RFK and The Little Pill

In the world of medicine there is something known as The Placebo Effect, essentially the mind is convinced that the pill or shot you just had will take away your pain. There is no active medicine that actually does so, as they are generally sugar pills, but your mind believes it to be true and acts accordingly, calming you and reducing your pain. On the face of it all this sounds like voodoo medicine but it has been proven that the mind can and will convince itself it is no longer in pain because it believes that the little pill is actually a very real pain killer. The effect won't cure you of cancer or reduce your cholesterol but it might take the edge off of that round of chemo. The brain, simply amazing.

While we are just scratching the surface of its capabilities, the mind has already shown itself to be a  powerful and amazing thing. An infinite capacity for greatness in many forms, one would need only to open their eyes to the wonders that have sprung forth from that grey matter between our ears. Art in a myriad of genres and scientific and technological discoveries that have sent men to the moon and injected tiny nano robots into our blood stream, truly a wonder to behold.

And no less deserving of our appreciation is the heart. Not our beating muscle deep in our chests but our humanity and compassion. The look of love as a mother holds her child to the love on full display between soul mates, this to me is the mortar for what our minds can construct. The yin and yang of our lives, the heart and mind.

Yet, despite all that we are often crippled with a world seemingly bent on destroying itself. Wars rage out of control confirming two facts only: 1) War is profitable and 2) The human body is no match for hot metal. The art of division based on just about anything seems to have grown more bold lately, as if they are emboldened by the actors around us that figure they can say and do as they please. The environment, depending on who you listen to, is on the verge of collapse with scant chance of redemption or already past the point of no return. We have garbage islands floating around the ocean, rising sea levels and "weather events" that inflict ever greater damage. Shit, there was video released a few weeks ago of a Budweiser can sitting at the bottom of the ocean in the deepest trench on earth. Can't even go in style, we are drinking Bud as the planet gets sick...ick!

But hark, what is that noise over yonder? Hope is gesticulating wildly in the corner. Look here, look here she pleads! What if we try this? Or maybe try that? Maybe if we do this we can stem that red tide? Our grey matter got us into this mess so one would hope our grey matter can help to get us out. Maybe we can take a lesson from the past and simply decide that this is the way we want to go? A path towards the light, towards love, towards one another. Maybe, almost certainly, the mind could use a helping hand from the heart. I believe that the heart is all too often forgotten in this equation. Oh that crazy heart! The struggle is real and the struggle is eternal but really, in the end, we have to get them, the brain and the heart, working together for the betterment of not only ourselves but for us all.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the silencing of a progressive liberal lion in the making. RFK cut down in the prime of his life while looking to be subject to others. Warts and all, his dream was the one that was meant for all of us. He chose to walk on in life searching for the positive and working for a better tomorrow. What if he had lived? What if Martin Luther King had lived? Where would we be?

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

Robert Kennedy

Today was also the anniversary of D-Day. The beginning of the end for the Nazi's and the last time that a war of such magnitude was fought for "the right reason" if there ever was one. As a world we stood up to a genocidal bully and much was lost in the battle for freedom from tyranny. Abraham Lincoln had said, in the Gettysburg Address, that we owed a debt of honour to those that had given their last full measure of devotion and I can think of no better way to honour all those that had given theirs in WW2 to truly find a way to build a better world for all. Let slip ancient divisions and ideological entrenchments, throw off the yoke of ism's and let peace find a way.

It seems almost too easy to shut the door on the outside world and all of its ills, but that is when we need to get up off the mat and try even harder. We are our best hope for the future, no magic pill to do the work, nothing more than our hearts and minds coming together with others and doing what needs to be done. For a better tomorrow we just have to decide to do it, individually and together. No more and no less.

Ciao
D

Nice To Meet You

The person next to you is the greatest miracle

and the greatest mystery you will ever

meet at this moment.

The person next to you is an inexhaustible

reservoir of possibility,

desire and dread,

smiles and frowns, laughter and tears,

fears and hopes,

all struggling to find expression.

The person next to you believes in something,

stands for something, counts for something,

lives for something, labors for something,

waits for something, runs from something,

runs to something.

The person next to you has problems and fears,

wonders how they’re doing,

is often undecided and unorganized

and painfully close to chaos!

Do they dare speak of it to you?

