Category Archives: truth

Putting things back into perspective

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Lately I feel like I have been extremely neglectful of a very important relationship in my life.  It is so easy to take a monumental aspect of MY reality for granted because true reality gets in the way.

My blog and I have had a very close bond since the beginning.  Like a true partnership should, my blog allowed me the freedom to truly be myself.  It never questioned my motives or my ideas.  It resolved to allow me any creative indulgence I required and it remained steadfast in its desire to soothe me at the end of a tumultuous day.  It introduced me to minds that functioned much like mine, helped me make new friends and it helped my see things, once again, from my own perspective.

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These many months later, this rolling rock of creative abandon has collected a group of followers who seem genuinely interested in the ideas that erupt from my creative well.  Along the way, the number of like-minds has multiplied.  Although I have been delinquent in sharing my comments on other blog sites, I have been faithfully following and hoping to steal back those  moments when I was allowed to spend my time immersed in the blog world.  Since the inception of Polysyllabic Profundities, I have accumulated 2 shy of 1900 followers.

That number made me stop in my writing tracks.   One thousand, eight hundred and ninety-eight people have chosen to read the very thoughts that pour from my brain to my fingertips and they find interest in those strings of syllables and interpretations.

To each and every one of you I say thank you.  Thank you for encouraging me to continue.  Thank you for agreeing with what I write.  And for those of you who disagree, thank you for making me see things from another perspective.  This is a journey I was meant to have and the footprints I leave behind will forever mark a path I was meant to follow.

 

Those serendipitous moments at the end of a long day

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You’ve undoubtedly had a day similar to the one I’ve just experienced.  That day where seemingly insurmountable problems are lurking around every corner and then, just when you think you’ve methodically cleared away all the issues, someone else abruptly pulls the rug out from under you.  The stars circle around your head as you calculate how to best resolve the next dilemma and move on.

Thankfully, I’ve never let any concerns weigh too heavily on my mind.  I’m a problem solver and this is a trait I graciously accepted from my father.  He and I would never dwell on a problem but immediately begin searching for a solution.  Perhaps this is why I gravitate towards this silly line from Van Wilder – “Worrying is like a rocking chair.  It gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere.”

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At the end of my work day today, the concerns were dealt with and I left for home after what seemed like an eternity.  My drive home partially meanders through a golf course.  It is a picturesque panorama of soothing greenery and winding black-top.  Halfway through  the drive I pulled up behind a minuscule gaggle of 8 Canada Geese.  Instead of becoming spooked and flying away, this merry band of winged misfits continued to saunter down the road directly in front of my car.   One by one they eventually peeled off to the left or the right, only by foot and never flying away from the powerful piece of machinery inching closer to their tail feathers.  There was nothing I could do but giggle and think that someone up above knew I needed a good laugh.

After passing through the golf course and continuing my drive, my cell phone rang and the call display showed a number I haven’t seen in a while.  An old friend was 5 minutes away and just wanted to say a quick “hello”.  Had I not been delayed at work, not only would I have missed out on the feathered chain-gang but I would have missed a quick reunion with a dear friend.  Serendipity seemed to be gracing me with its presence.

After getting home, I shared some love with my puppy dog and poured a well-deserved glass of wine.  Callaway was content with her rawhide bone and I was becoming one with the couch when I heard it.  The distinct sound of my dog farting was so loud she scared herself.  She jumped from her comfortable position on the floor to attempt to discover where the sound had come from.  My poise had been shattered.  Once again the laughter took over and several layers of tension began to dissolve.  Twice more, sounds similar to a Howitzer erupted from the back of my dog and she continued to seek out the source of the noise.

Perhaps it wasn’t the perfect ending to a day, but it was what I needed to be able to find the frivolity in life and not sweat the small stuff.  Laughter really can be medicinal.

 

 

 

Finding a way through life with humor

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robin williams

The recent death of Robin Williams has devastated me.  To me, he was the personification of humor.  There are so many of his roles and movie lines that have been ingrained in my psyche.  They have helped shape the person I have become today and the realization that his humor was a mask for his depression is debilitating.

Perhaps his death has made me look back on my life.  Just maybe his struggle has touched a nerve in my reality that has long been buried.  Depression was never an issue for me but the feeling of inadequacy was certainly in the forefront of my brain as a I struggled through my teenage years.  My sense of humor was a God-send.  It helped me extend myself beyond the boundaries of my comfort zone. It allowed me to engage my peers in a way I felt comfortable.   And it gave me a way to reach out to others with the feeling that I had the safety net of laughter.

Many times the person who is making the jokes is trying to keep the focus as far from reality as possible.  They painstakingly go to great lengths to keep you laughing so you don’t focus on the issues they deal with between the laughs.  They diffuse their reality with comedy but the joke, sadly, is on them.

I go to bed tonight with a heavy heart.  I grieve for the man who could not win the battle against his demons.  I solemnly remember the teenage version of myself who was thankfully able to quell the monsters who lurked in the dark corners of my mind and find more solace in the laughter than perhaps he could.

