Wondering over trees

I think there might be something to learn from trees.

Trees are born as seeds. With enough luck and right conditions, they survive their youth.

Young trees reach for the sky, just like their parents do.  The older trees protect the offspring from the snow and ice. But if the protection is too strong they don't allow the tasty sunshine through, the growth gets stunted.

The weaker trees die and the forest gets healthier.

A forest gets cut down and a new community of young trees emerge only to rebuild the once great forest, their parents left behind. Trees are resilient that way. Never giving up, never accepting defeat, trees grow on.

Animals searching for food, insects looking for shelter, parasites needing a host, the harsh realities of weather, and people using trees as their pawns, I wonder how we have any trees at all.

Thank goodness we do!

I was looking outside this morning at the beauty of the last snowfall. I'm not a fan of snow. But this snowfall was just the right amount of wetness to stick to the tree branches as it fell.  Without these marvels I wouldn't have thought about life on earth, and it's beauty as it relates to our wooden buddies.

I look to the trees and wonder what stops their growth. Trees reach for the sun, but none have ever achieved it. Do all trees eventually lose to one of their predators? Or do they give up thinking their purpose was never to reach the sun. Is our life's purpose as simple as a their purpose in that it's their responsibility to continue the race, to provide a home to others, to provide food, and ultimately comfort.

I doubt any tree would want to become toilet paper. I can hear adult trees warning the sapling, "Keep it up and when you die, god will turn you into toilet paper".  So even in the worst scenario, the purpose of comfort is still realized.

We do have a lot to learn from our wooden neighbours.

The hard decision

Making a decision between two amazing things is extremely hard.

The summer before grade eight I started babysitting. I earned $400 that summer. The class field trip that year was Quebec City. A whole week in Quebec, taking in the historic sights had a price tag of $350. My parents couldn't afford it. They told me that if I wanted to go, I would have to use my own money.

There was one problem. I saved that money to go to basketball camp. The camp was going to take all of my savings. My parents gave me a choice: camp or Quebec. I really wanted to go to Quebec with all my classmates. The exoticness of this far away land was waving me over like the pretty girl in my dreams. If I didn't go, I would have to go to school for a whole week with a five other losers who couldn't afford the trip.

Basketball was my passion. I wanted to improve so much that making the varsity team wasn't enough. I wanted to be a starter.

I didn't want to be a loser.
I didn't want to miss the trip of a 14 year old's lifetime.
It hurt.
I cried a lot.
I begged for devine intervention.
It was not fair.
I wanted to do both things.

In the end my parents didn't waver from their initial stance. And I chose not to go to Quebec. The decision was neither right nor wrong. It was a decision and I thank my parents for forcing me to make one.

I was forced to make an equally difficult decision about a business today. I had to choose between chasing a dream or killing it. It sucks just as bad as it did back in grade 8.

I was fully committed to buying the business.
I spent 11 months working all of the angles and understanding the challenges.
I wrote out strategies and imagined systems that could improve the operations.
I put all other opportunities aside to pursue this one.

The pretty girl was waving me over in my dreams.
I didn't want to make the decision.
It hurt.
I asked for devine intervention.
I really really wanted to get involved in this business.

It won't matter if the decision is right or wrong. I made one. Now it's time to move on. Thanks Mom and Dad.

Kill dogs

Growing up with dogs, the whole alpha construct was clear. My dad was the alpha. My sister and I were part of the pack. We were equals. The dogs never bit us. The dogs played with us.

The neighbour's German Sheppard would attack me each time I would bike past the house. I would have to peddle my five speed as fast as I could up that small hill so I could get past the bastard's territory before he noticed me. On one occasion, he was in the front yard when he heard the squeakity squeak of my ungreased bicycle chain. He beat me to the road and leapt up to greet me with his smiling teeth as he tried to snap my juicy leg into his happy mouth. Impossibly peddling with my right leg, I lifted the left leg over the crossbar just in time to lose part of my gym sock. With the bike between me and the guard dog, I walked until the beast decided I was no longer infringing on his territory. It was by far the scariest moment I ever had with a canine.

We never had a dog that bit someone. They knew their place in our household. Even if they growled, my dad would remind them of their place. He was the alpha. They knew it and they respected him.

Some dogs are just bad. The rules don't apply to them. They are the alpha. They don't care about what the rest of the pack does. They are in charge. They make their own rules.

We had an alpha dog. My dad couldn't control him. He was an adult dog when we got him. He didn't play by dad's rules. Dad couldn't fix him. When he almost bit my sister, my dad took him to the woods and shot him. Can't have two alphas in one household.

I would personally learn that same lesson 12 years later.

The methods are different, but our society still kills bad dogs.  Although a dog can be reformed, we don't waste the time or money on them. We remove them from life. This form of corporal punishment is still somewhat accepted.

We don't kill two legged dogs!

We allow murderers the right to live. Our society would rather lock a convicted murderer behind bars for 75 years than put them out of their misery.

I don't understand.

Putting a dog in a cage for the rest of its life just seems inhumane.  I wouldn't do that to my Trixie.

   

I'm losing my hair

What happened between ages 32 and 41?

I remember having more hair. I look in the photo album and I can prove my memory is correct.

16 years ago I got married. The faces in the wedding pictures are strangers. Who were these kids? My children don't believe me when I tell them I was once young. I'm not sure I believe me. Was that picture really me?

What happened to that young, good looking stud?

Two kids and three businesses later and I don't look as youthful.

I had my first grey hair when I was 16. It's not uncommon in my family. My gramma was grey in her forties. I never worried about the grey hair. It was hair loss that scared me.

I made a pact with myself 16 years ago. I would never be the guy hiding his budding baldness by combing over the remaining strands of dignity to mask the fleeting follicles.

This week, I used Skype for the first time. The person looking back at me on the computer screen was not the same person who greets me every morning in the mirror.

I didn't like the look of this guy. Where did his forehead end?

I made another pact recently. I like my haircuts short. I vowed not to get a haircut until I achieved one of my extremely hard goals. As my hair gets hippyishly long, my wife informs me the length of hair cannot cover-up the thinning effect. Have I become the comb-over guy?

I'm getting older. Was it the business stress, the family stress or just time catching up to this young punk?

I no longer look young.
I accept that.
I'm losing my hair.
I accept that too.

I blame my kids.

An old t-shirt

Old childhood friends are like rock 'n roll t-shirts. The vivid memory is cemented in time by the shirt.  The drinking, the debauchery, the borderline illegal activities will always be remembered but the show had to end. The memories cannot be forgotten. The t-shirt is the only thing I have left to remember the craziness. My wife convinced me to throw some of them away. There are still a few lingering around in my closet.

This week, an old t-shirt re-emerged from one of the drawers. I love this t-shirt. I love him like a brother.

He called on Tuesday afternoon. He hasn't called me in five years. Things must be bad. The only thing that came to mind was that he needed money.  He told me he and his wife were unemployed. He wanted to meet for coffee the following morning.

Wednesday morning, he told me he's broke. He has fallen on tough times. Christmas is here. He doesn't know how to support his family. He can't pay the rent. His support network is thinning. He can't get a job.

I'm not throwing him out. I love him. His heart is made of solid gold. He's like his dad that way.

This t-shirt has always been one step away from ruin. It seemed everything he did was the opposite of what I would do. It might have been the alcohol or the drugs. Or it may have been his poor choice in women. About two years ago, he started getting his life together. He left his troubled girlfriend. He met a new girl and he fell in love again. Not hard for him. The kid always wore his heart on his sleeve. Although I don't know her, the new girl seems nice.

I trust the t-shirt. He's not a thief. He doesn't have a plan to pay it back. There's no income. I offered other potential solutions which may not work for him. But that's his decision. If I don't hear from him, I hope he solves his problem.

He'll always be one of my favourite t-shirts. He doesn't fit me any more. I've grown and he's still the same old party shirt.

I'm not throwing him out, but I'm not wearing him either.

There is a first for everything

My kids are addicted to electronics. More specifically, my daughter loves our iPad. She can spend all day focused on her fashion game playing dress-up with her online avatars.

She's quiet. There are no quarrels with her brother and quiet time on a Saturday afternoon is joy. Yet when the time comes to put down the e-device, a monster emerges.

We call it a zombie attack. Her eyes are popped out like a bug on heroine. He face is tired. Her attitude toward everything is apathetic. Then she starts whining and crying. Anything we do at this point is pure evil in her eyes. We don't like zombies.

Last Saturday, when she zombied us, we declared a dry day Sunday. No electronics, including TV for the entire day. Any moment on e-devices had to be met with an equal moment outside.

My daughter doesn't like going outside. No, she hates the outdoors. Even in the summer, with the pool and the trampoline and the beach, she prefers to stay indoors.

Sunday morning started with begging and pleading for a quick e-fix. Upon refusal, I was again cast as the villain of my children's story.

When Mama woke up, I had my Tonto. Together we could thwart the children's e-attacks.

Magic emerged from the potential zombie e-cloud. The kids played together. They made a mess at the kitchen table but they were using their creativity cutting out paper and drawing.

My daughter asked me if I had ever had my nails done. To her dismay, my fingers were once painted, but my toes were still virgin territory. She asked if we could play Daddy Spa. She wanted to paint my toenails. My only request was to have a racing stripe down the middle of each nail.

She spent the next 14 minutes delicately beautifying my nails with silver racing stripes. She went as far to include a clear coat so the paint wouldn't easily come off.

Last night she asked me if I took off the nail polish. When I informed her I had not, she seemed to quietly smile as if to say, "Daddy is weird, but I love him for it".

Hope she doesn't ask me if I ever wore make up and dressed up like a girl. I'll have to tell her I did it twice.

I am not a writer

In grade seven, our class was given an assignment: Write a real or fictional short story about your family.

It was the only thing I remember writing as a child. I wrote a fictional story about a pet monkey. The monkey was a pest and eventually his undoing was messing with mom's supper. My parents told me they brought him to the zoo, where he could be comfortable doing monkey things. The story ends with a family meal. The steak, was the best meat I had ever tasted. It must've been the hint of banana mom put in the pan.

I never wrote anything again. No love letters. No songs. No poems. Nothing. Until 2014.

"I am not a writer", said a good friend.

What is a writer? Does not the ability to string words together to make sentences and then mesh thoughts to make essays or in today's lingo, blogs, constitute a writer.

For if I have written something, then I am writer.

The rules of writing are constantly changing. What was wrong in the 80's is being done by exceptionally gifted writers. Having a run on sentence is ok today. Making up words is acceptable now.

There was a time when a word wasn't a word until its own line in the Webster's Dictionary. Yet Dr. Seuss would make up words in every one of his books. And the educational system would sell us those books promoting them as works of art.

I write because I need to get stuff out of my head.
I write because I notice the small things more often.
I write because it makes me feel good.
I write to observe.
I write to understand.
I write to grow as a human.