Man of La Mancha

I just rewatched Man of La Mancha with Peter O'Toole. It's low budget, more suited to the stage than film, and overly theatrical, and I absolutely adore it. The glorious music is going to be running through my head for days. Peter O'Toole has the most beautiful eyes and voice. And I still cry when Don Quixote dies at the end, no matter how many times I've seen it. It shows the impact one man's dream can have on everyone around him. How we have to strive for life the way it should be, the way it's meant to be, and not settle for what is. How a simple act of kindness can change someone forever. It got me thinking about the importance of quests.

In cultures around the world, adolescents are given rites of passage into adulthood. Some are given quests or missions to accomplish before they are considered adults. Some undergo rituals or formal ceremonies when a certain milestone in life is met. Others are given a "man's job to do," such as taking part in helping to support the family. All of these mark the adolescent as having "arrived" at a certain readiness to become part of the adult group, and they are pronounced adults in a formal way.

In western culture, however, we tend to scramble to find meaningful events by which to mark a child's passage into adulthood, mostly contrived or arbitrary milestones, such as the first job, obtaining a driver's licence, graduation from high school, the first time leaving home, or the arrival at legal drinking age. These contrived rites of passage may have little or nothing to do with the child's actual level of maturity or readiness to take on adult responsibilities. Some leave home because it's expected when they are not yet ready and experience failure or disappointment and return home. How many stories have we heard of kids going off to school, spending the first semester in an alcoholic stupor, and subsequently flunking out? Obviously they were not yet at the required maturity level.

Youth in western culture have reacted to this arbitrariness by establishing their own indications of adulthood: loss of virginity, inclusion in certain gangs or peer groups, the use of alcohol or drugs, the performance of some expected act of violence required by the group. Passage into adulthood is seen as a time, not of self affirmation, but of rebellion against authority or social strictures. Western youth are typically not given true quests or missions or challenges by which to prove themselves adults. We are not holding up any standard by which adolescents can measure themselves and their maturity. How do they know when they've arrived? They decide for themselves, and inform the parents and society at large that they are no longer to be treated as children. This declaration may come in many forms, not all of them verbal: the first ignored curfew, the first skipped class, the first body piercing, the first arrest.

And as their parents, we look at each other edgily and wonder if we, ourselves, are quite ready for this thing called adulthood.  We remember that we ourselves have never quite found that golden fleece.

So quests serve an important purpose. Attaining something worthwhile gives us not only meaning, but a milestone by which to measure ourselves. Someone has said that the purpose of life is to live a life of purpose. We need to determine for ourselves what quest we will pursue, what cause we will take up. What value and meaning our lives will have. No one will pronounce it for us. It is up to us to decide how we will change ourselves and our world.

Picking a Puppy

So lately I've been feeling the need to get another dog. The one I have is sweet and lovable, but he's more like a squirrel - aloof, doesn't like to be touched, basically ignores you. It's the breed, but I opted for non-shedding and easily-washed over personality, and now I'm feeling the need to branch out a little. I'd also like to get a companion for him, so they can keep each other company if we're away. I've always had large dogs before, and this one is the first small breed I've owned. And yeah, well, I still prefer large breeds.

I picture myself with something a bit more athletic, who can jog with me and haul me home when I conk out a mile from home. Something I can tramp the fields with and paddle in rivers with. Something that likes and returns affection. Something bigger than a hamster. Something with an IQ above that of a radish.

There is every kind of breed available. I prefer mixed breeds, but there are so many designer combinations now! And most seem to have poodles in them. Shi-poo cockapoo goldiepoo malti-poo...a whole lot of poo out there from the sound of it. I guess everyone dislikes the shedding, because really, that's the only thing that can recommend a poodle. Every breed I consider has advantages and drawbacks. Every person I meet has an opinion about the particular breed I'm considering. Boxers are great, Boxers are terrible. Goldendoodles are wonderful, Goldendoodles have skin and health problems. This one is too big. That one drools too much. That one is prone to hip problems or blindness. This one is difficult to train. That one is too hyper. Huskies are "massively destructive." Beagles don't like to be left alone. Yada yada yada.

Centuries from now, an anthropologist will study our culture and conclude that the dog was at the top of the hierarchy and we humans were its servants. After all, who is following whom around, carrying a bag of whose poop? You don't see anyone following me around, carrying mine. I send my kids to First Choice Haircutters for ten-dollar buzz cuts, yet cheerfully plop down seventy bucks for my dog's haircut. Humans live off Kraft Dinner and Mr. Noodles while Fluffy dines on roasted lamb and wild rice. No, argue all you like, but the dog is definitely at the top.

I sit back and ask myself what my real motive is in looking for another dog. Is it that my current dog isn't affectionate enough? Or it is really that I'm missing my granddaughter and my arms just feel a tad too empty? Am I really intending to go jogging that much? Or is it a whim that will fade along with the resolve not to eat late at night...? If I am honest, I have no fields to tramp in and no river to paddle in. I want a rural dog for a rural lifestyle I don't have. Getting the spaniel or hound won't give me the rural life I want. I have to face the fact that I live a suburban life, and the Shih Tzu I have is perfectly adequate and suitable for a suburban lifestyle. It's not my current dog I have to reconcile myself to; it's my life.

Having said that, there's always room in my heart for one more friend. So I think I'm going to wait and see what the universe brings. Maybe the right dog will find me.

Choosing a Story

After twenty-six years of marriage, I've finally figured out the fundamental difference between the way I think and the way my husband thinks. He observes the situation he is in and then adapts accordingly. He molds himself to suit his circumstances. He acknowledges whatever is going on and fits himself neatly into whatever it is. He doesn't fight those circumstances or rage against fate or wail when things don't go the way he anticipated or wanted. In fact, I don't think he wants. He simply, neatly, and quietly just goes about his daily business. He is in the moment, and doesn't waste energy wishing things were otherwise. He accepts and then just gets on with it. If you ask his opinion, he doesn't have one readily available.

I, on the other hand, am never in the moment. I am irretrievably somewhere else all the time. I constantly live in my head, where I am bombarded every moment with stories. I see a house for sale, and instantly I envision living in it. I see a dog for sale and instantly I'm jogging on a deserted beach at sunrise with it. I hear of a fun-sounding career and bingo! in my head I'm doing it. A cool place to vacation? I'm there in a flash. A neat name? I imagine having a kid to name that. Because of this, I rarely stop to observe the situation I'm actually in, and when I do bump up rudely against reality and look around, I realize my life doesn't match the life I have going on in my head at that particular moment. It's very disorienting, sometimes, to look up and see what and who and where I actually am.

But I am crushed at the thought that, of all those stories, I can only live one. Ultimately I only have so many years on this planet and so many resources. So I look at where I am now and think "This is it. This is all there's going to be." And I want to rail against the unfairness of it. This is life as I have managed to create it (or fall into it, or however it is I got here). I will not, no matter how long I live, be able to live all of those stories I've imagined, all of those stories that are floating around out there in the world. And sometimes I wonder why I've been given these dreams if I can't possibly fulfill them all. It's sort of a cruel joke, like holding a cookie in front of a child but not letting him have it. You can sniff it, you can maybe even lick it a little, but you can't eat the whole thing. I suppose this might be what they call a mid-life crisis, when you pause and look around and say "So this is it?" Except I've been doing it my whole life, so I can't blame it on that. And if I can only have one, which one is the right one for me?

I can't complain about my life as it is, really. I've done a lot of the things I wanted to. I had a charmed childhood. I have all I need, I have a wonderful family, three kids I adore, a patient, gentle and wise husband, a beautiful country to live in, and a job that - for all its mindnumbingness - puts food on the table. I can't pinpoint anything wrong with my life. It just isn't other.

Harvest Season on the Urban Farm

The air has turned cold, the frost hit this week, and leaves are falling. Time to put the backyard to bed. Patio furniture, hoses, pool, flowerpots, windchimes, lawnmowers, tools, all tucked away. Lemon trees and oleanders brought indoors. I spent about seven hours yesterday digging, washing, peeling, blanching, and freezing carrots. Of course I didn't thin them well enough in the spring, so many of them are about three inches long, which makes peeling ridiculous. But they are so sweet and tender and golden and good! Nothing like the woody, bitter, but beautiful ones you buy in the store. It feels good to know the freezer is full and we can enjoy them in the winter.

The only things left to process are the onions, cabbages, and ground cherries, which are still determinedly producing despite the cold. And the rabbits, of course. They zip away from under my feet, scaring the bejeebers out of me every time. I assume they'll find somewhere warm to stay for the winter, burrowed into the straw or under the hedge. Goodness knows it looks like the mice have already taken up sanctuary in the shed.

We've put away the fountain, and yesterday we watched a miffed little bird hopping around where it used to be, looking for a drink. "I could swear it was right here!" Hop hop to look at it from another angle. "Nope, not here either!"  We'll have to rig up something else for them that won't freeze.

I used to detest the Canadian winter, the six or seven months of gray and bitter cold. The interminable putting on and taking off of layers of clothing. The mounds of steaming boots in the hallway. The eyelashes frozen together by the time the bus arrives at the stop. The darkness of it all. Three things changed my attitude toward the season, though: a) peri-menopause ("Six months of sub-zero temperatures? Bring it on! I'll get out my shorts and flip-flops!" b) heavy doses of vitamin D all winter, which works wonders for my semi-Seasonal Affective Disorder, and c) gardening. I put so much energy into my garden now in the summer that I'm thoroughly worn thin and wrung out by the time autumn comes. I've gotten my money's worth. I've gotten my fill. I don't resent having to put the garden away and go indoors because by then I am thoroughly satiated with the tastes and smells and textures of summer. It's enough to sustain me through the dark hours until spring. I can relax and wait and know that there's nothing outside demanding my attention (well, except shoveling snow, but that's what teenage sons are for). In winter, I can rest.

Until about February, of course, when the seed catalogues arrive and I start scrawling plans on graph paper. After all, a man's dreams should exceed his reach, or what's a garden for?

Friendship

I just finished reading Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister, which is about how a group of women support and help each other through changes in their lives - divorce, death, cancer, the birth of twins. I was really touched by how they formed a tight circle around each other and didn't let go. It was gently and beautifully written.

I have not always appreciated the value of friendship or how vital it is to our well-being. I grew up with lots of acquaintances and people to hang out with, and cousins everywhere I turned. But when I was fifteen, I left high school early and went to university, and suddenly I was surrounded by peers who were not really peers - these people were primarily grad students, married, with kids. I had pigtails and braces and a curfew. I could no longer relate to kids my own age, who were caught up in proms and drama and high school football games. But I couldn't relate to these older students either, whose lives and concerns seemed so different from mine. So I became quite solitary, more than I ordinarily was. I spent all my time with books, isolated, where I was comfortable. Social interaction was painful to me. I married my husband partly because he didn't make me date him.

I married at nineteen and went straight from Mom and Dad's house to his. He was and is my best friend in the world...but to the exclusion of other friends for many years. I knew lots of people, but there was no one I'd get together with, no one to talk to but him. The few female friends I felt closer to didn't seem as interested as I was in keeping in touch. Things were compounded when we moved to Canada where I didn't know a soul, far from my sisters, where the only people to interact with were co-workers and fellow church members, who - for the most part - had very different backgrounds and languages from mine. We were friendly toward each other, but there was always a reluctance on my part to get too attached, to put myself out too much. I saw people as transitory and unreliable. I did make one good friend through my work, but he turned out to be unhealthy, and he ended up betraying me horribly. In the end I had to cut off association with him to preserve any shred of self esteem.

And then three women entered my life, quite by accident, through the band we all belong to. Instantly they drew me into their circle and made me feel I had sisters again. It was unquestioning and determined on their part. I still can't fathom why they like me - but I sense they do. They don't seem to notice my social awkwardness, my tentativeness. They just haul me along with them, including me, loving no matter what, and I can feel myself begin to thaw and expand and warm under their influence. I have my own circle I can rely on now, and I would do anything for any of them. Their happiness is vital to me. I don't understand it, but I am beginning to trust it. And I'm beginning to experience for myself the importance of friendship, of breaking out of isolation, of letting joy in.

Lavender Cookies

My lavender hasn't done very well this year, so I ordered two ounces of dried flowers from someone on Etsy.com (culinary grade). I don't care about sachets and potpourri, but I only get lavender cookies once a year and I'm not going to forego them just because a few plants take it into their heads to be stingy this year.

The shipment arrived - joy! - except there was only one ounce. So I sent a quick email to the seller to remind her about the other ounce. She acknowledged the goof and said she'd get the other ounce into the mail right away... but it never arrived. I inquired, and she said the packet must have gone astray. So she sent it again. This time it arrived, and inside I found this nice person had added a third extra ounce of lavender plus some gorgeous lemon-orange homemade soap as compensation for the wait, along with a nice note. Isn't that sweet? So now I have enough lavender for TONS of cookies. I am sending her some homemade dish cloths as a thank-you. Who knows? Maybe I've made a friend. And somewhere someone unknown has received a packet of lavender gone astray, and is puzzling over it.

