December 9, 2015

My beloved and I get along very well—most of the time. But there are some times when, if others were to hear us talking to each other, they’d swear we were people from two different worlds. Of course in some ways we are, as men and women are quite different in several ways, one from the other.

We married when I was one week shy of my 18th birthday, and he was a much older man of 19½. During our forty-three years together, we’ve raised three children, welcomed seven grandchildren, and buried one of each. There have been times so lean, we used to hunt beer bottles at the side of the road to cash in so we could buy milk and bread for the table. Lately, though we’re not rich, we don’t struggle, financially, at all. We’ve learned how to budget—money, time and differing opinions—and we’ve learned how to not sweat the small stuff.

We haven’t, like some married folks do, drifted apart. That’s not just luck, that’s us working at being married. We talk, we share, we fight and make up, and we understand the concept of compromise. And we make allowances for each other’s...foibles.

A couple of weeks ago, our furnace—that had just turned twelve years old—broke down, again. It broke down in the coldest part of the winter in 2013, and cost us over a thousand dollars to fix at that time. It broke down in the deep cold again last year, but that repair was covered under the protection plan. At least the timing of this current malfunction was better—the temperatures were chilly but not freezing when it stopped working at eight o’clock at night. Because it wasn’t yet the rush season for furnace breakdowns, the repairman was out two hours after my call the next morning.

When my husband came home from work, I reported that the furnace was indeed fixed—but that I had told the repair man yes, he could have a salesman call. David said, “It’s only twelve years old. Furnaces are supposed to last twenty-five years!” I commiserated with his feeling of frustration. We purchased that furnace in 2003 and paid a few thousand dollars for it. It likely would have lasted twenty-five years – if we’d bought it in 1975.

While I had been hoping to wait until this coming summer to buy a new furnace, I was no longer willing to take the chance of another breakdown. For me, it was a case of three strikes, you’re out. Yes, we pay a monthly 30 dollar protection plan fee to the gas company (from whom we bought the furnace), so just about anything that goes wrong with it is covered. But the repair man told me the heat exchanger that had been the cause of the break down and waiting for the part in 2013 might go again—as several others for this same model had done, in his experience. That was one of the few parts not covered by warrant or protection plan, and an expense even my husband was not willing to pay again.

“It won’t hurt to sit down and talk to the man,” David agreed. “But we are not renting a furnace. I’ve heard horror stories from some of the guys at work about renting furnaces. Besides, if you calculate out the cost of renting over twenty-five years, you will end up paying for that furnace two or three times more than if you’d bought it in the first place.”

Some concepts are tough to let go. Between then and the day the man came to talk to us about replacing our furnace, my beloved did a little more research and found out that truly, the twenty-five year furnace had gone the way of spats and the two-pants suit. Once he’s presented with facts he’s not afraid to change his mind. I have to respect that about him.

I’m happy to report that we now have a high efficiency furnace that so far has proven so much more efficient, I figure we’ll make back a great deal of the monthly rental fee on gas and electricity savings. We already no longer have to pay that 30 dollar protection plan fee.

And the best part is that come summer, we will have something that we have never, ever had before. We’ll have central air—which came with the furnace at no extra cost.

Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

December 2, 2015

Bells are ringing, all right, but they’re not Christmas bells. No, sir, they’re telephone bells as every telemarketer that you’ve ever heard of—and some you probably haven’t—are trying to meet their Christmas quotas.

My phone rings several times a day with eager, dare I say determined people placing those calls, anxious to sell me something—anything! No, I don’t usually listen long enough to know what. I generally tell them I’m not interested, and sometimes I repeat that several times before I just hang up. These last few days, if call display shows a 1-800 number, I simply don’t answer.

The media refers to the day after the U. S. Thanksgiving as Black Friday. I understand why that is, of course. That one day is when retailers, who’ve been operating in the red all year long, supposedly sell enough to pull themselves out of debt, and if not firmly in the profit column, at least onto even ground.

But it’s “black” for other reasons, in my estimation. There were times in years past when I thought it should be called, “black eye Friday”, as in, people behaving badly gives all of the rest of us a black eye.

