North, Truly

The Little Things

It’s the little things that make us who we are. We strive to learn and know and unravel our experiences but the small things define us. These are the things that make us lovable and make us love others.

The small ways in which we are unique and special so preciously outweigh our intelligence, our education, our life experience, our knowledge and success.

Close your eyes for a minute and think about why you love the people you love. Do you love them for their success, their wealth, their education or intelligence? Or do you love them for the way they cock their head to the side when considering a question, the way they laugh, the way they cook, the way they hug?

I have been thinking about my “little things”. What is it about me that sits squarely in the memories of others? Is it the way I insist on drinking my coffee out of a little white china cup with a red rose painted on the side, the way I watch “A Walk in the Clouds” over and over again – even though it’s the schmaltziest film ever made. The way I use the word schmaltziest when it isn’t even a word?

Or is it the way I know the words to the grape crushing song (of that same film) in Spanish – even though I have no idea what they’re singing? The way I can just as easily watch The Matrix over and over again and then try to replicate those snappy Kun Fu leaps. The way these two very different sides co-exist within me?

I love black leather as much as I love the red rose on my coffee cup. Perhaps it is the way I wait until a really tense moment during a scary movie and then run my fingers down somebody’s neck. I'm sure it's none of these things but other things instead. You never can tell what reaches in and touches somebody's soul.

When I think about those I have loved and lost I remember …not their material successes but their favorite song, their tinkling laughter, their beloved poetry, their exclamations and smiley faces in an e-mail, their jokes and what made them sad. Sometimes the little things are silly, they can even be irritating but they are really the heart and soul of us.

The little things are really big things. I love you all for your little things.

Capegirl

Every human being, no matter how moral or honest, has his or her area of corruptability...a specific set of circumstances that may (or will) cause them to behave in a manner which is out of character, morally reprehensible or even evil.

OR

"Every man has his price. It just depends on his currency".

Think about this carefully and then tell me whether you agree or not. I would love to hear everybody's opinions.

"Blair 'open' over nuclear future"

BBC News, UK -
"The prime minister said concerns over possible fossil fuel shortages and global warming were "too strong for anybody reasonably to ignore". ...

YA THINK??????

Find out why...here.

The decade between my 20th and 30th year was intense. Twenty-one, twenty-five, twenty-nine; seemed to pass in a whirlwind of broken hearts, confused choices and ever increasing self-esteem. This was the decade I learned who I was. It was also the decade I learned who I wasn't, was never going to be and absolutely refused to be.

During this time I discovered a wealth of information about myself. Some of it in the therapist's office, some of it from men, much of it from my parents and even more of it alone in my room with a piece of paper, an Alanis Morissette CD and a pen.

Looking back, I see that I was like a child in many ways. I was teetering on new found muscle and learning how to walk without the help of the strong arms of denial, self sabotage, love's embrace and self sacrifice. I was reaching towards and holding on to anything I could find to steady me, finding it useless and reaching out once again.

All at once it seemed I had learned to trust my own legs. I grew to like the idea of walking on my own terms and began to walk alone. As I wandered I found new ways to heal, to grow and different ways of relating to people, the world, and yes, to myself. I began to think that maybe, just maybe I didn't know everything, that things were not and had never been carved in stone.

I discovered to my absolute delight that life was unendingly malleable. With glee I saw that I could mould it and mould myself. I could also allow others to live in their own moulds and accept that.

The more I grew to understand myself the more tolerant I became of others. I learned to forgive my parents for the things I experienced as I child. I understood that parents are people just like me. That they struggled...just like me.

I am thirty-four now and those years seem so far away. Yet every day I watch people go through some of the same. Some struggle badly, others not so much, but I see so much pain, anger and so much growth. It's a bit like an orgasm you know, the twenties. You rise and fall and climb and climb until you get to the top and say...so this is what all the fuss was about?

I find the continuing problems on Opera to be rather frustrating. There seems to be some type of issue at least once a week. Now would it be silly of me to expect the server monkeys to figure it out? It is after all their JOB and their business. Oh I feel a tirade coming on. Not that I am taken to tirades about the internet...oh wait...yes I am....

I have tried to make several comments an various blogs but though the number of comments shows up, the actual comments don't.

I'm just venting and would love to hear your comments, but I probably won't be able to...or will I? ha ha ha!

One thing many blogs concerned with nature and the environment have in common is an attitude that the current state of the environment is dire. If you follow this type of blogging you will find that these writers enjoy posting dire predictions, quoting statistics, and ranting about how people are callous and uncaring in the face of what is obviously a runaway train.

While I sometimes do quote statistics in my blog posts I try to avoid this type of "gloom and doom" vibe in my posts. Why? The answer is simple, really. It doesn't work and it very rarely helps. The truth is that the natural word IS under incredible threat. Most importantly from global warming, desertification, species extinction and air and water pollution.

But telling you this won't make you want to save it. The problem with the conservation of the natural world is yes, that people are not aware. But making them aware of the real state of things will not guarantee that they will be anymore interested in protecting it than they are in disinfecting their drains with bleach, buying everything in plastic that never biodegrades, using their car unnecessarily and polluting the water table with fertilizers .....I could go on at length here.

There is very little I can tell you for sure about the future of the natural world. What I can tell you is something that WILL help to change the things people do. Hear this and understand it, because it is important. PEOPLE PROTECT WHAT THEY LOVE AND TREASURE. IF THEY DO NOT LOVE OR APPRECIATE IT, THEY WILL NOT PROTECT IT.

So what does this mean for you and I? It means that if you want people to love nature as you do, tell them how much you love it, get them interested, get them excited, get them envious of how wonderfully empowering it is to be involved in these issues. I have done work in environmental education and reciting facts and figures does not create interest in the protection of nature. Getting people to "feel" something about nature is not about convincing them that we are doomed. Instead they need to be convinced in their hearts that it is worth saving.

For all those reading this who ARE interested and concerned, HEAR this message, because it matters more than we can comprehend. Get others excited about it, get them to "see" it through your eyes, get them to LOVE it. There is nothing in this world worth saving more than the hearts of the disconnected.

btw if anybody is interested in reading my blog you can find it here

When I was about ten years old my family moved to a new town. In fact we moved because we had been having some really dysfunctional issues in our family. I was sent to a new school and the adjusment was so difficult. This was a very different neighbourhood to the one I had known and I had no friends in this strange town.

The shining light of that year was being placed in Miss Martindale's class. Miss Martindale was surely a teacher of the "old school" by which I mean, she had a real love for and understanding of children. Her lessons were filled with fun and questions, not just parroting information ad nauseum. She took a personal interest in each child in her class, invited us to her country home and really made us all feel special, clever and important.

I don't think I would have endured that year without the sense of self-esteem she instilled in me. She must be about 55 or 60 now. I wonder where she is.
The reason she stands out so much is because throughout my school years there was not another teacher who seemed to have a real love for what she did and the children she taught. This seems to be rare.

Did anybody else have a "Miss or Mr Martindale" in their lives, growing up?

The week has whizzed by and the Cape is feeling much better. Next week, however I have resolved to do the following:

Catch up on long overdue e-mails.
Work less and play more.
Figure out why candy makes me crazymorethanusual.
Find out why massaging my little toe unblocked my right ear.
Make even less sense than usual in this journal.

That's about as much as I can handle this week.

There might be room for one more...any suggestions?

I've decided to get a tatoo. So today I phoned the tatoo parlor to find out what one costs. Depending on the detail of the design and whether you want one specially created for you it can cost in the thousands.

A coin sized tatoo will cost about 250 bucks.

So do you like it? It's a green dot.