I first read this quote years ago in the email signature of one of my daughter’s teachers.
It reassured me to know that my daughter was spending some of her days with a person with that kind of mindfulness. He was wasn’t working for himself; he was working for the children. Every day he was carving his name on students’ hearts, so he’d better make it good.
Today, you will carve your name on someone’s heart. What indelible impression will you leave?
When she was a child my daughter drew this picture of us. We’re carved into her heart together.
What music makes you stop whatever you’re doing and listen? What songs make you cry?
I’d love to know. Leave me a comment at the end of the post.
One song that undoes me every time is “Silent Night”by candlelight on Christmas Eve. My family knows that I’m a puddle during that hymn, every time. It takes me back to childhood services in a small town church, and to the birth of my daughter on Christmas Eve, and to my father who died shortly before Christmas twenty years ago. The simple hymn ties everything together from my past and gives me hope for the future.
Some songs move us because they remind us of someone we love — a father, mother, grandparent, child or friend.
“You’ve Got a Friend” James Taylor, written by Carole King
Songs that are haunting and sad and then optimistic and hopeful, acknowledge the lows and highs and tells us to look for the triumph after the despair.
“Bridge Over Troubled Water” Simon and Garfunkel
“Nights in White Satin” The Moody Blues
The music of our youth can instantly transport us back to a certain time and place. Where were you when you were listening to The Moody Blues, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles . . .? This Loggins and Messina song takes me back to my days working for Wilderness Tours Whitewater Rafting.
“Watching the River Run” Loggins & Messina
A couple of friends of mine are opera fans. Listen to this selection from Dialogues des Carmélites and see if the metallic slice of the guillotine makes your hair stand on end.
Dialogues des Carmélites (final scene – Salve Regina)
Music moves us when it gives us something to believe in even if we don’t want to. Music connects us with something greater than ourselves. I’ll leave you with this combination of “Scotland the Brave” and “Amazing Grace.” It gives me chills AND brings me to tears.
“Scotland the Brave” and “Amazing Grace” at an Andre Rieu performance
There’s something primal about the word roots. We feel it at our core.
Deep roots allow trees to stand tall, and they nourish the plant. Kind of like family. One hopes.
My roots are deep in the Ottawa Valley, in a farming community and a large extended family. No matter how old I get or where I live, the phrases “Ottawa Valley” and “farm” will always be central to my being.
Even as a child I was nosy. Here I am in our old farmhouse, listening in on the party line.
If I dig deeper, I get to “Irish,” “English,” and “Christian.” Yes, I am a WASP—a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant with all the privileges that come along with it. My parents raised me in faith and, even though it has evolved significantly over my lifetime, that rooting in faith still keeps me grounded.
What about people who aren’t so lucky?
When trees are rooted in rocky-ground, it’s difficult to stay standing.
Toppled trees
Shallow roots on rocky ground
There’s something primal about the word roots. We feel it—or the need of it—at our core.
If you were to walk up to a group of women in their forties and fifties and say “Roots” out of context, the first thought of many, if not all, would be hair.
They wouldn’t think about tree roots snaking out through soil in search of nourishment, and they wouldn’t start pondering family ancestry. They’d wonder if they left it too long between dye jobs.
For the past year I have been transitioning from dyed hair to natural, and it has been an en-lightening (pun intended) process. For women, there is little middle ground on this topic. Most fall at one of two extreme opposite ends of a spectrum.
Abject Horror: “What? You’re going natural? (They step back as if it’s contagious.) Don’t do that! It will age you horribly. I am never going grey.”
Militant Support: “Good for you! (They thrust a victorious arm in the air.) I don’t understand why women ever colour their hair. Natural hair colour is an act of resistance against societal beauty norms for women. You will never regret this.”
Considering there are such extreme opinions on this, I myself was quite ambivalent. In the end though, I made my final decision instantaneously as a result of one story told to me by a friend.
She told me about a woman she knew who, on her deathbed, reached out to family to implore that they make sure she had no roots showing when she was laid out in her coffin.
I thought, “God, when I’m on my deathbed, the very last thing I want to be thinking about is my roots.”
And, we never really know when that deathbed might arrive, right? It might come sooner than I expect. And, even if it doesn’t, I’m 57, so statistically I’ve got 25 or 30 more years left. How much of that time do I want to spend thinking about my roots? Surely, there are more important and interesting things for me to think about than that.
“Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.”
from Desiderata
Don’t get me wrong. I grieve for my former dark hair. I have thick, wavy hair, and when it was my natural, lustrous dark brown, I loved it. I was vain about it, in fact. I have never wanted to be blonde, ever.
BUT, grief is no reason to avoid action. I decided to follow the advice of Desiderataand take kindly the counsel of the years and surrender gracefully the things of youth.
On my way to full silver and loving it
On my recent hiking trip I met many silver-haired women who were striding confidently on steep hiking paths, enjoying the spectacular views, and not spending one second of their time thinking about roots.
