A treasure found...

 November 6, 2024

As I grow older, I’ve noticed that my memory isn’t as sharp as it once was. My husband used to tell me—and not unkindly—that I had the memory of an elephant. It was a point that, while not something I took pride in, necessarily, was something that comforted me.

Now, those far away times that stick out, ready to be reviewed at my whim are fewer than they used to be. One thing I am having a hell of a time recalling lately are names! Is it ever frustrating not remembering the names of actors/actresses, people I used to know, occasionally people I do know…. well, you get the idea. I also, sometimes, have a challenge finding just the right words to say. Not so much when I’m writing, but if I’m speaking, those words like to hide on me.

I am, however, grateful that some of the memories I’ve always cherished—those involving loved ones no longer living—are still with me. And as we approach the year’s end, that’s particularly comforting as I can cast my thoughts back to special times past, even going back to my very young childhood. To the times that are the most essential to who I think of myself as being while yet a child. Particularly the one birthday party I had when I turned 8, and of course to my early Christmases.

That birthday party happened in the summer 1961. Prior to that summer we had been a family of 5 living in a two-bedroom house. We had an eat-in kitchen, a living room, a bathroom, and two bedrooms.  One bedroom was my brother’s; the other held two beds, one for our parents and one for my sister and me. That small house was in a rural area of southern Ontario. Out in the sticks. Our nearest neighbor was only about a couple of hundred yards to the north of us. The two houses, ours and the Simons’, an older couple, were separated by a field(theirs) that held lots of tall grass in the summer—and a small abandoned “garbage” pile with a home-made incinerator in the far back corner.

One day, I think when I was 5, Mr. Simons passed away. Their children had been long gone before I was even born, moved off and living their own lives. I do have a memory of looking out our side window in the little house toward the Simon’s house and seeing Mr. Simons on the ground, with an umbrella opened over him, shading him. I recall the sight confused me. Later of course, I learned that he’d had a heart attack and she’d done what she could to protect him from the sun while she waited for help. On that day, my parents were at work, while my brother looked after my sister and me.

Then in the summer of 1961, our parents told us that they’d bought that bigger house next door. And no, they weren’t selling our little house. They were going to turn it into a rental property—whatever that was (I was only almost 8.) Each of us kids was going to have our own bedroom! Shortly after we moved in, when I turned 8, I had my first birthday party, ever. All I recall of the event was that my daddy had used two sawhorses and a big slab of wood to make an outdoor table for the occasion.

Christmas was another thing that looms huge in my childhood memories. There are only a handful of details that were constant, for every Christmas. The special breakfast which was not only bacon and eggs, but orange juice and grape juice; the large orange in the toe of my stocking; church at midnight; and our Christmas Eve candle.

About eight inches high, red and nubbly on the outside, fatter than my little-girl hands could encompass, that candle was lit every Christmas Eve, and only burned during that evening. I recall one time, when we had my mom’s brother and his wife over, that someone made a joke about blowing out a candle, and I thought they had said they wanted the candle blown out. I was maybe 5 at the time. I remember yelling, “I’ll do it!” and reached up for that candle….and ended up with hot wax on my dress! I was lucky not to be burned. Don’t know if the dress survived.

That candle symbolized Christmas to me the same way the midnight Eucharist at our church did. It was sacred. It was special. Adding to its aura for me was that it had been my dad’s, who died the January after we moved into that big house across the field from the little one, way out in the country.

After my mother passed, there were items that had been set aside for each of us—she’d made a list. And there were items that were just taken by each of us, though not in a selfish way. We were all three too much in shock with our mother’s sudden death in her 57^th year to be greedy.

My brother took possession of the candle, and it gave me comfort each Christmas season, seeing it on his mantel. After he and his wife were both gone—in the fall of 2021, I contacted my nephews and asked if I could have that candle, and they quickly agreed.

