I had a weird experience recently where I went to an activity that involved some mediation that involved drawing.  The instructions were pretty simple, use the crayons and paper on the table to draw what comes to mind as the music playing.  I just set to work and focused on the task at hand.  In a very short time it became clear that others at my table were not drawing.  Whispers soon began about how they lacked talent, they had not drawn since they were children or how terrible their drawings would be if they tried.  I remained engaged in my simple creation of circles and petals and other design doodles.  Then I started to hear it, the rumble of peer encounters.  I started paying to attention and heard  – oh look at Teresa, what a show off, thinks she is an artist.  This was all done in playful tones, however it made me think.  I feel like the way this played out is a pattern we face over and over in activities of our lives.  First there are those that are hesitant to try, perhaps they were told by others that they were not good enough or too much of show off.  Things that we all know happen and affect how we feel about our talents and abilities over time.  So here was a group of women, not even willing to put crayon to paper because of some kind of past programming, unwilling to just dive in and get creative.  Second of course was also age old programming and experience.  While playful and joking, the next practiced response to not wanting to try was to call attention to those that are trying.  For context I will add that everyone at my table was over 70.  There is no age limit to how we limit ourselves. Is there anything that you are not doing because some old recording in your head is telling you not to. Where did that message some from?  Could it have been true? Or could it have been a coping mechanism of another person just trying to get by and hide their own vulnerability.  What does it all mean?  I think, we should just pick up a lot more crayons and start creating no natter what the circle around you teasingly says.  Try the new thing, sit quietly and meditate in any way that works, shut out the voices mean and playful that try to criticize or devalue your efforts.  Just do the things, make your own heart sing and keep going. 

I spent some time with my 8-year-old niece recently and Taylor Swift came on the radio.  She quickly said that she hated Taylor Swift.  I told her that I admired lots of things about Taylor and liked her.  My niece quickly added that her friend group of five girls all hate Taylor Swift, so there is no way that she can like her. When I pressed for details, she admitted to liking some songs, but that the social risk was too great.  I am sure we can remember back to being pressured by our friends, when our sole goal was often to fit in. When I asked her if she thought that maybe other girls were secretly admiring Taylor also and that perhaps her admitting would give others the confidence to offer a different opinion.  That was a flat refusal, the power of peers just to strong in this age group.  I guess for us, we need to check in that we are not still carrying some 8-year-old programming about needing to fit in or play it small or hide parts of ourselves.  A little double check to ensure that if we say we like a certain kind of eggs that its because we do, not because our partner does, I may have got that from an old Julia Roberts movie.  Are there still parts of us that we have not re-examined to ensure that we are being absolutely true to what we want, need and love, its worth a double check.

I recently heard the story of a Catholic church in Peterborough and how it was built by a group of new immigrants from Ireland.  These people were part of the Peter Robinson settlement of 1825 and had just narrowly survived famine in Ireland, death on the sea voyage and all the perils of settling in the dense forests of the surrounding area.  However, despite these great hardships and the difficulty of their new life they felt compelled by a need for a gathering space to celebrate their faith.  So over 80 volunteers worked through the winter to build this humungous cathedral that still stands today.  Lighting fires so that the mortar would harden, living in tents away from their farms to work long days on the construction. All this happening in 1836, just a few years after carving their lives out of the bush.  It reminds me of the importance of community and gathering and inclusion.  These hard-working individuals were focused and knew that to keep thriving they needed to have a focal gathering point in which to share their faith and spend time in community with one another. This was time taken away from building their individuals farmsteads up, this was time away from their families and livestock in the bitter cold, that was how important gathering together was for them and is to our human spirits. We are stronger when we lean on each other.

