I read a passage recently that said when we are children, we look at ourselves in the mirror and we love what we see.  We are delighted in our reflection, happy with our skills, and confident that we are an artist, a singer, a star and that anything is possible.  I recently went to my eight-year-old nephew’s hockey game, and afterwards what I experienced was equal to an NHL media scrum.  He was proud beyond belief at his one goal and his performance on the ice. I just loved the way he sauntered out of the change room and greeted his adoring fans.  Where does all this go as we get older?  I think we start to question our abilities; we start comparing ourselves to others, we get messages big and small about what we are good at, what we should stop doing, what we need to improve. And then we get kind of stuck in a place where we are on a continuous loop of disapproval and self-improvement.  Do we take enough time to question these messages?   Mrs. Hutchinson gave me a D in music in grade 2, that was a message that I added to my reflection over the years. However, I think she was mostly reflecting on my inability to stop chatting in singing time, or my tendency to want to sing all the parts.  I did not go on to be a full-time singer or musician in my adult life, but I did go on to keep enjoying music no matter what Mrs. Hutchinson thought all those years ago.  This is our one magical life, own what you are, look in the mirror with happy acceptance and try to saunter with the confidence of an 8-year-old scoring a goal on a Saturday with his aunt cheering.

I have a friend from high school that went on to have six sons, make her living and her life on a massive seed farm and pretty much makes me look like I am standing still most of the time.  Recently, on Facebook she posted about an average day, each son off in a different direction, husbands clocking a 16-hour day in the tractor and her working and cooking and coordinating.  In her note she added after about a thousand items: “and to top it off I overcooked a pan of bacon and now we will be having bacon bits”.  I have so many questions, why when cold cereal exists is she cooking bacon on a busy day?  Why are they not just eating the crumbly bacon beside their eggs? Why can I not even remember the last time I cooked bacon?  She is a force of nature, and I am in awe.  I think too it reminds me that while my life seems far less complex the overcooked bacon part seems pretty familiar.  The one thing on top of the whole long list of “to do’s” that does not turn out right, that gets over done, under done, blown or completely missed.  So I guess, like my pal we have two options, throw up our hands and give in to the forces of an over busy day or instantly decide to make a salad that requires bacon bits.  The pandemic overused the word pivot, but I guess that is what we are talking about, when something does not turn out the way we were expecting or it is just the one thing that we can’t make right in a long list of things to do, just spin it, crumble it up, put it in a Ziplock and pretend that bacon bits was what you were aiming for.  And in all times remember that cold cereal is an option for any meal in my opinion. 

I find myself a bit down, caught up in a few weeks of losing a few people close to me.  For anyone my age, you will understand when I say I have been listening to a lot of Air Supply, need I say more?  Most recently I said goodbye to a dear friend that I have said for years “ran marathons, like for fun that I do not understand”, but he did, and he ran 105 in his lifetime. Ken did lots of other things but running was his passion and he could be found each day in the early morning taking in the dawn’s early light in his running gear.  At his funeral a running mate told a story of when he was trying to qualify for the Boston marathon, in which Ken had run a few times.  They both entered a local marathon to get the qualifying time. Ken finished with a good time and instead of resting he ran back a few kilometres and ran beside the friend trying so hard to qualify, encouraging him, supporting him, crossing the finish again with him and they both went to Boston.  I have to imagine that I would want to rest.  I so admire this idea that when his race was done, he just turned himself around and added a few more kilometres to make sure a friend crossed the finish.  I know that the tiny part of the world that Ken occupied will miss him terribly, his dry sense of humour and completely incongruous general grumpiness and love for all things Christmas. And now even in his early passing from aggressive cancer, I can be inspired to not only run my race to the finish, but to run beside those I want to support, may I never be “all out of love” and keep the pace he set.  

