Lights

   We are all constantly bathed in light these days. We live in a world where everything is endlessly turned on, awaiting our use. There is a light on the microwave, the TV, the clock radio, and the computer screen, iPods, iPads and iPhones. Modems are incessantly blinking and car alarm systems are forever wanting us to know they are on the job. Sensor lights are all over the place and come on even when we don't want them to.
   At night, padding around the house, I am able to peer into rooms and see boys that are finally asleep and yet still awash in the glow of their electronics. I come to bed at night and Doralyn's face is illuminated as she checks final e-mails. Sometimes she is already asleep in the darkness but when I plug in my phone to re-charge it for the night our bed is bathed, once again, in light.
   Lasers show us the straight line to cut on or whether some thing's level or not. They tease our cats.
   It is not easy to be in total darkness any more. It is almost as if someone somewhere has decided we shouldn't be, that perhaps it wasn't wise or prudent.

   I occasionally would welcome total darkness. I have the feeling, somehow, that it might actually be regenerative. Let us sleep and let us grow while we sleep. Let us not wake up, roll over and be accosted by glowing numbers on displays reminding us just where the world is now, on both its flight around the sun and its never-ending rotation on its own axis. Let us not wake up and be reminded about a world where people are just waiting to be in touch with us from behind their own tiny, blinking screens.
   We have a light in our living room that comes on when the daylight disappears and turns off long after we normally go to bed. It is something we ourselves programmed, so that we would never be in the dark, as if that were a bad thing. I enjoy the time when it goes off more than when it comes on, I enjoy the bedtime chore of walking about the house, turning off the lights.
   Occasionally, the moon provides the largest source of light and it is one of my favourite kinds. It is one of the lights we are supposed to live by, along with the sun, which I also welcome. Light from actual fire is wonderful--warmth and illumination is its only purpose, it has no hidden agenda.
   I understand that it cannot always be dark and, of course, wouldn't want it to be. There are healing qualities to light as well and there is nothing quite so good as coming out of what seems like a long dark winter and into the light of spring. More than anything, it is the man-made illumination and its omnipresence I rail against.  
  

Bump On My Head

   I bumped my head last night. I actually bumped it for the second time in a week and a half. We were hooking up a PVR and I was leaning over the TV stand to get a better look when my forehead caught the sharp corner of a shelf. Usually, I don't use this space to talk about my little nicks, sprains, cuts or bruises but bumping my head is different.
   Bumping my head infuriates me, like almost nothing else. More than barking my shin or cutting my finger, bumping my head seems like a personal affront, almost as if the universe has conspired to direct its forces against me, malevolently and violently and personally.
   Last night, had there not been a young and impressionable  lad around, I would have turned the air blue. There was such an urge to vent my anger that it almost felt unhealthy containing it. I'm sure this would surprise most people who know me, generally I am one of the least aggressive and most passive people you are ever going to run into. Nothing much fazes me. Unless I bump my head.

The damage...

   When I bump my head badly what I want to do is flip over the dining room table, yank the fridge out and send it tumbling down to the lower level, rip the doors off the cupboards, throw pots and pans, and toss a lamp or two. Basically, I want to trash the place.
   I have no idea why this is. All sorts of different things can cause me varying amounts of pain without the accompanying urge to fly off into a rage. Why I take so much umbrage with headshots makes little sense.
   There's an expression called "still waters run deep". This is meant to demonstrate that what you see as a personality trait in a person may actually belie a contradictory trait hidden below that person's surface. This may be what's happening with me--outwardly, I'm all calm and gentle while, inwardly, there is this angry beast just waiting for a good enough reason to break free.

...and the cause of the damage

   One of my favourite stories as a kid when I was six or seven was the one my mother would tell to her friends who had stopped by for coffee. She would tell them about the time she was looking out the window and saw me with a cluster of friends on top of me, playfighting. At some point, though, the playfighting gets a little too physical and I suddenly rise up from the bottom of the pile and kids go flying everywhere. Thinking back to that story now, I'm wondering if maybe I got bopped on the head or something, at the bottom of that pile.
   I suspect that there is likely dormant anger in most people, veins which are only tapped under certain circumstances. Mine, obviously, is a blow to the head, although there are circumstances under which this could happen and it would not bother me--getting whacked with a hockey stick or clipped by a tree branch while pruning, as examples. These activities involve varying amounts of risk to your noggin and these risks are self-evident before you begin. It is the random and unexpected head injury which has a whole different feel to it, it's almost as if an inanimate object slapped you on the face, called you "stupid" and then laughed at you. When this happens, all I really want to do is get back at inanimate objects everywhere, even the "innocent" ones.
   Knowing that there is this side to me is a little re-assuring, actually. It would be nice to know, if all of the sudden I was accosted in a dark alley somewhere, that there is a hidden enrgy reserve deep inside which I could then unleash on my attacker(s). With my luck, though, they'd probably hit me in the stomach...