I can only hope that Robin Williams is finally finding the peace that he so truly deserves.  The world will never be as funny now as it was when he was in it.

(image credit: bu.edu)

 

 

Helicopter parenting and stating the obvious

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Helicopter-Parenting

 

(image credit: teenlife.com)

I had a remarkable interaction with a parent of a teenager who will be ready to face the working world next summer.   This particular parent just happened upon our resort to scope out potential lodging to stay at next spring while his son pounded the pavement to find himself a job.  The most important part of that previous sentence are the words  “to find himself a job“.

Too often over the last few years I have had conversations with parents gushing about the talents of their children and why said child would be perfect for a job at our resort.  Never in those golden moments of being told how great “Johnny” was did I ever speak to “Johnny” himself.  It has become the norm for parents to act on behalf of their offspring in hopes of finding them gainful employment.  One of the most unfortunate parts of this new trend is that the child will never gain that self-confidence that you can only achieve by creating a resume, making that first phone call to ask about a job and securing a job with a face-to-face interview.

While it is regrettable, I am among many in the position of hiring students who inevitably put “Johnny’s” resume at the bottom of the pile.  What kind of employee will “Johnny” be if he is not eager and hungry enough to seek out and secure his own job?   These kids learn nothing about achieving goals if somebody else does the work.  They will never understand the concept that the world owes us nothing – that you have to work for what you get.  The blades of their helicopter parents are slicing away at their chance of being successful on their own merit.

Life is about disappointment, but still having that drive to succeed.  Life is about making mistakes but learning lessons from those mistakes.  If our future generations are to succeed, they need to learn how to try and, potentially, learn how to fail.  They need to fly on their own and crash a couple of times before they have clear skies.

Thank you to that incredible dad who was allowing his son to leave the nest and fly on his own.  Please send him our way.  I’d be happy to have a look at his resume and chat with “Johnny” for a while about a job for next summer.

Reworking the image of a mid-life crisis

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I have noticed a few things about myself as I gracefully grow older, particularly over the last few years.  Grey hair and wrinkles notwithstanding, my perspective has evolved from the relatively carefree attitude I once enjoyed.   Gone are the days I flippantly put that first toe into the soothing waters of a hot tub and let my body follow.  Public pools are a distant memory and the frequency of my hand washing has increased exponentially.  Hell, these days I even avoid soaking in a bathtub.  I refuse to call myself a germaphobe but, if the label fits, I have three letters for myself – O C D.

I don’t know when this nuance in my psyche first began to form but it has taken root and branched out at an uncomfortable rate.  I haven’t reached the breaking point of color coding my closet or having my remote controls in a line at a 45 degree angle, yet, but I do notice the trending pattern and it has become somewhat disconcerting.

Perhaps this is a natural evolution from childhood to adulthood.  Maybe this is simply my acceptance of dealing with reality from an educated viewpoint.  Or just maybe, this is my mid-life crisis.  Conceivably I am taking things far too seriously but I cannot seem to access the earlier frame of mind that allowed me to live with reckless abandon.  I am stymied by my overwhelming urge to retreat from public spaces and the sharing of any bodily excretions that are emitted into public water.

midlife crisis(image credit:  someecards.com)

I can only hope that the misgivings of my mid-life irrationality will subside.  I hope to be able to, once again, access that childhood abandon that allowed my to enjoy my life without second-guessing it, or at least bring me reasonably close to that feeling again.  If not, I fear I may be sending my future blog posts via Skype from the bubble I have inhabited while banging on the keyboard through my rubber gloves!

Have you noticed any noteworthy changes as you’ve gotten older?

Why? Why did the chicken cross the road?

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Lately I have been asking myself that question ad nauseam.  Surely there are a plethora of answers to this age-old question but in my case the punchline is “to take up residence at my neighbor’s house and cover my little slice of heaven with a large grey cloud”.

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(image credit: nbcnews.com)

My house is my oasis.  It shields me from the reality of living in a tourist town by being perfectly located on a road that is five minutes outside of our bustling summer metropolis.   I live on a residential street that has only three houses and during the summer I can see neither of my neighbors through the seasonal foliage.  My home offers seclusion, it embodies peace and it epitomizes tranquility.

Until recently that trifecta of relaxation was a normal daily occurrence – and then things went completely fowl.  The neighbors decided to add six chickens and one rooster to their family.  The rooster, although inept at figuring out that he should only crow in the morning, was not a problem in the beginning.  Until I heard his chatter when I was leaving for work and again when I was coming home, I could not hear his incessant noise when I was safe in the confines of my home.  But the winds of change began blowing.  And by that I mean that the North-West wind pushed the scent of the coop right into my living room.

My dog seems to enjoy the pungent stench of bird but I prefer the oven-roasted-to-perfection variety.  There is a noticeable level of odor when dealing with fecal matter and chicken poop ranks high on the list of loathsome smells.  There have been many occasions when my dear, sweet pooch has come home with the lingering funk of Raccoon poop, or as my dad used to call it “Coon Coloogne”.  But even Raccoon poop can’t hold a candle to chicken shit.  Callaway found the mother load this morning and proceeded to baste herself in what she thought was a wonderful perfume and she was so happy to come home and share it with me.