And then they couldn’t find it. In fact, they couldn’t find any of the Christmas decorations, period. I mourned the loss of that candle, though not as much as I did the loved ones who’d had care of it.

Then, a week ago Sunday, I got a text from my brother’s eldest son. It was a photo of a red candle and the question, “is this it?”

Apparently, that weekend as they finally prepared their parent’s house for sale, they discovered some storage bins tucked up in an out-of-the-way niche. And inside of those bins were the missing Christmas decorations—and the candle.

I’m not ashamed to tell you I cried when I saw the picture of it. I just did. I know it’s because that candle is a solid physical connection to those who were and are no more. In a very real way, since it was cherished by my father’s family, and with him by his own, then my brother by his, it’s all I have left of those Christmases long gone. And all I have left of them.

As I write this, that candle sits in a glass-fronted bookcase in my living room—the same bookcase that my maternal grandfather, a furniture maker, had made for my mother. And waiting for Christmas Eve.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

Questioning the "intelligence" of it all....

 October 30, 2024

Dear Google: Please stop trying to sell me something when all I want from you is specific information. Love, Morgan.

Sometimes it’s a real pain in the you-know-what. I’m an author. I’ve got 70 titles available, as well as several boxed sets that my publisher has so graciously compiled, of both my “Morgan” authored books and my “Cara” ones. And being an author, I often will ask any number and manner of questions of “the google machine”.

Even when I’m not in writing mode, you have to know that I have a curiosity about anything and everything. I never know when watching something on evening television or reading about something in a book will pique my curiosity.

Now, I understand that in a capitalistic society, “commercials” are necessary as a means to help pay for services provided. I sometimes make a donation to Wikipedia when asked. So, I’m mostly ok with the concept, and the inevitable “hitting up” I may experience via imbedded commercials about this, that, or even the other thing.

Of course, I really, really hate these interruptions when I’m doing my nightly YouTube dive. Is there anything worse than having a great song, one that you love or maybe haven’t heard in a long time, interrupted mid-note by an ad for something I will never, ever buy (or even something I won’t buy now because the company ruined the song I was into)? Oh sure, YouTube offers me the privilege of experiencing their services ad free if I pay protection money—er, sorry I meant a membership fee—but that’s a topic for another essay.

So, Google is always tossing up ads in whatever I use it to do for me. Whether I’m looking for information to learn or to verify, or maybe if I’m trying to find a specific website, Google has a seeming endless number of suggestions on ways in which I and my few discretionary dollars can part ways.

And then there’s that other thing Google has been doing lately. Sometimes, Google asks questions that have nothing at all to do with possibly earning a small stipend for themselves. And almost always these suggestions are just downright silly and bring out my not-so-inner smart-ass.

Me: Asking Google a question about the Pyramids at Giza.

Google: Would you like to view results closer to you?

I sometimes wonder what Google would do if I clicked on “yes”, but I never remember to do that when it happens. Because usually, when I’m researching something or other for my current manuscript, and being in full work mode, I do not want to distract my focus away from said work at all. Period. Because, friends, I know how that is going to end, and the word that comes to mind is not “good”.

These days my focus is too hard to come by to begin with. If I find it, I sure as hell don’t want to lose it.

But since I am one to always search for the silver lining in life, I’ll give you one now. I’ve been a bit worried about all of the possible implications of the newest technological breakthrough (at least the newest that I’m aware of. If there’s something newer, please don’t tell me.) That breakthrough, of course, is AI. Artificial Intelligence.

Up until this point I had been thinking the emphasis belonged on that first word, “artificial”. Made sense as it sure as heck isn’t something that is naturally occurring in nature. I’m reasonably certain that companies like Google and Microsoft, and any other company involved in the medium known as the Internet has already or is in the process of installing AI wherever they can on their platforms. Nothing I can do about that.

But now, when, for one example, I look at the results when I search for clues for my acrostic puzzles and see what google gives me, I understand that “artificial” doesn’t deserve the emphasis in this two-word phrase.