Fortunately I didn’t read of any truly horrific incidents of moms trying to beat each other to death over the latest Star-Wars toys, Barbies, or iPhones. There doesn’t seem to be any planned shortages this year of “must have” toys to make people frantic to have a particular item, as I suspect happened in years past(remember Tickle Me Elmo and Cabbage Patch Kids?).

That doesn’t mean that the Black Friday shopping experience was necessarily completely without peril. But I did hear on the news that the actual dollars spent in brick and mortar stores was down several billion over years past—and that the answer to Black Friday—Cyber Monday—was most definitely a hit, bringing in several billion more.

Gosh, I hope no one sprains a brain trying to figure that one out, but I suspect they will. Can you just see a meeting of great marketing minds? They’re sitting around a table, wondering why people would rather stay home, save gas, order from the comfort of their den, living room, or home office as opposed to joining the general melee known as the Black Friday in-store shopping experience.

Well, the answer is simple. A lot of us would much rather stay home, save gas, order from the comfort of our den, living room or home office as opposed to joining the general melee known as the Black Friday in-store shopping experience.

Generally speaking, I prefer shopping on line, primarily for all of the above twice mentioned reasons. Not to be dismissed from the equation is the fact there are no commission-paid sales staff following you around, asking you every two minutes if they can help you. Not, of course, that the online browsing experience is without the cyber version of those facilitators. Actually, in some ways, the cyber version is much scarier.

Let me tell you what I mean. Are you on FaceBook? If you are, then I invite you to go to Amazon and browse something—but make it something specific, maybe something unusual. I recently went looking online for a new feather pillow. The one I’ve been using for the last 4 or 5 years lost its “umph”. I can only sleep on feather pillows (the other kind tend to give me headaches). Not too many stores have feather pillows anymore, and I wanted one, specifically, that had added down. If you don’t know, a pillow boasting “down” has the hard quill part of the feather removed.

The day after I was looking at feather pillows from a specific company through Amazon, low and behold, the ads that began appearing on FaceBook as I was going over my news feed were for the exact same brand of pillows! Coincidence? I think not.

I do sometimes worry about all the metadata that Amazon generates, and how they use it. But I guess I don’t worry about that nearly as much as I want to avoid, whenever possible, going to stores during peak shopping seasons.

No, it’s much quieter and much more pleasant to shop from my home—even if big brother really is watching me.

Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

November 25, 2015

A month from today is Christmas. Are you ready for it? I’m not. I pride myself on being organized and yet every year, Christmas draws near and I realize I am nowhere near being ready. That’s really silly, given that the holiday comes every year on the same day. You’d think by my age, I’d stop being surprised by its imminent arrival.

I don’t think it’s a question of Christmas not being important to me. I know it is, but it’s the day itself, and its significance of it that matter to me—not all the hoopla we have, by secular tradition, attached to it.

There’s another factor, especially these last nine years that play into my resistance to all the lights and glitter of the season. When you’ve lost a child, even if that child was an adult when he died, it forever leaves a hole in your heart. It’s kind of difficult to fully get into the spirit of joy when a piece of you is forever in mourning.

Therapists will tell you that this is one of the most stressful times of the year for many people. The older we get, the more we celebrate our special holidays while thinking of those loved ones no longer with us. Yes, missing children and grandchildren is harder—we’re not truly meant to bury those younger than us by a generation or two. Most of us as we reach our middle years, or enter into our December years, miss our parents and some siblings as well. The Christmas season, when we were kids, was filled with joy and magic. As we age, I think we hunger for that sense of wonder again. We long for the days when life seemed only bright and beautiful, and when anything—anything at all—was possible.

We’d all like an escape, every now and then, from adulting.

A month away and I can’t tell you how, exactly, we’ll pass the day. Our surviving son and his family generally spend their Christmas with my daughter-in-law’s people. That’s fine, because as I have noted in the past, and find it to be more true than not, that sons do that very thing. That old saying that says a son’s a son till he takes a wife is based on truth, after all.

