Daniela Ginta, Freelance Writer

Gratitude makes the journey better. Kindness, too.

Category: Life Stories Page 41 of 46

This Is Also Part Of Life

By

On April 24, 2014

In Armchair Mayor Column, Life Stories, Self-improvement

(Originally published as a column in the AM News on Friday, April 18, 2014.)

Passing...It is the part of life that many of us only whisper about and parents often try to keep children protected from. Mine did. Because it hurts. But hurt is also part of life. Better processed when you’re not trying to make sense of it on your own as a kid, or dragging its shadows into adulthood.

I was six years old when my beloved maternal grandmother died suddenly. Something went wrong during a routine surgical operation that was meant to be just a couple-of-days-in-the-hospital procedure. I never got to say goodbye and no one else did because no one knew of what was to come.

When I was nine, my paternal grandfather passed away. I loved him dearly and had no clue about the long illness he was battling or about his impending death. I never got a chance to say goodbye.

As taxing as that would have been, it could’ve provided the kind of closure we need in order to process such events with grace.

My paternal grandparents died a few years later, and goodbyes were not said that time either.

My mom passed away suddenly eight years ago and though there was no typical goodbye, there was a premonitory conversation that included a farewell that had both closure of some sort and a good lesson in it.

My dad has been chronically ill for many years now and I have been given enough time to say some of the things people should say.

I had time to think of life as it slips away and appreciate its richness, its bittersweet flavor and its colorful shreds as I am trying to put them together to make sense of the tapestry we keep on weaving with every day that passes.

With my sons, I choose to celebrate both life and death. Choking on some words as they try to build themselves into sentences that describe life, understanding that they are becoming the very foundation we have to build today and all the tomorrows on, but most of all learning that appreciation of every day and of people we have around us can only be tangible if we are aware of both life and death as we go.

Withholding the reality of death from children is like not telling them of night because it brings darkness.

Giving ourselves and our children a chance to understand death and accept it helps us all appreciate life and better our ways as we go. It’s when we forget about the finality of it all that we can take it for granted.

My sons often play the game of ‘If you could have three magic powers, what would they be?’ and the one power I keep on pushing away from is to be immortal. It would make everything less worthwhile, I tell them.

They are puzzled every time. But think of all the things you get to do and never be afraid it all ending, they try to convince me.

But fear is, for once, an element that adds to life, I tell them.

If we choose to acknowledge it, it can guide us towards being grateful for every day as it comes and goes, and for people as they adjust their steps to match ours or walk in that tap-tapping cadence we share as we go through life, for as long as we do.

Awareness of an impending finality is what makes life precious. No season that lasts forever can bring the kind of joy that seasons as we know them do. Or sunsets. Or watching a child grow or sharing precious times with our loved ones.

We are strong in how we carry ourselves through life, in how we overcome challenges and in how we face new ones.

Knowing that everything ends somewhere adds the kind of humbleness that makes the journey worthwhile.

In building farewells as we go, we embrace time and people with all the gusto one can have knowing that we only have a limited time to make it happen. To make it last long after we’re gone. Because it will, as the ones we leave behind will carry it forward and make the best of it. Life, that is.

Life As I See It. So Far

By

On April 16, 2014

In Life Stories, Self-improvement

Mirrors in lifeI always had this fascination with balls of yarn and spools. Questions. I’d try to undo the ball of yarn just to get to the other end. Because that was where it all started, deep inside. Or was the beginning the end that I was holding?

See what I mean? There is no way of settling it unless you pick one just because and that’s that.

People’s lives are like that too. That’s what they look like to me. Balls of yarn. There is the end that is available for all to see but more unravels as you listen to their stories, or see how the glimmer of sunsets and full moons makes them tear up, by how they talk of times past and broken dreams and life happenings that untangled more yarn they expected and now they are half undone, shreds hanging here and there.

It’s like that with all of us. With some more than others.

Sometimes you get a glimpse of where it all started, or enough pieces that, if you take the time and courage to put together, may reveal the way it was in the beginning… The end of the spool. The beginning. The way all life adventures begin.

