Sunshine and Flowers

There is apparently a green flash just as the sun sinks into the water at sunset. Several times in the past two weeks, I have watched the sunset but have not been able to catch that few seconds although others watching saw it one night.

We have had a glorious two weeks of sunshine on Maui while the lower mainland has had more than it's fair share of rain. This has been the most relaxing vacation I have had in a very long time - it has felt somewhat like a cruise.

Remembrance Day November 11

Shortly after my Mother-in-law moved into a seniors home, I arrived at her door with my then 19 year old son. As she was expecting me, I knocked and then opened the door and walked in. As she came towards the door, she cried out and grabbed a chair to sit down. When she caught her breath, she said that she thought her brother had just walked in the door.

It was November 11th and my son had just finished participating in a parade. As a member of the Reserves, he was in full military uniform. This was the mid 1990's. Her brother had died in the First World War. She was about seven years when she last saw him. This is the photograph taken in Chilliwack before her brother went overseas.

On my side of the family, my Uncle Jack served in the First World War. He came home with a war bride, my Aunt Nora. They moved to northern Canada to live for many years in a mining camp without running water or even electricity at the beginning. In spite of this, children were born with great regularity every year or so. Eventually they did move from the mine site into town. My Mother often remarked on how hard life would have been for Nora who had only known 'balmy England' (my mother's words). My Uncle Jack lived well into his 90's and always had war stories to tell. Unfortunately, I don't remember any of them.

We lost a member of our family in WW2 as well. My Uncle Bob lost his life in the Second World War at Normandy on August 10, 1944. He had one son who was born in 1942. I don't know if he ever had the chance to see his son.

This is a ration book that belonged to my father-in-law who worked in a munitions factory near Valleyfield, Quebec during the Second World War. My Mother kept her ration books too for many years after the war. Sugar, butter and gasoline were some of the products that were rationed.

Every Day Heros North Van Style

This is a fifteen minute presentation made for the District of North Vancouver Fire Department's 2009 Annual Awards.  I lived in North Van for several years and my nephew is a fireman there.    While watching a year in life from the eyes of a fire department, you will see glimpses of the rugged terrain and unique location of this city.

http://web.me.com/lumierephotography/District_Of_North_Vancouver_Fire_Rescue/Movie.html

A Forest on My Deck

Here are the 12 trees I have transplanted over the last few days. I plan to grow them on my roof-top deck. All twelve trees were purchased from Canadian Tire and Super Store at the end of the season. I paid two dollars each for the larger trees and a dollar each for the three little ones. They are all cedars - four tall upright that can grow up to 12 feet high, five round ones that can grow up to about 6 feet and three golden cedar shrubs that should not grow more than a few feet tall. If they were all to survive for a few years, there would be no room on my deck.

I hope that enough will survive to form a screen from my neighbours across the street. They all have good root systems and had totally outgrown their previous pots. I am hoping that new branches will form in the spring to fill in some of the bare spots.

So far, this little garden of trees has cost me less that thirty dollars. I was able to scrounge/recycle most of the supplies - the stand was stairs from a hot tub, most of the pots came from a building site, the soil was mostly composted, and I was able to use left over fertilizer from the summer.

I will try to remember to update this next year.

After the Frost

This is my garden on Thanksgiving Day, Monday, October 11th. We had our first frosts on both Saturday and Sunday morning. I picked the last of my green peppers from some very sad plants. Almost everything but the carrots, beets and onions are now finished. The last of my tomatoes are ripening on my kitchen counter. It was a great gardening year - not too many bugs - and great weather. I was expecting more problems growing strictly organically but it was all good. I had way more food that I could eat fresh or give away. Next year I will have to think about preserving some - especially tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini.

The few flowers I planted are still looking good - mainly sweet peas, a small rose bush (shown here) and some volunteer violas.


And these are the last of my ripening everbearing strawberries.

Next year it will be even better.

Individuation

I have discovered a new-to-me word. Betty Friedan in her book The Fountain of Age defines individuation as the process of becoming more of one's self. I think she in turn may be using her interpretation Carl Jung's definition. But, it is a real word, Latin in origin.

This word is used to describe what happens during our third stage of life, the first and second stages being childhood and adulthood. Unlike some popular misconceptions, Betty Friedan shows us through many studies that this stage is not one of conformity. We not only not grow into an homogeneous group, we actually have the greatest variability of any age group! She attributes this to the fact that we no longer need to conform to the latest style, or compete with the 'Jones', or fit in at work, school or social group. We can finally be ourselves, and true to ourselves. This can be a very freeing time.

I think we need a new name for our group that does not suggest decline, disease and death. While Friedan acknowledges that these things are definitely a part of this stage of life, it is by no means the defining feature, or at least it shouldn't be. While few studies have been done on healthy older people, some longitudinal studies have captured this group almost by accident, and most show that this group show little or no decline in mental abilities until the last year or so of life and several expanding, growing attributes. These attributes are things like generativity, emergent wisdom, autonomy and the ability to trust oneself. While not the usual measured attributes like math and spelling and puzzle solving, they are non the less important to the realm of happiness and contentment with life. Youth may have learning as a prime driver and adults may have doing; maybe this stage of life has something like contemplation or spirituality or maybe something even more expansive as its driver. This group has years of life experience at its disposal.

Martha Beck wrote an interesting piece in the current Oprah Magazine about 'problems'. Basically, she proposed that we should be thankful for the one big, seemingly unsolvable, problem that some of us consistently stress over all of our lives.


For the past many, many years, my problem has been my weight. Each New Year, it is at the top of my resolve list and almost every September, I vow that I will take off ten or twenty pounds before Christmas. And, many, many times I have been successful in doing just that. I have probably lost over three hundred pounds at one time or another in my life. Unfortunately, I have mostly gained it back and often added a few pounds. In the last three years, in my seventh and longest attempt at Weight Watchers, I have managed to maintain and consolidate a series of small losses and except for one extended 'four month holiday', have not seen too many big reversals in weight. Yet weight loss is still right at the top of my list of priorities and a constant struggle. For this I should be thankful, at least, according to Martha!


Martha's reasoning is this: This big insolvable problem is the lid of my Pandora's box of more frightening problems. Spending all of my time stressing about a problem that can appear to be solvable allows me to ignore the others. If I did not have a weight issue I may be forced to deal with other overwhelming issues.



There is a lot of truth here for me. I am a master at avoidance. Fortunately, Martha has a solution. She doesn't want me to discard my obsession, at least not yet.

What I need to do is recognize this problem is what she calls 'the designated issue'. Once it is labeled as such, it can be handled. What I need to do, from time to time, is to mentally set aside this 'issue' and open the lid to examine other issues dwelling beneath the surface. I need to take one out at a time and take some small steps to begin to resolve it. Then push the lid back on.

In time, the pressure cooker that is holding all my issues will begin to lose steam as progress is made. When this happens, in theory at least, my designated issue should itself begin to diminish in importance because it too will become easier to resolve.


I think this approach is worth a try.


http://marthabeck.com/blog/


At the end of all this, I need to keep my big 'problem' and be thankful that I have one because it is keeping a lid all my really unmanageable problems.