Wanted: laughter....

 March 27, 2024

Earlier this month, I set out on a bit of a personal quest. You see, it’s come to my attention that I need to laugh a bit more. Did I just write “a bit more”? Hell, I pride myself on being transparent in these essays. I need to laugh, period.

I used to laugh a great deal. Practically every single day, I would laugh at something silly or inane, or downright hilarious. Often, I would laugh at myself, and feel no shame in that whatsoever. Trust me, I can be a very funny person.

But lately—how lately I cannot really say because this has been a slowly evolving situation—I’ve noticed I don’t laugh much anymore.

Now, my husband, he laughs every day. Through the day, certainly, but mostly in the evenings after our shared TV time, when I am at my computer and he’s at his. And when I hear that laughter, I grin. The sound of David’s laughter is my favorite thing to hear in the entire world. And I know when I hear that laughter that he is listening to one comic or another online, and thoroughly enjoying the experience.

Well, I want to laugh, too! And it’s not as if I’m not trying. I, also, go online in the evenings in search of entertainment. I look for short compilation videos on YouTube that promise comedy, even hilarity! But I think I am simply not having much good luck finding the right ones. I have learned that just because the title of the video promises laughter, doesn’t mean it will deliver it. Oh sure, two out of fifty memes may arouse a titter within me. Some an almost giggle. And once in a long while there is one that makes me really, really laugh. I had one of those about five days ago. Or was it longer than that?

But it’s like that old saying, you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince. One really does have to watch a lot of those videos to find some honestly funny moments. The only question is whether or not the price of viewing so many stupid ones is worth having been paid when you find that one gem.

I’m probably just being greedy. Maybe I should feel content to experience one really good laugh once a week, or so. But I’m not. I feel as if my soul needs more. The chemicals in my body are likely out of balance, in need of those wondrous hormones that are released as a side effect to laughter. I do know that it is medically impossible to laugh and grow an ulcer at the same time.

My daughter was mentioning that she watches a few comics online, and they are a riot! My ears perked up and I asked her to name names. Now, perhaps it should have been a clue that she said she would think on it and then get back to me. But she did get back to me with a couple of names, which I immediately wrote down. And then, of course, I checked them out.

Le sigh. When I take time and think back, I realize that there have been times when daughter has thought something was funny as hell, and sadly, I did not. And vice versa. Nothing wrong with that because we do, each of us, possess different criteria when it comes to what makes us laugh. For example, I love puns—the cleverer, the better. Now for a lot of folks puns just make them roll their eyes and groan. But I find a really good pun not only funny but refreshing. My latest discovery that made me laugh out loud is this one: “Sweet dreams are made of cheese; who am I to diss a brie?”

I have some favorite old jokes that can still hit that internal funny bone of mine, and when I would crack up in the past, others around me would just shake their heads and look at me as if I had two of them. Heads, that is.

I am not one of those people who assumes that the problem must be those other people, that because if I think it’s a hoot, then a hoot must be! Nope, that thought would never inhabit my brain. And the fact that it wouldn’t is in itself a clue.

I have been so close, in the last few weeks, to wondering if I’ve somehow lost my sense of humor entirely. That was such a scary and horrid thought that it set me back on my pins.

Rather than to continue to mentally panic, I’ve taken a bit of time to think about the situation—my hunger for laughter and seeming inability to find same—and I’ve come to another conclusion altogether.

I know that to everything there is a season. And I know that our best personal growth comes in those times when we feel we’re lodged deeply and inexorably into a “valley” experience. I know that for fact, and y’all have read those very words from me over the years, and on more than one occasion.

Yes, I really do need a good laugh or ten. I will just have to hold onto my faith and be patient that I will get them, by and by.

Just as soon as the Good Lord finishes helping me to grow some more.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

 

 

An unwanted guest....

 March 20, 2024

A funny thing happened last week as I was preparing to compose my weekly essay. We had an unexpected visit, here in the Ashbury household, from a very nasty, unwanted guest: a tummy bug.