This past weekend I was at a retreat, and in case you have never been the hallmarks are time away, good food and strange team building activities.  This retreat did not disappoint with lovely lakeside views all over.  The activity was simple as a group we were blind folded and placed all around a rope that was tied in a circle, we had to pick it up and then form a perfect square.  Sounds easy enough, but it wasn’t.  For my role I followed the leaders voice, I was told I was a corner in the structure, and I took it very seriously feeling with my two hands for the angle and directing people on each side of me to shuffle one way or the other by calling out what I felt my hands were an angle.  I was a serious corner maker. Then suddenly the group realized that we had only assigned three corners and that in fact with the number of people around the rope, I was no longer the right person for the corner job. Now I was just along the side, no real purpose but to ensure the rope was tight and straight. I felt the loss of my little activity role acutely.  And of course, got teased mercilessly for my disappointment.  I just got caught up in the experience and in making my corner 90 degrees and as perfect as a I could and then suddenly it was not my job, I had no input, I could not help, all I could do was hold my rope. Like lots of retreat team builders it seemed like a simple activity, but it offers deep insights.  I wanted to be making a difference in a corner.  I wanted to have a clear task.  I wanted to co-design and be counted on.  What a great reflection about the roles we have in our work, play and life.  There are some things that I like to just be part of, just hold the rope, just sit back and absorb.  Other roles I have I like to make a difference and have a voice and be a true participant.  Think about your roles and the roles of people around you, are they meeting your needs, are they filling your tank, are you engaged.  In all kinds of ways we need to seek out the opportunities that we find engaging, pick where your corner is and hold on. 

I had the pleasure of attending someone’s 70th birthday party last week. It was held at a cozy café in downtown Haliburton and lots of friends were there. This café has a fantastic ramp to its main store, but late in the planning it was realized that the after-hours party was going to take place in a separate room with a different entrance. That entrance had a three-inch step to enter. Panic ensued as the party had many on the guest list that needed a ramp to enter. The team thought about moving the event, changing the time, and started scrambling to solve the problem. The owner of the establishment weighed in and told the team not to worry- “we will just build you a ramp”. This could work as the step was a small one and within a few hours a wooden ramp was installed. I love how things can bubble up when a group identifies a problem and then works together to seek out a solution. And countless times I have gone into a planning discussion feeling a little hopeless and lost in trying to think of a solution and the people I join begin to talk and soon options start to form. Equally sometimes there are distances between our opinion and the opinions of others as we work to plan, or problem solve. From time to time, we too must take a step back from our scramble and reassess the gap and sometimes we too can “just build you a ramp”. Problems do need to be talked about to shake us out of the echo chamber of our brains, if we listen and use a ramp to bridge the divide, we can usually start to hear a solution or the start of one and then we all reach the party together.

This week we said goodbye to Gerald.  A man that lived in foster care and then institutions from the age of 2.  He moved to Haliburton to live with Community Living in 1986.  He was a man about town, he loved the police force, fire service, any work crew activity and a special affinity for riding the back of the garbage truck.  Community members invited him to take part in things and more than once when he lived independently and was missing he was riding along with the police, so easy to find once the agency contacted them. At his celebration there were so many stories describing his life connected to the fabric of  the community.  In one story he was attending to a tourist family that had a flat tire, with his badges and pens and official looking hat they were not sure what role he had, but had decided that he had an official capacity in the village.  When a community member stopped, they explained that Gerald was in fact just a villager with an interest, the family member asked about his pager.  The answer was “oh that doesn’t work”  at which time it went off and Gerald quickly moved on.  Minutes later being seen by the party on the side of the road riding along in the fire truck.  Gerald was connected and was able to do what he loved because people in Haliburton took the time to get to know what he loved and accepted his gifts.  How many of us are carrying pagers?  Carrying connections to different roles, carrying guilts and troubles, carrying obligations.  Do our pagers work?  Work for us?  Are these connections and roles a place to use our gifts, are our quirky talents and interests being valued, are we missed when we are not answering the call.  The legacy of Gerald’s Haliburton is that he added almost nothing in labour or problem solving, he was valued for his presence, his smile and what having him ride along added just in his presence.  Check your pager, check your to do list, who and what on there just makes you smile and just needs you along to make everyone more engaged and smiling.  Sure we all have a long bunch of numbers competing for our attention, but lets check in to make sure we have a few “ride alongs” in there where we can just be, just share, just smile, and where the to do list type people have trouble finding us.  These are the true connections, the true Gerald moments.

I went to a book club meeting this week, in this club we all take turns hosting, so found myself in someone’s comfortable living room with friends learning more about the author of the month.  We offer a virtual option for the meetings, an advantage that the pandemic created in that we all know how to use it now and can meet from Florida colleges or with the sniffles. In order to get the presenter on camera better the operator of the virtual platform suggested moving a table closer, this was one of the formidable, plank coffee tables that just looked like 400 pounds of four hefty square wooden legs.  Three of us jumped up to help try to move the heavy load. However, it was an optical illusion, some genius had installed castors well out of view underneath and the illusion was that the solid foundational pillars actually hovered a few millimeters off the floor.  A toddler could move this table it rolled with perfect ease. Another reminder that often things seem completely solid, un-moveable, too heavy, too hard, but in the trying and the first gentle nudge we can sometimes find that we were not seeing the challenge for what it was.  We were looking at it and quickly making a judgement.  The first thing to do in a big change is make one change, one first step and sometimes, not always, you find the invisible castors that make the next few steps roll smoothly into place and you can move on to the next 400-pound challenge. 