In the time I have left, however long that might be, I want to stride confidently on the steeps, enjoy the views, and let my mind whir and spin with how to make the world a better place.
This aging thing is a blessing, every day.
Enjoying the view on the Plain of Six Glaciers Trail, Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada
What do they tell us about what’s going on underground?
Are they beautiful? Or more than that?
I pondered these questions during our recent hiking trip to the Rocky Mountains in Alberta Canada. We marveled at roots burrowing into narrow crevices to eke out nutrients.
We stepped over and around roots intruding into our hiking paths, sometimes buckling the earth in their quest for growth
On the Plain of Six Glaciers Trail, Lake Louise, Alberta
On the Valley of Five Lakes Trail, Jasper, Alberta
We hiked around beautiful, large roots that did all of the above: buckled the ground and intruded into our pathway as they sought nourishment in stark environments.
On the Valley of the Five Lakes Trail, Jasper, Alberta
The roots spoke to me of tenacity.
The never-give-up attitude was helpful on the steeps of the trails, and it is helpful to me now that I’m back home and looking at long to-do lists.
They made me wonder what’s happening underground that I can’t see.
I am currently reading Underland by Robert Macfarlane, a book that explores the ground under our feet as a new frontier, like space or the oceans. As I stepped over the large roots and trod carefully around the smaller intertwining ones so as not to twist an ankle, I imagined life teeming in unseen ways under my feet: worms, burrowing animals, microbes, and tree roots co-existing in another realm.
The work of Canadian forest ecologist Suzanne Simard explores how trees interact with each other, healing, sharing, communicating underground through an “underground social network,” or a “wood wide web.”
It makes me want to become a worm for a day or two so I could periscope into the earth for a look around.
But I’m stuck here above land, and from where I stand the roots have a tenacious beauty. Even the ones that now longer reach for nutrients or buckle the ground.
It is Thanksgiving in Canada today, so I thought I would re-share one of my favourite posts from my previous blog site. I’ll be back with a new post tomorrow.
The child in this story has grown up and no longer gives me my Monday smile, but I’ll remember him forever.
Monday evening is the regular library time for a father and a small boy. Those two are the highlight of my week.
At the time of their visit, I work in the room that houses the book-drop. The murmur of their voices and the scraping sound of a step-stool being pulled into position comes to me through the slot. The child’s feet climb up one step on the stool and another as he prepares for his book return ritual.
“Thank you, book. Good-bye,” he says to the first book. He pushes it through the slot. “Bam!” he shouts.
He performs this small ceremony for every book. He returns 10 to 15 books, on average, so his process takes some time. If there are people waiting behind him, he doesn’t adjust his pace; he savours his moment.
I stop whatever I’m doing and savour his moment too. I smile widely.
This child shows me:
He respects and cherishes books.
He expresses gratitude.
He knows how to “be here now.”
He celebrates each moment with a Bam!
Some lessons for all of us, from a child.
Bam!
I’m grateful for these two wonderful children’s books.
I’m away on a short vacation – interrupting my routine. While I’m travelling, I’m re-posting some old posts from my previous blog site. Enjoy.
One of the joyous frustrations of freelance writing is its unpredictable variety.
I never know if I’ll be writing about money, or toilet installation, or chickens, or veterans, or crows, or . . . the list goes on. I never know when I’ll receive the last-minute phone calls. I get up in the morning with plans to do something and then, BAM, the phone rings. My whole day gets knocked sideways.
The frustration happened yesterday. The phone call came and all the things I’d planned to do and write about got swept off my calendar. It’s difficult to make firm plans. And if you ever drop by my house and see dust on the furniture, you know why.
The joy comes from learning about new things all the time. I am so lucky to never feel like I’m in a rut. I get paid to write! How great is that?
Another joyous benefit of my freelance writing career is the reading I do on many topics. Years ago, one of those reading stints led to me this best piece of advice:
Embrace interruptions.
When I’m writing, I focus. I dive deep down into a well of creative thought and if someone speaks to me I need to swim my mind up through sludge to the surface again. I can practically hear the murky bubbles around me.
Interruptions used to drive me bonkers.
Now I tell myself: There is a purpose behind this interruption. How does it benefit me?
It gives me a chance to get a drink or go to the bathroom. It makes me notice the typo I overlooked before, once I settle back into place and look with refreshed eyes at the work I’ve done. It gives me an extra 24 hours to write a blog post.
Interruptions come in big and small sizes too.
There’s the simple, “Mom, are we out of milk?” kind of interruption, and then there’s the, “You need to take this. I’m afraid there’s bad news,” kind of phone call that knocks a life sideways for weeks, or months, or years. The big ones are harder to embrace, but perhaps it’s even more important to look for the gifts in those doozies.
There is a purpose behind your interruptions. How do they benefit you?
