If we lose love and respect for each other, this is how we finally die
Maya Angelou
Watching the news last evening my heart skipped a couple of beats as I watched the first woman in the United Kingdom become the first recipient of the vaccine for Covid-19. That is until, the next stories aired, which were about anti-mask demonstrations in my province, seniors dying in nursing homes, and the usual nonsense from the outgoing President of the United States who continues to wreak havoc.
So how do we get through the next number of months until most of the globe receives the vaccine? Surveys indicate that a sizeable portion of our population will not participate in this process and that larger numbers of people in our community will fall ill before those who want the opportunity to become immune to this virus actually have a chance to do so. How does this level of dissonance play out?
What are the chances I wonder, that people will begin to respect each other long enough to reach the finish line in this global race that we are in together? My fervent hopes are that reason and rationale will be restored, misinformation will disappear from social media and other sources, and that for what is likely only several months of next year, we will once again pull together by staying apart to keep each other safe.
The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.
Elizabeth Gilbert
Doubt. Negative self-talk. Despair. We have all likely experienced those moments when we are certain that our creative wells have run dry and that we have no more words to offer up to the world. When we are beset by those times sometimes referred to as writer’s block, how do we regain those sparks of creativity and find the kindling needed to encourage them to burst into full flame?
Last month, I attempted and (actually!) finished a writing event during National Novel Writing month. Flash Nano, an event created by Nancy Stohlman who asked participants to sign up to receive a writing prompt every day and to then write a story of up to a thousand words. Each morning last month, I found myself trying to bend my mind around some unusual ideas, very quirky prompts, and then proceed to create a piece of flash fiction.
I must admit that as the month progressed, I actually eagerly looked forward to what that morning email would bring. And although it’s wonderful to now have a file folder with thirty flash fiction stories, some of which I will definitely invent the time to edit and polish while others will linger in that folder forever, my biggest takeaway was learning more about creativity. Specifically, how I became attuned to the role creativity plays in my writing life.
This was a private experience for me, I did not post my stories to social media sites, or share them with others. It was instead a journey down a path that led to internal examination and discovery. Each morning I found myself considering many divergent ways in which to approach a story based on prompts that sometimes didn’t even make sense to me. This creative discovery process was something I have never fully appreciated or spent much time in reflection about it.
Through this discovery journey, I have come to understand that many aspects of daily living are in fact creatively inspired. It seemed that from one day to the next, my sense of creativity was heightened and I began to notice how this permeates all aspects of my life. From what clothing I would choose to wear that day to what foods I decided to prepare and even extending to what type of exercises I would choose to engage in. Creativity is afoot even if we think it is not.
And the best part of this entire writing exercise, was that the more time I spent working on these ideas, the quicker they came to me. By the last week of the flash fiction event, my writing came more quickly and with much less struggle. It almost seemed as if the more creative sparks I experienced, the more these ideas became like pieces of kindling. And for all of the ideas that I didn’t actually use, I have set the remainder aside in a notebook for some day in the future.
Hope you are experiencing the warmth of the creative path in your life! Stay healthy and safe!
Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others
Plato
Frigid, cold weather conditions have settled in for the long haul this winter in the Canadian prairies. While many of us take for granted the warmth, safety, and security of our homes, there are many individuals in our communities who do not share this reality. Helping organizations like shelters, food banks, and outreach programs are challenged by funding constraints at the best of times, but have become sidelined by a myriad of competing societal concerns.
A recent article in our local newspaper included photographs of warm, homemade, wool scarves tied around the trees in on our downtown parks. This organic Canadian practice known as scarf bombing began in 2016 as a way to provide warm articles of winter clothing to people living in shelters or couch surfing. Intended to surface the serious challenges of being homeless in a harsh cold climate, these scarf bombing events signal the need for all of us to rally and find ways to provide support to others who need it.
Food security issues, safe harm reduction programs, and homelessness have never garnered wholesale community support. But during these difficult times, it seems as though our ability to care for the most marginalized members of society has taken a backseat to caring for ourselves and our immediate families. As we debate the value of lockdowns vs. keeping parts of the economy open, and whether or not we should follow the directions of public health officials, there is even less empathy within our society for those who have long been existing on the fringes.
Our best way forward through difficult times is finding ways to be intentional and creative in how we care for those in greater need than we are. Whether its picking up a pair of knitting needles, placing canned goods in little boxes on the street corner, or calling a non-profit to find out what they need, it’s worthwhile to find out how you might be able to help. Any act of volunteerism has the potential to make a real difference in someone else’s life as well has having the amazing side effect of helping us to feel better.
