The Big Leagues

I needed to make a very important decision yesterday and so I headed to the swimming pool. I find swimming so soothing because it gives me a chance to clear my head in the silence under the water. The rhythm of the laps helps to calm a racing mind and like I said, clarity is found.

On an average day I will swim sometime in the morning. The people that frequent YMCA ’s in the middle of the day are quite specific, they are 65+ or 4-. The very small ones do not enjoy the showers and spend most of their time running in and out of those tiled rooms,shriekingg with delight at the fuss they are making by being difficult. These little kids are as naked as the day they were born, so the spectacle is much more fun to watch. "Naked Child A" runs by your locker following two seconds later by mom. They make me laugh. And I enjoy the chance to talk with them about their Dora the Explorer shoes or that they are two years old, even though they held up four fingers when I asked them. The mornings sound pleasant but beware the evenings. It’ s the Big Leagues at night.

The intense swimmers emerge in the evenings, like vicious nocturnal animals. They are those psycho and intense athletes with biceps the size of small children, or at least the size of my waist. And they seem to believe they are God's gift to the swim lane. I spent most of my laps trying to avoid being run over by these guys (I would not call them gentlemen).

In the a.m. I am a stellar swimmer. I glide by those grandfathers with the ease of a schooner on a calm day, gracefully pulling myself through the water. Like an Olympic gold medalist. I chat with the seniors and let me tell you, I am charming. But last night was all about survival. I struggled to stay with the pace of the lane because the people from Generation Bicep are swimming machines. No time to be charming when you are choking on water trying to keep up with them. My competitive nature reared it's ugly head last night while I swam. I wanted to show those gronks. I almost had an asthma attack because of it.

So, you might ask if I managed to make the decision. No I did not. I need to decide by the end of today and I have no idea. But the day is young. There are still a few hours to think. I’m not an impulse buyer and so making a decision over one night it too quick for me. I can’t do it. Both side of the decision hold a risk. i'm not old enough to be making a decision about my career! What do they think I am? An Adult?!?! Are they in for a sorry surprise or what. I was concerned about a decision i had made and my friend told me that he always trusts my decisions because I make good ones. I rarely trust my decisions. Ugh! My dad suggested I toss a coin. If it gets to that point I just might. Or perhaps I will construct a Urim and Thumin. Worked for the Israelites.

Conclusion: I’m not ready for the Big Leagues yet.

Country Roads

I am reading a book right now entitled "Through Painted Deserts" (previously published as "prayer and the art of Volkswagen maintenance"). It is a book about a road trip across the U.S. of A.

roadtrips are wonderful things. I love the idea of driving until you can't stay awake and then sleepily crawling into the back and curling up under a pile of clothes, pillows and blankets. There is something very appealing about that complete exhaustion and finally resting. As your last effort you work your weary feet out of their shoes....Freedom! (I'm not a big fan of shoes) You lie down and a dark sky full of stars surrounds you. And you can lie there and think for hours or nuzzle down underneath the blankets, happy to be finally warm and drift off to sleep. How strange that sleeping in a van could be so appealing, but it is. It really is. I want to do it right now. it makes me smile to think about it.

I like the idea of knowing exactly what you are going to be doing tomorrow and that you could have such a clear destination but being in no rush to get there. You don't have to set an alarm on a roadtrip, that is appealing in itself. It is simplistic and I yearn for it. No phone calls, no e-mails, no appointments, no stress, just open road. and the conversations are always so much better when you have time to have them.

i want to get on highway 2 right now, and just drive through the night maybe have lunch in Montana and then just keep going. driving at night makes me happy to be alive, i don't know what it is exactly. have you ever been going to get someone at the airport and then just thought....what if i just keep driving? i think i do it almost every time.

i had the opportunity to do more traveling last year and i remember one night on my way down south i was driving along and the sun had set across the Southern Alberta prairies. The farmers were taking in their crops and the dust they created made everything slightly hazy and soft. i was the only one on the highway and then the music began "Don't the hours grow shorter as the days go by". it was what i would call a perfect Canadian moment. there was nowhere else i wanted to be than on that highway heading South.

so anyone up for a roadtrip?

The Star I've Hitched My Wagon To Is Very Obviously You.

Of thee I sing, baby
Summer, autumn, winter, spring, baby.
You're my silver lining,
You're my sky of blue;
There's a love light shining
All because of you.

I would like to take a moment out of the day to honor Chicken Wings. I never quite understood the obsession with these little bits of goodness until a New Year's Eve at the King's house. And there I met Teriyaki Chicken Wings. My life was forever changed. Oh how like Pavlov's mangy dog am I, mouth watering even as I type.

Being allergic to all that is good in this world makes wings even more amazing. Imagine that you had been denied your most favoritest of favorite foods for all of your adult life. And then you find something that made up for those lost eating years. Something that gave life meaning and purpose again. Imagine that when you bit into these small chicken wings you felt alive again. When i eat chicken wings it's like that scene in Wizard of Oz where Dorothy steps into Oz for the first time and her world goes from black and white to color. Unfortunately there are no dancing Munchkins that appear when I eat wings.

Now that seems like a lot of pressure to put on a few little bit of chicken slathered in a tasty sauce but it's sort of how I feel. When life is boring and bland there are always chicken wings to make things better. They go well with cheese strings too. Cheese strings saved my life once. I lived off Cheese strings, apples, peanuts and ice cream when I went to Tennessee last year. I can't eat corn and the United States is the biggest exporter of corn in the world so everything, all sugars, starches etc. are made from corn down there. And although they seem to be against what God had planned for cheese they are very tasty.

