Posted on January 8, 2025 under Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom with 6 comments

Colour my world

 

“The world is black, the world is white,

It turns by day and then by night,

A child is Black, a child is white,

The whole world looks upon the sight,

A beautiful sight.”

Black and White – Three Dog Night

What is your favourite colour?

Our first formal introduction to colour typically happens when we start school or daycare. We learn our primary colours and we begin to experiment in art class. As we grow older, we begin to notice all the colours around us. We marvel at sunrises and sunsets and if we’re lucky, we get the witness the sheer awesomeness of the Northern Lights with the many colours of the rainbow dipping and dancing in the sky.

Last week, school resumed and lo and behold, I was asked to fill in for the woodworking instructor. The teacher left a lesson plan and one section was highlighted: NO TOOL USE PERMITTED. I wasn’t sure if that comment was directed towards me or my students! Most woodworking shops have a room dedicated to painting. I poked my head in and saw this long table splattered with every colour of the rainbow.

Red, Red Wine.

How do you view the world? Do you see it in “black and white” with no room for other colours to seep in? There are people who fit this description to a T. There is no gray in their world. Their universe is comprised of absolutes. These are people to be avoided at all costs.

Yellow Submarine.

There is nothing more colourful than a rainbow unless you consider my language when something goes wonky with my computer. In recent times, the rainbow has taken on a different connotation – with apologies to those whose pets have crossed over the rainbow bridge. The LBGTQ community has adopted the rainbow as its symbol. Gilbert Baker, a gay artist is credited with this. He wanted to make a proud statement through a symbol showing diversity.

Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain

I am old and must admit that I don’t completely understand the subtleties of gender identity. But it’s never too late to learn. During a lunch break at school before Christmas, I joined a group of students, members of the school’s GSA. For many years, this moniker meant “Gay Straight Alliance” but has been changed in recent years to “Gender and Sexuality Alliance”, a term more inclusive to students on the gender spectrum. (Thanks EB for the distinction)

You couldn’t find a more pleasant group of young people. It’s not easy being perceived as “different”. When I was their age, there were students who would have been thrilled to have the comfort and safety of a GSA group. Like many before them and to this day, students who didn’t fit in were and are the subject of bullying. Sad but true.

If we are going to preach tolerance to students, then we must ourselves learn to be more tolerant.

Getting better educated is a start.

The Green Green Grass of Home.

Another class that I monitored was grade 7 Social Studies. As this was the first class of the new calendar year, I asked them to give me an overview of what they had been studying from September to December. They informed me that they had been researching the Gaels, Acadians, MicMacs and African Nova Scotians. Common themes were racism and discrimination.

Unfortunately, racism remains alive and well and seems to be thriving in an intolerant world. Why are people still subjected to racial taunts because of the colour of their skin?

Paint it Black/Purple Rain/A Whiter Shade of Pale/Brown Eyed Girl.

My late brother Tom taught me a valuable lesson about colours many years ago on a long walk. I asked him how he kept his mind occupied when he was walking for hours. His answer startled me. “Do you know how many different shades of green there are? When I walk, I pick out a colour and try and see how many variations of the colour I can find.”

What if we were all colour blind? In many ways this might solve some of our racial problems.

However, we wouldn’t have all these great songs with colour in their title!

Grab a paintbrush. Make a splash. Colour your world.

Make all the colours of the rainbow your favourite.

“There is a blue one,

 Who can’t accept the green one,

For livin’ with a fat one,

 Tryin’ to be a skinny one,

Different strokes for different folks.”

Everyday People – Sly and the Family Stone

Be audacious. Be outrageous.

But most of all, be tolerant.

The world is not black and white.

 

When high winds wreak havoc with your cable

Posted on December 25, 2024 under Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom with 2 comments

 

Ho! Ho! Ho!

 

Blink.

Blink again.

That was 2024 that just zipped by. Yes, I realize that there’s still a week to go but the year is all but done.

So, what profound words of wisdom do I have to share in this my 1405^th Week45 story? Yes. I’ve been writing these gems (?) for 13 years. In the early years, I posted stories every Monday and Thursday (Musings and Tidbits) fifty-two weeks of the year. As time went by, I reduced this to once a week. Did I run out of story ideas? Hardly. With 8 billion people in the world, there will always be an abundance of story ideas.

A friend of mine sent me something the other day that caught my attention. Living longer doesn’t necessarily equate with living better. But the following words might be a good recipe.

“Whatever happens, stay alive. Don’t die before you’re dead. Don’t lose yourself, don’t lose hope, don’t lose direction. Stay alive, with yourself, with every cell of your body, with every fiber of your skin. Stay alive, learn, study, think, read, build, invent, create, speak, write, dream, design. Stay alive, stay alive inside you, stay alive also outside, fill yourself with colors of the world, fill yourself with peace, fill yourself with hope. Stay alive with joy. There is only one thing you should not waste in life and that is life itself.” Sona Rajput.

Wise words indeed but not easy to achieve. The world is a troubled place and it’s very easy to be pessimistic. Burying one’s head in the sand is not the answer nor is obsessing with all the bad news that’s all around us.