Unraveling a bit here and a bit there is how it’s done. Life, I mean. It can be ungracious when too much gets undone, or when the yarn breaks and you have to tie knots to keep on going and they show. Truth is, we all hide knots of one kind or another. Until one day, when we bid goodbye to righteousness and decide to stop hiding.

The day we start living our own truth. As we see it, as we live it, as the only one there ever was.

Truth, counted in knots, just like the winds at sea. Because, in a way, that’s what they are. Tattle-tellers of grace and ungrace, of coming undone and realizing that though painful at times, our wings expand further than before. And with liberating freedom.

There’s much to be learned when knots are considered not faults but facts of life, or life as we know it. Ours and others’.

That’s how life is. Everyone unravels at some point. Yarn breaks. We tie it up. And we keep at it. But if we spend too much time of judging everyone else’s knots, how they are much too weak in how they are tied, or too big, or too tight or not tight enough… we may just miss that it’s not about how knots are tied but in how unraveled yarn comes together to help weave the pattern of life.

Life is ungracious in how it unravels us. In how it shows us what humble is and what being human is all about.

I came to realize that it is not in whether we are graceful or not as we step through life, or in how we tie our knots, but rather in how we learn to help others tie theirs when they struggle through it, because somehow, life is the kind of weaving that can only tell the real story of us when all the broken, knot-full yarns become part of it.

TapestryAnd that only happens when we acknowledge that being human is one of the faultiest, most beautiful and humbling adventures we’ll ever be in. When we have the courage to face it in all its truth that is.

The Magic Of Rain And Leaves

By

On April 15, 2014

In Armchair Mayor Column, Environment, Life Stories, Social issues

(Originally published as a column in the AM News on April 11, 2014 under the same title.)

Tale tellers...My dad knew how to tell whether the day would be a rainy one or not. He would choose when to sow seeds in the garden in early spring that way.

Thin clouds piling in all shades of orange over the hills as the sun was setting told more than the story of a day ending; they talked about the day to come.

Swallows flying close to the ground were also a sign of impending rain, I was told from early on. And just like that, I knew that if I found freshly-woven spider webs during my stroll through the garden in early morning, there will be no rain; a good thing during the much-loved summer vacation days.

In the woods or around the yard, I knew which berries were good to eat and which were not. I knew that the leaves of raspberry bushes were good for tea and that when baby chickens come out of the egg their puffy coat is all wet.

On April 7 the boys’ school (and the whole School District 73) hosted ‘Day of Sucwentwecw – to acknowledge one another,’ a first ever celebration of this kind. Students got to listen to an elder talking about the traditional people around Kamloops.

The boys brought home a newspaper, The Secwepemc News. There were stories of people who worked or work to preserve the culture and to revive it. There were stories about traditions and how life was lived according to seasons, and how knowing about nature kept people alive and thriving. Nature-inspired stories passed on from elders to youth and children were never just entertainment but lessons.

It was the drawing of rose hips that sent me back to growing up and to everything life meant back then. I remembered the tangy deep orange tea my mom made from rose hips and how it was one of the best drinks in winter because rose hips are very rich in vitamin C.

The thought of today’s children sprouted without warning.

Equipped with smartphones and getting used to opening a package to find food, how connected to life can they be and how much of a feeling of belonging to the place we call Earth can they develop as they grow?

20140412_121358Will they know that certain herbal teas can take care of headaches or stomach aches and how to read signs of spring in the world around them? Will they know how to forage for food if they had do?

It is a refrain we hear often enough: eat what’s in season. Yet how many adults know what’s in season where they live? A couple of generations ago people’s connection to nature meant avoiding starvation.

Do today’s children have a chance to learn about that connection?

Ushered from school to classes to stores and then tucked into bed at night, how much time is there to understand how nature does its thing? If a bee is but a bug that flies from flower to flower and looks very much like a wasp – can you tell the difference? – but the vital connection between bees and crops and food on the table is never made, will children grow to understand the consequences of bee colonies collapsing?

