Repose Overtakes You

I Have A Boy!

"Raising children is an enormously important part of life. I think one of the most important, or the most important, period." - Eric Braeden.

I had an inkling of what to expect with the arrival of my son. The consensus was that I was no longer going to sleep and I would no longer have any time for myself. There was speculation that I may even shake my opinions about mini-vans and replace my small VW with a dreary box with automatic sliding doors.  I arrived prepared for the worst.

Then along he came.  His little self with strawberry blonde hair, big, wandering eyes, and what I already assume to be a bit of an ambitious and almost feisty personality.  I even think he's a lot like me; constantly hungry and curious about everything around him.  He is, of course, only one month old now, so I can't be certain of anything.

There is something fascinating about being okay with being woken up constantly throughout the night. It's 2:14am and the faintest wimper of hunger interrupts my dreams and there I am, standing next to his bassinet calmly whispering, "Hello there! Should we check your diaper for a poopy?"

"There's plenty to read about keeping your sanity while raising children, but it's all common-sense stuff about task division and taking breaks and the relentlessly repeated magic date night with your spouse. What's missing is some 'tude." - Jeffery Kluger

I will admit that even though I am mostly tolerant of the late night interruptions, the mid day and later evening roars are not so pleasant. But then, I hear that will be short lived and there will be something new to challenge my patience. And even though my life as a parent is also in its infancy, I'm reminding myself that all the little things that might bug me now are just small sacrifices for what's to come. In the words of the late artist, poet and writer Kahlil Gibran, it's not really about me anyway.

“Your children are not your children.

They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. 

They come through you but not from you.

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the make upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness.

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable.”

What I Have Lived For

After reading Stephen Fry's latest blog post, Only the Lonely, I found myself on Tumbler reading a passage from Bertand Russell's Autobiography.  This prologue speaks to the three things I, and I assume most people, would consider salient to living a fulfilling and compassionate life.  Love, knowledge and pity. As one of the world's biggest Moulin Rouge fans, I sometimes get sidetracked by the pursuit of love, truth, beauty and freedom, but alas, truth is only found through knowledge and there can't be beauty and freedom without liberation from abuse, oppression and hate.

“What I Have Lived For

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.”

— The Prologue to Bertrand Russell’s Autobiography

My Unwavering Adoration For A Country I’ve Never Been

When I heard that English comedian John Oliver was set to fill in for John Stewart on The Daily Show, I was pleasantly surprised. Oliver’s wit and emphatic charm is always a welcomed sight when he has a cameo or special report on the show. As I watched his debut as replacement host on Monday night, I started to think about how much reverence I have for so many things British. 

Like most of my passions, it was probably something that was influenced by my dad. It may have been the excitement of James Bond movies with 007’s charm and sophistication which made me try on my best British accent and recite "Bond, James Bond." But when I really think back, I don't think I would have seen my first Bond movie until I was approaching my tweens, so what more likely sparked my fascination with the culture and music of England was Elton John. 

When my family travelled during my formative years, my dad would always pack a good collection of music to play in the van. Conscious of the time we were traveling for, he would pack enough variety as not to have to repeat anything too much. This was before the advent of playlists and burning mixed CDs of course. Anyway, enter Elton John into the mix. Songs like Little Jeanie, I'm Still Standing and Nikita were all released around the time I achieved an apt level of consciousness that could be affected by music on a level deeper than just catchy beats or melodies. Although Elton may not have written the lyrics to his songs, his was probably the first music I could understand that displayed the power of song and depth of someone's talent. I would spend hours listening to his music and learning about that magnificent artist with a flair for the dramatic.  To this day, I revel in the moments when I hear Elton on the radio or I revisit an older album. 

Then came David Bowie. I recently wrote about Bowie, so I won't shed too many lines about him now. What I think Elton and Bowie have in common is a personality and image that yells glamour, originality, and confidence. The kind of people who would walk down the street and peculate the attention of everyone around them, and maybe even each other. 

Then came an adolescence of Radiohead, Muse, The Smiths, Blur, Sleeper, Oasis, Cold Play, Stanley Kubrick, Monty Python, Mr. Bean and a boot load of techno and house music (see what I did there? boot.) Like everyone else on the planet whose undeveloped frontal cortex seems to leave a longing gap in his or her identity, I found myself somehow relating to this hodgepodge of British miss mosh. To me, the comparison of original, honest and seemingly genuine content that was coming to my ears and eyes from across the pond made the majority of North American offerings seem like a wavering relative who was two steps behind. I should admit that I have an affinity for rarities and a band like Radiohead satisfied my desire to collect bootlegs and limited foreign releases. And speaking of Radiohead, I fondly remember an interview with lead singer Thom Yorke around the time Ok Computer was touring. He talked about how strange it was touring America and the blatant obsession people have with celebrity. It may seem silly, but that glimpse into an attitude that places little value on fame still causes me to snub the thought of idolizing most people. Of course, that isn't to say I don't have my idols. 

My favourite author is the late, great, Christopher Hitchens. His incredible books, essays and vocabulary aside, Hitchens was also one of the most well spoken advocates for humanism and could reduce the most educated and fearless opponents to rubble in debate. His ideals were often polarizing and he left nothing to interpretation on where he stood or felt. In my eyes, he was a champion of the good fight and his boundless talent causes me to want to learn and understand the depths of culture, religion and the human condition so that I too, may one day, be able to rise to the occasion.

My partiality for the best of Britain continues with the brash reality show Big Brother UK, The Apprentice UK and the BBC's Top Gear, starring Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May. Clarkson's brutish character, Hammond's likability and the subtle genius of May combine to deliver a show that keeps you entertained, engaged and even leaves you learning a few things. James May also hosts Man Lab, a show that delivers much more than it's name suggests. The common thread that gently loops through all of these shows, some of them better than others, is a spirit of social candour, humor and intelligence that seems further evolved than what we see in North America. When you really look at how the casts and hosts interact with each other and the audience compared to similar shows here, it's hard not to think they are naturally wiser and wittier than us. 

Approaching a blog length that I suspect is starting to boarder on bloody long, I will take a break from writing and organize my thoughts on my favorite Brit of late, Mr. Stephen Fry.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

This video from the Human Rights Action Centre is simple, but captivating.  The statements from the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights which scroll across the screen are beautiful, relevant and compelling.

We Are All Made Of Stars

"We are a way for the universe to know itself. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can, because the cosmos is also within us. We're made of star stuff," – Carl Sagan.

The thought that I, as well as the rest of everything I can see and touch, is made up of the elements of long passed stars leaves me with a boundless sense of wonder. Before I ever heard of such a theory, I thought Moby’s We Are All Made Of Stars was just a metaphor. It is only now that I begin to understand and embrace such a captivating hypothesis.

As I perdure to escape the abating hold of childhood stories that speak of creation and methodical origins, science is consistently providing a much more realistic allegory. The thought that the elements that realize my existence are rooted in the cosmos and were birthed in what I can only imagine were glorious spectacles of light and colour provides a sense of almost universal connectedness.

Big stars, made up of hydrogen and helium, supernova when their hydrogen sources deplete. They essentially die in a burst of bright light, which results in a cloud of dust and gas that is blasted throughout the solar system. One of the resulting elements just happened to be carbon, and so, voilà! (But, of course, there's billions of years between exploding stars and the resulting thinking, walking, talking homo sapiens who yearn to understand everything.)

As Neil deGrasse Tyson puts it, “Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us.”

David Bowie Cool

I was a little late to the David Bowie fan club.

I became a big fan of British rock in the early 90s when I could explore outside my dad`s music collection. I was obsessed with Radiohead and Oasis in my teenage years, but remember when I picked up David Bowie's 'Earthling' in 1997. There was something about the album cover with Bowie in a Union Jack coat and songs titled 'Dead Man Walking' and 'I'm Afraid of Americans'. My dad didn't listen to Bowie, so I didn't know Earthling was another album in a long catalogue of music, nor did I give it much thought at the time.

In my teens, I lived in my parent's basement and would get stereo gear my dad passed down to me. He`s a bit of an audiophile, so I count myself fortunate. I remember using this monster Dynaco 400 watt amp that he built with its own pre-amp. I had two humongous tower speakers with 15" woofers and horn tweeters. It was like a concert downstairs, every day, and I was always looking for something new to play. Earthling was fast, loud, and perfect for turning the volume up. I would put it on once and a while, in rotation with my other favourites.

When I first went to college in 1998, I met Kris. We were both in the Electronics program at SAIT and shared interests in music and culture. We both dabbled in various instruments and I remember going to a friend's basement with him for a jam session. The song Starman was playing when we walked in. It wasn't immediate who was singing, but I remember Kris saying "Bowie."

Mind blown.

I went to the record store soon after, looked in the Bowie section and discovered a gold mine that I never knew existed before Earthling. Bowie got another adoring fan, a couple decades after the release of my now favourites, Space Oddity, Five Years and the Man Who Sold the World.

Bowie released a new album recently called The Next Day, his first studio album in a decade. The song The Stars (Are Out Tonight) is an honest interpretation of the role celebrities play in our culture and the video with Tilda Swinton is captivating. I like to think Bowie is revealing a small glimpse into his life with these songs and if you listen really closely, you might even make out a few secrets. Review and thoughts on this latest release aside, what is clear is that Bowie still carries the charisma, charm, creativity and genius that has been unambiguous since the days of Ziggy Stardust.

Lately, I've been thinking to myself, I hope I'm half as cool when I'm 66.

One Is Not Singular

It was an intimate engagement as a couple dozen local community leaders and engaged citizens gathered in the basement of the First Baptist Church on Richmond Street tonight.

The meeting served two purposes; the first was to raise money for a legal battle with the city to save an area in the northwest called Stanton Drain, the second was to hear from Journalist and Editor Phil McLeod.

A legal battle with the city was sparked after a group of environmental and wild life advocates took concern with a wetland northwest of Hyde Park Road and Gainsborough Road.  Spearheading the suit against the city is AnnaMaria Valastro, who also organized tonight’s event.  The wetland is home to beaver, turtles and a significant amphibian population.  The city has been working for over a decade to have the area destroyed to make way for a storm management pond.  However, it has now turned into a legal battle because the city has flat out ignored the concerns of citizens and failed to consult the public on the development, which they are legally required to do before sending in the bulldozers.  This situation shines a glaring light on the issue of public engagement, or the lack there-of here in London.

London has, or had, a Community Engagement Task Force.  The task force was set up to create a policy that would hopefully do things like help identify citizens’ issues and concerns, decrease barriers to participation and increase the community’s role in some decision making processes.  In a seemingly scripted video on the City of London website, mayor Joe Fontana and councillors express their gratitude to those on the task force and their desire for community engagement.  The last time the task force met was over a year ago on December 7, 2011.  In that meeting, they drafted their Community Engagement Policy to be brought forward before council for approval.  The policy was approved, but there have been no meetings or follow-up in regard to the Community Engagement Policy since.

So, this leaves us with an attempt to engage the people of London and get their input into to decisions that will shape the future of the city.  In the case of Stanton Drain, any glimmer of authenticity about community engagement seems to have been quashed.  A few citizens raised their concern and it had to escalate to the courts for the city and council to take note.

Phil McLeod writes a daily column on his website with a focus on the happenings at city hall.  Contrary to an admission that public speaking is not his forte, he is rather well spoken and has a candor that engages your attention.  In his talk, One is Not Singular, he brought up Sherry Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation.  The ladder is an outline for the different levels of civic engagement privy to a given society.  Listed from one to eight, with one being in the realm of “Nonparticipation” and eight being “Citizen Power”, McLeod gave London a level 4 assessment of Consultation placing us in the category of “Tokenism”.  It would suggest that council seems interested in hearing what Londoner’s have to say, but when it comes to making decisions, they vote alone.  For example, MacLeod brought up the issue of chickens in backyards; an idea many Londoner’s expressed their interest in, but was eventually shot down.  It was suggested that council doesn’t see themselves as part of the public, but the one’s who govern the public.

The first time I met McLeod was when he was a guest speaker in a class at Fanshawe College where I am studying Broadcast Journalism.  He recommended the book Tribes by Seth Godin and I actually went to the bookstore that night and read it cover to cover.  The book is empowering.  Tonight, McLeod reaffirmed two important messages from Tribes; one, individuals today have more power than anyone in history, and two, there is only one thing holding you back; lack of faith.

When I first met AnnaMaria Valastro, I thought she was a nice woman who had an interest in saving the lives of a couple beaver.  After many meetings and conversations since, I have realized the importance of the idea of community engagement.  Valastro has been branded names like aggressive and abrasive, but in reality, she is neither.  Standing on the outside looking in, I can see that she has exposed an important fragment of our society that, for some unknown reason, has been ostracized and quelled.  Valastro is a Londoner who has taken issue with something she feels strongly about and because she has raised her voiced, she has been labeled a rouser.

McLeod showcased individuals throughout history who have been the catalyst for change.  There’s the Tank Man, or Unknown Rebel, at Tianamen Square who stopped Chinese tanks in their path.  There was Solonge Denis who stood up to former Prime Minister Brain Mulroney over pension promises and left him with the scar of being “Lyin’ Brian”.  Most recently, an editor from Adbuster’s Magazine, Micah White, who thought there needed to be a little protest against the one percent spawned the global occupy movement.  McLeod reiterated the theme; one is not singular.

As anticipated, McLeod concluded with practical advice:

1. Pay attention.  I immediately thought of the people I occasionally interact with on social media who have an opinion based on a headline.  Read the story.
2. Get involved.  It’s not enough to report disdain on your Facebook or Twitter account.  Go to a meeting, or sign a petition.
3. Take a stand.  It's not a lot of effort or cost to make a sign stating your position.
4. Let the people in charge know you want change.

Many people are afraid to take a stand because they fear the reaction that could ensue.  I felt a strong call to be brave in the face of opposition to what you (or I) view as right.  When you pick a fight with someone, expect a fight back.  Consider the victory of activating the change (or preservation) and the blows that you might have to endure versus the regret of doing nothing.

McLeod’s talk concluded with a quote by Margaret Mead that can not be shared enough: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

In AnnaMaria Valastro’s case, she is committed to her cause, has support from the community, and, no matter what the outcome, will change the change world - even if it’s just a small part.

Flashback: Hungarian Jam

A Simple Test

I’ve been a Bee Gees fan as far back as I can remember.  I’m not talking about the disco-era Bee Gees.  I’m talking about the singer-songwriter Bee Gees who wrote some of my favorites, including Don’t Want to Live Inside Myself, My World and Run To Me.  When I married my true love, my dad made a slide show of memories and chose The Morning of My Life as the soundtrack to photos of me from a baby to my adult years.  My dad loves lyrics and is the reason I appreciate songs about love and life so much.  The Bee Gees wrote about their emotions and if you actually listen to some of their lyrics, it might explain why I’m kind of a quirky person.

On October 30, 2012, my true love came home from work, and together we were about to get some news.  Since I like to have a soundtrack for moments that could be forever etched on the wall of my personal history, I opened iTunes and the first song that caught my eye was the Bee Gee’s, World.  It’s a short song.  It was raining outside.  I pressed play and waited for my true love to reveal what could be a life and identity changing bit of information.

One little circle with a blue plus sign in it.

Together we stood in our dining room gazing at this small plastic stick with a mauve cap, the rain falling outside, World playing in the background.  I looked at the instructions for the small plastic contraption to make sure I had read them properly.  The feeling that swept over me was indescribable when my true love exclaimed, “I’m pregnant!”

That little circle with a plus sign managed to bring my true love to tears.  I remember spending the next few moments hugging her, and then staring at the plastic stick, then looking at her and smiling, and then staring at the plastic stick again.  Suddenly everything in the world seemed so far away and so small.  I wonder if the people that work at the factory that produces those little plastic sticks have any idea how much power they have over people’s emotions.  I remember looking at my true love with wet eyes and thinking, I’m going to be a dad.

We spent the rest of that night under blankets on the sofa with the plastic stick on the sofa’s arm beside us.  The shock of our news had us mostly speechless and numb with happiness.  My true love had been studying the book, What to Expect Before You’re Expecting for a couple months.  She told me that our baby is probably the size of a period right now, a Times New Roman size 12 period.  All I could think about was how that little dot was going to change everything about our life.