Because artificial it surely is and there can be no doubt about that. But whether or not intelligence of any kind is involved is a whole other matter.

And from what I’ve seen so far, it’s not looking too smart.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

All we can do...

 October 23, 2024

The amount of sunlight we enjoy each day begins to reduce with the arrival of the summer solstice. That happens in June – some time between the 20^th and the 21^st. It occurs every year. We know that. We accept that. And yet at some point after September’s leaves have begun to fall, we usually feel surprised—shocked, even—to discover just how short the days have become.

A lot of life is like that. We know that certain things happen at certain times. Whether appointed as such through nature, like the changing seasons and shortening or lengthening of days, or by mankind’s machinations and inventions—as with holidays and other moments of note—we know that certain days or dates are coming.

And yet we always feel so amazed when they’re actually here.

We human beings are a very strange race, indeed.

We keep doing things the same way and are miffed when the different results we hope for don’t materialize. A lot of the time, we simply put one foot in front of the other as we always have done, and live through the days, the weeks, the months, and the years by rote.

We like a few changes here and there if they’re happy changes.  We like the odd surprise once in a while, if it’s a nice surprise and doesn’t add to our stress. But for the most part, we just want to keep doing what we’re doing, with everything going according to plan and according to schedule. We like to feel as if we are in control of our lives.

I can’t decide if this is the way humankind has always been, or if this particular mindset is a natural outcome of the last decade or so of societal upheaval we’ve experienced.

A part of me argues that this is not how humankind has always been, nor was it it ever meant to be so.  Because if we were always like this, we would never have ventured out of our caves! We would never have gotten into boats and sailed across oceans.

And we sure as hell would never have strapped ourselves to an explosive rocket and soared off into space!

I can recall a time when I would think about the past, and consider that we, in the modern times called the twentieth century (yes, way back then), had things so very much easier than our forbears in pioneer days. Housework was a much larger task in pioneer days and took far more energy and far more time to complete. Imagine dragging your carpet out of the house, hoisting over a railing and beating it for several hours hoping for a semblance of clean.

I sometimes think that if people living in the 1820s could see our lives in the 2020s, they would scoff at any notion that any of us would state that life is hard.

And yet it’s all relative, isn’t it? And I believe that the degree to which we consider our lives to be hard has much more to do with our “what if’s” than it does with our “what is”.

In pioneer times, the folks carving their lives out of the sometimes-unforgiving earth had a set of “what ifs” to worry about that are completely different from the ones we have today. Our list isn’t helped overly much by the amount of free time, relatively speaking, that we have. Nor is it helped at all by the technology which continues to sprout all around us.

But time, as it always has, continues to march on. So far, we see no reason to believe the sun will not set today, nor rise tomorrow.

There’s not much else beyond that, that we can be sure of.

The only thing we can do right now, and each day, is the best we can do. And the best we can do should be enough.

Well, that, and prayer.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

Autumn rhythms...

 October 16, 2024

On this past Monday, we here in Canada celebrated our Thanksgiving holiday. Our version of this celebration always takes place on the second Monday of October—a month and a half earlier than Thanksgiving is celebrated in the country to the south of us. The reason for the difference is simple; Thanksgiving is at its core a harvest festival, and our harvest comes earlier.

Here in the Ashbury household, especially over the last decade or so, we tend to go to our second daughter’s home for the feast. The reason for that is also simple, and supremely logical: she makes the best turkey in the family. Hers is so good that I no longer even consider cooking a turkey.

The most important part of this holiday for me is the same as it is with every holiday, and that’s the time spent with family, and with loved ones.

Monday was a very good time for us all. I’m grateful.

Our walnut tree is now practically bare, which means the maples that grow so beautifully on the neighboring properties are getting ready to lose their leaves. We haven’t had a frost, yet. But that’s really only a matter of time. The leaves tend to turn to glorious colors only after the first good frost.