Because Christmas falls on a Friday this year, it’s a working day for my daughter. I don’t yet know if she’ll have a couple of hours late afternoon to stop in and eat. We’ll figure it all out. Too, there’s nothing wrong with just the two of us having our quiet Christmas dinner together. We get along pretty well, for a couple of older folks.

It all went by so fast! It seems like not that long ago I was a child, bubbling with excitement to see what Santa left under the tree. Then, just a few moments after that, I was a young mother, bubbling with excitement to see our little ones’ jubilee over what Santa left under the tree.

These days if I feel bubbling, I’m tempted to call the doctor.

Still, I must say that giving remains my favorite part of the secular holiday. I’ve been told on more than one occasion by more than one person that I am way too generous. I know that I am. My first instinct has always been to offer a hand up, to give to those who are in need as well as my loved ones, just to see them smile.

I make no apologies for that. For a lot of people, giving is the best part of Christmas. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with that.

Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

November 18, 2015

We live in a society governed by rule of law. Most of us agree to live by those laws, and understand that if we want them changed then there is a civilized means through which to do this.

Most of us willingly give ourselves to live under the dominion of our governments. We don’t always agree with the person or persons who’ve been elected to run the show, but we respect the institution of government and know those people may be replaced at the next election. We can even volunteer to help that along, by becoming involved in the process.

If we’re really unhappy with the decisions being made by our officials, then we can pick up pen and paper and write our representatives; if we feel strongly enough, we organize petitions, rallies, get media coverage, understanding that this is one of the routes to change in our countries.

Here in North America, if we feel the move to evangelize, to bring others to our own point of view faith-wise, then we speak to others of our faith; we give testimony of how our faith has worked in our lives.

We don’t pick up guns, gird ourselves with explosives, and kill people we don’t even know. In fact, we tend to think the people who do that are psychopaths.

And really, that is exactly what they are.

It’s very, very hard for us to wrap our heads around the events in Paris last Friday. Our thoughts and prayers were immediately engaged and invoked for the victims and their families and friends.

We all have begun to think, “There but by the Grace of God go us.” But something else is afoot as a result of the events, too, and while I understand it, I can’t, in good conscience, agree with it.

Of the over one million refugees fleeing the same violence we witnessed in Paris, one person is thought to have been one of those psychopaths. And because this may be so, many now no longer wish to welcome any refugees into their communities.

We’re afraid. We’re afraid, because we don’t understand the violence. It’s foreign to us, and we don’t know how to fight it.

I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if that was the whole point of having one of the attackers get to Paris that way. The psychopaths were faced with the dilemma: how do they keep their immediate victims there, how do they stop them from fleeing? “They are millions, we are only thousands. If they all flee, we can’t stop them. Oh, I know. We’ll taint them with one of our own—just one, that’s all it will take—and no one will want to take in any of our victims who are fleeing for their lives. Winter is coming. They will die. And the rest, knowing there is no deliverance, there is no escape, there is no mercy—they will stay put.”

That thinking on our part, where we say, “none of them can be trusted, keep them all out, turn away the stranger at the gate”, that thinking makes us no safer than we were, but it does make us much less than we were.

I turn back to the early lessons in my life. As a kid I was bullied, and sometimes that was hard to take. It made me angry and I wanted to get back at those who were treating me badly. But my mother would tell me, that if I did, I would be “lowering” myself to their level, that I would then be no better than those who persecuted me.

And she reminded me of the Sermon on the Mount, and the admonition to turn the other cheek.

This situation is much more serious, this situation with those psychopaths who ran rampant and murdered and injured hundreds in the City of Light. Turning the other cheek against murderers isn’t the way to go.

But neither is making those not responsible for the carnage pay the price for those who are.

We need to be very careful that we don’t ascribe blame to a particular religion. It’s easy enough to do. It might even be emotionally satisfying in the short term. But it would be very wrong to do so.

We need to focus on placing our anger where it belongs: on the organized group of psychopaths who are directly responsible for the violence and the killing.

Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

November 11, 2015

One hundred years ago this year, the first Great War raged across Europe, but its impact truly was felt world-wide. When Great Britain declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914, Canada, as a part of the British Empire, was automatically also at war.