So let us raise our glasses and sing of Chicken Wings and Cheese Strings. Let us remember the chickens that gave up their wings. Sing to the beautiful combo that makes life meaningful and tasty. To the thick, flavorful sauces of goodness and the unnatural stringy mozzarella cheese. I look forward to eating both of you in abundance in heaven. ohhh tasty heaven.

(anyone know the author of song i quoted?)

THROW OUT YOUR HINGES

Have you ever had one of those days where all the doors seem to be hinged or hung the wrong way? i do not claim to know anything about the construction of doors because I am not a carpenter or a door-hanger (that's probably the techinical name for those people). However, there are those days where it seems that every door you go through is backwards or different from any other door you have ever seen or even experienced earlier that same day. Or there are two doors and one is locked in place and for some reason you choose the "locked in place" door over the other one.

Let's imagine a hypothetical situation: You have visited a local Blockbuster (let's say)and attempt to quietly leave the video store without drawing too much attention to yourself. But a movie poster with Ben Kingsley catches your eye and you are not focused on the door anymore. And you are caught wondering what the name of Ben Kingsley's character is in "Sneakers" and if Robert Redford is still around and how someone said he is a "nicely aged steak" and how you convinced friend A that Robert Redford was infact the father of friend B and they believed you. And while you are congratulating yourself on such a brilliant trick you lean into the door with all the confidence one could have. But does the door open? NO, of course not. and you run right into the glass door and the quiet video store is awakened by the idiot that chose the wrong door to exit by. And while you curse Ben Kingsley's name under you breath, you choose the other door and exit.

There is a scene in "Pure Luck" where they set up a boardroom with 30 chairs in it and on one chair they remove one of the legs and carefully balance it so it looks like all the others. Martin Short walks in and out of all the chairs he chooses the one with only three legs. Sometimes I wonder if I was in a room full of double doors, i would inevitably choose the door that is locked in place rather than the door that is open.

Now, I often like to blame my inability to do things on the fact that I am a left hander living in right hander world. (i feel a song coming on. a perfect moment for a musical to erupt out of nowhere in the middle of my post. The people around me begin to move in time and then perform perfectly syncrozized dance sequences although they are strangers. and then I get to join in with the song that I strangely know for no apparent reason and everything around moves in perfect harmony for a moment. sigh. to live in a musical)

So here is my suggestion, we get rid of doors. just have those strings of plastic beads from the sixties to divide rooms. I would even be willing to use thick curtains for more privacy. Or maybe even japanese style of movable walls rather than doors. See at least with those you can obviously see which way the wall should move. What are those walls called anyways?

But anyway, maybe it is because I'm left handed but seriously.....what is up with these sorts of days.

"Hey, Unto you a child is born"

My hands have been resting on this keyboard for the past five minutes and I have had no idea how to write anything. I have never blogged before and I see this moment as possibly the most important event in my mid-twenties life. I have no idea what will happen when I enter this world of blogging. The blogs I read are so witty, so full of insight and humour. And here I sit with some urge to blog but no idea how to blog. I would love for this entry to be eloquent and graceful. However, I have realized that my life is not one of elegance and graceful steps. But more one of awkwardness and mistakes.

I have realized that the reason I love children's Christmas concerts so much is that they are full of awkward moments and mistakes. They are so imperfect and flawed. However, at the same time, they are full of joy, eargerness, and excitement. That is what makes them so beautiful and heart warming. The little kid that is trying to pull her dress up over her head or the boy that is waving to his parents in the middle of his solo. The two kids that get in a fight during "Silent Night" or the child that refuses to drum her drum like all the other kids. i love the rebellion against conformity in the plays. Well, I love them as long as I get to observe. Being in charge is another matter.

I am facing a concert myself and I will be the one in charge. I am trying to learn to approach the concert with a sense that whatever happens...happens. I have brought the students this far but i cannot control the outcome of the evening. I'm also trying to understand that the outcome of this concert is no reflection on my worth as a person.

Growing up in the music world engrained this attachment between how I played and how important I was. I don't even know how those things start. I think that music began to be the defining factor in who i was. It was all people ever talked to me about. And the lines begin to blur between yourself and this music thing that people say defines you. I have come a long ways in that area of life but that sneaking suspicion is still there. The sense that if I don't play this perfectly then I might as well just go home.

I want to learn to look at life, as I do the children's Christmas concerts. To learn to see that the thing that makes those concerts fantastic is the imperfection of it all.

There are a few different types of children in a Christmas concert: there are the behaved children that are unaware of the other shenanigans that are transpiring, there are those causing the shenanigans and then finally there are the mature children who are accutely aware of the shenanigans and embarassed and anxious at the mistakes that are being made.

I fear in life that I am the mature four year old who is mortified by the child next to me singing out of tune and out of rhythm. Waiting impatiently for those that can't quite do it right to get off the stage and for this escapade to be over. But I don't want to be the mature four year old. I want to look at the different ways people do things and smile on them for their creativity and risk taking, and not frown on them for their inability to do it "the way" they should. As if there is a "way" things should be done. And in all reality the perfect Christmas concerts are fine to go to and people will applaude and sit quietly. But they lack the life and vitality of one with mistakes.

And why do I pretend that things should be perfect? We all know that nothing is perfect and it is only our sick way of wanting to be in control. And if something is perfect it's mostly boring. It's the unexpected that bring real joy I think. If we learn to live life without expectations of how a day should be or what the outcome of something should be, then I think we will be able to find joy in anything. We won't see a mud puddle as an annoyance on the sidewalk that we have to side step. Instead, we might see the worms soaking in the rain and wriggling with glee.