Life is cyclical....

 August 28, 2024

That soft rumbling sound you’re hearing whenever you go outside your house for the next few days is nothing at all to be alarmed about.  That sound is the sigh of relief of parents whose children are on the very cusp of returning to the classroom. The only appropriate reaction for those of us who are beyond the active parenting years is a soft, and maybe slightly snickering kind of smile. The kind that conveys a “been there and thank God I’m done with that” sentiment.

Here in my neck of the woods the first day of school following summer vacation has almost always, in the past, been the day after Labour Day. This year, that’s Tuesday September 3^rd. We no longer have children or even grandchildren going back to school. But we do have 4 great-grandchildren who fall into that category.

Having great-grandchildren allows one to step back from the hustle and bustle of it all. We can observe and make sympathetic sounds but are no longer considered “front-line troops.” We no longer have to figure it all out.

These days, I’ve heard, that part of the “getting your child ready for school” routine involves purchasing copious amounts of supplies—over and above new clothes—so many things that there are lists handed out for parents to check off as they shop their way through one or more paychecks.

I’m grateful that we never had to contend with that. When our kids were in school, it was always a struggle just to get them some new clothes to wear. Well, there was that one year when we moved from one community to another about a half hour to the west. We had sold the house and bought another and had enough left over to ensure that they all had a few sets of new clothes to wear that year.

High School was the first point at which we had to supply all of the tools of learning—notebooks, ring binders, pens and pencils and what have you. Also, our kids didn’t have “pizza day” but there was the occasional “hot dog day” and that wasn’t too bad. As well, kids were expected to bring their own drinks to school. There were no milk orders to contend with.

When I hear of the expense involved in sending children to school in this modern age, I just shake my head and shudder. I don’t know how the parents of today can afford it all.

The only real adjustments for this time of year that we have to make, David and I, concerns the dogs. During this summer, the oldest of my daughter’s dogs, Bella, a purebred Chihuahua who turned 13 on the day before my birthday, has enjoyed her private porch time each morning beginning at around 7 am. Yes, she barks occasionally, but she purely loves being on the porch, surveying her realm. She enjoys her alone time. Considering how noisy her fellow canines are I can’t say that I blame her.

Sadly, now, with the return of the kids to school, she will have to wait until after the school bus make’s its run through our neighborhood for her version of “me time”. The last few years the bus has stopped just a half a block down from us, and at about 8:25 each morning.

I know the time because beginning a few minutes before that, all the dogs in our house begin to bark. They can see out the window. They are smart dogs. They know that so many children gathering like that in one spot can’t possibly be good! It is their duty as good doggos to sound the alarm.

Life is day to day and life is cyclical. What better example for that than the annual return to school for children of all ages. School starts, and the first few days are exciting, and then they are fully into the routine. They hopefully begin to learn, and one of the things they learn over time is that there are holidays and breaks to look forward to and, of course, their own little benchmarks—Christmas pageants and Valentines parties and Easter egg hunts…and then the prospect of summer break once more.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

https://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

 

Ah, those hills...

 August 21, 2024

I have resigned myself to the reality that the weather will do what the weather will do. As with other things, when it comes to the weather, I try to adopt a flexible stance. At any moment on any given day, I can activate the two fans in my office: one an overhead, and one a tired yet still (basically) functional tower fan with oscillating capabilities. Conversely, I have a decorative fireplace with a very real, and fairly efficient electric heater unit which is easily activated.

The result is that I can adjust my environment to cooler, or warmer, depending.

I also have a “mini fridge” in my office, which is stocked with a selection of cold drinks: water, juice, diet soda, or canned sweet tea of various flavors. I also have, thanks to one of my grandsons and his wife, a mini electric hot plate which is a coffee cup warmer, and just on the other side of the door that separates my office from the kitchen stands my Keurig, always at the ready.

The result is that I can enjoy a cold drink or keep a hot drink warm, depending.

I used to live my life in blocks of time that were fairly rigidly regulated. I would get up to an alarm that went off at five in the morning, even after I no longer worked outside the home myself. This, because for several years after I “retired”, I would get up at that time so I could drive my husband to work. Then, of course, I would come home and go back to bed. I had until about four-fifteen each day to do as I chose but at four-sixteen I needed to be in my car, on my way to pick David up from work. 