The visit was so unexpected and so sudden that at first, I didn’t even realize that a bug was the culprit. I thought, originally, that perhaps I had eaten something that was off. I looked up the symptoms of food poisoning, and I had most of them.

The only problem with that theory was that I couldn’t think of a single thing I’d eaten—and there really hadn’t been a lot I had eaten on Tuesday for lack of appetite—that it could have been. Or on Monday, the day before, for that matter.

It wasn’t until the next day, Wednesday, when I was in my recliner, eyes closed, trying not to whine about how icky I felt that my brain kind of started to work on the problem. In retracing my time, I recalled that I’d been out with Jenny the day before—Monday—and that we had gone to two grocery stores, one new to me. This trip was supposed to have happened on Sunday, but Jenny spent most of that day sleeping, because she hadn’t well. No appetite, a mild case of “plumbing problems”, and no energy whatsoever.

The pieces began to fall into place. Then when I roused myself enough to chat with a couple of friends online, I realized that what I had was not food poisoning, but a gastrointestinal bug. A bug that has been busily making the rounds lately and has hit a lot of foks.

Note to self: try not to self diagnose and stay away from Dr. Google.

Our daughter had at first believed that her own symptoms were thanks to her sometimes uncooperative cycle, because that has happened in the past. Her symptoms were not my symptoms at all—but they were her father’s, who awoke ill on Wednesday and told me to go away, because I had given “it” to him.

The major difference between David and me when we’re not feeling well, is that his first, second and third choice when he’s ill is to sleep. He doesn’t want to be checked on; he doesn’t want any fussing whatsoever. Just let him sleep, which over the years, and as rare as those occasions have been, I have learned to do.

I don’t require a lot of fussing either, but appreciate a bottle of cold water and can of ginger ale from time to time. And quiet. Please, just give me either complete and total quiet, or country music at a minimal level.

Today, as I write this essay, is day number Bug plus eight. I first felt not well on Tuesday just before the supper hour a week ago, followed minutes later by my “as mad a dash as I can manage” to the bathroom (where resides the toilet and the bucket). That first phase of being sick was the worst ever, but only lasted about three hours.

I am getting better; but mornings, which have always been my best times, have not been so these last few days. They’re actually when I feel the worst. I know that this will all soon be just a memory, so I’m not worried. Impatient, yes. Worried, no.

Yesterday, as I was sitting in the kitchen while my daughter, on a work break, had a snack, I mentioned that I was nearly, but not quite “there” yet, recovery wise.

She suggested that I should just push myself to do as much as possible; after all, that’s what she’d done, as she’d had to go to work on Tuesday (the day I fell ill) even though she didn’t want to because she didn’t feel good.

My friends, it was a moment. And there were so very many different ways I could have responded to this very expert-sounding advice.

I could have told her that the history of my working life, from the day I got married until I finally retired was a story of my pushing myself even when I didn’t want to because I didn’t feel good. I could have told her that there was a difference between us, her in her 46^th year and me in my 70^th. I could have raised my right eyebrow and skewered her with “the look”, the one that would remind her that I am her mother—if only my right eyebrow was capable of performing such a maneuver.

Instead, being older and wiser and, yes dare I say kinder, I simply made a sound that could have been agreement and took a small sip of my coffee.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

It's the silly moments....

 March 6, 2024

We try, here at the Ashbury household, to be good stewards of the land we’re on, and to be kind to the critters who come to visit—to chirp or sing or just to take a rest on a branch or a roof edge. For the last several years—since just after we got our Mr. Tuffy, in fact—we have been putting out feed for the birds and the cute furry rodents. At first, we did that because of our little dog, who loved to bark at the squirrels and chippies. But then we had a couple of bad winters, and so it became just something that we do.

Of course, since we began planting our table gardens, our kindness may have come back to bite us in the butts a little. After all, a couple of years back, the critters saw David planting what looked like their food in the dirt and had to come and dig them all out again. But that’s not a bad thing, either. And we took a few protective measures after that incident so it didn’t happen again.

One of the things I love about being alive, is that there can be a cute surprise, or a silly moment right around the corner. Not every day, of course, because too many sweet or funny moments would really dull their value. But every once in a while, there will be something new, and I truly adore those moments.

The best thing about those moments, of course, is that you never know when they’re going to happen. There’s no warning at all. And no way that they can be predicted. And yes, dear friends, I know that same sense of…what shall I call it? Propinquity? Cosmic surprise? Kismet? Well, whatever we call it, I know that same mechanism or twist of fate can just as easily bring doom or gloom to tragedy.

But this morning, I choose to focus only on the good and the positive. The cute and the silly.

This morning, I’m at my computer, going through my morning routine, quite involved in my activity when I hear a fast, soft tapping on my office window.

Now, a necessary digression. My desk is directly in front of the only window in my office. It is a double window—two for the price of one. Of course, I sit in front of my desk—an antique-ish library desk I purchased years ago at a flea market. And on my desk, blocking my view out the wonderful window that is on the east side of my house overlooking the street, stands my computer monitor. I just measured the thing. It’s 28 inches side to side. I can see a bit of the outside around the edges of the monitor, but if I want to look out the window I have to stand up and scrunch in very close.

This morning, when I heard that fast, soft tapping on my window, I looked down and all I could see was grey fur.

My immediate first thought was, “Oh, no! The cat got outside!” That could be a tragedy because he is a house cat, not a field or a street cat. So I stood up to get a better look, and stared into the face of a impatient-looking squirrel.

Mr. (or Mrs.) Squirrel looked right at me for a long moment, then got down.

Did you know that squirrels can be extremely egocentric and become quite demanding if they perceive they are not getting their due? I did.  I recall my father-in-law once reporting out that very fact when one of the squirrels he regularly fed would sometimes come up to the door and natter at him.

So when I realized it had been a squirrel who had “knocked” on my window (being smart, he likely saw the Purolator and Amazon drivers do that to get my attention), I knew what to do. I left my office and headed straight to my husband. I told him what happened, and we both laughed. Then he got up to go and put some food into the feeder attached to the walnut tree.

I also texted my daughter because she enjoys a funny story, too. I finished my telling of the tale in that text to her by observing, “I guess there’s no speedy rating for this restaurant.”

And our daughter proved she has the same sense of humor as her parents. She replied, and I quote, “…and when the peanuts finally came, I had to take them out of the shell myself. 2 out of 5 stars. Would not recommend.”

Yes, indeed. I truly love life’s silly moments. They’re the seasonings that give everything flavor.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

 

Choices...

 February 28, 2024

Choices.

So much of how we live, what we experience in our lives—so much of our very life itself—hinges on the choices we have made in the past and will make in the future.

There is much that happens to us and around us over which we have no control. That is no different for us here in this ultramodern year of 2024 than it was in Medieval times.

We cannot control the weather, or the actions of other people. We can’t control fate, really. You could walk out your front door tomorrow, and an airplane could fall on you. You could do everything right in your life, and still end up coming to harm and a way-too-early end. Yes, there is so very much that happens to us that we simply cannot control.

But that does not make us victims.

Because we do have an ace up our sleeves: we do have free will. We can control how we respond to what happens to us. That’s a concept that I know I’ve shared many times in these essays of mine: a well-known and oft quoted maxim states that life is 5 percent what happens to me and 95 percent how I deal with it.

It’s really all about our choices.

We, none of us, know how or when we’ll exit this life, either. Oh, some of us may have a pretty good idea as time goes on, especially if we’ve developed heart disease, diabetes, or any one of a number of other health conditions. But until we get to that part of our life’s path, we don’t really know how we’ll end up.

Except.

Except we can make a choice that finds us making the most of whatever we have, wherever we are, and whoever surrounds us. We can exercise control over our minds and our attitudes. We can make it our tenet to be content in whichever state we find ourselves. We can make the choice in our hearts that we will face each day saying, “good morning, God,” and not “good God it’s morning.”

That is what we can do, and I can tell you this, without reservation, because it’s my own personal experience: If we choose to live with an attitude of gratitude and to make the most of each and every day, if we tell ourselves that today is a wonderful day often enough, and I’m doing great, thanks for asking, often enough—then we will not only know that as true, we will feel that as true to the very depths of our souls.

Many of you may recall that in 2013, my sister passed away. In the aftermath of her death, I promised her widower that I would see to it he would be laid to rest with her. And a few weeks later when he asked me to, I told him that yes, I would serve as his power of attorney should the need ever arise.

It was a promise I gave freely, and I can admit to you here and now that I didn’t really believe, at the time, that it was one that would require my attention. And yet, in 2018, it did. And so, of course, I took on that responsibility because for me, a promise is a promise. And while there may have been a time or two over the past nearly six years when I did so not quite as good-naturedly as I could have, I never once considered relinquishing the obligation, or deserting that promise.

This past Monday, my brother-in-law was finally reunited with his beloved wife, my sister. We will all say our final goodbyes to him on Monday.

I don’t tell you this personal information to gain your sympathy, though I do appreciate all of you who immediately feel moved to express it. I tell you this because if I had one do-over in this life, it would be this: to have learned at an earlier age what I know now about everything I’ve expressed in this essay—about choices and our power to live in a state of gratitude—and to have been able to share it, to preach it, and to make disciples of my siblings and their spouses of this very “everything” tenet. And yes, I know it likely would have made no difference as to how the following years played out. Because, well, choices.

After my sister’s funeral, our brother, who was aware that I’d spent a lot of time over the previous many years doing things for her and her husband whenever she would call, shook his head and said, “I don’t know, after everything, how you could have done all that.” I told him to ask me again later, and I would tell him. But he never asked, of course, and I never brought it up—mainly because he knew the answer to that question, but for whatever reason he chose not to hear it.

That answer I will share with you, and it really was something he understood from our many conversations over the years but didn’t choose to acknowledge—at least not to me. And that answer is this.

All that I was able to do with and for my sister—and now, her widower—wasn’t me at all. It was the power of God’s grace through me.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

Winter thoughts...

 February 21, 2024

The snow arrived precisely as predicted last week. We received about two and a half inches of the white stuff, and except for a bit of it melting on the roads thanks to the daytime sunshine, when I went to bed last night the white still covered most everything.

But before turning in, I scanned the forecast for the next seven days. Beginning today, we are supposed to hit the 40s every day except Saturday. Tuesday of next week, our predicted high temperature is pegged at 50. And while there is some rain that is supposed to be falling off and on in the interim, as it stands right now, they’re not calling for any snow at all.

I’ll take it.

By nine a.m. this morning, that “snow covered everything” had been replaced by “patches of snow remaining”, and I had real hope that by the end of today, the only place snow would remain would be in the shadowed corners near buildings and curbs. The drip, drip, drip of water leaving the down spout and hitting a rock provided my morning’s rhythm.

It really has been a relatively easy winter in southern Ontario this year, all things considered. Some might even say that we have no right to complain in this area of the country, and really—since I do watch the news every night and see what some of y’all have been dealing with this season—there’s truth in that opinion. The lack of ferocity this year, while welcome, certainly hasn’t changed my mind about the nature of winter in general.

I’m sorry, but I still don’t care for it.

Whatever the weather, I do truly appreciate it when I look out my window and can see sunshine. David is the one in this house who truly enjoys the out-of-doors. No, he’s not a sportsman. The habit formed during a career spent working outside, year-round. Before he began to endure his own leg pain, he would kind of nag at me to get outside and enjoy the day. And I would, sometimes, but never without a blanket to place around my legs. And I certainly wouldn’t sit out for as long as he would do.

If I leave the house during the wintertime, I always wear a thermal layer over my legs; and in the car I have a large towel that I use as a lap blanket. Drafts of any kind on my legs are likely to produce a great deal of pain.

Getting outside is likely something that I should do more of, going forward. I do need to keep moving, and I know how good fresh air and sunshine are for the body and soul. This is just a habit I need to form—and one that truly will have more pluses to it than minuses. Now to move that idea from head knowledge to heart knowledge, and then act on it!

This past week I took a few moments to think about my father, on the 109^th anniversary of his birth. He died far too young, before any of his children came to legal age. He never got to walk either of his girls down the aisle, and never had the opportunity to enjoy being a grandfather. He and my mother were together just shy of twenty years, and that’s just a damn shame.

My mother once told me that she and my dad had lived their lives as if they had all the time in the world, when really, they had barely any. And I know that while as a widow she did have many moments of happiness, of smiles and laughter over the years, she never got over losing him. She never married again, and, in fact, never even dated.

I asked her only once about that, shortly after I, myself had married—and just a couple of years before she died at the too-young age of 57. She told me that she’d been in charge of her own life by then long enough that she didn’t have any desire to turn it over to another man to run.

This would have been in the early 1970s, and as you can see, attitudes were much different then, than they are today. But I do recall even that at that time, if I had been physically capable of raising either of my eyebrows, I would have.

Life goes on, one day after another. We change over the days and weeks and months, but don’t often recognize the minutia of the process. So while Mother Nature tries to decide what comes next for us here, I will try to remain grateful for the moment I’m in—even if sometimes those moments are difficult.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

Age is only a number...

 February 14, 2024

The last time that Valentine’s Day fell on Ash Wednesday was in 2018. It will happen next in 2029. This tells me, therefore, that this is something that has, indeed occurred intermittently throughout my lifetime. And yet this is the first time I’ve actually been aware of it. That I recall.

So much for my always being in full possession of all the facts. But then, I am getting older, and I know it.

A word of advice, then, for those of you yet to purchase something special for a loved one to acknowledge this day, a loved one who is also a devout person. Flowers and not chocolates would be the way to go, in my opinion.

In three out of four years, this day would be the exact middle point in February. But this is a leap year and so it is not. But it’s close enough for us to celebrate that we are indeed halfway through what had always been, in my memory at least, the worst month of winter. By the six-month phiilosophy of winter outlook of the Ashbury household, once February is in the can, there will be only one more month of this awful season to go.

I am here to confess that while we always bemoan how terrible and long the winter has been, we’ve actually been fairly lucky this year. At least we have in this area of the world. We still have had no snow on the ground since we had that rain and melting in the last week of January. However, we are expecting to get several inches of the snow tomorrow. When that last batch of the white frozen stuff disappeared, I never thought for even a moment that meant the end of accumulation for the season. Mother Nature is a contrary woman, so I figured we were sure to get more.

In fact, it would be just like her to ensure we get some in April or even May. So I never breathe that particular sigh of relief until the May 24^th long weekend.

Here in my neck of the woods on this Valentine’s Day, the sun is shining, and the air is below freezing cold. The dogs are noisy, because I think they think that spring is coming and they, being critters of nature, are responding with barely leashed exuberance. A couple of them are lovers of sunlight, and beginning in spring, will take as much time as they can in the yard to lay down and bask in the sun.

One of them, my daughter’s nearly thirteen-year-old Chihuahua Bella, like me has some issues with arthritis. She particularly loves the heat. She knows when I have my heating pad on my knees under my blanket and will ask to come up on my lap. She also immediately gets herself onto our reclining sofa in what is David’s spot, the moment he vacates it. David doesn’t always remember to turn off his heating pad when he gets up; Fortunately, she won’t have long on that heat, because we have the kind of heating pads that shut off intermittently. Yes, they recommend that dogs not experience the joy of a warm heating pad. You can rest assured that she doesn’t get much of that luxury.

Life is really what we make it out to be. I try to balance doing chores around the house with simply enjoying the day. That’s not a hard thing to do these days as my spurts of busyness and energy are not long in duration and require recovery time. Mostly, I have a good attitude about the limitations I have as I approach my 70^th birthday. Not based on the number of birthdays I’ve celebrated—because everyone ages differently. But based on my abilities, and my stamina.

I’ve witnessed with my own eyes the vitality of folks several years older than I, who’ve been blessed with better genetics—or perhaps, more to the point, from better habits formed in their youth.

No two people are exactly alike in any regard. This is something that we all know, and we have all acknowledged at various points throughout the years as being true.

Sometimes I marvel at the strides we humans have made in our quest to be more open minded and more just in our treatment of others. And sometimes I want to cry upon the realization that we are still a people riddled with prejudice when it comes to our fellow human beings—and not only when it comes to their skin color or their sex or their sexual preferences.

God knows that we are useful for as long as He deems us to be so. If that weren’t true, He wouldn’t have asked Noah—well meaning elderly man that he was—to build an Ark to save humanity.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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

People are hurting....

February 7, 2024

People are hurting. People are scared. Life changes, and this is something we’ve always known. An old saw that dates back at least to my childhood tells us that the only things certain in life are death and taxes.

And yet.

And yet, as we have observed, technology advances at an ever-increasing pace, and it is a pace that is very difficult for most ordinary folk to keep up with.

Some days it feels as if we’re on a hamster wheel that is turning faster and faster. All the laws of physics tell us that there is a point when that wheel whizzes so fast that it’s impossible for mere mortal human beings to hang on to it. Eventually we get flung aside, and in that process we feel untethered. Unwanted. Rejected. Abandoned.

Still, we are human beings and operate according to our natures and our nurtures. We tend to look to our “leaders” to lead us through the hard times, through the inevitable valleys of life. And who can argue that this valley we’re in now seems the deepest one, ever? To co-opt a line from the original Mary Poppins movie, it’s awfully dark and gloomy out there.

Because we are humans who’ve grown up in this western culture and society in which we live, we follow our leaders, confident that they will lead us in good faith. Confident that we can follow their examples, as we have always done. Confident that they have our best interests at heart and will bring us through these perilous times.

It doesn’t occur to us that the ones leading us may not be doing so in good faith. That they might be motivated by greed and a hunger for power. That’s not been the life we’ve known. In the past, when charismatic people have led in bad faith, those not under that person’s sway have readily seen the danger. During the reign of tyrants, through time, the only ones completely enamoured have been not so much the weakest, and the most malleable. It’s been those most hungry to escape the desolation their lives have become. Others have fallen in line, because it was a means not so much of survival, but of placing themselves in positions of nominal power, to enhance themselves and line their own pockets.

I will reference instances that are examples that occurred in my lifetime. The aftermath of both Waco and Jonestown were tragic, more tragic than there are words to say. But they were not unexpected—for those on the outside, looking in. And those on the outside, looking in, did what they could to try and prevent the inevitable outcomes.

If you’ve ever wondered where the saying, “he drank the Kool-Aid” came from, it was from what happened at Jonestown. Only theirs was laced with cyanide, and all those poor souls who drank it, died. And the ones who refused were gunned down.

Because we are human, we tend to imbue our leaders with qualities that may be more aspirational than they are factual. You need to be aware. Loyalty is a fine quality, when it is not misplaced.

We’re on the verge of, and we are in danger of entering a post-truth world. In the last nearly ten years, folks have been tossing around catch phrases such as “alternative facts”, “fake news” and even out right trying to tell you that “truth isn’t truth”. They lie to you, all the time. Easily, and with a flair that is nearly mesmerizing. They tell you that you should not believe the evidence of your own eyes, or your own logical, reasoning mind.

It can be a challenge for anyone to know what to believe these days. It can be hard to know when someone is lying to you, especially when those lies are so damn alluring. When those lies give you someone to blame, and a target for all of the fear and hatred that may be seething within you. Those feelings of being untethered, unwanted, rejected and abandoned vanish when you cling to that which was designed to emptily fill those holes within.

The question is begged, then how can we know if we’re following a true leader, or a false one?

That is the question that many are trying to answer, that many are struggling to reconcile. And as with Waco, and as with Jonestown, the answer is obvious, when looking from the outside, in. There is one quality of genuine leadership, which once you know it, can clear away the fog of confusion.

A false leader will tell you that you must give all to them and for them to help them do whatever it is they want to do—claiming they are doing it for you.

A true leader will do their best to give their all to you.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

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