Many of the young men of the day signed up to serve—some as soldiers, and some as medical support. One of those who volunteered his services was a Doctor who’d been born and raised in Guelph, Ontario (just down the road from me), who’d been a resident at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, Maryland at the dawn of the 20th century, and who had already seen the affects of war on the human body. His name was Dr. John McRae, and when he enlisted, he was appointed as a medical officer to the First Brigade of the Canadian Field Artillery—and given the rank of Major.

McRae wasn’t just a doctor. He expressed himself in words—as a poet, and a writer of articles for medical journals—and he was also an artist who rendered pencil sketches of some of the places he’d been during his world travels.

He wrote to his mother, while stationed in Belgium, of the carnage of war. He did what he could for the wounded in the trenches near Ypres, Belgium, often doing without much sleep or relief of any kind for days on end. And it was while he was in Belgium, and after the death of a friend, that he gave us words that are as timely now as ever they were, and a symbol we all recognize as synonymous with honoring all those who’ve died in military service to their countries.

That poem is called In Flanders Fields. In case it’s been a while since you’ve heard it, here it is:

In Flanders Fields 

In Flanders fields the poppies blow 

Between the crosses, row on row 

That mark our place; and in the sky 

The larks, still bravely singing, fly 

Scarce heard amid the guns below. 

We are the Dead. Short days ago 

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow 

Loved, and were loved, and now we lie 

In Flanders Fields. 

Take up our quarrel with the foe: 

To you from failing hands we throw 

The torch; be yours to hold it high. 

If ye break faith with us who die 

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 

In Flanders Fields. 

Today is a day we pause, and with a minute of silence, honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice so that we could live our lives blessed with freedom. 

That first Great War, and the next one—the Second World War—seem far removed from us in 2015. And yet, today, there are other wars, and rumors of wars, and there are acts of war not committed nation against nation, but man against man. 

Now more than ever we need to stop, and pause, and reflect: lest we forget. 

Love, 

Morgan 

http://www.morganashbury.com 

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

November 4, 2015

Sometimes, I have trouble with the concept of keeping the main thing, the main thing. The everyday living of life can be overwhelming at times, with some occurrences taking on more importance than they need to. This is especially true, at least for me, when things don’t do the way I hope they will—or maybe the way I count on them to go. Let’s face it. Crap happens in life to all of us. Sometimes dealing with that crap can be a challenge. I mean, who can think when unexpected glitches arise?

Do you ever listen to Ted Talks? Have you heard about them? These are a series of “talks” or mini-lectures, most of them under twenty minutes long, by experts in varying fields. Arts, sciences, religions, social issues—there are more than a thousand “talks” and they can all be found here, for free: http://www.ted.com/

This past weekend I listened to one given by a neuroscientist entitled, “How to stay calm when you know you’ll be stressed.” It turns out there’s a medical reason why I can’t keep the main thing the main thing when I’m having one of those days. It’s a chemical called cortisol, it gets released by your brain into your body when you’re stressed, and one of the things it does is to cloud your thinking. You chemically can’t be logical and concise in your thoughts with that stuff floating around free inside you.

The scientist’s suggested solution to the situation was to conduct a “pre-mortem” for any upcoming special event—that is, to sit down and try to think of all the possible things that could go wrong in the upcoming situation, things that if they occurred would stress you out. Then, he said, think of a solution for each possible problem. He reasoned that you could think clearly ahead of time when not under stress, and then if one of those situations did arise, you’d not be hampered my muzzy thinking. You’d know what to do. In my thirties or forties, I might have rolled my eyes, hearing this suggestion. Now I’m sixty-one, and I’m thinking that his idea has merit.

I can totally see myself doing this. I already have an edge on anyone else who might have heard this talk at the same time I did and decided to incorporate the good doctor’s advice. I already make an extensive clothing list when I’m going on a trip!

As I’ve explained in a few past essays, I make a list of the days I’ll be at an event, list the activities I’ll be participating in, and then assign an outfit for each day. Sometimes I might have two activities on a single day, and there might be a wardrobe change required. I’ve even, in the past, after finalizing my list of outfits, gone ahead and picked out my accessories, put them in individual baggies, and assigned them a number or two, so I would know which outfit or two they’d match.