It most definitely is autumn by the calendar and by the weather. We’ll soon have to clean out our vegetable gardens and put away the outdoor lawn furniture. We also have an outdoor carpet of sorts in the back yard, as well as one on our porch and that, too, will need to be cleaned and then put away.

Each season has its own rhythms, and its own traditions. There was a time when we would go to some of the local fall fairs and participate in the fun outdoor activities found there. But those were customs that we observed more for the children than for ourselves. And truth be told, David and I would both much rather sit and read than to go out and do outdoor activities these days. Not because we’re lazy, but because we’re both no longer as spry as once we were. In other words, nature is taking its course, and while we stay as active as we reasonably can for two people not-in-quite-good shape and in our 70s, it’s nowhere near the level of activity we enjoyed in our 40s.

I loved raking leaves, cutting the grass, and cleaning out our flower beds. I loved getting my hands in the soil as I prepared the ground to receive a new lot of bulbs. I thrived on that. But those activities are only memories now, and cherished ones at that.

I was very grateful to have enjoyed a bit of a traditional spring this year, and I am hoping for a more traditional autumn, as well. No extremes of either temperatures or precipitation. Just sunny days, cool rather than crisp, with cool nights and a touch of frost here and there. And, of course, for the snow to hold off for as long as possible. With the snow comes the danger of ice, and for a woman who walks very slowly and aided by a cane—even one that gets an ice claw in winter—the danger of falling is very real. And falling is to be avoided at all costs.

Yes, I understand that hoping for the weather to be a certain way is foolish. I’d be far better off to simply choose to be happy no matter the outside conditions. And I will be with whatever happens.

But there’s no harm in having a preference and hoping to see that preference become reality.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

 

 

 

Ruminations....

 October 9, 2024

Similar to 2024’s tomato crop, this year the walnut tree that rules over the north-east corner of our small domain had little to no production of walnuts. The entire purpose of the walnut crop, in my opinion, is to feed the local rodents. They aren’t the sort of walnuts that one can do anything else with, either. As to the lack of production I’m hearing that this year was just not as great for growing things in this area as was last year.

Those who live more in tune with the land will tell you that’s simply nature’s way.

Our walnut tree is the last to get its leaves in the spring and the first to lose them—usually that begins in early August. Typically, when the first walnut hits the ground, so do the first leaves. Last year, we had a couple of near misses, navigating our way from house to car, never knowing if a walnut was headed to our, well, heads. The bombardment, some days, got to the point that I very nearly dug out an umbrella, thinking to at least slow the velocity of any missile that dropped from tree, on its way earthward to me.

Like a lot of things in recent days, I didn’t quite get around to digging out that umbrella.

Last year’s was a hell of a good crop of walnuts, and when we were outside, we always did our best to pick them up off the road and toss them onto the grass, and sometimes into the garden that borders the house in front. Otherwise, cars would inevitably roll over them. Have you ever heard a walnut being flattened, suddenly, under the press of automobile tires? It sounds like a firework—or a gun shot. The squirrels and chipmunks seemed to appreciate our efforts, too, because they did a good job of taking those yummy (to them) walnuts away.

During this time of year, when there is a danger of incoming walnut bombs, our daughter does park her car out of reach of any possible barrage—when she thinks of it. Or perhaps more accurately, after weighing protecting the car from possible dents versus that extra block’s walk from and to the car. Her work is quite taxing, and her days are often long.

As I’ve sometimes put it, it’s not so much that we’re lazy here as that we give priority where it is most beneficial. That’s our story, and folks, we’re sticking to it.

October, in the Ashbury household, is the first month of winter. Here, in this family, we acknowledge the reality of things. Winter runs from October 1 to March 31, inclusive. Spring, summer and autumn can just fight over the other 6 months.

Spring has always been my favorite season. The time of freshness, of renewal, the optimism that everything can be new again after winter’s cruel grip upon us is broken. Of course, the last couple of winters haven’t been all that cruel. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be this time around.

