Tributes, Memories & Milestones

Flowery Tributes

We honoured the 11th hour of this 11th day in this 11th month, as we have like clockwork, these past four years, by singing our national anthem, humming God Save the Queen and paying tearful, televised tribute to our war heroes, alive and dead for the annual and auspicious occasion of the 90th anniversary of Armistice this Remembrance Day 2008.

I don't like having to explain to the children this year what a poppy is and why they should wear it. It's one of the many small sacrifices of identity we make as ex-pats, I suspect. The kids easily spell favorite and think nothing of it. They say zee instead of zed but at least have the good grace to look at my guiltily when they do it. They're forgetting so much about Canada so soon and this makes me want to cry.

Holy Daughter pinned her poppy on her Brownie vest yesterday and she and her troop trekked off to the local Veteran's Hospital to sing songs, present cards and in her case, hand out poppies to the Veterans. It was amazing that some of the veterans recognized the significance of the poppy and were touched. It's not something Americans honour although of course, at Armistice and Remembrance Day celebrations elsewhere around the world, it's universally recognized as the symbol of peace reborn in the killing fields.

I used to have 'In Flanders Fields' committed to memory. Time and complacency have since dusted it from my childhood closets.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

— Lt.-Col. John McCrae

Holy Daughter said she felt this warm glow feeling in her stomach at having visited the Veteran's and personally thanked them for their service to this country. She watched the CBC ceremony on television this morning and wondered aloud at why there was so much French being spoken. And I'll admit - it seemed a bit much today - or so it seemed to this Westerner who has never found the bilingual cloak to be all that comfortable and fitting. But it was great to be able to see Canada's last WWI vet pass the torch via the big screen from the comforts of his living room to the vets and active soldiers alike of the wars that followed, up to and including Afghanistan.

Holy Son is off at an all-day Scout training day this Veteran's Day - he's not wearing his uniform but he does have his poppy pinned upon his scout t-shirt, for what it's worth. I asked him to break for a minute of silence at 11am. He said, "But Mom!" And I just did the raised-eyebrow thing and affected my no-blink, no-compromise stare.

Such is the plight of young foreigners on American soil ~ that they should have to be subjected to their parents weird homeland rituals that bear little meaning and relevance to their own Americanized lives.

Memories
I am only a fraction of the way into my Nanowrimo Rebel project - I got a little derailed by Holy Daughter's art project, soccer, Irish dance performance and Nutcracker rehearsals this past weekend, but I hope to get back in the loop this week.

My book is sectioned off into three parts - I, Don't and Know - the 'I' section is my 14 predominant roles or archetypes in life, the 'Know' part shall be my so-called wisdom text of 14 epiphanies and the 'Don't' section is my negative precept tales ~ it's the one I've been most sluggish about.

Case in point: today I'm going to tackle Pee...as in Don't Pee....which shall be my prosaic witness to a most embarrassing and debilitating time in my teenagehood ~ having LBS (leaky bladder syndrome). Whenever I see a teen girl wear a hoodie wrapped around her waist, I pause to wonder if she too suffers the same ailment I once did. Of course, now there's Depend. :) Not that incontinent teens, with their low-rise jeans and g-string underwear would be prone to wanting to sport a granny diaper. But I was desperate enough back then that I might have considered something, had I known there was an option. It would be a long time before I finally went in for bladder surgery. Proactive medical concern was not a family strong suit. We were nothing if not nuclear reactive.

Milestones
Holy Hub flew home to Deadmonchuk over the weekend and drove his Pa's old pick-up truck back. It was loaded to the rafters with trash and treasure alike and a supply of poppies that will see us through the next few years.

Some of the treasures included a custom-framed Norman Rockwell needlework image Grandma Schmidt had made for Holy Son, Grossmutti's old grandfather clock, ceramic and metalwork candlesticks Holy Hub had made in his distant youth, retro train sets, and a great old Swiss trunk from the 1930s. We have nowhere to put some of this stuff so there it sits in our dining room and entryway, biding its time 'til it might find a more permanent home. Somewhere sometime.

Speaking of some who, what, where, when, why's, I'm preparing to launch my new year vision. Consider this my pre-launch party. My 2009 life vision theme is New Gold Dream: The Siren & the Ecstacy.