I have been working on transcribing some old cassette tapes from the 80’s that were interviews with elderly citizens of my neighbourhood about local history.  I have found myself lost in their tales of survival and the “olden days”.  One 96-year-old in 1985 describing a fire in his home during a lightning storm and because of the storm the phone lines were crackling so the operator went home.  As a result, there was no way to put the call through the party line to call all the neighbours to aid. It makes these people who have now all passed, come to life, I can hear their voices and their stories.  In lots of cultures story telling was an art and the good storyteller was a high-ranking part of the clan or neighbourhood.  It is in storytelling that we keep the past in mind, keep legacies going and remind ourselves of all the challenges that were overcome before us. I think everyone has some stories, I am sure that this person being interviewed just thought he was a person living life, and now all these years later I am entertained and intrigued to learn about his school days, farming and triumphs.  We each have a collection of stories, know some family history tall tales. Let’s make sure we share them and keep all that high adventure and long-gone loved ones alive. Tell your story.

I was thinking about my childhood collection of coffee mugs, it was what I did when I wanted a souvenir or something to remember a person by, I had a mug.  I started to hang them up with the old accordion mug hangers of the 80’s and soon my wall was covered in my childhood bedroom.  The reason I started thinking about this was that I needed a few mugs for my camper and wondered, in these intervening decades, what ever happened to my great collection?  I have no actual memory of what happened after I moved away to go to school and set up my first apartments and houses of adulthood.  I am sure I kept a few, but I think I may have given away dozens.  My uncle is an auctioneer and I see often the lifelong collections of people be sold to the highest bidder at their passing.  Hundreds of salt and pepper shakers, a collection of teddy bears, thousands of collector plates.  I see all these things pass through the sales.  It occurs to me that in the case of my mugs it was the joy of the collecting, the hunt to find the perfect one from wherever I was, the delight in the memories that I had when I looked over the wall of cups.  In our fast past world of virtual everything , and photos taken by the hundreds but never printed it may be a lost tendency to collect items at all.  I think it is a good way in our separate journeys to make ourselves guide posts and remembrances so that we can relive the delight of certain moments and excursions.  In whatever way makes sense to you take a moment to check in and anchor yourself into a moment and a memory, enjoy a mug of memories whenever you can.

One of my coworkers often reminds me that you can buy a birthday cake whenever you want, nobody checks, and it is always someone’s birthday, somewhere.  Recently we lost a kind soul that decided a few years ago that no outfit was complete without a birthday button.  Each and everyday someone in the community could remark on the button and wish him a happy birthday.  What is it about a birthday? Many people choose not to celebrate as it reminds of the passage of time.  I can understand that, however, what better day to celebrate all that we are and have overcome in our trips around the sun. If you love birthdays, it is because you can have treats, a cake, some gifts, a little attention, a dinner out, all kinds of possibilities.  A day that is all your own to say to yourself and world, I have conquered another year. And as my coworker says, celebrate this anytime, get a cake, blow out some candles, treat yourself.  This is our one tiny life, take as much time as you can to enjoy each and every minute.  So there is a great wisdom in the wearing of a birthday button everyday.  Everyday does offer a chance to celebrate.  As they say, don’t wait for a special occasion to get out the fancy china, put on the nicest clothes, see some friends and yes, buy the cake any time you want.

My secret weapon for organization has been a bound note book, I have used on without fail for the past twenty years of my career.  The tool had now spread to my home and volunteer roles, as I have been using a second bound notebook at home for many years also.  The magic is that I write everything in it.  To do lists, meeting notes, phone messages, conversations, anything that I want to reflect on.  Then at somewhat regular intervals I look back and catch any items that I may have forgotten or failed to follow up on. I have kept them all and as needed go back into the cupboard to find old connections or notes.  I will admit that my notebooks are filled less quickly as more and more cyber tools are offered to me to keep myself on track.  Our regular E-bulletins are a bit like my notebooks, a snapshot of all that we have been doing and accomplishing, month by month.  A place where if desired, we can reflect back and check in with all the places and faces that we have experienced in the covered months.  It is not meant to be an exhaustive record, but a collection of our stories to mark the passing of more time in the CLTH year.  This year has already been full of challenge and celebration.  Just like my little reflection over my notes to ensure I have followed up where I needed to, this edition offers a glimpse at things that happened that we should take time to appreciate and remember.  This quarter marked our Annual General Meeting, which is a great opportunity to reflect on our year.  Enjoy our memories, enjoy the summer. 