Here's the recipe:

1 c. shortening
2 c. sugar (hey, I never said they were healthy)
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla
3/4 c. milk
Mix together. Then add:
2 t. baking powder
1 t. soda
4 c. flour
1/3 c. crumbled fresh or dried lavender flowers

Roll into balls, flatten slightly on parchment-lined cookie sheet, and bake at 375 degrees 10-14 minutes until golden. Makes 4 dozen. These freeze well. Not that you'll get any into the freezer, because they get snarfed down the instant they come out of the oven.

Boredom for Fun and Profit

My friend sent my husband a message today (I don't have a cell phone) saying she had nothing to do and he should tell me to update my blog with something new for her to read. So here I am, just for you, Della. And I've been musing about the nature of boredom. I've heard it said that without boredom, there would be no progress, nothing to spur us to creativity. I suppose there's some truth to that; if you don't have some free time on your hands, you won't be able to explore new inventions or daydream and come up with new solutions. If you're so busy eking out a living that you don't have time to dream, you will experience your own Dark Ages as far as creativity goes. Susan Maushart says "The role of boredom in encouraging innovation and creativity is a critical one." She also says essentially that the discomfort of boredom is what jump-starts motivation, and that you need to have room in your world for staring into space.

I can see that side of it, and I've certainly spent my own share of time staring into space. I strongly believe everyone needs "down" time to rejuvenate and restore and rest their brains. And occasionally that blah-period will bring some fresh ideas to the surface. I have also found the opposite -- that the busier and more engaged I am in daily life, the more creative thoughts crowd into my head. Terrific writing ideas pop into my mind at the most inconvenient times when I am at my most busy (and of course have no time to stop and write). Activity stimulates further activity. Ideas create other ideas. If someone could harness my brain waves at those moments, they'd have a working perpetual motion machine, where the slightest nudge touches off a string of increasingly wild ideas building more and more energy. Sometimes a single thought will trigger all sorts of reactions and my thoughts go in all directions, like breaking a formation of billiard balls. At those times I feel like I must sit down and write to capture those ricocheting and interesting new thoughts or I'll burst. And if I don't take the time to do it, the tension continues to mount until I start getting snappish with total strangers, grow absentminded, become grouchy and short-tempered. I pace the subway platform muttering to myself like a mad woman. I try out dialogues and block out scenes while I'm driving. In short, the busy real world around me recedes more and more as the world of my mind's creating comes to the fore. The static only goes away when I finally put pen to paper (well, okay, when I start rattling the keyboard of my laptop. But "pen to paper" has better alliteration). It's like those people who don't experience REM sleep; you can only go without dreaming for so long before you start hallucinating while you're awake.

I have learned to carry a small notebook with me everywhere I go. When an idea crowds itself into my head while I'm otherwise engaged, I whip out the notebook and jot a quick note. It's sort of like a release valve letting off the pressure so that it doesn't build to the bursting point. Of course, later when I look at my notebook, I can't decipher my writing, or I'm left facing such cryptic notes as "The Japanese Beekeeper" and "Name for Pita Place: No Bun Intended" and "Plant calendula" and "decorative futilities." What the heck am I supposed to do with that? Where was I going with it? Why did it seem suddenly vital to me to write it down? Then again, I can sometimes take those weird tidbits in my notebook and recreate the scene I had in my head when I wrote them down, and then I can run with it. I've written entire novels based on one or two words that triggered whole plots in my head.

David Grayson said "True literature, like happiness, is ever a by-product; it is the half-conscious expression of a man greatly engaged in some other undertaking...he is more profoundly, vividly interested in the activities of life and he tells about them...over his shoulder."

So if you agree with that sentiment, essentially you believe that creativity comes out of being busily involved in the other activities of life. That thought begets more thought, and energy leads to more energy. I am at my most productive and creative when I'm at my most busy in other parts of my life (which can be both exciting and frustrating). And yet I still agree with Susan Maushart that you need that daydreaming, quiet time and - beyond that - you need some boredom in order to stimulate you to action.

Of course, who am I to say? I've never been bored.