It would appear I was already doing that whole “pre-mortem” thing with regard to my clothes without knowing that was what I was doing. So I suppose that taking the process to the next level – making a list of all the things that could go wrong on a trip, or in the event of some other special occasion like throwing a dinner party, or attending a special function, and then coming up with a solution to each problem is a great idea.

There are actually only two potential problems I can see with this system, and likely both of them are connected to the fact I’m not as young as I used to be. The first is, will I remember, in the moment of crisis, that I had done the exercise and come up with a list of well thought out, and logical solutions to the unexpected problem?

And the second is much more to the point: if I do, will I be able to recall exactly where that list might be?

Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury

October 28, 2015

In the beginning, all I have is an idea.

Sometimes it’s a complete idea, and sometimes, it’s just the trace of one. Sometimes a scene appears in my mind, full blown, down to the words that are being said. One single scene and nothing more. Sometimes, all I know in that first instant are the characters’ names, and maybe a hint about what their back story might be.

Once I’ve had a taste of that idea, the fun begins. Often, I get those ideas when I’m already hip deep in another story. I usually stop and make a very fast note—and then carry on.

That’s when the magic happens. You see, for me, a story germinates like a four-day relish on the back burner of the kitchen stove. There’s just enough heat to keep it to a barely-there simmer. Like the relish, once in a while I might catch a whiff of it, but otherwise I forget about it. And all the while those characters are whispering to my subconscious, and their story is forming in the creative vault in my mind.

Then the day comes when it’s time for me to begin that story. I’m a little anal in some things, and a scatterbrain when it comes to others. I like to think that over all, I’m kind of cute. The first thing I always do is begin a new word document in the new word file that bears the title of the new project. This first document is called “Basic Concept” and could be likened to a sketch-artist’s doodle pad. I write. I write about who these characters are, what is unique about them, where they grew up, and what the influences were that helped shape them. I might even write about the time they were caught throwing spit-balls in class. If I imagined them in a scene, I write that scene, briefly, just the bare bones.

I write and write and write some more, a rambling document that admittedly would be hard for any reader to follow. And I keep writing until I know the opening line of the story. And as soon as I know that first line, I stop my rambling, go to the first page of the manuscript, and begin.

It’s not all easy sailing from there. Sometimes I get stuck. I either get stuck because I began to write too soon and don’t have a clear idea of where I’m going, or I get stuck trying to make my characters do something they’re not meant to do. Often, as I’m writing, my story shifts away from what I thought it was going to be about. That means there are moments when, if you could see me, all you would see would be me with a somewhat vacant look on my face, staring off into space, as my mind tries to plot a new course—with the input of the characters, of course.

Being a writer isn’t just what I do, it’s who I am. These stories I write are more than just words. They’re a part of me. Every single novel I’ve written has a theme. My characters are facing challenges that are realistic, taken from the annals of everyday life. They’ve survived abusive marriages, or abusive childhoods, they’ve gotten over heartache and the pain of loss. They’re dealing with emotional baggage that would be heavy for anyone to bear.

Some of these stories contain instances from my own experiences, and some from the experiences of others. But they are far more than words or even the sum total of those words, they’re a part of me.

The relationship between an author and their work is a deeply intimate one. Although I love what I do, writing is not easy. It can be painful, sometimes more painful than tearing a bandage off a particularly raw and sensitive wound.

This is why I get very upset when people steal my books, which they do when they download my work from a file sharing site for “free”. That’s money I’ll never see, although I’ve earned it. And no, I’m not rich, and yes, it does matter.

Pirating an author’s hard work is bad enough. I don’t even want to think about how I’d feel if some hack decided to steal my words by plagiarizing them. Apparently that’s been happening to others lately. Someone has taken the novel of other authors, changed a few things like names and places, and then slapped their own name on it, published it, and taken their ill gotten gains to the bank.

To the author whose heart and soul are in their work, that kind of pillaging is beyond devastating. It is, in fact, a form of rape.

Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury