Nimble

Nimble:   such an old fashioned word, but exactly right in certain contexts ...

Jack, be nimble ... Jack, be quick.  Jack, jump over the candle stick!

What is the effect on you when you recite this?

It makes me jumpy, unable to concentrate.

In an interview with CBC this morning, a political scientist used the word nimble.   It was in the context of the US constitution having been designed to create gridlock, a situation that forces hot headed political opponents to slow down, discuss, and reach compromises.  He was saying that this might not be such a good thing in today's world of instant communication, a world in which swift decisions are being made by impatient up-and-coming nations like India, China and Brazil.  Our world, the one that always waited for the US behemoth before acting, is changing.  The US president and his Democrats, now that conservative forces have so successfully changed the political scene, may not be nimble enough to make decisions quickly.

In the seventies when I was in university I needed to see something from a personal point of view in order to understand the bigger picture. I needed to imagine how a law would affect me.  I needed to empathize.  It is hard to do that when you are talking about whole nations, about numbers. It is the reason that I made the decision to do my degree in English instead of political science, even though I loved both.

Now I find myself moving in the opposite direction: starting from the concept of a country and going from that to my own small reality.  I too am often immobilized by gridlock.  Sometimes I feel as if I no longer govern my life.  Like the US constitution, my mind is no longer nimble enough to make snap decisions.  And I too live in a world where things move far too quickly.

I don't like being battered by several  demands for my attention.

When I write I do so in silence.

I find too many simultaneous images distracting.  My limit is movie sub-titles and it is hard to knit even then.  If I owned a television I would likely mask the bottom part of the screen so that I would not be distracted by those coloured headlines that scroll beneath the news reportage and film coverage.

I find many websites truly annoying because it is impossible to concentrate my attention.

I am saved from Facebook and Twitter by being forced geographically to endure a dial-up connection.

Our whole world seems to have speeded up and left me behind.

And you know what ...  I don't think it is an improvement over the slower pace that used to prevail. 

Is it really that important to hear something immediately?

Do we need instantaneous reactions or could we wait for thoughtful coverage of world events?

Do teenagers really need to be so connected that they cannot ignore a cell phone or a text message while driving?

I once saw a young Toronto woman answer her calls during a VSO interview day.  Not only was it inconsiderate because VSO works with whole groups of candidates on these days, but it definitely worked against her.  How could someone so dependent on instant communication manage two years of living and working in the low tech world inhabited by VSO volunteers?

And maybe that's part of my discomfort.  Not only do I feel that we need time to reflect in order to make sound decisions and to be healthy human beings, but I think that many people who have no technical know-how at all, just plain, common sense, practical knowledge, are living fuller lives than those of us who are more  connected.  They don't spend a third of their lives in front of a small screen.   They are the people who will survive in a disaster because they know how to live with very little.  They are the people who can manage without electricity and computers.  They can make fires, build shelters, grow and find food ... and write with pens to record the experiences. 

They are the people who will create communities because they already know how to interact with real people in real time in real places.

And maybe all this is simply the foolish rambling of a seventy year old woman who has chosen a much slower life style and who complains but really prefers the speed of dial-up, the challenges of power outages and the enforced isolation of snow blocked roads.  Maybe it is simply the squeaking of an old.country mouse who  who lives more reflectively now that she is less nimble.

To help me on my journey ...

"A verse from the Veda says, 'What you see, you become.' In other words, just the experience of perceiving the world makes you what you are. This is a quite literal statement."
- Deepak Chopra

I must not race through the experience; I must remind myself that the journey is more important than the destination. I must take the time to breathe, reflect, and enjoy this trip I am about to embark upon.

Every other experience has helped to make me the woman I am today ... working in the developing world ... teaching ... traveling ... being a parent ... a friend ... a lover ... and living here in my hermitage. Each experience has allowed me to see something important. I need not fear leaving this place. Of course it is home, a place I love, and the place I feel most secure, but I can welcome the new insights I will have as a result of embarking on new experiences, too.

On Trusting Instinct

Yesterday I was reminded, once again, to trust my instincts, to listen to the little voice that tries so hard to tell me something is not right, to really listen to my sixth sense.

My relationship with my dog operates best when we both listen to our instincts. Kenya knows if I am serious or just playing, relaxed or upset, and I generally recognize her moods and health by her behaviour. We communicate easily. As a result, most of the time we get along without friction.

It always takes a day or so for me to reach a comfortable level of understanding with someone else's dog, but that is usually all it takes. It takes longer to reach the level of intuitive empathy I have with Kenya, so I rely on her to help me with the dogs I board.

Dogs don't like humans who are cruel ... and they seem to know pretty quickly which humans to trust. They recognize danger very quickly. Their noses tell them. I am not sure what tells me these things ... my sixth sense, I think ... and I have to learn to listen to the signals that sense is sending me. I too often ignore those niggling doubts.

Yesterday Kenya suddenly behaved very strangely. She began pawing at the window and screeching. She refused to stop when I told her to. She wouldn't play with Remi. Everything she did constituted aberrant behaviour for her.

Instead of asking myself why she was behaving so strangely, I got really ticked off and yelled insults at her. She bounced out of my way but didn't stop.

Then Remi appeared, blood on his leg. It was his paw. He had cut it badly on glass or something. As soon as Sarah and I began to tend to Remi's wound, Kenya returned to her normal calm state.

Why did I assume that her behaviour meant she had suddenly gone crazy and become disobedient?

Why didn't I realize immediately that she was trying to tell me something important?

I have to learn to trust the two most instinctual things in my life: my dog and my own sixth sense. Maybe Kenya will help me learn to do that.

It seems to me that I have entered a phase of my life in which I am discovering a great many things I need to know in order to be happy. I wonder if everyone is bombarded in the last decade or two of her life with these new insights. Or is only those of us who led terribly busy lives when we were younger, never taking the time to stop and breathe in our environment and really experience life?

Is it because age has finally slowed me down enough to pause and reflect that I am discovering how much I still need to learn? Or is it because I have found the place in which I can be at peace in order to think? Or is it because my closest companion is now Kenya, who naturally lives instinctively?

This ‘n that on another rainy day ...

This has got to be the rainiest June I can remember. It comes after a winter with near record snowfall, and the gardens are thriving. I have planted one hill with mint and it loves the rain, and the ferns and other forest growth are beginning to remind me of the lushness of a rain forest.

I have a fire going downstairs and have spent my morning making phone calls, responding to email, combing Kenya's tangled undercoat over her tail bone ... the part she can't reach, and reading The Book of Negroes by Laurence Hill.

I received a note from "The Perfect Man" ... the one who was just TOOO perfect. He said he really liked me but got the impression last year that I was not interested. But then he decided to try again. Oh dear.

Someone emailed me to tell me that one of the victims in the tragic fire in Labrador was the twenty year old niece of a former colleague. Suddenly the news reports became more meaningful. That shouldn't happen, but it does all the time, to most of us. We feel sorry when we hear bad news but we keep our hearts at a distance.

Only the massive destruction of lives in a 9-11, a tsunami in Thailand or an earthquake in China ... natural or manmade disasters that attract the attention of the whole world seem to make us empathise.

We feel the pain of the victims because the media inundates us with their images and tells us their stories. We cannot ignore the fact that we are all human and that the tragedy belongs to all of us. Paul Coelho would say that we are suffering with them because we are all part of the Soul of the World.

Stephen Lewis reminded us during the tsunami that there are people whose suffering is hidden away, people whose suffering is no longer news, and we must not forget them either.

Our humanity is what connects us to all human beings ... our souls to the Soul of the World.

The Alchemist

I am reading a book that for me could become my bible ... you know ... the only book you need if you are shipwrecked ... the one book to take on a cruise or to a long prison term.

It is called The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo and is a fable, the story of an Andalusian shepherd who goes on a quest. A simple tale. A simple man. But filled with profound thoughts. It is a kind of distillation of the things one needs to discover in order to live one's life meaningfully. Paulo Coehlo has been quoted so widely that most of the things his young shepherd discovers are now homilies mouthed by many. Ubiquitous. No longer profound. But still true. Things like living in the moment. Or realizing that your soul is part of the soul of the universe. Understanding that the universe delights when we follow our dreams.

It has been compared to The Little Prince. I have never read The Little Prince, but I will now. Perhaps one will rest in one pocket as I journey, the second in the other ... to balance me.

My friend, Paul, who died in France a year and a half ago told me about The Little Prince. We were in an outdoor cafe in Corsica drinking wine and sharing a light meal. Pizza, I think. Paul loved pizza. I know it wasn't the day I ate the perfect pasta carbonara with the rosy egg yolk bursting forth like a rising sun from its centre. That too was in Corsica, and with Paul, but at a country inn. No ... we were in the city, Ajaccio, when he told me about The Little Prince.

I cannot remember the details but I remember thinking that if I just followed the truths of that simple story I would live a happy life.

The Poet and the Prosaic Writer

On cowardice and courage ...

"The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more that you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt."
Thomas Merton, 1915-1968, Trappist monk and writer



"A coward dies a thousand deaths; the brave die but once."
William Shakespeare, 1564-1616, poet and playwrite



One forces the reader to think; to construct meaning.

The other makes the assumption that his readers are not smart enough to do so.