I read a book last week called: Burn the Boats by Matt Higgins.  I have to admit it was a legend I had heard before that Julius Ceasar sailed his army to the Irish Coast and seeing that they were completely outnumbered Ceasar cut off their route to retreat by burning the boats that they had arrived in.  The strategy from the ancient text- the Art of War by Sun Tzu, that with no exit strategy an army would fight to the death with great courage.  I am not advocating anything even close to this, I am after all a big fan of health and safety and being alive.  However, lets think about changes and challenges in our lives.  I know I often commit to new habits and then quickly fall into my old ones again, because those comfortable habit boats are still within my reach. So if we think about the theory, what old warn getaways could we eliminate in order to make a lasing change that we know will make things better.  Change is hard, retreat is really just a way to go back to what we know, good or bad.  What boats can we burn?  In order to move on to something great with our whole hearts, can we make a big change?  I love the idea of small changes and tiny habits.  Working on a change is so hard, and the bigger the change the more effort.  What does it mean to no longer have an option to fall back on for retreat?  Full steam ahead to the new you, the new idea, the new routine, the new role, the new life.

As a child I spent quite a lot of time designing and building rafts.  I can remember dragging logs from great distance to try to tie together with my siblings so that we could set sail across the pond.  Important to say that these creations sank time and time again.   Funny to think back now about how sure we were every time that we were going to be able to sail across the pond and on to new adventures.  With every try we improved the design and it seemed that each and every time we only made it a small way from shore before the inevitable, we began to sink.  Water would gush between and over the logs and only float back to the surface of the pond after we had all jumped ship. Then somehow we got the raft back to the shore and started the improvements.  It is perplexing to think back and realize that we never seemed to get discouraged only more determined to keep learning from our mistakes.  I feel like with our work and worry we can take on a lot of water and get that familiar sinking feeling.  What keeps  you afloat?  What keeps you going back to the design and beginning again after a setback?  Its a tough thing to do, trying to make a change, or complete a project, make a plan or improve a system.  There are always challenges and set backs.  We can either give up because its hard or seems impossible.  Sometimes we are faced with countess critics and our defeats start to feel like billboard announcements.  How do we get back to lashing those logs and trying again?  I think we need to make sure we know why the success is important to us.  Is it just to tick a box, stroke an item off a task list, or is it something that will create a great change, move closer to a goal, bring joy, discover something new in ourselves and others or build a skill. Figuring out our why can help us to keep focused on where we know we want to sail and help us with the motivation to keep going even when there are set backs. 

My grandparents had a farm, they bought it in the early 30’s, I believe the farm buildings were built beginning in the 1880’s, they sold the farm in 1992.  In 2008, the house, no longer being lived in caught on fire and then this week the barn burned down.  I was so sad on the day of the fire, thinking about all the hours I spent playing and helping in the barn.  And now it is lost.  Makes me think about all the changes that we face over our lifetimes, things that are lost, or change or have to be left behind.  People moving to a new country, moving out of a relationship, changing jobs or grieving loss, feel the change so acutely.  Like a beautiful red barn that is now a smouldering pile of ashes, there are changes big and small to be faced.  So, what is it that we get to hold on to, our memories, our skills, our learning, the person that we are because of what we have experienced and who we have been.  What cannot be lost are my memories, the mental pictures I have of my grandfather and his herd of cattle.  He has passed away, now this tangible connection to him is gone. All I have left are what he taught me, who I am because I spent time with him and memories.  Change is hard and scary, but a constant.  I think that is why so many wise thinkers point to all the knowledge that we have inside as being the key to our life of discovery; memories and our very character cannot burn down.