If children never understand that medicine once meant knowing which leaves to pick to make tea out of and that picking ripe fruit and veggies is the result of sowing, weeding and knowing how to keep the earth healthy by feeding it not chemicals, but compost or manure, and thus completing a circle that was never meant to be broken if we are to stay healthy, they are robbed of what should’ve been a birth right.

If we gave an older person whose connection with nature has been strengthened by passed-down knowledge and experience a smartphone or a high-tech device that many of today’s children can handle with their eyes closed, they’d look awkward in their lack of understanding of how these devices work.

Yet they have the knowledge of putting food on the table and of how to survive based on signs that nature gives freely to all, which most of today’s children lack.

Now imagine combining the two types of knowledge. They should not be mutually exclusive of each other. Their co-existence means that children can have a true measure of life and they can be raised in gratitude of it.

Stories of oldThe slow pace of acquiring life and nature knowledge, the trials and errors that have guided people from the beginning of times in their quest to stay alive, is what we cannot afford to leave behind.

They give us and our children a chance to reconsider our choices, shape them to match the past knowledge and accommodate the future.

The knowledge of the past and the facts of today is what we have to build our future with.

Resourcefulness dictates that we make use of both if we are to provide our children with a sense of where they come from and where they are headed.

Birds And Bees – Are We Doing It Right?

By

On March 31, 2014

In Armchair Mayor Column, Life Stories, Motherhood

I thought I’d write about our last hike in Peterson Creek; about how every season transforms the park and how you always have the feeling of being in the right place when you hike there.

Yet fuchsia-infused sunsets and promises of spring in city wilderness parks are somewhat clouded by a rude reality: hypersexualizing of children and the high price we all pay, children first of all.

From elementary school girls sporting borderline risqué attires to high school students exchanging inappropriate content over their personal electronic devices, to swift word exchanges during school hours that send kids flying to online search engines where Pandora’s X-rated box is waiting to be opened, the world of children resembles less and less what it used to look like a few years ago.

It is striking to compare today’s faces to the ones that smile from all the old class photos that hang in the hallways of my sons’ school. Clothing spelled ‘children’ and their smiles were innocent. So what, you’ll say, children of today are innocent too.

True, many are, but there’s an early expiration date on that innocence. Exposure to inappropriateness happens early and surreptitiously. If you doubt this, ask your children. And hope they’ll have the courage to tell, because there’s lots to tell and it’s not pretty.

This is by no means a new topic: The age of information forces us to revisit it often as it dumps too much on our children’s heads, too soon. Parents, as per our parenting job description, have to somehow catch it all before the worst happens.

A month ago or so a few Kamloops high school students have been charged with possession of child pornography. The same happened on Vancouver Island, and in New Brunswick and in Quebec. It happens in the US, Australia and in Europe too.

Children know it’s wrong (at least some of them realize it) and they know they shouldn’t, but temptation and peer pressure rocks their budding foundations and they do it anyway hoping they won’t get caught.

But they do, and punishment ensues. Lessons to learn? Hardly so. It looks more like a case of treating the symptoms without addressing the cause.

Children of all ages are being introduced to the world of photographs early on by the adults around them just until they learn to do ‘selfies.’

There is an emphasis on sex wherever you turn your head, because, we all know, sex sells.

That the internet world abounds with sexual content is no longer news. Adults defend their right to access it as they please and to that we say ‘to each their own.’ What about children though?

According to the latest estimates, the number of pornographic websites, paid and free access, is approximately 25 million and growing. What is new though is how children can access these websites and how many of them display increasingly violent content that would never fit into a normal loving relationship.

It’s controversial, but it cannot be brushed aside either.

Children lose their innocence too soon and there’s nothing right about that. Dismissing the obvious by saying ‘It’s the 21st century, about time we emerge from the dark ages of taboos,’ makes adults part of the problem when children are charged with possession or distribution of child pornography.

If the revealing photo of 13-year-old is found in possession of a 13-year-old, logic dictates that we are looking at a case of distribution of child pornography by children.
What’s fair then?

Parental controls will never keep children fully protected. There is no school body or app or program able to keep children safe if the parents are not stepping up to the plate to talk about it.

