Neighbours...inspired by Mama's losin it blog

3.) Neighbors.

I could go on all day with this prompt as I have found some friendly and some decidedly not. Where do I start? Excuse the misspelling, but I’m Canadian – neighbours….

I remarried nearly 5 years ago and dared to ‘cross the river’ in Calgary, which is apparently not something done by the native Calgarians, but only by us upstart (15 years ago) newcomers. So, I sold my house in the SW quadrant of the city and moved in with said new hubby in the NW.

On my crescent all houses have a front garage, one of those ugly but functional additions that shield the true beauty of the house from passersby in favour of offering drive-in convenience and anonymity. I could go for months without truly interacting with a neighbour. Sometimes this is a good thing.

I hadn’t been living in my new neighbourhood long when I parked across the street from my house because our sons (5 all together) needed the driveway to play basketball. It was summer and I was tired and hot after a day at work and a commute on a packed train from downtown. I cruised to a stop at the curb a little around the corner from my direct across the street neighbour, so that I ensured I didn’t block her driveway and left room for her and her husband and kids numerous cars (at last count they had 5 for a 4 person household and that doesn’t count the motorhome and the Harley).

Anyway, as I was coasting to a stop a polite distance from my neighbour’s overflowing driveway and watching my sons happily gambol about an angry rap on my window startled me. My neighbour, the wife of the couple, chastised me for parking there as someone would surely come around the corner and smash into my car and hadn’t she told me on numerous occasions NOT to park there. I’d never 'officially been introduced' to her before and as I rolled down my window I could tell she thought I was someone else. She apologized too late as her unfriendly tirade left a bitter taste in my mouth that I carry to this day. This taste makes it impossible to say hello.

She doesn’t own the road or the sidewalk and certainly not the one around the corner from her house, but she does own the space around her which I avoid like a no-fly zone. We don’t wave to each other when I pull into my driveway. I ignore her and she ignores me. The perfect un-symbiotic relationship I guess you'd say.

Worked well enough until one of my stepsons dared to take chalk to the sidewalk in front of her house. Another hot summer day and the boys were out spreading graffiti (what they consider to be art) in heinous pastels across public spaces. They dared to deface concrete with butterflies and aliens, rockets and words. My lovely neighbour’s 17-year-old son told the graffiti gang to clear the ‘F’ off his property.

Funny how angry, unhappy people spawn others and how they think they own the world. I wish I cared enough to give her and her family a piece of my mind, as now that I think about it the first time I met her she stood on my lawn at the side of my house with another nosy Parker looking into my backyard-neigbour's yard at their dog. Apparently the dog's barking bothered her across the street, but not me right next to it. Funnily enough I've had complaints about my dog barking too, anonymous ones from the city. Ah, civic harmony....

I do have lovely neighbours to my left who gave us their basketball backboard because their kids are grown and gone. Plus our neighbours to the right prop our fence up when it leans a little too far into their yard and let our boys into their home to call us on our cells if the garage keypad is frozen precluding entrance to our humble abode. Then there’s the neighbour down the street who just invited me over for a jewelry party and barbecue this Sunday.

They make the place seem a whole lot friendlier, and sometimes I’ll even slow down as I enter my garage to wave at them.

The View at Sunset

 
My son Maclean took this photo when we were in Victoria for my father’s 80^th birthday party. This is dusk at Ogden Point.

We arrived on the Thursday morning before Good Friday. My father picked us up at the airport in his convertible BMW – always the cool dude stylishly dressed in jeans and a leather bomber jacket. Bear hugs all around before he dropped us off at my boss’ condo to regroup before lunch with him and an afternoon spent blowing up balloons at my sister’s. My two sons, ten and twelve, gladly helped with decorations and enjoyed goofing around with my sister whom we see less frequently than we’d like.

She took us to the café two hours before the party to set up the tables with white cloths and glass candle holders filled with beach sand, shells and glass beads. My sons helped me tack the balloon bouquets to the railing of the Ogden Point Café as a welcome to the 20 some odd guests who would attend.

My boys cleaned up well in dark pants and button down shirts with their hair combed and their smiles plastered on as the official greeters. They each took one entrance of the café and as the 7pm start time approached they launched into best-behaved mode to impress my father’s tennis buddies, his fellow union club members and his neighbours from the condo. After living in Ontario all his life, he moved to the coast and by all appearances has made it his home.