When one has lived through times that have been a real struggle, it’s difficult to put those memories away, completely. The “old wives” have all sorts of maxims that demonstrate that principle. Once burned, twice shy is the one that comes to mind in this moment.

It can be challenging these days, especially if one is determined to try and figure out what is going to happen next. Logic no longer seems to be in vogue, and folks, I regret to inform you that common sense is not only no longer common, I fear that it is dead and buried.

After much thinking I’ve come to a conclusion that will surprise no one who has read these essays. The best way, the only way, to face whatever comes next is with an attitude of gratitude.

A healthy, strong sense of gratitude for everything is the best shield I have found to dispense with life’s slings and arrows. Gratitude is one of my most cherished possessions and my everlasting prayer is that it always will be so.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

Life is like a .... mattress in a box?

 October 2, 2024

Welcome to October!

It feels as if time has been passing a lot faster in these last couple of years than in every year before. Of course, I know that’s just my own perception. And it puzzles me. There isn’t nearly as much variety in my days as there was, say, even five years ago. I certainly can’t get as much done in my mornings as I once did. In other words, I’m nowhere near as busy as I used to be. With that being the case, one would think that time would seem to crawl, rather than speed up.

I have to wonder, should I rethink this entire perception of mine? Maybe instead of the years beginning to drag in a slow, tedious march, life is more like….  a mattress in a box.

Have you ever purchased one of those? Have you ever been present when that mattress is taken out of the box? It certainly is something to witness and I promise you, it will leave an indelible impression.

One has to tug and pull and swear a little just to get the mass of content out of the cardboard, first. Then one needs to find the space to begin to unwrap it. Yes, it’s wrapped, and well, too—in shrink wrap.

Once you have it unboxed, you lay it out—and because this is your first time, maybe you place it on the center of the naked bedframe. And then you check the orientation, and line it up so it is in the middle. And then you begin to peel away the plastic. It’s very slow going, and there sure is a lot of shrink wrap on this thing. Miles of it. But you work on it. You tug. You pull. The cookie-dough-like object covered in shrink wrap begins to roll as you pull, and it seems to get a bit smaller. You bring it back to the starting position, and then you tug on the wrap some more.

It becomes difficult to work with all that shrink wrap no longer on the cookie-dough thing, so maybe you take scissors or a knife to the wrap that has been removed, so you can separate it from the mass and then kick it out of the way—or maybe set it in the next room.

You look at your fellow un-wrapper wondering if there really is a mattress in here, of if this is just a joke. And then, finally, several minutes after you’ve begun, you give it one more mighty tug—because you’re getting tired—and then say something to the effect of “oh, shit!”

And you get the hell out of the way, because this last little bit doesn’t need your help at all! You somehow finally reached that point of no return, and that baby is unwrapping itself—or rather, the mattress is throwing off its enforced configuration in its quest to be free!

At this point I want to pause and pose a question, something to think about. I know that there have been serious accidents involving workers and tires in garages, and some in factories. Has anyone ever been hurt by a layered foam mattress which is in the process of being wrapped but that doesn’t want to be squished into a roll? I imagine it’s a somewhat automated process, but I was just envisioning if there is,  perhaps, a special alarm that would sound in those factories when a mattress makes a break for it.

But I digress.

The analogy, and yes, it’s a lame one, is that maybe our lives are like those wrapped mattresses. One struggles for most of the time that it takes to unwrap them. To reveal their inner core. But perhaps there is a magic point that is reached and suddenly, that thing exerts its own natural force, and the wrap is literally thrown off.

It seemed at the time as if we were never going to get all that plastic off the new mattress, and then, suddenly, it was just thrown off. It was unwrapped and then we had to maneuver it into the right position—after pulling the now useless and discarded plastic out from beneath it.

So maybe time moves fast for us as we get older, because it’s hastening us to the point of…. well, you get my drift. A lame analogy, indeed.

I am not sure if it fits. I’m not even sure that it makes complete sense. But I do know one thing for certain and it’s something that I am grateful for.

I don’t have many moments of boredom as I settle into my golden years. I don’t get as much done, that’s true. But I sure as hell am very rarely at odds and ends.

No, I don’t get bored much at all.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

Those rare moments...

 September 25, 2024

Last night, after our customary couple of hours of television viewing was done, as usual, we separated and moved on to our computers. David’s is in the living room, in a corner where he’s made himself an office. Mine, is in my actual office. One door and about fifteen steps separate us.

This is a routine that is so us. We’ve never had to live in each other’s pockets, as it were.

We’ve developed a good rhythm that suits us both since he retired nearly seven years ago. Throughout the day, we can be found most often, each of us at our keyboards. I spend my mornings at mine, working on my writing—or trying to. Focus is sometimes a problem for me lately, and I have no idea why that is. But I do my best, between when I finish my devotionals—along with most of my first and only fully caffeinated coffee of the day—and that moment when I know I must go into the living room and get my legs up.

My legs go up as I sit in my recliner, a blanket on me to keep either the draft of the a/c or the draft of warmer air from the furnace, off those legs. Drafts, of whatever temperature, give my arthritis merry hell. Elevating my legs for a while seems to help a great deal. This “rest” usually lasts a couple hours, and that’s the first time in the day David and I turn on the television.

I perform so many different tasks at my keyboard. Personal, promotional, financial. Some are necessary and some, inevitably, are not. However, I do resist going to YouTube until near the very end of my day, after our shared evening time, and as I’m having fond thoughts of my bed. Just before I begin to shut everything down, I’ll take what I intend to be only a few minutes but of course, often becomes a half hour or more, “sliding down the rabbit holes” on that very interesting site.

Sometimes I am surprised and enriched by what I discover. Last night was just such a time. There were a couple of video clips from a documentary, “David Foster: Off the Record,” that was produced in 2019.  The clips focused on the first meetings between the composer/producer and Josh Groban, and also with his fellow Canadian, Celine Dion (although she is also in the video featuring Groban).

The first video recounted the time in New York and on the eve of the Grammys when Foster called a 17-year-old Groban, who had been referred by a friend, asking him to come to the theater to rehearse The Prayer with Celine Dion—Josh was to sing in place of Andrea Bocelli, who had been held up arriving in the city. The second focused on Celine’s first meeting with Foster, and the recording of “All by Myself” – and that glorious and wonderful, impossibly high note.

Celine Dion said words to the effect that David Foster writes music that will last forever.

As the music played, the camera focused on Foster, and it was clear that he had been transported by the music back to that moment in time. Eyes closed; an air of reverence and peace settled upon him. I understood that expression and could almost feel the sense of wonder and accomplishment that an artist experiences when what had been but a concept born from creative talent becomes a reality.

Those are the kinds of moments that we who are artistic cherish. They are not everyday occurrences. Those moments that are mystical, magical, are truly rare. I’ve never experienced such a fulsome epiphany as I saw on my screen last night, but I’ve had a handful of moments that have come close.

Some people—and I pity them—believe that life, that jobs, that relationships should be all rainbows and unicorns and magic, all of the time. And I pity them because they don’t understand that those times, in whatever endeavor, both artistic and living, are not and can never be the norm. I pity them because they doom themselves to live in an eternal disappointment that is of their own making.

The rarity of the truly wondrous, the truly joyous, and blissfully happy is what makes them special. Their rarity shows us what can be and gives us the hope and the strength to carry on, knowing that if we work hard, and if we are lucky, we will also become blessed with such moments—and I promise you, that just as they are few and far between, they are so much more.

They are real. And they are the absolute signs and acknowledgements that we need that tell us that we’re on the right path. We are learning. We are growing. We are becoming.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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