Do you want to save a life?

   I give blood on a regular basis these days. This is something I've only done for a couple of years or so and I only began doing it in response to my ex-wife, Lori, being diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a rare form of blood cancer. Blood transfusions are frequently required as part of this disease's treatment process, hence the need for donated blood.

   I am reminded of Lori's struggle every time I attend the blood donor clinic. Her very supportive group of family and friends have engaged in special blood donor clinics, in her honour, and there is a plaque with her name on it mounted on a display in the lobby of the clinic, commemorating this.
   This is, of course, only one of the many reasons why you might want to donate. Donating blood, as we have all heard many times, saves lives. It is not a particularly difficult or even time-consuming thing to do either. Yet, many of us do not.
   Lori's illness is what prompted me to begin donating on a regular basis but, like a lot of things, once you get over the hump of doing it the first time, it then becomes routine. The clinic staff are already into the routine and once you're on board, a donation goes amazingly quickly. You are only allowed to donate whole blood (plasma can be donated much more often and takes less time) once every fifty-six days. This amounts to about six donations a year and about seven and a half hours of your time, total. In a year. So do it!!

    Blood, however, is not the only life-saving body part we, as humans, are able to donate.
   I have a friend from high school who is desperately in need of a new liver. His name is Gordon Kirkland, he lives in B.C. and he is on the list for a new liver, once one is available. At the moment though, he does not believe it is likely he will receive one in time and is, to use his own words, scared shitless. Part of the problem is that he has one of the rarer blood types. The bigger issue, though, is that people simply do not make arrangements for their organs to be donated at their passing. This apparently is a bigger problem in B.C. than in other parts of Canada because of the ethnic mix there, whole populations of people who believe that their corporeal body parts are essential to them in the afterlife. I suspect the overriding issue, though, is a general unwillingness for people to consider, beforehand, the further defilement of their physical remains, after death.

   Personally, you can take my remains and do whatever you want to with them after I've died. When that time comes, I will have left my physical body so far behind that its disposition will be of no significance to me whatsoever. At the same time, if there is any positive to be be gained by my passing, if even one person can be given sight or a liver that works better or a heart that will power their system for a few more years then why wouldn't I try and make this happen for them?
   When you've made up your own mind about this, you need to make sure you've talked it over with the people you love. They will need a clear understanding of your feelings around the issue. I have done this already and Doralyn feels it only makes sense to donate.

Lori and my two sons, Bryant and Ben.

   Blood regenerates. Take a little time out of your life and share yours with someone who desperately needs it more than you do.
   After you've died, your physical body means nothing to you. Let your loved ones know that it can be used to relieve someone else's pain and perhaps even save their life. It's as easy as signing your card or going online and registering.
   My friend Gordon is an award-winning author and humourist. Lori is the mother of my children. They are both unsure of their futures and I believe they are both scared. I wish only the best for both of them. Below are some websites you can click on to find out more about the donation process and how to go about it.  

http://organ-donation-works.org
http://beadonor.ca
http://www.blood.ca

Gordon Kirkland--the young and the slightly less young

   The first link will take you to the Canadian Transplant Association website. There you will find a map of Canada and, simply by moving your mouse to the province you reside in and clicking, you will be able to access donation information for your particular area.
   The second link is more specific to the organ donation process here in Ontario.
   The third link will connect you with Canadian Blood Services and will tell you anything you need to know about donating your blood.
  
   My friends, please take the time to consider donating blood, tissue or organs. The process involved takes very little in the way of time and energy and costs nothing. I have talked here about two people in my life who have either benefited or could possibly benefit from a donation but we all know someone, I believe, who could benefit now or in the near future. Creating a mindset in which such donations become the norm in our society will eventually benefit us all! It is the best and easiest way to give the most precious gift you can!

  


  



  
  

  

What, They're Playing Again...?