It seemed appropriate to pick a Simple Minds tune, first and foremost, because it will take a beginner mind vision of innocence and risk to pull this off. And also because the song and arguably the album, New Gold Dream, speaks to an era - 81,82,83,84 when I experienced one of the most profound archetypal deaths and rebirths. On this, the 25th anniversary of the end of that era, I think it's time to die again, in order that I might be give birth to a new gilded me.

Back in October of 2006, I blogged about this very song in reference to both my once upon a time and someday dreams. Here's the once upon a distant future day dreams I constructed that day:

1. Someday strutting in a parade with the Red Hot Mamas ~ as an update, I did get to strut in the St. Paddy's Day parade with a bunch of Red Hot Mamas but yes, my parade dream is still largely alive, well and raring to strut her stuff
2. Writing and self-publishing a children's book - here ye, here ye. I actually wrote a children's book last Thursday -voila! just like that - and am officially going on record here to announce that I am going to be shopping my manuscript to worthy publishers - the golden-tinge to this dream is that I hope to one day earn a Newbery and/or Caldecott honour for said achievements. Or die trying, anyways.
3. Embarking on a six-month sabbatical as a family to a far-flung place in order to assist with an international aid project ~ this dream is fast approaching a need for speed, on account of Holy Daughter being in 3rd and Holy Son being in 7th grade. Time ticks, carpe diem and all that jazz.
4. Finally learning to draw and paint ~ I've been flirting more and more with both of these but my inner chicken is Foghorn Leghorn in size and formidabishnish.
5. Visiting as many key mystical and ancient civilization sites as time, money and energy will permit in this lifetime - I've been to a few but not nearly as many as I would like. Machu Picchu still beckons.
6. Becoming a dragon boat racer ~ this one always ends up on next year's resolution list. Sad but true.
7. Learning to breathe and meditate ~ a did a teeny, tiny bit of meditation this year but I still haven't jumped in with both feet, save vicariously, when I sent Holy Daughter away to a Vipassana retreat this past summer.
8. Climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro with Holy Hub one day ~ this would be very cool. Holy Son and Hub made a pact the other night that they were going to crack open a 38 year old bottle of Canadian Club whiskey on a Mt. Rainier outing on or near 2014. I should maybe see if we change this up to be a family pass-the-cup affair in the wilds of Africa. Not that packing a flash of whiskey all the way to Africa would be easy but who said life was easy?!
9. Owning a vacation cottage or cabin in the mountains ~ still haven't made good on this, my most ardent dream. Shame on me. 'Nuff said.
10. Writing my memoir ~ this is finally in the works!

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It's funny as in remarkable that this top 10 list still vibes with me. Dragon boat racing could easily substitute for some other physical challenge or pursuit - a marathon or long pilgrimage hike could easily suffice, too. But apart from that - this remains my bucket list.

I'm pleased to verify that I've begun to act on some of these dreams, while keeping others in the forefront of my consciousness during these tricky, recessionary times.

Let it be known for the record though: 2009 is the year I guide, stride and high-tide them.

So on that note, I'll re-quote here the sage words I noted for posterity in my October '06 blog post.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the blowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in the your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
Mark Twain

The Fountain of Youth

"We turn not older with years, but newer every day."

Emily Dickinson

Here's a glimpse at my vision poster I crafted this weekend. I've had the magazine cut-outs for quite some time but finally was able to dedicate the time and energy to craft it.

What I love about it is the jazzed feeling I get whenever I look at it ~ it's just very grounding to me. So many eclectic words and images pop and scream at me in their different voices. It is, at once, an image of who I was once upon a time, who I am but often forget to be, and who I happily ever after wish to be. But to be or hope to be ~ that is the question.

The thing in itself I'm referring to here is youth, because so much of the magic (or magical thinking, to coin a prophetic phrase from a very, magical gal I know) alive in this poster has a kind of youthful spirit about it.

I'm reading a book called You're Only Young Twice: 10 Do-Overs to Reawaken Your Spirit by Ronda Beaman. This is not to be confused with the most hilarious, must-read Dr. Seuss book I have bought for all the 70 year olds and other geriatric loved ones in my life, as featured below.

So anyways, I was attracted to it because the cover shows an image of the author leap frogging over a man, presumably her husband. And as I read it, I became intrigued by how she shifts the paradigms and creates fun acronyms out of words we perceive to know well.

Consider how she re-thinks the following words:

Age - Act, Grow, Evolve

Old - Outlook, Language, Drives

Live - Look, Inquire, Vent, Enjoy

Joy - Just Obey Yourself

The central premise of her book is that there is a science of the soul that enables us to remain youthful, if we so choose. She refers to this process as neoteny ~ the science of growing young. She insists that "we can direct our own evolutionary path" and reprogram our DNA from one of matter to a DNA of spirit, simply by cultivating traits like love, compassion, curiosity and wonder.

Her suggestions aren't rocket science. They range from incorporating more music and dance into one's life, starting a "joy" jar, or learning to play, laugh, sing, smile, learn and fall in love more. And it all begins and ends with thought. You're only as old as you feel, look, act, whatever...you really do choose your own reality on this one.

Aging is getting alot of media attention these days. It always has, but more so lately. Body scans, Botox, "real age" quizzes and anti-aging products abound, as the Boomer age comes of age.

Yet despite the reality that 60s flower children, who quintessentially defined 20th century youth, are our new-age grandparents, our vision hasn't changed much.

Sure, we have Dove campaigns now to help counter that youth is more than an air-brushed picture in a magazine, it's a state of mind. But what's really going on, Beaman claims, is that we've bought into the cultural and aging myths, memes and madness about what it means to age.

Memes are popular in blogging and e-mails. The run the gambit from those lovely 20 fascinating aspects you could care less about me but I'm going to tell you anyways to the ever-popular 43 things to countless other topic questionnaires. Memes in a cultural sense, are defined as "units of behavior, values, and language that evolve and are passed on through imitation and learning.

Tying shoelaces, perfecting family recipes, learning what not to say and do with an explosive personality in your life, understanding the intricacies of non-verbal communication - these are all memes, of sorts. And there's a ton of them alive and well in the arena of aging - not the least of which are the verbal vomit.

You know the one's we tell ourselves - "if I could just bottle little Johnny's energy....(big sigh)...I'd be a millionnaire" or "energy is wasted on the young" or "another gray hair...wow, I really am getting old."

And don't even get me started on modes of behavior. I'm reminded of it every time I hop on the shopping cart and take my daughter for a joy ride through the downslope parking lot, with both of us screaming ~ or in my case, just yelling that nauseating monotone ahhh! so that anytime we hit a bump it makes a vibrating ahhh! sound. The looks I get from fellow shoppers - now that should go in an American Express commercial - it's priceless, really. Come on, people. Lighten up, already!

And last night. I brought my new Wild Thing button (a variation on the Staples Easy button) to the penultimate final game of my son's Little League tournament. Every time one of the boys hit a homer or got someone out or made an otherwise fantastic play, our crowd would hoot and holler and I would hit the Wild Thing button. It was so much fun giving in to my Pavlovian side...and so much cleaner than salivating.

But it was also so funny because the other moms would look at me in horror whenever I offered them the choice to hit the button when their boy did something awesome. You would think I was offering them a hunk of stinky cheese on moldy bread. Which is a visual picture and aroma not altogether dissimilar to the process of becoming old and stodgy and decidedly adult and normative.

It's the cheapest of little thrills that bring the most joy sometimes. And God knows, with stress and bills and demands and deadlines looming for all of us constantly in our myriad work, parenting and home lives, a little joy can be a big thing.

I know people who have allowed their ill health and attitude to shape their perception of aging such that they became decades older than their years, in demeanor and appearance. And I know people who have already given up living, believing all their best years to be behind them or perhaps more telling, ahead of them in their "next" life. And conversely, I know a precious few who continually defy the printed date on their birth certificate, proving that one is only as old as one chooses to be. And that if you keep doing what you've always done (think you're aging), you'll keep getting what you've always got (old).

Anyways, I like the thought of being born again scientifically. Of course, we're continually doing that anyways, on so many levels ~ from the molecular and cellular to the big picture civilization and universal picture. But I like the idea that we can evolve backwards into our process of becoming. It's like being retro and futuristic at the same time without having to do anything except be.

To be or not to be, that is the question. Or is it the answer? If it was a multiple choice questionnaire, I'd choose forever young. I kinda have to. How else am I going to get away with popping wheelies, blowing spit bubbles and singing This Old Gray Mare She Ain't What She Used to Be while cruising erratically on the downslope in the grocery parking lot?

Because if it's gonna be a downward slope, I figure I might as well enjoy the ride. And if Lynn lived here, we could shop together and race each other through the parking lot.

That's what over the hill should mean. Conquering it head-on and head strong. On that note, I'm over and out.