Category Archives: Uncategorized

Life is a garden. Dig it!

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Waaaay back in the ‘70s I saw a tee shirt with the slogan “Life is a garden. Dig it.” Its double entendre is still apropos. Dig it – love it, enjoy it. Ya dig? Dig it – get out that shovel and get to work on your garden. Make your life thrive.TheGarden

This spring I joined a gardening group at work. I’m a novice gardener, learning from the experienced members of our group. I have been amazed by the beauty and power of our garden. Many lunch times I go and just hang out in the garden, enjoying the colours, the rustle of the corn stalks, the giddy butterflies and yellow finches, and the exuberant, unfettered growth. I’m fascinated that tiny seeds can gather up so much energy and life from just soil, water and light.

It’s a fecund plot, perpetually bursting with flowers, beans, tomatoes and new edible surprises nearly every week. I ate the season’s first radish – a round, rosy miracle – while standing right there in the garden. Of course I always knew that vegetables grew in the soil. But I had never actually pulled that night’s dinner from the dirt before!

An August harvest... also an august harvest.

An August harvest… also an august harvest.

Life is just like that. Join up. Learn from other people. Plan out your plot. Dig it. Care for it. Let things do what they need to do in their own time. Observe. Enjoy. Bask in the sunshine a bit. Work a bit. Harvest your crop. Share with friends and family. Repeat.

 

Hoe! Hoe! Hoe!

Miss Manners

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The enduringly wise Judith Martin.

The enduringly wise Judith Martin.

In 1982, Judith Martin, better known as Miss Manners, published Miss Manner’s Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior. The book covers the etiquette for just about every social situation in Western society and is understandable, applicable and exquisitely funny.

I read the book right after graduation as I struggled to navigate the new and overwhelming world of office parties, weddings and baby showers. I wanted to be sure I did the right thing. Miss Manners has the correct answer for every situation.

But more importantly, Miss Manners has the winning formula for leading her gentle readers to determine for themselves what the right thing to do is. She espouses the gracious view that civility, respect, consideration and awareness of the comfort of others should guide us.

Thirty plus years later, the “freshly updated” edition includes modern concerns such as cell phone use, the Internet and which mom in a same-sex couple walks the bride down the aisle.  I haven’t read this updated version yet, but I will bet my fish forks and ‘thank you’ cards that Miss Manners essential formula for excruciatingly correct behavior holds true. Be civil. Be respectful. Be considerate

Burpees

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“You need to do burpees,” my friend announced.  “What’s a burpee?” I asked.

My friend demonstrated one. Jump up. Get down onto the floor into a push up position, then stand or jump back up again (presumably one should repeat this move several times). It didn’t look so bad – a sort of cheerleading move.

See a burpee demo here on YouTube.

My friend insisted that we women of a certain age needed to do burpees. She challenged, “When do you go down on the floor? How do you know you can get off the floor if you ever needed to?”  She had a point. I couldn’t remember the last time I sat or lay on the floor, and I used to do it all the time.

I dutifully went home and tried a burpee. Ohmygoddess! Which one of Satan’s minions invented these? I look like a trussed walrus. My knee crunched (crunched!) and other joints crackled and popped as I got up. It was scary to realize how hard this move was to do. How close was I to completely losing the ability to do something as fundamental as get up from the floor unaided??

I texted my friend: Burpees blow.

She replied: Just do it

The next day, I burpeed again. It was a bit better but I had to whine anyway.

I texted: This burpee business is from hell.

She replied: Just do it.

My next text to her read: My massage therapist says burpees could make a person’s heart explode.

burpeeShe replied: Just do it.

And so I burpee every morning – once ~ grunt~, twice, ~ oooph~, thrice, ~ugh~ – and again at night.

Burpees. Just do it… because you still can.

Words that heal

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I’m sorry.miss you

I forgive you.

I’ll be there.

I was wrong.

I miss you.

I love you.

A soothing balm of words that, when spoken sincerely, heal and restore. They’re all words that will make you vulnerable and open to what’s going on inside you and with others. Do you say these words? If not, why not? Is there someone you want to say them to? Maybe your own self?

If you’re going to be an elephant, be a pink one.

 

When I was maybe 4 or 5 years old, I was out with my mom shopping at Woolco department store. She was rummaging through the costume jewellery. I was skipping around with a black bra on my head pretending to be a member of the Mickey Mouse Club. Suddenly she stopped and picked up a pink and yellow enamel elephant brooch and laughing she said “Well, if you’re going to be an elephant, you might as well be a pink one.” My mother loved elephants and she bought that pin. I still have it.

I don’t know why what she said caught my attention that day, but it stayed with me. I actually think my mother was making a reference to weight. She always thought she was fat (she wasn’t) and was referring to herself as an elephant – but a really well-dressed elephant.

What I heard was “Whatever you are, be your amazing best self. Be exuberant. Be outrageously, gloriously, vibrantly whatever hue is right for you. Be a pink elephant if that’s what you want to be.

Society is going to try and knock that authentic gorgeousness out of you at a young age and yMomsBroochou will absorb all the conform-and-fit-in messages. Forget about it! Be a pink elephant or a purple cow or a vanilla gorilla or whatever works for you. Be you and don’t hold back. The world needs your authenticity.