The result was that in that interim, I could write, or do housework, or read, depending.

Upon our return from David’s place of employment each weekday, I would go into supper making mode. Then came eating, the news, and whatever entertainment the TV would offer us until it was time to head to bed—usually by no later than eleven—to begin the routine all over again the next day.

Weekends tended to be the only days that were not always scripted, the only days that were potentially free time. Get up early or sleep in, go out, stay home. And yet we also had to use our weekends to fit in all our responsibilities that could not be accomplished Monday to Friday.

The result was that the weekends were when we’d shop, do laundry, or yard work, depending.

Flexibility, I decided long ago, was the key to making life work. One couldn’t be too rigid in one’s coping mechanisms. Going with the flow, for the most part, is a sound operating procedure. But it does have its limitations.

For most of us, there is, somewhere, and likely in more than one category, a bottom line below which we will not sink. There needs to be a few points of stability, or perhaps we can call them guard-rails or anchors. Usually these form within our psyches organically as we walk our individual paths in life, as we grow and mature. I would submit that as one ages, one’s guard-rails, one’s anchors, become more deeply fixed. Like concrete they harden over time.

When we’re young, there are many hills on which we are willing to die—and usually in truly keenly emoted and overly dramatic fashion. But as we age, that number goes down, until we realize a basic truth of personal maturity.

There truly are damn few things worth going to the mat for. But for those things that are, they are points of principle that are so deeply entwined with who and what we are as human beings, they’re priceless.

As I have been watching and noting the world around me this week, I have discovered that not only am I not alone in my belief of this precept; I may in fact be standing in what could prove to be a tsunami of fellowship.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

https://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

 

A few reflections...

 August 14, 2024

Ah me, the Olympics are over! What a spectacle! What an amazing diversion from the banal and the mundane. That was a fast sixteen days, wasn’t it? And yes, I know that in a few months (or at my rate of slipping mental retention a few hours) more, most of us won’t recall too many moments that we watched. We won’t recall the details of what we witnessed over that last sixteen days very well at all.

But what we may never forget are the emotions that stirred within us as that quadrennial performance unfolded. For most of us there will be, in future years, perhaps only one or two moments from those sixteen days that stand out and live on in our memories. I know that for me, that one moment occurred during the opening ceremony. After the cauldron had been lit and the camera panned to the Eiffel Tower, and I heard Celine Dion’s voice once more. I’ll forever have to look up the name of the song she sang. But I’ll forever remember the tearful moment when I realized that she was singing!

Those thoughts—as my thoughts often do—led me to another. I’m reminded of that popular expression, “you’ll remember how a person made you feel longer than you’ll remember anything they ever said.”

I used to wonder about how that saying could be so reflective of reality when it was, in fact, an argument for the value of emotions over facts. Feelings, if you will, over truth. And while choosing the emotional over the logical holds some appeal, when stated just that way, it also presents itself as a heartbreakingly anti-human statement.

Think about it for just a moment. We strive to be better and to do better. We seek the truth and hold that difficult to define essence as our modern-day Holy Grail. And yet what we continue to insist defines us as a species is our ability to form emotional connections. Our ability to feel, to emote, and yes, to react on that basis, alone.

We continue to be living, breathing creatures of paradox. We continue to believe that our lives are destined to be the continuation of the ages-long eternal battle of the emotional versus the logical.

But what if that framing of the situation, of the struggle, is all wrong?

What if it’s not a battle between those two qualities, but a struggle to somehow combine, to meld the two into a perfect—or more perfect—union of the two within us. What if the entire idea of this game of life is to find a way to give each part of what makes us who we are its own stage upon which to perform? Its own spotlight under which to shine?

How do we make everything fit, exactly? And if we are each of us unique individuals, then I have to believe that the perfect mix of the two within each person is unique as well. It’s not so much a question of what is right, in the ultimate sense. It’s more a question of what is right for each of us.

I don’t have all the answers, and I probably don’t have all the questions, either. But I do know this.