The person next to you can live with you

not just alongside you,

not just next to you.

The person next to you is a part of you.

for you are the person next to them.

Prissy Galagarian

Today at work someone said something that caused a pause for thought. She told me that another server found it strange that I seemed so at ease with students, that they never would have thought I was a "family" man. Of course this person knows me not, other than the guy walking around in the white jacket. And certainly my profession has an image that has been cultivated over a long period of time and truthfully, one that serves me well from time to time...don't be pissing the chef off is all we're saying. So I don't blame him for coming to that conclusion, it just made me chuckle to think what "others" may think. Those that know me will get a laugh at the idea since it's pretty well recognized that I'm pretty easy going, much like my personality doppelganger cat Boots. Life is far too short for all that other nonsense.

Like that person next to you, I have a lot going on both externally and internally. Battles won and lost, battles still going on. But I'm here, next to you and next to many others, just like you are next to many people. It would be quite easy to get overwhelmed with the everyday and lose site of the truly important. Think of what you're going through and consider, just for a moment, that the person next to you is doing the same. Maybe that different view gives you new perspective to consider while eating your banana staring into the world?

10:00 at night and I'm probably not coherent enough to be writing this but I had an idea and I wanted to follow through with it. People next to me and happiness?

Where is happiness born? I'm sure I don't know save to say that the person looking back in the mirror is where I would start. I believe that our happiness begins with us, we can't win it, meet it, find it on the side of the street or along the River Thames. It comes from our own sense of self and our understanding of our place in the vastness of the universe. After that, it can either be enhanced or torn down. Making choices that work towards enhancement is where I place my faith in.

Everyday I am gaining more perspective into my own past and I am coming to understand the insidious nature of not being seen, not being appreciated and not being valued. It takes a lot of time to build yourself up while you can be torn down in a matter of seconds or over a lifetime. Either way, those scars heal hard and slow. We develop our coping mechanisms, our walls are constructed and fear of one sort or another is our biggest obstacle to finding the next rung on the happiness ladder.

"Everything you've ever wanted is on the other side of fear"

George Addair

That quote might be a entrepreneurs calling card but I would argue it is as a good a sentiment as any for life in general. In fact if I was inclined to get a third tattoo it might very well be that. In the end we all have our fears to face, you, me and the person next to us. We're truly in it together, warts and all. So in the end I choose hope and love as the guiding principles of my life, with a healthy dose of humour and tomfoolery of course.

Photo courtesy of my friend Margo

Pit and the...

And now for something completely different, at least compared to the past few weeks.

Hidden deep within the bowels of my mind are stories related to "the band." Some of I have written about already, such as our last legendary performance in Dennis' basement as the last summer of our youth wound down. Or when the drummer came home from Portugal and decided that he wanted to get married to someone he had met while visiting the old country.

We had some good times banging the instruments around for a few years, myself as a somewhat willing but untalented participant as I was simply brought along because I was one of the guys. "Sure I'll play the bass, that's the one with only four strings right?" It worked out OK in the end. I had people willing to be patient and teach me what I needed to know to be able to play along, we had a loyal following of friends that enjoyed our escapades into the world of Battle of the Bands and most importantly, for the most part, we had fun. We also had a stupid name, Revelation. Back then and back there if you uttered that word you were for sure a Genesis cover band. Except we weren't of course despite playing a song of theirs, we simply couldn't think of anything better. Well, someone did but as a group we were too scared to use it. But we should have...oh how glorious it would have been for the emcee to announce, "up next, Don Bosco's own Pit and the Stool-drops!!!" We wimped out.

I think it may have been Steve who made the recommendation, since he was always making ass references and had little respect for "norms." But being young and not as rebellious as we should have been, which by the way is quite the thing to say about me and my heathen brothers and sisters, since there was almost no line we wouldn't gleefully cross. But here we chose the safe road so as not to upset the Catholic school hierarchy we all lived under. For the record though, I voted for the Pit moniker, in a losing cause obviously. Democracy at work, three to two in favour of not being labeled Stool-drops, so down the toilet the name went.

Who can say where we would have been had we chosen the other name? We may have been ahead of our times when thinking of the bands that followed in the 90's and beyond. Hootie and the Blowfish, Butthole Surfers, Ben Wa and the Blue Balls. We'll never know. But of course having a great name wasn't the only thing holding us back. The biggest factor to us not having a place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is that most of us knew it was simply a distraction, something to do for fun and for chicks. As a group we weren't very serious about pursuing a life in music. Looking at where we are now; an investment banker, an engineer of some sort, an insurance executive and little ole me as a chef, we were probably right not to be so passionate about being the next big thing. Me thinks Pit et al would not have gone very far, despite our cool name.

The second and final year we entered Battle of the Bands at our school was really a special time for us all. In many ways we were at the top of our high school game. We came and went as we pleased, we enjoyed a level of notoriety that bellied our disdain for popularity and the little band of misfits made up of my closest friends simply lived out loud pretty well. When we played that year we played for our buddies. It was quite special to be up on stage, not petrified with fright like the year before, watching people sway and sing to the music that we were playing. Were we the best musicians? Probably not. Certainly I wasn't, though Dom and Danny were pretty darn good players of their particular instruments. We played with some heart and had picked some songs that got the crowd involved, which in the end is what music is about, the connection with the listener.

When we won, we won it for all of us. I still recall Dennis and Steve leaping over the chairs to be with us when it was announced. It was elation and we soaked it all in for the rest of the night. Drunk on life was the comment later on when we gathered at a pizza shop to enjoy the spoils. And I was. An au natural high that left me and all around us with perma-smile.

A simpler time with simple goals, simply happy. A few months later we would play together for the last time. Within a year we had gone from friends until we die to a remember when glory days recounting. Who would have thought? Obviously we weren't unique in that way but it didn't hurt any less when one chose to think about it. Last year when I was back in the big smoke for the U2 concert, a bunch of us gathered together for a few drinks at the remnants of a bar we used to frequent. We shared stories and talked of our lives in the present. It was nice and it was fun, and despite promises to the contrary, we went back to our lives as they were before that afternoon. Best intentions aside, life got in the way. It is kind of sad but I would imagine most of us were well aware that it would be that way. Almost 30 years of time having passed between us all.

So Pit and Stool-Drops are a happy memory. Alongside all those other happy moments that formed such a big part of my life for a few years. I'm sure I get a twinkle in my eye when I speak of those days...partly boastful of my own stupidity co-joined with all the other morons and part joyful memories of days gone by.

Cheers to you all
D 

Heart Swells

Hear that? Feel that? Like an ocean swell, both constant and ever changing, there is a rhythm to the world around us. I liken it to the heartbeat of our collective souls, all of us and everything around us, has a a living pulse and I think we are all interconnected on some level.

Amongst all the noise in my life that is ever present, be it work, family, plans or simple serendipity, two things have taken center stage in the past few months. They couldn't be further apart in what they are and what they mean to me. An incredible joyous high and a sad and painful low. My joy at meeting "the one" is tempered in the knowledge that my best friend is dying, sooner than later. While being robbed of future wheelchair races through the halls of a multitude of retirement homes I have met and fell in love with the woman that I plan on spending my days with. Heady and morose times my friends. I feel conflicted. I feel for my friend and his family and it aches to think of going through the rest of my time here without him to bounce idiocy off of while at the same time feeling elated and light as air with my sweetheart. It doesn't seem right. But such is life I suppose. Not to put myself into this equation at all, simply an observance really for context, but can you imagine the joy of bringing a new born into the world? Now imagine it in the middle of war torn Syria. Pure joy and fear in equal measure.

Back to that connection that I think we all share. It isn't about an existential crisis sort of thing, trying to understand the why and the how of simply being. Nor is it a religious thing, under one God we are all united. No it's about being a human being, a living inhabitant of this little blue dot that we all share. I come back to the idea of Ubuntu, "I am because we are." For me it's that simple. We shouldn't need a book to tell us how to act when standing before another human being. But of course, all too often the ugly side of life is what seems to become all we hear about. Darkness never quits and it is oh so easy to fall into it.

"Well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable

And lightness has a call that's hard to hear"

Indigo Girls

I used those lyrics and an ass kicking from a dear friend years ago when I was slipping into negativity. I was letting someone bring me to where they were and I didn't like what I was seeing in the mirror when it was held up to me. So back into the light I went. And for the most part I stay there, through all the divorce garbage, the struggles we all face from time to time, health scares, emotional scars or simply the day to day efforts of pushing on the ocean. Because I know tomorrow will be better. Look back at earlier posts here and I sound positively stupid with dough eyed naivete. Well, I'm still the same. Maybe more so if you can believe that.

As you can imagine that attitude along with the support of loved ones is how I am moving through these times. I'll look back every so often at the footprints of my life and see the good things and the good times we shared, and while I will miss him terribly, I am feeling quite blessed that we have managed to share some time together. I know he would want me to continue on, as always, pulling at the frayed bits, living out loud and tearing down the things that don't work. Live with hope and live with love...that's all.

Ciao
D

These Roots Were Made For Walking

A green thumb I am not, in fact you would do well to keep anything plant like away from me as I would probably kill it just by being near it. I can't grow things and I can't start a proper fire...I'd be dead in about 18 minutes if the apocalypse started because of these two simple facts. Sadly, I am not at all knowledgeable in how the natural world truly works. I didn't know until maybe 10 years ago or so how bees are used to pollinate fields. I mean I know bees pollinate but I didn't realize that it was actually an "industry"used to, well, feed us. Told you I wasn't all that smart.

But worry not, smarter people than I are all over this thing. And worry not, I'm not going to talk about the birds and the bees either. No, I wanted to talk about roots. There was a video posted somewhere that caught my attention, a time lapse of a bean seed germinating and sprouting. Incredible this nature thing I must say. It has always amazed me to see plant life sprout out through concrete in the middle of the downtown core, as they said in Jurassic Park "life finds a way". The largest living organism on earth is a fungus down in the States, nearly 4 km across. Imagine the root system on this baby, I wonder if it has anything to do with the shit above it, Drumphland and all right?

To watch the complex system spreading from this tiny seed, roots and off shoots working through photosynthesis and molecular processes all in support of the final product, the humble bean. It is of course a metaphor for life and yes you'd be right in assuming that this is what is jangling around in my head at the moment. Roots and how they play in the tapestry of our lives.

Our roots run deep. They nourish us, sustain us, support us and allow us to grow into whatever it is we will be. Photosynthesis replaced by life experiences of our own and of those around us. This is how we become who we are...simple right? Hardly. Complex systems that work together for a common purpose are just that, complex, so never easy. From defective cells (fuck off cancer) to any number of variables that can affect our system it's a wonder that we have flourished as we have. Life finds a way I guess, and thank fuck that it does because life can be beautiful if you let it in.

Spending an evening with Scott last night where we dined and drank as men do on the eve of battle, with little regard to the next day because what was important was the here and now. We sat for an excellent Japanese meal where  we let the chef choose our food for us...we were in his hands and it was amazing. A pre-dinner drink surrounded by warm wood and comfortable chairs to allow for our particular brand of discourse. And finally back to the apartment for an excellent bottle of Spanish wine that we have always enjoyed while talking about the coming apocalypse and the funny things in our lives. It was a privilege to spend this kind of time with him, it allowed for us to talk through things. So while the occasion was created out of a somber reason we shared a beautiful evening together strengthening our roots some more and weaving some more of our tapestries together.

The paradox of these strong roots that keep us in check and grounded is that they also allow us to move freely about to garner new experiences, to live and love and set down even more roots which will allow for even more of the same again. Feeding our system with love, life and happiness is how we continue to grow, both as individuals and as people together. Principles, integrity, courage and character...these are the by products of our roots and the hope is that these are the traits that get pollinated over to other people in our lives. The best of us becoming part of another root system...green thumb after all, perhaps.

Ciao
D

Peekaboo

I see you. Do you see me? Ahh, I remember that game well. My three little birds bouncing on my knee and giggling their asses off with this cute diversion. Seemingly simpler times when you could easily make them laugh and they actually enjoyed getting tickled. If I tried that today with my boy I'd end up on the other side of the room nursing bruises I'm sure.

But as you can imagine, this ain't about that. The game of peekaboo we play in our daily lives, with loved ones and strangers alike. People float in and out of our lives on a daily basis and one gets to wondering about what others actually see. I mean the real thing, not if my hair is parted correctly or if I have the right pair of shoes on, the real me. Or the real you.

A friend had recently posted something on Facebook about the word sonder, with the following explanation:

"the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, 

as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk."

That's cool, I like that something that should be innate to us has been captured in such a way. Of course all those people are living their lives as we pass them on the streets, their hopes and fears, their struggles and triumphs. We'd do well to remember that before passing judgement or acting out of some notion of one upmanship. As a society we don't really see people. And while that is bad enough, what's worse is when that happens for people you actually care about.

Our self worth is a delicate thing. The smallest seemingly insignificant comment or look can burn right through us. Scarring us in ways that can be hard to imagine. Anxiety born from malice or not is still painful. It can be a hard thing to pinpoint and just when you think you have it all figured out, the goal posts get moved and you realize you don't know shit. I'm talking about how we value ourselves and how we love ourselves. It has to start there, with ourselves.

As unique as we all are the answers are just as unique. What works for me doesn't have to work for you and often it doesn't. We struggle mightily and sometimes when blessed with someone that truly sees you and values you we still will think the worse. "It's happened before so I'm sure it will happen again, so why bother." Sound familiar?

If only you could see yourself as I do. There is beauty and power there. Wrapped up in a perfectly imperfect package. If only you could see what I see. Your good heart shielded by past hurt. Your tenderness tempered by the tapestry of your life. If only you could see what I see you'd see that you have real worth and you matter greatly.

Let yourself go. Lose yourself in love so that you can find yourself. There, at the ends of your fingertips we have it, we just need to believe.

"And in the end

The love you take

Is equal to the love you make"

The Beatles

Fear Not

I've been thinking a lot lately about the passage of time and our place in the here and now. Swirling emotions that are leaving me a tad too raw for my own liking. A combination of great joy and deep sadness, so much so that I feel I might need to pay attention to my state of mind in a more than cursory way. Perhaps the very act of thinking about it and than writing about it is probably what I need so please be patient while I process away.

The other night, while chopping a boat load of onions, I watched a few clips from the movie One Week that hit a little too close to home for me. Hence the onion reference of course. Our hero Ben is diagnosed with stage four cancer and decides that this is the time to buy a motorcycle and ride west. Have an adventure as they say. Jettisoning his treatment despite his fiances pleadings, Ben needed to do something before chaining himself to an IV tree. The road trip to end all road trips for our budding writer.

Motorcycle diaries aside I'm so glad this movie came across my field of vision, it is a tremendous little Canadian movie with cameos by Gord Downie and Joel Plaskett amongst others, with a wonderful soundtrack and a message that hit home then and more so over the past few years. I love the movie but find it difficult to even think of sitting through it all now...who needs those tears after all? Simon and Scott's terrible news and my own brush with fuck you cancer have left me, as I said, a little too raw.

There was a scene in the movie, well actually many scenes to be honest, that came to mind and I wanted to be reminded about it. Ben was on the beach in British Columbia when a German newlywed couple asked him to take a picture of them. Being Canadian he did so without stealing their camera and then the narrator took over:

"Their love wasn't an illusion, however, like most relationships there were a 
few rogue waves that could have capsized it. In those times of rough seas, 
Ben's photograph was a touchstone for what was best."

The notion of the touchstone has always been one of interest for me. How we mark our time on this tiny blue dot. How we can relate, in an instant, a funny or sad or poignant story at the mere mention of a word we associate with a moment in time. Like music, these benchmarks can transport us to anywhere and anytime. Say the word Quebec to me and I'm 18 years old again running wild through that snow globe pretty town. Just like that.

I know I've used this quote before in my writing but I can't help but use it again, it is and will continue to be one of the best ways I know to express the sentiments that I have around all that is going on:

"When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold on to them. They are the life boats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely illusive. So the question becomes, or should have been all a long... What would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What life boat would you grab on to? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfil? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write?"

To me, this is telling us to leave it all out on the field. No regrets. We have our one shot at life and tomorrow is not guaranteed. Be it an errant bus or brain cancer, life as we know it today can be changed in a moment. While I live with hope always I also know that waiting for that "right time" is not the way I want to go through this life of mine. I'm eating that cake, sipping that wine, walking out my door and falling madly and deeply in love.

At the end of it all, if I can say that I did my best, lived without fear or regret and was a good father then I would say that I have had a good life. If I helped people along the way and was a positive influence on some of the people I walked with through my life, well...that's a great life in my book.

Ciao
D