Stefano, all who have rendered it amazingly. As a further example of the combined power of the voice and this one piece of music you need look no further than Paul Potts' performance of it on "Britain's Got Talent" a few years back. The reaction of both the judges and the audience is testament to the power of opera and this one aria in particular. I can only imagine that most of the people there that evening had barely a working knowledge of opera and yet all were moved.
   I would invite you to test the operatic waters, as it were, when you have the time. These days musical downloads and YouTube, it is possible to do this almost instantaneously. There is wonderfully moving music out there, just waiting for you to experience it.