   It looks as though there will be NHL hockey soon. The league's players have been locked out for the past 113 days and there has been a fair bit of mutual acrimony. After much wrangling, however, it sounds as though both sides have come to their senses.
   The fans, of course, have not been amused. Particularly in these times, it is difficult to watch billionaires and millionaires fight over how to get even richer, out our expense.
   The most consistent reaction to hockey resuming in the near future is that perhaps the fans should now do their own version of a "lockout" and just not attend or watch the first few games.
   Were I a regular fan or viewer, I would be happy to do that. I would also find it pretty easy to do as I've simply not missed the NHL while it has been inactive. There has been and always will be a plethora of other sports to watch or follow in some way and the fact of the matter is that I don't watch much sports anymore. Period.
   This has all led me to contemplate the importance of sports in people's lives.
   At the end of the day, many of us turn to a local newscast. What we get is a bit of the world, local and national news. This is significant, I guess, because it seems important to know what's going on in the world around us. Then we get the weather forecast. Particularly in Canada, it is essential, to a point, to have an idea what the environment around us might bring on a daily basis. Then, however, we get the sports.
   Out of all the things which could be presented to us on an evening newscast, sports is what we get. We could get ten minutes worth of issues around spirituality, finances, education, child-rearing, home improvement or a whole wide variety of topics. What we get, though, is a recap of the sporting news.

Possibly the most disliked man in sports...?

   I wonder quite often why the importance of sports? I myself am not immune to its attraction, the first part of the morning paper I go to, barring some calamity on the front page, is the sports section. From there, it's on to the obits. It should be sex and death but, no, it's sports and death.
   So what do I find tantalizing about sports? Part of it, I think, is that it's safe. Very little that happens in the sporting world has a deep impact on my life. It will not affect future earnings and it will not affect my health. It will have no effect on my loved ones' well-being. There is an aura of mindlessness about it that is comforting, there is no need to have to analyze or figure anything out, what you see is what you get.
   More viscerally, however, sports has a hold on many of us. Along with whatever else we were learning as we grew up, sports were omnipresent. What began as play, perhaps even in our cribs with our fingers and toes, eventually became more structured and then became sports. We began using our legs and arms and hearts. Depending on just how much all of this remained fun, we developed our relationship with sports.
   For many of us, the relationship became lifelong. We played until we couldn't possibly play any more and then we continued to be fans. There are not many of us who, at some point in our lives, did not play some version of what is a major professional sport. Because of this, we were able to relate to sports we watched. We knew how amazing some of the feats we watched were because we ourselves had participated and knew their difficulty. We lived vicariously through our favourite teams. Some of us were fortunate enough to be fans of teams which won constantly or at least were in the running. Some of us were not so fortunate but were just as loyal.
   The fact that the NHL lockout has now ended and that soon we will be able to view top calibre hockey again is both a relief and, contradictorily, a ho-hum matter to many. I am looking forward to watching hockey again and yet if there were no hockey it wouldn't bother me in the slightest. There is hockey all around I can watch for free, being played by spirited athletes who earn, and will likely always earn, absolutely nothing for their efforts. So why not watch them instead?
   In its purest form, sports also provides life lessons and things we can apply to our daily lives. Things such as hard work, determination, and resiliency. This has always been part of the appeal for sports for me, watching individual athletes or teams prevail under difficult circumstances. There have always been noble moments in sports that you could somehow apply to your own life in a positive manner. Watching wealthy athletes and owners fight over how to become even richer is not a life lesson to emulate.
   The fact that sports is also a business and has been for a long time is not lost on any of us. As a society, we are used to being abused by banks, oil companies and huge corporations principally because they provide services which we either need or think we need. As fans, we have now been abused and taken for granted by the players and owners of the NHL once again. Theirs, however, is not a service we actually need and they would do well to remember and heed this.
  
  
  

New Year's Resolutions 2013

   Well, I've had a few days now to sit and reflect on 2012 and attempt to conjure up a list of resolutions for 2013. As with most resolutions, they didn't just pop into my head when I sat down to write. Generally, they are a distillation of a whole host of random thoughts and wishes over the previous few months, things which have slowly grown into some sort of resolve. I have listed
ten of them here, in no particular order: 

And right after that I was born...

1. To see more of the Baker Boys This was the biggest disappointment I had in 2012, that I really saw them less than what I had planned. Not sure if it's a "guy" thing or not but, if it is, it needs to be bucked!

2. To write differently  Last year, one of my resolutions was to write "more". I probably did write more but it was all blogging. This year I want to continue to write but I want to sit down and work on a project, most likely a short story to begin with, and then see where things go from there.