I nervously prepared for my emcee duties as my sister made sure the food trays looked pretty with wildflowers and the guests were kept in sangria. The boys took pictures and video as they delivered the Grampalloon they had made from a flesh-coloured balloon with a drawn on smiley face, glasses and just the right amount of hair. The three-piece band played Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Diamond and other easy listening favourites and even managed to get the birthday boy up for a few dances. My boys delivered a cupcake with candle to Dad and we all sang Happy Birthday to a proud, yet humbled man on the eve of becoming an octogenarian.

As the candles in the centrepieces burned low and the frantic activity waned to enjoyment of good food, friends and a lovely view, I felt proud of my sons, thankful for my helpful, thoughtful and creative sister, and privileged to have one parent left who makes growing older look so easy.

Just like the stones worn down by the waves in the photo, life smoothes off our hard edges and if we’re lucky leaves us on a hospitable shore. May we all experience the joy of getting better with age like my Pops.

Inspired to create and pragmatism be damned

Inspiration is a funny thing. I usually have lots of it, alas it’s the perspiration I don’t have as much of; the sweat equity I need to put in to produce that masterpiece. Why does life get in the way? Damn reality! However, it is fiction that can take us beyond the reach of reality.

Johah Lehrer, author of Imagine: How Creativity Works, says “when we venture beyond the edge of our knowledge, all we have is art.” But that muse is illusive so I carry a notebook with me to jot down those aha moments when they spring upon me.

As Mr. Lehrer says though, since I’m older I may have fewer of those. It seems that the older we get, the less inventive we become. Maybe it’s just the whole reality conundrum. When I was younger I had all the time in the world to daydream and didn’t censor any of it. Now, I have to work full time to raise children and keep a home and chauffeur kiddies to tons of after school activities, and clean the house and walk the dog and….so less time to dream.

As an adult I’ve also developed a nasty pragmatist devil on my shoulder reminding me to focus and plant my feet firmly on the ground because dreaming won’t get me anywhere. I try to rein in my creativity to the nights and weekends when I have time to listen to that fickle and fanciful angel sitting on my other shoulder. Seems my muse doesn’t much like the structure and rules of adulthood. According to Mr. Lehrer in the article below, I should tell my inner critic to zip it and let the inspiration flow.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/books/how-to-grab-inspiration-by-the-tail/article2380020/page1/

Detours along the way...

I like detours, the side roads and alleyways that take you off course. It’s the adventures along the way that make the journey memorable rather than just a straight shot from A to B.

But, I do have to watch that my attention doesn’t get drawn to the smaller shiny things for too long because then I might give up the bigger goal that waits on the horizon, a little fuzzier, a little less immediate and glamorous for the hard work needed to attain it. I suspect I may be my own worst enemy sometimes.

In my writing, sometimes the side roads take me away from what I’m supposed to be doing which is rewriting the ‘brilliant’ idea I had years before when I woke at 3 am excited by the kernel of my novel and could hardly wait to finish the first draft. All these years later as I polish the manuscript in smaller and smaller circles until my fingers get numb, I sometimes get sidetracked by things like playwriting. Ooo, maybe I should try that and off I go for a few months. Maybe I need a Masters or maybe fifty more opinions on where others think my book should go.

I’ve taken the advice of so many experts and tried to write short stories for contests or a novella to at least get my name in print which I have. Twas fun. It’s good to branch out and deepen my skill set. But, as I’m traipsing down the side roads I do wonder if I’ve lost track of my main trajectory, the goal of all this wandering, which is to get my novel published. If it’s good, but not good enough then I’ll never get there. And no amount of side roads will take me back to the main road because I have NO sense of direction and sometimes get lost.

So, I will renew my drive to my final destination and pack some snacks for the long ride ahead. Now I need to get back to my desk because I know that AIC (ass in chair) is the only thing that will get me where I want to go.

http://arts.nationalpost.com/2012/03/22/hiromi-goto-finishing-is-the-hardest-part/#more-66875

Unless...