We don’t have to look very far to see need, it is swirling all around us. If we can gain momentum in caring for ourselves as well as others, perhaps collectively we can replace the negative rhetoric that is taking space in our lives with something much more meaningful and positive. So whether or not we choose to scarf bomb, donate canned goods, or write kind messages for seniors isolated in a care home, it’s possible to help ourselves become stronger by helping others.
Flash Fiction will change you. It will make you a very different writer.
Nancy Stohlman
Having previously attempted the world renowned practice in November of writing a novel in 30 days (NaNoWriMo), and found that I was unable to sustain the motivation to finish, this year I stumbled upon a different type of November challenge – Flash Nano! This writing challenge is the brainchild of Nancy Stohlman, author of the recently published craft guidebook to flash fiction, “Going Short – An invitation to flash fiction”. Nancy provides daily writing prompts with the challenge and expectation the writer is to write a flash fiction story of 1,000 words or less every day.
Sounds simple, right? It’s not but it is an amazing challenge and the by-product is learning more about oneself as a writer as well as some of the nuts and bolts of the craft. And…even better, it has been a wonderful distraction from all of the chaos across the globe especially the political farce playing out south of the border and the looming escalation of viral infection.
To date, I have received seventeen prompts and written seventeen stories. Today I will tackle number eighteen and the best part of receiving these emails is that I now find myself spending more time during the day on this writing practice and I am also discovering it has enhanced my creative inclinations in other aspects of life throughout the day.
We likely all know what types of activities or strategies work best for each of us to stay engaged, creative, and energized. But maintaining consistency with any undertaking seems to have been elusive for me over the past few weeks as the outside world has become somewhat overwhelming. It has also been more difficult to simply find joy, excitement, and just plain fun in an activity. This one has helped check all of those boxes for me.
This has been instructive on several levels and surprising as well. This one activity has helped me focus on setting goals, applying effort to achieve them, learning and developing new skills, persevering when you think you don’t want to do something any longer, finding fun in the process, and learning to tune out all of the negativity that is knocking at the door. Writing practice has been a part of my life for the past couple of years and this month it has been amplified and elevated.
It has been awhile since I have looked forward to completing a task every single day. Perhaps this is one of the defining features of the disruptive force this pandemic has had in my newly sculpted post retirement life. Having made it through my own personal life transition, the farthest thing from my mind was to anticipate the collective transition that we are all going through. This writing practice has taught me a few personal lessons that I hope I am able to sustain long after we pass through this dark tunnel of time.
Hope you are finding things in your life that nurture you and create positive energy, excitement and just plain fun. Stay healthy and safe!
The world doesn’t belong to leaders, the world belongs to all humanity
Dalai Lama
This year, Canadian Remembrance Day ceremonies will take place virtually across the country. Our time honoured tradition of pausing for a moment of silence during the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month has not been cancelled due to COVID.
This past week on one of our local radio stations, listeners have been sharing stories from across our province, of relatives who served in either the First or the Second World War. It has been illuminating to learn about these personal stories telling of the psychological and physical impacts that have shaped families, and our communities. It drove home the need we all have to take the time to learn about this part of our past to help us to understand the freedoms gained that most often get taken for granted.
As we watch the unfolding drama and conflicts taking place around the world, now has never been a better time to try and develop appreciation for times when others made personal sacrifices for the greater good.
The great courageous act that we must all do, is to have the courage to step out of our history and past so we can live our dreams.
Oprah Winfrey
One of the challenges of these times is to remain balanced and to focus on the positives in our present and to spend some time planning for our future. It is all to easy to long for days gone by and to succumb to rumination about all that we may be missing out on in our lives because of the pandemic.
As the weather has become colder and the virus spread intensifies, it may seem even harder to focus on our goals, future hopes and dreams.
Seeking opportunities to develop skills that we ordinarily would never take the time to learn may take us down a path that has the potential to land us in a more positive place down the road.
Becoming more mindful of our health of both ourselves and those around us may have unexpected benefits in the future.
Learning unique ways to stay connected with one another may teach us to become more intentional with our connections and relationships.
Using technology to learn new skills may force us to move in directions that open up a realm of new opportunities and possibilities.
Taking time to develop a practice, routine, or set of activities that make us feel better about our selves and others is something we can carry forward and build into our future day to day lives.
Our world has been consumed with busyness and missed moments because there isn’t ever enough time to focus on goals or our aspirational dreams. Instead of living in regret for what we are missing right now, we could take these moments to reframe all of what is happening in our present reality as gifts which may enhance new learning. It’s time to release those ghosts in our past that have served as barriers and to embrace what may now be possible for our future.
Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up
Anne Lamott
This felt like a morning where getting out of bed might be the last thing I wanted to do. Daybreak meant another day of thinking about the disheartening results of our recent provincial election, the pandemic, and my steep learning curve to learn how to deliver a mental health course on Zoom.
Learning that the newly elected governing party doesn’t want to separate from our country but will fight for “autonomy” provides little comfort. It likely just means more divisiveness, a giant step backwards in the fight against climate change, little hope for reconciliation and mean spirited rhetoric about the economy. Seems to be not only more of the same but emulates what is happening politically all over the globe.
Our prime minister stated yesterday that this pandemic “sucks”. That certainly is a statement that resonates. But the reality is we all need to continue to do our part and an end to this will certainly come but not soon. So once again, I need to allow myself, small measured doses of reading or listening to the news. Otherwise it simply overwhelms.
So I will get serious and focus on learning how to use technology to connect with others and provide some support and resources for positive mental health. Likely the adage practice makes perfect applies here. I am indeed aware that learning new things requires patience and applied effort, regardless of how hopeless it may initially seem.
Thankfully, my writing practice continues to soothe my weary soul. Consider that I am studying the writing craft from the perspective of Anne Lamott and this morning happened upon the above quote. I definitely needed her message of hope. And I won’t give up.
You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude
Eleanor Roosevelt
So many aspects of our daily lives have been turned upside down during this pandemic. How easy it would be to give up hope or cave in to negativity as mounting challenges begin to resurface as the coronavirus gains momentum in communities around our country.
But we do have choice in how we wish to interpret the circumstances we find ourselves in as well as how we perceive the measures that we need to take to keep both ourselves and others safe. An unpleasant encounter last week with an anti-masker brought this home to me in a way that was both surprising and disturbing.
Leaving my local grocery store, I was accosted by a gentleman who began taunting me for wearing a mask. Moving too close into my personal space while making rude derisive comments, brought a realistic look at how this pandemic has the potential to both divide people and to unite them. After some reflection following this incident, it seems obvious that without consistent leadership from both public health officials as well as politicians, this fractious situation is likely to continue.
One can only imagine what might have happened if at the beginning of this pandemic every global leader had made the choice to implement universal strategies to prevent the virus from spreading around the world. At the same time! One can imagine that we may have had to endure only a few weeks in isolation and the virus may not have been able to gain such a strong foothold and could have burned itself out.
Perhaps that is just fanciful and wishful thinking. But we do have the ability to choose to care and respect everyone around us by following known measures to contain and control the virus. Our public health leaders are suggesting that at this time, we still have the ability to mobilize and contribute to a reduction in the spread of COVID-19.
If only we are able to merge our collective attitudes about our circumstances and collaborate with each other to achieve good health. Following several simple guidelines, which includes wearing a mask to protect others, does seem to assist society in achieving the desired outcomes.
We can turn our lives upside down again or we can share responsibility to cooperate and work to keep all in our communities healthy and safe. Seems like it should be a simple decision, doesn’t it.
Life is a balance between holding on and letting go
Rumi
We have just celebrated Thanksgiving in Canada and although this is a time to be reflective, grateful, and thankful for all that we have, it was hard not to think about the changes and shifts in this year’s holiday tradition.
Family members celebrating quietly apart; meals scaled down; and our communication with one another relegated to Zoom; text messages, and phone calls. Looming anxiety over rising case numbers and the continued politicization of the pandemic. All of this a backdrop to the political shenanigans from the American president determined to put his needs ahead of the rest of the globe.
This provided a strange context in which to reflect on the things we normally appreciate – time with family and friends for good food and connection; a successful fall harvest; and all of the other aspects of our daily lives that we may typically take for granted. This one last opportunity to enjoy the outdoors on the prairies before we don toques, gloves, and warm parkas to brave frigid winter temperatures was overshadowed by our new global reality.
It is a stark reminder that all of the events and activities that we cherish in our lives can be altered, cancelled, or removed at any time. Holding on too tightly to things we may need to let go of is a necessary part of all of our lives. Some life lessons are easier than others.
Each horse knows their place in the herd, and like a chessboard, they know how to relate to others in the herd, as each horse has their own role. The leader is the one that moves the least. The best leaders make sure all members of the herd are cared for and that they know that the leader has their backs.
Visions of Transition 