That’s right. An honest, first-for-everyone kind of talk that brings awareness and lets children know they are not alone in facing a monster that is as tempting as it is scary. I don’t mean healthy sexuality, but its crooked version that sees children punished later on for something that could’ve been avoided.

Kind of like feeding children too much carrot juice and punishing them for turning orange.

We have to face a blatant truth: we are perhaps the first generation that will not talk just about birds and bees but about how bad it can be when they are out of control. Yes, we have to include the ‘porn talk,’ because porn is, you should know, something many children are exposed to at the ages of 10 or 11.

The idea that internet providers could install filters to prevent children’s access to online pornography was met with disgruntlement by most adults. What about people’s freedom to choose? There’s truth there.

But somewhere in between us adults having the freedom to exercise our adult choices as we please, a sexually-imbued free-for-all internet content and rushed existences that allow for little or any breaks to keep track of things, there are gaps wide enough to swallow our children whole and leave us nothing but the regret that we should’ve done more when we had a chance.

Now is the chance. Today.

Time Well Spent? You Decide

By

On March 23, 2014

In Life Stories, Self-improvement

TimeI often get to the end of the day thinking of all the things I did not get to do rather than the ones I did. Somehow, come 10pm or so, no matter how much I get done during the day, the dark cloud of ‘not enough’ looms over my head.

Not enough is the leitmotif of today’s life. Not enough is enough to drive one rather anxious.

Unless.

It took a morning drive through thick rain a couple of weeks ago to be startled enough to see it.

Rain that morning was a big creature with a watery tongue that licked the windshield incessantly, giving the wipers more trouble than ever. The radio churned news in the background and thoughts abounded. It had been a rushed morning with barely any conversations with the boys. Utilitarian mornings like that point to the reality of today’s pace of life. Rushed.

Hard to escape the feeling of, again, not enough. Time, words, mornings, smiles, hugs, peace of mind… not enough of any.

The words on the radio caught me off-guard.

There will be a new test able to reveal whether or not someone’s at risk for developing Alzheimer’s. ‘Would you do it?’ the show host asked. The guest said yes without hesitation.

Both her parents had Alzheimer’s and both slipped into it without being aware of leaving their world as they knew it. Save for the occasional episodes of being in the moment and owning their present, as well as their memories, those two people and so many others like them, had no more chances of understanding life as it was. She said that her parents did not get to do enough to feel fulfilled, and her regret was that she did not have more time with them before they got lost in that illness.

Does it make sense to know what’s ahead? Yes and no. I don’t want to know the future, but I want the awareness of tomorrow’s possible slipperiness to make the best of today.

In a world where we forget half the things we did yesterday because today piles too much on an already full plate, what’s worth spending time on anyway? What are the things worth doing that might save us from forgetting the days we leave behind? Is it maybe about ‘planting’ something that extends beyond the boundaries of self?

The dialogue on the radio was still going on when I turned off the car; outside voices quiet, my thoughts were the only ones left on the scene. We are on borrowed time and often investing it all in castles built on sand, are we not?

What’s worth spending time then? Joy? I’d say. And the feeling of ‘I don’t want to miss out on this.’

What is it that you do not want to miss out on?

The mystery of life, the big purpose of why we’re here, one could build a long glittery succession of big words and lofty dreams. But is that it?

Ultimately, defining what’s worth spending time on goes hand in hand with defining ourselves, while noting that life slips away regardless, and spreading ourselves too far from who we truly are, from what we are, dilutes the very experience of life.

The fragment of that conversation a few mornings ago made me look carefully at how I define myself.

Time spent right takes us, surely and diligently, towards the answer to the old, mystery-shrouded question about why we are here in the first place.

It’s time spent right that will save us from heartbreaking regret and allow us to say that in how we spent our time we found our purpose.

Mine is spent on musing and writing, on seeing things as I walk through life, literally and otherwise, with my sons and the man with whom I share life. We happen upon stories of ourselves, stories of life as it happens, stories bigger than ourselves.

It’s humbling to realize that time spent on listening to boys’ grumbles, their struggles with figuring out life and people, their incessant belly laughs when a silly toilet-related joke drops in the middle of yet another dinner table, their spying on cats and crumpled leafs and all that dawdling that makes us all so late so often and me so aware of all of that being more real than anything else… It’s all worth it.

The hum of rushed life is growing every day till it becomes deafening. At least at times it does, taking us father from ourselves. Society expectations, pressure of this kind or another, they tend to blow unwanted winds into our sails, pushing us into shores we’ve never meant to get close to, and that much further from where we should be.

Time spent right, if we have the courage to do so, I believe it can unfog the lenses through which we see ourselves and our lives. True or not, it’s worth trying… So we won’t have to face the regret that we haven’t, or leave someone behind with the painful legacy of ‘not enough’…

Awareness, as always, can be both a blessing and a curse. And, as always, it is our choice to make it one or the other…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bubble-wrapping Our Children Doesn’t Work

By

On March 8, 2014

In Armchair Mayor Column, Life Stories, Motherhood

Originally published as a column in The Armchair Mayor’s News on March 7, 2014. 

It is snowing as I write this. Shoveling (in replay) notwithstanding, new snow always promises fun.

It is almost noon; lunch break for school kids, most of which is spent playing outside.
But, the snow has to stay on the ground, they are told. For safety reasons. I had first become acquainted with this safety measure when my oldest was in grade 1. Things have tumbled since.

Snowman building is allowed as long as you are a primary student and your hands stay close to the ground while rolling the snow. For everyone’s (un-fun) safety.
Kids don’t see it that way. They want to play with snow, and snowballs fights are a fact of life.

The risks associated with the occasional misguided snowball are an accepted, worthy downside. Still, can’t do it.

Sure they can find something else to entertain themselves with. On non-snowy days, tag sounds like a good option. Except that some BC schools have now adopted a no-touch rule, due to a few injuries caused by hands-on playing. The kind of games you and I played when we were little and fear was not a decision factor.

Children are encouraged to say ‘hand off’ to each other whenever they are being touched – friendly shoulder taps included. Or an adult will remind them.

Where to from here?

Children explore the world using all their sense and touch is a big one. They need to play, and years of research showed that playing is not just playing, but learning, developing, and understanding. We can state the general rules and help them understand what’s acceptable and what’s not, but they need to figure out the rest, like all generations of kids have.

How safe can we make the bubble wrapping around our children before they lose contact with reality? We are already witnessing communication misfires among children, young and old.

No-touch rules will never prevent bullying or its new vile form, cyberbullying. Nor will it help keep children safe from getting injured on the school grounds.

Children get hurt. They fall or they play in ways that may just see one of them hurt sometimes. Things are pushed too far occasionally and lessons are learned. Scraped knees are part of growing up, so are squabbles among peers.

Things can get confusing for the youngest ones with too many of these safety rules in place. What’s appropriate and what’s not? They might wonder about bullying and boundaries, and see everyone as a potential aggressor.

Safety redefined.

The first time another mom caught a glimpse of my youngest son, six at the time, carving a stick with his pocket knife while sitting on the porch, she raised a brow. I explained that he has to sit while carving, or else the knife goes, and there is no playing with it as a toy.

She did not buy it. Knives are dangerous. True. So are bows and arrows. But if we teach children how to use them safely and be firm about it, they will. Somehow children know when we mean it. Or learn soon enough.

There is a high chance that a child who has been taught about sharp objects and was allowed to use them only under certain conditions – carving marshmallow roasting sticks perhaps? – will hold onto that knowledge for life and even teach others too.

Instilling a sense of responsibility is part of parenting. And appreciated by children. That’s how it has always been. Bubble wrapping never worked to protect children from getting in trouble after all.

Same goes for playing. Rough housing is important for a child’s development. That it sometimes becomes rougher than it should be is true, but that’s how boundaries are learned and rules are set in place by parents.

Interestingly enough, children left to solve their own issues – basic rules in place – may just learn important life skills. Negotiation, reinforcing of boundaries, fairness, forgiveness and learning to stand up for themselves or for someone else who is being mistreated, these skills are all learned during hands-on playing.

They’ll also be useful later on when children sail into the often dubious waters of online socializing.

If kept too tightly wrapped and helicoptered by adults, children will either assume that the world is a cushiony place where as long as you don’t touch something or somebody you will not get in trouble, or that everyone intends to hurt them, or they’ll learn to be sneaky about hurting others. Or all three. No one wins.

Keeping children safe should involve allowing them to play, make mistakes, have adults teach them about rules, learn about boundaries, honesty, and most of all, reminding them about the old rule that has kept many alive and thriving: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’

The Magic Behind Gloomy Skies On A Winter’s Day In Kamloops

By

On March 1, 2014

In Armchair Mayor Column, Kamloops, Life Stories

(Originally published as a column in The Armchair Mayor News on February 28, 2014)

ShoresThat day last week was the first sunny one in a while. So we picked up the boys after school and walked home along the river. The ice was thick enough to walk on, and smooth enough to skid every which way. Funny makes life better every now and then.

We threw rocks towards the other shore. Frozen solid, the ice held our rocks mid-river until many days later when, on a snappy-cold windy day, we ventured again to one of our favorite spots along the shores. The boys’ cheeks were red, but they kept on walking, holding sticks for swords and turning their backs occasionally on a wild wind.

It is a pleasantly puzzling thing, this river shore walk, especially in winter. We come across different things every time. A beaver pond not far from where we live was the subject of many lively discussions and the mystery of how beavers do it so beautifully is still alive with the boys. Just a few steps away . . .

Other times we see birds galore waddling their slippery ways on the ice, or discover rinks that could not be more perfect for the silliest games of ‘human bowling’. Rules are invented on the spot, in case you were ready to ask.

It is our second winter in Kamloops and the delight keeps growing.
There’s no two things you get to repeat the same way and that is magic. Sure the sun is often taking a multi-day leave of absence, I was warned of gloomy winter as soon as I moved here, but the magic stands.

During the first cold spell this winter we ventured to Lac Le Jeune for some cross-country skiing. It was sunny but cold; very. The wind added to the dreaded chill. I had never heard a creakier sounding snow. We skied and our breaths made any loose hair strands white with frost and the boys kept talking about frostbite.

We realized it is no longer dedicated ski hills or trails that hold the highest appeal for us but the frozen lakes and the gentle long slopes around Kamloops where every hundred steps a thicket of birch trees guarding animal tracks makes us stop and realize once again that we’re but humble visitors. Privy to pure beauty.

The places we visit are alive with sounds of life muffled by thick curtains of snow draped around trees by occasional winds. Silence is a reminder of the necessity to honour our own…

SnowySometimes the clouds pile up quick and the air becomes thick with white specks. Tracks erased, we stop and become part of it all for a bit. Trees sway sideways, and far away we see farms with thin smoke slithering through the roof and black cows peppered around hay feeders. It’s peaceful.

It simply never gets old. Winter here I mean. A few weeks ago we drove to Stake Lake to see the ice racing. A first for all of us. It was cold but fun. A Kamloops tradition we had to witness, which happened to include parking on a frozen lake. West coast transplants like us find it fascinating.

CaveAnd why not? Ice and snow transform winter here in Kamloops and surroundings. Lakes and rivers freeze, if you walk along beaches and shores you can find ice caves that have the most beautiful stalagmites and stalactites that sparkle just so when a few sun rays sneak in.

There are countless ice rinks to skate on and clouds wrapped in orange sunset ribbons if you happen to look up at the right time.

There are forests to tiptoe in and spot red-tufted woodpeckers and if you keep on driving on snowy roads you’ll find lakes that have giant upside down old trees trapped in ice and half-covered in white powder, speckled with bunny tracks lining up all the way to a burrow under a pile of frozen branches.

Road to wonderNo excuse is good enough to not try and discover yet another place that’s so different than the others when you have the time. No electronic game satisfying enough to compete with the exhilaration of a first perfect no-tumble downhill run under a ski so blue you almost doubt it’s real.

The skies may be glum many days here but there are rewards that go beyond the city limits and even within, if you’re careful enough to look for clues of magic. Because there are plenty.

Because is more to winter in Kamloops than meets the eye (initially)…

Page 41 of 46

Previous

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén