Monthly Archives: May 2013

A Bit of Compensation

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Kami

The heat is on.

Tomorrow is June. We’re set here in Phoenix to bust past the triple digits after a month of nineties that merely flirted with the hundreds. We were spoiled by that. But that little dalliance of sweet summertime romance is over. Reality is about to set in. Unrelenting, pounding, incessant, oppressive desert heat is about to clamp its fiery grip around our throats and lives.

Sounds melodramatic? Overdone? Silly? I invite you to visit for a week or two. Drive around with the AC in the car not working. Attempt a brisk morning walk with the sun peaking over the horizon, grill a few burgers in the blaze of the sunset, sweat a bit at midnight.

Oh, I know it’s not like Iraq, where my brother worked on an army base in an undisclosed location and the average daytime temperature was 124. No, it’s not that bad. But it’s not all that good either.

I wonder often why someone would settle in the desert. Of course there’s evidence all over the place in the desert southwest of native Americans settlements, canals, living spaces, communities, long before Columbus hit the coast of North America. When they had a choice of the entire landscape why here? Flat, hot, arid. I suppose it’s tough to have your enemy sneak up on you when there’s nothing but flat for a hundred miles in every direction.

I often wonder what we’re doing here. So does MSH.

Money brought us here. Family and friends keep us here.

But that’s not where I was going with this.

I meant to talk about my sunflowers.

Yes.

Sunflowers.

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Look at these babies! The cinderblock wall they’re planted next to is six feet tall. And they’ve rocketed into giant growing fortresses of greenery. The stems are bigger around than my hand can reach! They’re more like trees than flowers.

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And these! Happy yellow faces of bright sunshine on a stalk, all lined up and waving at me every time I glance out the back window.

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It’s like sunshine, compacted into a flower. Instead of the burning, gaseous orb of hydrogen and helium, with its eye-squinting, brow beating heat and light, it’s condensed itself into these massive, delicate, powerful bursts of golden petals.

An ironic gift, held out to somehow compensate for the meanness of the hundred plus temperatures and earth parching relentlessness of the next four months.

I’ll take it. I’ll take whatever relief and wonder I can get when it’s this hot.

It’s like being on the receiving end of a repeating phone message to a busy office where instead of music you hear, “Please enjoy the flowers while you wait.”

Fine.

I will.

Categories: Gardening, Nature, Outdoors | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Focusing on the Z in the Equation

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Kami

Some people think I am one of those quiet people.

You know the ones I’m talking about? The kind of people who rarely speak up, who mutter incomprehensibly under their breath and who, when they do talk, barely squeak out a whisper. If anyone notices the quiet person has attempted to speak they can’t hear what’s being said.

“Huh?” serves as the most frequent response a quiet person hears from any and everyone.

Contrast that with the loud people. People who can’t seem to stop talking. Ever. People who feign shock and surprise if told there are other people in the room who have opinions, thoughts, voices. People who find silences, even the briefest of silence required by the intake of a breath between sentences, uncomfortable and unnerving.

Loud people take up all the space in a room, they absorb all the oxygen and leave no room or air for anyone else, quiet or medium people to say anything at all.

I’ll tell you something. The loud people get heard the most, but the quiet ones have most of the real answers.

Deutsch: 100 Jahre Relativität - Atome - Quant...

Do quiet people end up with their photos on stamps more often than loud people do? (Photo credit © Fred Stein)

The trick is getting the words out of the quiet ones.

You can’t just say, “Hey (insert quiet person’s name here) what do YOU think?”  That won’t work. Nope. Quiet people need, crave, desire, must have a clear and open runway, a wide berth big enough to land a 747 coming in with a tail wind and ice on the tarmac. Quiet people don’t want  interruptions mid sentence. They figure if what they have to say has value, (and it does, believe me,) then patience and attention dang well better be duly paid for the entire span of the answer.

None of this is conscious of course. Observant by nature, quiet people spend their time taking in details, mulling over ideas, seeing the irony, debating the pros and cons and generally becoming wise. That, or they’re slowly drilling a deep mine shaft of too much introspection and self-analysis. But not usually.

Quiet people tend to be deep in a good way, most of the time. Depth of character, depth of knowledge, depth of humor and wit.

Get a quiet person in the right frame of mind, in a small group of listeners and you’ll have a rollicking good time and learn a ton of stuff doing so.

A quiet person will always think they’ve taken up too much time and disclosed way to much personal information. Over-sharing. Yes. That word. They worry about over-sharing, in short they avoid TMI and WTMI (Too Much Information and WAY To Much Information.) Loud people excel at WTMI.

Quiet people do want their voices heard and understood.. One on one is best, but rare. A small group might get a quiet person to peek out from under their force field of silence and observation to actually launch a sentence or two, maybe even let loose a full paragraph. Depends on the group and their willingness to listen.

Don’t confuse a quiet person with a shy person. That’s a common mistake. Shyness slinks about in the shadows and makes every effort to keep a distance, avoids social situations. A quiet person still dives into the center of things, just not verbally.

Albert Einstein, a quiet person, thoughtful and brilliant, said the following:

“If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.”

For the mathematically  inclined that looks like this:

A= x + y + z

A= success; x=work; y=play; z = keeping your mouth shut

Einstein

Einstein (Photo credit: • Happy Batatinha •)

Einstein knew a thing or two about quiet people versus loud people. Loud ones don’t have time to think up things as brilliant as the theory of relativity . They’re too busy thinking up their next three sentences. Quiet ones will give you the world changing theories, the life altering insights, the unforgettable perspectives.

If you’re one of those quiet people, I’d encourage you to speak up a bit more. Maybe you need to write in a journal, practice spilling your thoughts onto a page. There’s a bunch of loud people out there who could benefit from what you’ve thought and observed. There’s a bunch of not so loud people who need your perspective and wit.

Be a little crazy. Get loud. Don’t mumble. Get your lungs behind those words and let them be heard.

You’ll be glad you did.

Categories: People, Relationships | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Answering the Call of the Wild As Best I Can

Posted on May 29, 2013 by Kami

Nature calls. No, not the way you’re thinking.

Let me rephrase.

I’ve heard the call of the great outdoors, the mountains, ponderosa pines and dirt trails for a couple of months now. It’s been a long while since I’ve been out among the wild things.

I’m anticipating some nature time here soon. Just thinking about it relaxes the muscles in my back and brings a smile to my face. Ahhhh….

English: Young female cones on Ponderosa Pine ...

Did you know the bark on a Ponderosa pine tree has a vanilla scent to it? You have to get up close and personal to really pick it up, but it’s there. And the needles and pine pitch? Mmmmmm, there’s a smell to enliven the soul and rejuvenate the senses.

Getting away from the light pollution of the city, up into the mountains, allows a view of the night sky that’s always there, but not always visible. A spectacle of magic and mystery, uncountable stars emblazon the night sky like so many scattered gems on a black velvet cloth. That alone gives pause for some seriously deep contemplation and introspection.

Hiking slows the pace of the world down to manageable proportions. There’s time for savoring details like a scattering of quarter-inch flowers, or the sound of a small stream making its way downhill, or the varieties of green.

Birds accompany every activity up there, especially morning goings on. Mornings and birds are inseparable and a perfect combination, like hot chocolate and whipped cream. Every pip, cheep, chitter, whistle, peep, and song adds to the delights of the day.

Cooler air. Ah, yes. Getting off the desert floor up into higher country provides a welcome and much-needed respite from the flirting with 100’s temps we’ve had here. Just the mere sound of wind making its way through the pine boughs brings relief. When the actual breeze brushes past carrying snatches of songs from all the trees I feel renewed, baptised and reborn.

I think I sound lovestruck. Infatuated. Irrational.

Probably true.

Toronto racoon at night. Toronto, Canada is no...

The reality is:

  • I don’t sleep well while camping. I’m jittery and nervous of the great outdoor’s night noises.
  • At the first hint of daylight I’m outta the tent and building a huge fire and heating a pot of water.
  • Some of the other campers will be noisy, annoying, silly and clueless.
  • There’s probably some fire restrictions if not an outright ban.
  • Mosquitos and I don’t get along well and will be battling it out every evening.
  • After a few days of bliss I’ll be happy to return to the valley of heat, dust, flush toilets and long hot showers, pillows, beds and internet connections.
  • I’ll wax nostalgic about the mountains and nature until the next time I get to escape.

English: Old growth Ponderosa pines in Lost Fo...

The other reality is:

  • I’ll love it while I’m there, itchy bites, dirty hair, sleepless nights and all.
  • The hills are alive with the sound of music and bugs and crazed campers and beauty.
  • There’s no separating the good from the bad.

So while I’m packing up the flashlight, camp chair, bug repellant and sleeping bag, I’ll also bring along a pen and notebook, a camera, my hiking boots and my decent attitude.

I’ll leave my iPod and earbuds at home though. I don’t want to miss nature’s playlist.

Categories: Nature, Outdoors | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Teeter-Totter, Bread and Water

Posted on May 28, 2013 by Kami

It’s Gratituesday! Today I am thankful for the concept of gratitude. I know that sounds like a circular thought, but it’s not, at least in my case.

Seesaw with a crowd of children playing

Seesaw also known as a teeter totter

Consciously looking for the good things in my life brings a bit of balance into my mental equations.  I lean toward the depressed and pessimistic side of life. I tend to hover on the precipice of what bad thing is going to happen next. I’m scouting around for whatever it is, worrying, fretting, anxious. It’s as if by anticipating the difficulty I might be able to keep it away, or gird myself for its onslaught.

Then I stumbled on the idea of something quite the opposite to my natural inclinations. The idea of gratitude found a foothold in my negatively charged brain. Now gratitude is my fence, my force-field against depression, my castle wall of fortification against an abyss of sadness that seems to always be pressing in. Gratitude bring balance to my varyingly unbalanced mental life.

More effective than medications, gratitude has kept me, for the most part, balanced and reasonable. I may not be outright optimistic, but I’m at least not wallowing in self-pity and overwhelmed by life’s constant barrage.

English: Vegetable market in Heraklion, Crete....

So I look for the good stuff. I’m thankful for the simple things. I embrace the happy parts of my day. As a result, my mental health stays healthy-ish.

Yeah, the tough stuff is there, hovering everywhere, clamouring for attention, screaming for acknowledgement, crying out for my time and efforts. It occupies plenty of my time and energy. Like junk food for the soul, it’s very tempting to give in and indulge in sorrow, self-loathing, criticism and cynicism.

Gratitude serves as mental fruit and vegies, healthy food for my starving psyche. Gratitude quietly saves me from myself and helps me feel whole and well.

For that I am very grateful.

Categories: Gratitude, Gratituesday | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Don’t Forget Snowballs For Memorial Day

Posted on May 26, 2013 by Kami

Memorial Day conjurs picnics, boating, family get-together’s, barbecues and the launch of another summer. Hopefully, after you read this post by a fellow blogger, you’ll include, if not highlight, the real gifts and reasons behind this holiday.

Gina left the mall's avatarGina left the mall

Burgers, beer, sunscreen…on Memorial Day Weekend there’s shopping to do, beaches to umbrella and pools to cannonball. Even so, I’d like to suggest one more thing to the list: snowballs. Specifically, Snowball Express, a charity that serves the children of men and women who died serving our country. Since Memorial Day is meant to honor these men and women, doing something for their loved ones seems like a fine idea.

A Snowball’s chance

Snowball Express, “creates hope and new memories” for children of the fallen by organizing special events for them. It’s a chance for these kids to have fun and be with other kids in the same situation. Also, the families get to see that they are not forgotten or alone. Past events include baseball games, magic shows, and concerts.

Now you know

The number of people in active duty is small, about 1% of the population. So not…

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Categories: Death, Gratitude, Love, People, The World | Leave a comment

“It Has Its Ups and Downs”

Posted on May 25, 2013 by Kami

Elevator Operator.

How many people do you know can list that on their résumé?

I can.

Yeah, I know, totally cool.

Or Not. Depends on your perspective.

I was in college. The summer between freshman and sophomore year I decided to stick around campus, get a couple of part-time jobs, take a summer-sized load of classes (very few, but daily) and hit as many parties and social events as I could.

The copy/print shop job I really wanted went to someone else. I ended up applying for anything and everything that was left.

Summer Jobs

I got hired for two positions on campus. Not sure the first job had a real title. Basically I either rubber-stamped the glow-in-the-dark ink on the hands of students going into dances, or I held the fluorescent light that showed they’d already been stamped. Dances were always on the weekend. It kind of cut into my plans to go dancing myself, or going out much at all.

English: LED elevator floor indicator

The other job I landed was elevator operator. There weren’t that many floors in any of the buildings on campus, but summertime brought out the bored students, the local teens and the let’s-make-out-in-weird-public-places couples. So they wanted someone maintaining control of the elevator. I usually only worked when there was “an event” in one of the restaurants in the student union center, or if there was a dance. Again, weekend hours mostly.

Fortunately, the elevator stayed busy. Surprise registered on most people’s faces as they stepped on board and saw an elevator operator.

It was a sort of dream come true for me.

Back in the Day

I remembered as a kid, only a decade or so earlier than this summer job, riding the elevator in JC Penney. The elevator operator sat on a small metal stool next to the buttons. He’d open the door with a button, and then manually push open the crisscross cage doors, and then we’d step in the elevator, my over-active imagination peering into the miniscule gap between floor and elevator, fearing for my life.  When we were all loaded into the small metal box, the operator would lean out a bit through the open door and holler, “going up?” in a sort of question/statement.

English: This is the controls on a dover elevator

Seeing no one, he’d pull the gate closed, and then push the button that closed the solid metal doors. Then he’d ask, “Which floor please?” To which each person would reply with a number and a “please.” Going down offered the basement level as well.  I’d wait for that swooshy stomach feeling as the elevator pulled up to the next floor or dropped down a level. I loved/hated that feeling for its mixed sense of excitement and dread.

I always wanted to push those buttons, make them light up, be the one in charge of the numbers over the door as they changed. I thought it’d be a great job to have. It came in a close second to candy counter salesgirl.

Dream Come True, Sort of

I wasn’t lucky enough in my new job on campus to have a stool to sit on, or a gate to pull shut. Everything was automatic. I did get to ask which floor, and push the buttons. By time I was in college no one said “please” or “thank you” when they requested their floor, or when they exited the elevator. I earned some spending money, met tons of people, learned to make small talk in a brief amount of time, and became comfortable being around strangers. It was a good experience.

Very Punny

There was one perk to that job that I really liked.  When my roommate or a friend would ask how work had been, I could reply, “Oh, you know, it has its ups and downs.”

I could never resist a pun, good or bad.

What’s the most unusual or interesting job you’ve ever had?

Categories: Memory Lane, The World | Tags: , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Summertime

Posted on May 23, 2013 by Kami

School’s out today for the next couple of months. No more national anthem wafting across the park every morning at 8:45. No more a.m. and p.m. traffic as parents drop off and pick up their littles. No more playground noises, of tether ball chains against poles, kick ball, swings squeaking, girls screeching, boys in mock battles, girls piled up in little cliques like so many fall leaves blown into a pile.

Ah, the summer freedom of children.

Months stretch out before them in a vast sweeping prairie of waving grasses, unexplored trails, toes in cold streams, popsicles dripping, and entire days spent swimming.

Oh wait, that was my childhood. Do kids still do that?

English: Cottonwood Trees in Lions Park

There’s still a sense of freedom, but I get the feeling that it’s only a pale shadow of the freedom I enjoyed.

I took off running by ten every morning to my best friend’s house. From there the two of us would race to the park, with its open grass fields, a swampy tadpole pond, a meandering creek, a cottonwood tree-filled valley, ivy covered hills, rusty barbed wire fence lines. We spent most of the day there roaming, dreaming, romping, hiding, in imaginary wars with other kids who also played there.

Completely unsupervised.

Yes.

Not an adult in sight. Can you imagine it?

It was a different world. An innocent time. A protected, sweet existence.

A small pocket of pure perfection.

Categories: Memory Lane, Nature, Outdoors, The World | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Before I Kick the Bucket

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Kami

Bucket List, Schmucket List.

I’m probably one of three people on the planet who doesn’t have a bucket list.

So shoot me.

I’ve tried to make a list. I’ve started one. There’s one thing on it. I look at it and smirk. The smirk morphs into a self-deprecating laugh, which then mutates into a sinister shoulder devil.

The shoulder devil proceeds to tell me what a loser I am. The little dude whispers that I am what my life hands me. He murmurs things about obligations, commitments, real life and being self-less. I know, not your usual shoulder devil by any stretch. This one comes from the ranks of the Discouragement Platoon. He uses whatever he can get his hot little hands on.

He’s been quite effective so far in keeping me from even considering possibilities. Everything I can think of sounds unrealistic, undoable, pie-in-the-sky silly to me.

I don’t even start the list, I think of it in terms of questions and this shoulder devil smacks them down.

  • Write a novel? Right…that’s funny. When would you have time for that and who would read it anyway?
  • Hike the Grand Canyon? Are you kidding me? You’re seriously considering hauling this body down and back out of the biggest hole on the planet? Don’t you get out of breath going up a couple of flights of stairs?
  • Explore Alaska? Sure, right after you scrape together the rent money and sweep up what’s left over.
  • Build a cabin in the mountains? Silly girl, perks like that are for the beautiful, smart, adventurous people.
  • Eat at a five-star restaurant? Um, aren’t you the meatloaf and pot roast queen?
  • See the Statue of Liberty in person? Remember you don’t like crowds, big cities, the east coast?
  • Go on a week-long mountain bike trip? That’s really funny, have you seen what you look like on a bike? 

Sand bucket on the beach of Punta del Este, Ur...

Okay. So maybe I shouldn’t aim so high. Maybe my bucket list could take on a more realistic, more achievable, more down-to-earth feel.

For instance?

Like, oh, I don’t know.

A bucket list by definition is usually big important stuff, right?

So I’m stumped.

I could try looking at it a different way. What if I had less than a year to live? Then what would be on my list. My shoulder devil growls a low deep gurgle of aggravation and simmers himself into a poof of steam, disappearing for a while.

Phew.

  • See my other two daughters get married. Enjoy that look of bliss on their faces. Throw a big party for each of them.
  • See my granddaughter whose arrival is due in 3 months.
  • Tell my kids that I love them more than life itself.
  • Spend time with the other two Grands. Lights in my life!
  • Make sure MSH knows I cherish him. Thank him for the wild ride we’ve been on together. It would have been horrific without him.
  • Hug my Mom and Dad and try to infuse eternal gratitude into the hug.
  • Hang out with my siblings, chatting, laughing, reliving the good old days.
  • Apologize. Mend fences.
  • Write down everything I can get out of my head and on to paper about who I was, who I am, what I learned.
  • Laugh a bunch.

That would do it. It’s what’s really the big stuff. The big stuff that matters in the long run, in the short run, and while running out of breath.

Maybe I should get started.

That other stuff, may or may not happen. Whatever.

But the big, important stuff, I need to get ‘er done.

Categories: Death, Family, Humor, Relationships, Wondering | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Skipping Rocks

Posted on May 21, 2013 by Kami

It’s Gratituesday! Today I am thankful for all the time I’ve spent skipping rocks. Sending a small flat rock spinning out of  my hand to dance across the surface of the water vibrates some string in me.

Perhaps it’s the wonder of making something heavy and utterly unfloatable perform such a magical feat.

Perhaps it’s the surroundings of shore, sky, water, wind and trees.

Perhaps it’s due to the contemplative nature of finding just the right shape and size of flattened, smooth rock.

Surface waves

That perfect chord vibrating deep within me might even happen as I watch the circle of ripples each skip of the rock creates. One, two, three, four, FIVE! I haven’t ever skipped much further than five bounces on the surface. Some people have just the right touch and can make those rocks fly, barely touching the surface multiple times.

Water fascinates and soothes. Listening to waves, whether the quiet lapping on a pebbled lake shore, or the roar of wave crashing into rock and sand at the ocean, both lull and awe. Like watching the earth breathing, in and out, in and out, I find comfort in the rhythm and consistency.

Add water to the equation of a bored or stressed child and the sum is contentment and happiness. The ever-changing yet constant quality of  water makes it the perfect toy, the ultimate entertainment. Filling container after container, sloshing, splashing, pouring, dripping, diverting, puddling, spraying, flooding. Bath time could last for hours.

As opposite as night and day, hot and cold, rocks and water. Rocks resist movement and change. Rocks just sit there. Or so it seems. The change rock undergoes is slow, nearly invisible, requires eons. And yet there is evidence of change in the round smoothness of river rock, the zillions of grains of sand on a beach, the fissures and arches of sandstone, the worn down hill of a former mountain.

ENJOYING THE LAKE SHORE - NARA - 551571

Can’t say I’ve ever heard or seen a mom say, “here’s some rocks, have fun, kid.” Not likely. It takes some direction to know how to make a rock become a toy. Or a tool for contemplation. Or a form of competition.

Rock and water.

I could use a couple of hours sending some rocks skipping across the water. Glad I learned how. Extra happy that I understand the joy of such a simple, small action.

Categories: Gratitude, Gratituesday, Nature, Outdoors | Tags: , , , , , , | 7 Comments

If Only

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Kami

I often say

”if only”

and

“I wish”

Although

I lack

Regret

For the

What was

because

the “if only”

would make me

what I’m not

and the

“Oh well”

that I am

I like.

    -Kami Tilby
Categories: Poetry | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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