Over the course of my lifetime, I’ve felt the path that we’re on, as a species, is not so much a straight line as a slow-moving arc, like a pendulum.  And over the last years, we have been bombarded by the dark, the hard, and the frightening. We have been forced to curb our natural tendencies and pare back our very existence to ensure that we can cover the barest of necessities.

And now, finally, we are on the upward swing of our arc once more. Can you feel it? It’s right there, waiting for you to grab it.

The time has come for optimism and celebration. We have faced our share of demons for now. Of course they will return. That’s just how it is. But for now, it’s time for us to exert our control, and welcome back the angels.

It’s time for the choir to sing!

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

https://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

Summer...

 August 7, 2024

Today in my small corner of the world, the sun is shining, the birds are singing…and of course, the dogs are barking.

The canine members of our household are currently on the porch with their daddy/grandpa (depending), while here I sit in my office, butt in chair, fingers on keyboard. And in a room that is separated from them by an uninsulated, outside wall, and a window.

In other words, it’s as if I am right there with them.

The temperature today is slated for the mid-to-high seventies (Fahrenheit). The rain and humidity of yesterday are gone, and that all by itself is wonderful.  Today, in other words, is like a late spring day. As opposed to a day in the beginning of the month we used to refer to as the dog days of summer, which it always was.

See what I did there?

The weather is no longer “normal”. Sadly, that’s a two-word grouping—normal weather—that we won’t use much from here on out. Which means that until things settle into a recognizable pattern, normal is an as yet undefined state of being.  I suppose we should be grateful that we still have light in the “day-time” hours and dark in the “night-time” ones. That’s normal. As well, we likely will not have anything approaching snow or ice during this month or the next—and that’s about as normal as we can expect to achieve in the here and now, too.

All distractions aside, life goes on. Some folks are on their summer vacations, others on their staycations, and the rest of us are simply putting one foot in front of the other (metaphorically) and doing what needs done, day by day.

The July birthday/anniversary celebrations and commemorations are over for another year, and as near as we can calculate, Smokey kitty turns one year old today. We don’t call him by his name, mostly. He’s puddy or kitty or, most often, Katmandu the Catastrophic Catastrophe. Daughter, the official cat-person of record calls him a**hole. That’s like a term of endearment and likely says more about her than it does the cat. Puddy, as I call him, enjoys the occasional olive, and will let you know when he wants to go into the basement to explore—which is at some point every day. He has full run of the house but may not go outside.

I keep telling him he’s a house cat, not a field cat. He gets by us once in a while, and it’s a scramble to get him inside again. And once, a couple of weeks ago, he got past the grandpa, who was unaware, at about 2 am when he put the dogs out to pee. Daughter then put her dogs out four hours later, and the cat charged into the house, crying for all he was worth. He wasn’t hurt, but I think he may have learned that the out-of-doors is a very scary place for a house cat.

Basically, all beings under this roof do their best to simply live their lives. The humans here do what they can when they can to help other folk. We practice kindness because that’s the state of being that is the most comfortable to inhabit. When we are out and about, we seize what occasions present themselves to give back or lend a hand. When we are home, we do our best to be kind to each other. Believe it or not, being kind to those closest to us appears to be something that happens less often in today’s society than does the act of being kind to strangers.

Not that we stand on ceremony here, because we don’t. But we do our best to give each other, and ourselves, a break. We’re, each of us in this family, free to be ourselves. No one tells anyone what to do (though sometimes suggestions are made). This is home, and home should always be, as it is here, the ultimate safe space.

Our green beans continue to thrive, and we’ve had our first tomato. We also have a new challenge, garden-wise, and it’s taken us a few days to recognize it as such. Apparently, the outdoor critters (squirrels, chipmunks, and birds) have discovered the joy of tomatoes. They’ve been helping themselves to some of the ripe ones. So now there’s a new rule in this household and we’re hoping it’s a rule that we can use to our advantage: if the tomato begins to pinken, pick it. They will continue to ripen inside the house, though more slowly. And when they are ripe, they will be shared and appreciated by the humans who planted them.

This may change down the road, depending on the yield, and how long it takes us to become “tomatoed-out”. Since I’m still waiting for my first tomato, lettuce and salad dressing sandwich, that won’t be anytime soon.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

https://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury