Filing this under self-care...

 November 20, 2024

Here we are, about to begin the last third of November. Up here in my neck of the woods, the leaves have been falling at a steady clip, and it’s almost time to begin “the great yard cleanup”, hopefully completing the task before the snow flies.

Of course, one can only do the best that one can do. No one—and I mean no one—can accurately predict the weather. With any kind of absolute certainty. Condolences to TV weather people everywhere.

Looking across the way, I see that most of the neighborhood maple trees have been denuded of their brown, withered foliage. Our gardens are still full of dead and dying plants. And not a one of us is wanting to make use of the outdoor patio set we have in out back yard.

Within the next couple of weeks, with the help of our daughter, one grandson, and two great-grandchildren, we hope to accomplish all that needs doing. The operative word in that sentence is, of course, hope.

But I have lots of that, so I’m not worried.

Inside, I’m working at reassessing and reassigning my time. I am not an American, I’m Canadian. But that doesn’t mean that I am not a participant, emotionally at least, in the highs and lows experienced by my neighbors to the south. What happens in the halls of government in your country does affect my country, as we share a continent—and a hemisphere. And even if it didn’t, I have reams of good friends who proudly wave the Stars and Stripes.

It is because of my many friends that I care about the environment in which they live. Many of my prayers, nightly, are on behalf of friends I know and those not yet met.

Therefore, I’ve decided that I need to pare back the amount of time I spend each day taking in news and opinions and listening to pundits – from every quarter. It only makes sense that if one is suffering the ill effects of overindulgence, then one must restrict said indulgence and bring it to heel.

This is a wise decision for me, especially, since everything else I do—from reading to writing to doing household chores—has slowed down in the last few years. What I used to be able to accomplish in a couple of hours now takes most of the day! The solution for me is to pare down my own expectations of my own abilities, and to give myself more time on the clock to do what needs doing.

I am grateful that the one thing I don’t need to do is develop a more positive attitude. My positivity knows few bounds. But as it is my positivity, it’s probably best that I direct that incredible force a bit closer to home. I need to pour it toward me and mine, and what is both good and possible.

That doesn’t mean that I won’t still dream dreams of a better me and a better world. It doesn’t mean I won’t still by a lottery ticket here or there.

What it does mean is that I need to remember what I’ve always known, especially as it pertains to prayers. The first is that I can only ask God to change me, and not anyone else. And the second is even more basic than that.

I do believe that God answers every prayer. But I need to remember that He will give me one of three answers:

Yes, no, or not yet.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

A bit of wisdom....

 November 13, 2024

Life—if you do it right—is full of twists and turns and unexpected results. And sometimes, unintended consequences.

If you’re a frequent reader of these essays, you know that I’ve often held that the purpose of life is to help you grow. I have never preached in which direction you should grow because that is way above my pay grade. But grow you should, so that when your course has been run, you can look back and see that the person you have become is not the same person as you started out being. And by that, dear friends, I’m not referring to having begun as an infant and become an adult. That is simply a function of our biology and nothing for which you can or should take any credit.

By growing I mean changing the inner human, refining the qualities that were gifted to you, so that your finished product, the artwork of your life, may be held forth for all to see.

During the course of living my life, and as I believe it is desirable to do, I have learned many lessons along the way. Some of them have been very, very hard ones and have literally and figuratively laid me flat. Some of them have been not so difficult to process. None of them have been easily acquired. All of them have been meaningful and in some ways, surprising.

One lesson that took me more time than it probably should have to learn—and I am still from time to time in need of a refresher course—is that nothing is ever as wonderful as we hope it will be, and nothing is ever as horrible as we fear it will be.

That applies to things like longed-for vacation trips and major surgery and anything in between.

I am not an oracle. I cannot predict the future. I can make logical conclusions based on the premises with which I am presented. I learned to do that in my first year of university, when I took Philosophy. If A, and if B, and if C, then it is logical to assume D.

The fly in the ointment of that small formula, of course, is the conclusion one reaches may be logical but, it also at the same time may not be a representation of truth—of fact.

We all, I’m certain, can recall decisions we’ve made along our life’s path, decisions that at the time we thought were the right ones, only to learn in the aftermath that we’d erred. Life has a way of using these mistakes to its best advantage. In that aftermath, we may suffer—emotionally, spiritually, financially…. well, that list is pretty much endless. Our suffering may be great or small, but the end result is, hopefully, a resolve to never make that mistake again.

And we are doomed to repeat that bad time if we don’t learn that lesson.

I know I am not alone in proclaiming that there are indeed a few lessons I’ve had to experience more than once in this life. I kick myself every time.

The exception of that rule is that I often open myself up to friendships, and I hope I always will. Because while I’ve been disappointed several times by those in whom I’ve placed my trust and invested my heart, I never want to be a person so cynical as to close that door. To experience a true connection with another, to share ideas, and pieces of myself, I am willing to risk that potential disappointment.

That is truly “one lesson” I will never learn. Because it’s not a lesson I need to learn. Cynic is not on my goal list.

The times ahead of us all have always been uncertain. The difference between this time and those in the past is that this time, we are fully aware of the fact. And in real time, too.

Yes, it’s stressful right now. Yes, it’s a challenge.

I’ve often told others to approach situations as if you’re on a plane, and I’ll repeat that advice to you all now. Follow the flight attendant’s directions. Put your own air mask in place first, before helping someone else with theirs.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

 

 

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