After receiving these “words of wisdom”, I replied to my friend. I told her that I don’t follow the news any more other than headlines on the CBC App. I said that I want to use my energy in constructive and positive ways. Teaching, writing, singing, reading, walking, cooking.

With renewed vigor, I am going to try and reduce my consumption of social media. To this end, I have turned off some of the notification buttons, most noticeably, Facebook. I didn’t realize that such a simple measure could almost eliminate my Pavlovian response to the little red notification flags.

It’s not possible to be in good cheer all the time but I think that happiness is a choice. I know some people who choose happiness, and they are great people to spend time with. Their good humour is addictive.

Thanks for tagging along in 2024.

See you in 2025… “The good Lord willin’” (From the Tommy Hunter Show)

Stay well and keep smilin’.

Posted on December 18, 2024 under Wednesday’s Words of Wisdom with one comment

The Walnut

From time to time, I post a story submitted by one of my followers. I met Dawn Haloun 15 years ago. She grew up on a farm in B.C. In 2005, she and her husband sailed to Cape Breton and decided that this would be there new home. From 2011-2016 she attended St.F.X. graduating with a degree in literature. Enjoy this lovely Christmas story.

 

The Christmas when I was nearly four, I was not considered quite old enough to keep a secret.  At least, not a full secret. I was shown, to my brother George’s great glee, only a piece of it…a little blue box, with a walnut in it.

On this particular Christmas that I write about, we lived on a small farm with six milking cows, some pigs, some chickens.  The year was 1948.  Times were tight yet, not much cash flow so soon post-war, but there was lots of warmth from the kitchen’s wood stove, and there was the warmth of the friendly messages in the Christmas cards displayed around the room.

There were special aromas too of Christmas baking.  The shortbread was hidden away to age, along with Christmas cakes full of bright cherries and candied fruit. My brother and I knew where to find these wonderful goodies, and were very, very careful to snitch only one little piece at a time, which we were sure wouldn’t be missed.  This was the season too for Japanese oranges. The oranges came only at Christmas-time in a little wooden crate which was so useful for other projects long after the oranges were eaten.

There was also a wooden bowl full of mixed nuts on the table.  My little hands did not have the skill to crack those pecans or walnuts into neat halves to keep the nutmeats whole.  My brother was adept at manipulating the unwieldy nutcrackers and sometimes he condescended to share broken nutmeats with me.

A few days before Christmas the tree was up and decorated.  The old strings of lights were  artfully arranged over the tree’s thin spots. They were plugged in, and glowing brightly.

I had been allowed to handle some of those delicate glass Christmas balls.  Carefully unwrapping them from their protective tissue paper, I hung them as high as I could reach. My brother, who was three years older, could hang ornaments at the next level, then Mum and Dad did the upper branches, finishing with tinsel, and lastly the home-made star at the very top. The room lights were turned off, and we, our snug family of four, stood back to admire the magic.

At such a young age, I probably didn’t know much about the concept of giving gifts.  I knew that Santa Claus put presents under the tree on Christmas night, so when my brother whispered that our Dad had a special gift for Mum, I was perhaps a little mystified when Dad secretly showed me a little blue box with a walnut in it.

There was the nut bowl on the table with lots of walnuts in it!  I was admonished not to tell Mum. But why would I? It was just a walnut!  What was most important was being part of a secret with my brother and my Dad.

Christmas morning was about anticipation!  Somehow, all those gaily wrapped presents under the tree had arrived in the night, and there was an especially big one pushed towards the back.

The cows were milked and all the early morning barn chores were done. Breakfast eaten and dishes washed.  The old wood furnace in the basement had been lit and warmed the usually unheated front room. Anticipation and impatience were mounting, but finally we could begin!

There might have been some organized method of distributing the gifts – but finally the big one at the back of the tree was brought forward and presented to my mother.  “I know what that is!” I blurted out before my brother clapped his hands over my mouth.

My mother began to unwrap, and unwrap, and unwrap…layers of newspaper, string, brown paper, Christmas wrap, all fell away.  My Mum’s face expressed quizzical curiosity mixed with trepidation as she finally, finally, unwrapped the little blue box.  Dad was grinning, my brother was grinning.  But I knew it was only a walnut.

Poor Mum!  All that for only a walnut!

Mum opened the little blue box. Inside was gold paper, carefully wrapped around a nut.   Dad handed Mum the nutcrackers and she cracked the walnut into two neat halves.

Inside, folded as tightly as possible, was a $100 bill.

Mum started to cry. My Dad laughed and laughed and hugged her, and my brother laughed too.  I could only say “It’s only a walnut…but don’t you like it, Mum?”  Poor, poor Mum…only a walnut…

How could a four-year- old child understand the value of that special gift to a woman who had scraped and saved through the Great Depression, the Second World War, the years of small farm living?  What child could understand the generosity of a husband who himself must have pinched and saved for a long, long time to amass such a huge sum of money.

I know my Mum kept that bill for a long time. I’d like to think that she finally spent it on something extravagant just for herself, for something special.  I suspect she spent it on us, her family, for new school shoes, or a coat or a warm sweater for Dad.

Long after that bill was gone, she would sometimes take the little blue box out of her bureau drawer, open it, and gaze at the two walnut halves, a quiet smile on her face.

Dawn Haloun