I went to my grandmother’s burial this week, a sort of sad occasion, however she was 93 years old, so had a full long life.  The minister present told a story about how he had been a placement student at her church and then came back some months later.  It was around Christmas, when she was still well enough to attend, and he called her by name when he saw her.  He relayed that she was genuinely surprised and delighted that this young student would remember her name.  I think we all know that we feel seen, cared about, noticed and appreciated when people remember our names and use them.  I hear these words a thousand times at conferences and provincial meetings – I am terrible with names.  Totally understandable with so many people in our lives, that is why the first critical piece of gear at many gatherings is a name tag.  There is something so special about hearing your own name.  While it is a lot to remember and take in, I think we need to try and work at people’s names, learning pronunciation,  memorizing names and faces.  A tall order let’s start where we are.  Do you know all the names of the people on your team at work?  Do you shorten or avoid some because they are difficult for you to pronounce?  Are you aware of people’s pronouns and using what they prefer?   There is a great hymn where the first line is “I have called you by your name” and it is about that feeling of belonging and being appreciated.  This is something we all have the power to do, every day.  Learn, remember, use people’s names and spread that delight all over the place.

My daughter recently went camping with her friends and they all heard a strange noise in the woods. One resourceful companion offered to try an app on his phone that identifies bird sounds to see whether the mystery could be solved. The app said – crow. All of the campers knew what a crow sounded like, so they quickly dismissed the app and decided that in addition to these strange clicks and buzzes it probably picked up a distant crow noise. 

Bothered by the unidentified noise and probably haunted by a few too many Finding Big Foot viewings, my daughter worked hard to figure out the noise.  She had the recording, she had YouTube and she had a need to know.  Finally, she solved the mystery, finding a You Tube video that had the exact same sounds that she and friends hear on that fateful day on Lake Simcoe. It was a crow. 

This answer, of course, makes me laugh and think about how often we do this. Something clearly tells us that the situation is one way, or that the solution is a clear path, or that you are not as valued in this friendship as you want to be. A million buzzes and clicks seem to confirm the answer as clear and accurate, but we dismiss it. For a million reasons we keep on working away on a solution we like better, we work away in a manner that is comfortable, with comfortable partners.  In well worn patterns and we just keep on unconsciously choosing to not see or not agree with the answer, telling ourselves that this is not a crow. 

I love this story because the group had even produced a plausible explanation, that the crow was somewhere, but not making the main noise that they wanted to identify.  As when we are faced with a clear learning about our work or relationships and we say to ourselves, yes that could work for someone else, but I have these special circumstances. It’s a difficult thing to just lean into an unwanted solution or answer and go with it, we are probably hard wired to question and keep to our patterns. But sometimes the answer is in fact the clear one in front of us, sometimes it is a crow. 

Crow on a Willow Branch by Los Angeles County Museum of Art is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

Last week a hydro one crew arrived in our yard and asked permission to cut a tree from our yard as it was too difficult for them to cut from the banked road beside us. We agreed and soon the cherry picker was parked in the corner of our yard and the crew were working away. I assume that for safety the team divides into two, one person going up in the basket and trimming the tree while the other stays on the ground, watching and being ready for, well I guess any unintended actions? 

In that corner of our yard, we have a tree swing, just a simple board with rope strung through over a branch. The second worker was standing beside the tree at first, but soon made his way to the swing as he watched and waited. Then, you guessed it, he began to swing back and forth. 

This sums it all up I think, we must work, we are forced into worrisome situations, we have to face challenge and heartache, but if we look around, there just might be a swing –  a friend who can talk it over, a stranger who is kind, an unexpected funny situation, a swing to just take a few minutes to swing on. 

I have learned that we find what we look for, that what we focus on can consume us. But if we take a step back from the problem or crisis sometimes we can see something completely different, something that we had not seen before, a new solution – or at least a little distraction – to shore us up for the next leg of the journey that we face on that particular day.  In days of difficult hurdles, rest on a swing, relax into a rhythm and play. 

Photo by Pille Kirsi on Pexels.com