The definition of passion - boundless enthusiasm (from free online dictionary)

Professor Larry Smith of the Economics Department at the University of Waterloo has something to say about loving what you do. I've pasted in below his entertaining and poignant rant about why you will fail to have a good career because you have to pursue 'the greatest fascination in your life' not just something interesting that will pay the bills. You will fail to have a great career UNLESS you do what you are passionate about.

http://www.ted.com/talks/larry_smith_why_you_will_fail_to_have_a_great_career.html

I saw Dr. Seuss' movie The Lorax last weekend with my ten and twelve year old sons. The Lorax is the keeper of the trees and yet fails to protect them. The resurrection of the trees falls to a boy who wants to impress a girl by giving her what she really wants, which is a real tree in an artificial town. I won't give away the ending of the movie as you should go see it, but suffice it to say that the Lorax leaves the pivotal character with the word UNLESS imprinted on one of the rocks that used to encircle a tree. Dr. Seuss said "unless someone like you cares an awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not." He had passion and made a difference in children's lives while entertaining us adults at the same time.

I feel the same way. Nothing is going to get better, unless....In my mundane little world these days here is my unless. I'm struggling with my playwriting course. I want to write a play I really do, but my playwriting teacher keeps telling me to write what I would if I had six months left to live. If that's not a deadline to inspire passion I don't know what is!

But, I only signed up because I wanted to learn the nuts and bolts of playwriting. My instructor wants me to fire up my creative soul. I don't have a subject I'm that passionate about to cram into a 45 minute comedy. What I lack is inspiration and the boundless enthusiasm to hammer out 45 pages. So, I'll finish out this course and look for my passion again in the stories I seem, so far, to be only able to tell in short story and novel form. I won't think any further on the whole 'doing what you love' conundrum. For now I have a good career and a great passion for writing on the side. So I will keep on keeping on unless....

International Women's Day - let's party

On International Women's Day I've decided to enjoy being a chick. Not that I don't every other day of the week, but sometimes when I'm knee deep in dishes or groceries or other unpaid forms of labour I do wonder if it shouldn't be called something else like International Schmuck's Day.

 

But then I look at my kids and think that I was lucky enough to have them. I wake up next to my husband and think he's pretty cute and he likes women so I'm a shoo in. Then I come to work in a still male-dominated industry and I enjoy my job and make ok money, but there have been times when being a woman was definitely a liability. It's amazing how many old school chauvinists are still alive and well in Canada. Plus, if I turn the TV on the amount of T&A reinforces my suspicion that society may just view me as a piece of meat until I'm of a 'certain age' and then I'm invisible.

 

That said I am thankful to be a woman in Canada and not in a country where being a second class citizen is ingrained in the law and social mores of the society. I do own property, and I do make my own living plus I'm allowed to vote. Yay for me! Let's work together to roll those basic human rights out to the rest of the world. I believe that socieities where women are cherished and their voices heard have both the head and heart to drive economic and social growth without leaving anyone behind.

 

Anyway, I hope you all have a good day and think about the fact that there is not International Men's Day likely because they don't need one. I do like men, but I don't want to be one ;)

 

http://www.calgaryherald.com/life/Women+still+getting+left+behind+study+says/6256006/story.html

Introverts Unite!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jennagoudreau/2012/01/30/quiet-revolution-of-the-50-percent-introverts-susan-cain/

 

It took me a long time to accept that I am a social introvert. I like people, just not lots of them all at once in my face. I prefer small dinners with friends to clubbing with strangers. I am a homebody not a galavanter.

 

Maybe I write because I prefer that to speaking. It's not that I have nothing to verbally say, but  what I say is well-considered and shared sparingly. I wish others would do the same, but such is not our culture these days. Today more is better, quantity is quality and there are few social filters so we hear just about every thought expressed 24/7 whether we care or not. Thank you Facebook.

 

I'm happy there is a 'Quiet Revolution' under way. I hope we can find a balance between the 'cult of personality' and a deeper more reflective state of being that might consider leaving a bit unsaid, a few seconds of silence perhaps to encourage sharing of emotions and ideas, which I believe they call communication. My husband calls it being on receive rather than transmit. We should all try that sometimes. You'd be amazed what you hear when you stop talking and just breathe.

 

My son had an extroverted teacher in his earlier grades. She was a good teacher, but she thought his lack of sharing in class (for which he was docked marks because it's all about participation and group work these days) meant he was approaching deaf-mutism. After I stopped my inner screaming, I told her that he only speaks when he has something to say and someone he feels comfortable sharing it with. He is with a teacher now who lets him speak and actually listens.

 

Introverts don't like being bombarded with stimulus. We will share if you give us room and time to speak. That's why I enjoy writing. I can have a conversation with my readers and myself without anyone interrupting. It allows for quiet reflection and communication.

 

Thanks for listening.