3. To change my vocabulary  There are some words I'd like to use a lot less in the coming year. Beginning with the word "awesome" and including the word "cool". These words and some others just roll off the tongue much too easily, it's almost like they're not even words anymore. In a world full of descriptive language, I think I can do better.

4. To beautify my backyard  Currently, my backyard is an empty canvas. There is so much potential there for beautiful and interesting nooks and crannies.

5. To run a 10K race  This is simply a way of saying that I want to continue to run and that I want to run farther.

6. To do something artistic  This is a holdover from last year's list and something I would still like to accomplish. There is so much creativity in the world and I would really like to be contributing to it.

7. To get physically stronger   Sometimes getting there ahead of the other guy doesn't do you a lot of good if he's that much stronger than you when he does show up. Probably a little bit of upper body work would be in order.

8. To be more financially responsible  This will be difficult because I hate and don't often understand numbers...

9. To have some kind of an idea how all the electronics work  I would really like to know what cable plugs into what port, what each device is called, how to run one device through another and on and on...

10. To be less invisible  I wrote a blog earlier on called "I Am Invisible" in which I described how unremarkable I felt I seemed to people. It would be nice to be the life of the party, tee-hee...


   So that is this year's list. I am not sure just how comprehensive it is but I think it touches on some of the more significant things I'd like to either change or accomplish in the coming year. Of course, change is not something dictated by calendars. At any given time a person's list should be in a state of flux and subject to revision. The important part, I think, is having the ability to constantly self-evaluate. It's often quite easy to make value judgements pertaining to other people, rather than focusing on how your own house might be brought into a clearer semblance of order. This is generally what I attempt to do and, truly, you can only change yourself!
   Wishing you all much love, health and happiness in 2013!!

New Year's Resolutions 2012 Re-visited

   Last year, about this time and in an earlier blog post, I listed off my resolutions for 2012. I usually make up some kind of a list every year or at least give the subject some thought. This year, though, I have an actual, documented list from the previous year to refer back to, in order to see how well I did in honouring my "commitments". Here are the results.

1. Lose some weight  Yay, I actually did this one! Started running three times a week in August, courtesy of my Sweetheart, and have lost round about twenty pounds. I also suspect that going gluten-free may have had something to do with this, once again, courtesy of you-know-who!

2. Write more  Well, I sort of accomplished this. Mainly, I didn't write any less. I also created another blog called "Strides", which concerns itself with my running adventure. The thought behind the resolution, though, was to maybe work on an actual novel or short story. This did not happen, mainly due to lack of an idea and, probably, the constant blogging I was already doing. I do, however, now have an idea for a short story...


What they were...

3. Do something with my music  Still a work in progress, although I at least now have something on CD rather than on tape.

4. Sell the house and/or keep the house  We decided to keep the house, at least for the time being, but selling is still an option somewhere down the road. The idea that we might be here for awhile, though, has energized me to make some improvements. This, in turn, might make it easier to sell on down the road.

5. Do something "outside the box" at work  Never happened, really. This may morph into "just try and do your job well".

6. Be artistic  I had wanted to do something creative and artistic, maybe painting or something like that. This never happened, either, so it goes back on the list!

7. See my boys more  I'm not so sure this didn't get worse, rather than better, we went through long stretches without getting together. Some of it was busy schedules, some of it was just trying to make a large get-together when smaller ones would have done the trick. So we'll aim for smaller ones...

8. Talk to my brother  Well, I not only talked to him but we actually went out to Calgary and visited. Unfortunately, this was all the result of our Dad passing away back in March. Dad will only pass away once, however, so we'll just have to do it on our own now.

9. Spend more time at my Dad's  When I originally wrote this, I had no idea that my Dad would become ill in about a month and the pass away about a month after that. So I actually spent much more time at Dad's place and at the hospital, as it turned out. Obviously, I will no longer need to do this. At the same time, however, much of the physical stuff that was Dad's is now here at our place and there are constant reminders of him everywhere. It also doesn't feel as though his spirit is very far off.

10. Find a chair that doesn't hurt my ass so much  This was in acknowledgement that I spend a lot of time sitting and blogging. Nothing much has changed, although I do tend to move around the room a little more. Actually, my ass is starting to hurt right now!

   So that's a recap of last year's resolutions and how they turned out. There's a little room for improvement I guess but some things got at least more than a cursory glance.
    Shortly, I'll be working on this year's list and will publish it soon. I think there will likely be a combination of the old and some new on this year's, we'll have to see. In the meantime, I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and All the Best in 2013!!