I bathed her once before I went to work.  I bathed her again when I got home and the scent still permeates my home and my nostrils.  It is the smell that will not die, yet smells like death.  I have sprayed my living room screen with Lysol deodorizer and thankfully the direction of the wind has changed slightly.

If you receive an invitation for a sumptuous roasted chicken dinner, please remember to thank the neighbors on your way home!

 

Self-doubt and a flamethrower

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Who knew it would only take a bit of positive feedback to light the spark that had been snuffed by my lack of creativity.  It’s difficult to think that a mere 6 days ago my mind was a blank.  I took a huge leap of faith and gave the beginnings of my novel to a very creative girl who works at the resort.  She studies language and had been very persuasive about wanting to read it.  I was almost physically ill as I timidly handed her the manilla envelope containing the fruits of my labor.  Wanting to do nothing but slink back into my office and rock back and forth in the fetal position, I powered through the rest of my day and headed for home.

The next day I waited patiently (who am I kidding, I was a wreck) and, after not hearing from her and stressing myself to the maximum level, I reached out via text to see if she had read it.  She had and the result was remarkable.  She laboriously made notes as she read through each chapter and all of her feedback was great.  She loved the story line.  She was intrigued by the characters and she gave helpful insight into making the lead character a little more engaging and interesting.

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Her positive and insightful observations started a chain reaction.  What had been an extinguished pilot light raged into a deadly flamethrower and the ideas would not stop.  I immediately re-worked the first chapter and began developing new plot lines for the upcoming chapters.  I was writing again.  My brain was firing on all cylinders and I felt that writing mojo for the first time in a long time.

To be continued……I hear the characters calling and I have to answer that call.

The nominations are in, and the award goes to…….

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I live in a small community.  In the summer months our population expands nearly as much as Violet Beauregarde in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory after she chews the ‘forbidden gum’.   And while there may be moments that the locals become just as blue in the face, we generally keep our heads low and count the days until our town is returned to us in a reasonable facsimile of what it once was before the tourists descended.

violet-beauregarde

 (image credit: thelongthread.com)

In the midst of the chaos, our narrow, two-lane roads become inundated with a wide spectrum of driving abilities.  The creative maneuvers in and out of parking spaces never cease to amaze me and, for me, defensive driving takes on a whole new meaning.  My father knew what he was talking about when he taught me how to drive!

I have blogged in the past about how there is no cure for stupid.  On Monday, after 12 hours of sleep and a relatively restful day, one particular driver not only proved the theory of stupidity but she helped me begin my journey out of my blogging funk.  Her asinine driving antics immediately had me formulating sentences for this blog and, if I could track her down, I would thank her for her reckless abandon behind the wheel of her red BMW because it provided some much-needed blog fodder.

Each of us when learning to navigate the control of a motor vehicle are inevitably told to yield to oncoming traffic when entering a roadway.  Common sense begs us to look both ways and only enter when it is safe to do so.  After realizing she had no access to the side road on which she had found herself, the winner of this week’s bad driver award decided to pull into the lane in which I was driving approximately 85 kilometers per hour.  Thankfully I had seen her easing out of the driveway and slowed my speed accordingly.  Not only did I have to slow my vehicle to avoid hitting hers, I had to come to a complete stop in the middle of a highway while she made sure her door was properly shut and her seat-belt securely fastened.

Had it not been for the fact that I was in utter shock at her complete lack of sense, I would have written her license plate number down and nominated her for the TV reality series – Canada’s Worst Driver.  I can only be glad the cars following me had the sense to slow down behind me and not decide to pass or she may have never had the chance to make it home that day.

Is it Labor Day yet?

 

 

 

 

I’m at a loss for words…no, really…they’re gone.

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I was having a relatively simple conversation with my brother at my house when I realized there was a problem.  I was trying to bring a word from my brain to my lips and it just wouldn’t come.  I pondered, I furrowed my brow trying to push the word closer to my tongue but to no avail.  The English language, the language that I love to use so creatively, now evaded me.  I struggled to grasp for the word ‘futon’ but it was nowhere to be found in the cavity in my head.

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 I’ve been stumped before but usually, with a little persistence, the drum in my head begins to move and the words tumble like clothes in a dryer and eventually settle on my tongue.  But this time there was no drum, nothing tumbled, nothing settled and I stood there, muted by my exhaustion.

I have been lethargic, to say the least, when I get home from work and can’t find the energy to conjure words from my brain to my fingertips or even to transfer words from a page to my brain.  Writing and reading, once two of my favorite pastimes, are evading my realm of consciousness once again.

I am determined to tuck my body into the cocoon of my bed tonight, sleep until mid morning and wake feeling refreshed and ready to absorb words and create once more!

 

 

The good, the bad and the nails on the chalkboard

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As my friend The Hook can attest to, working in the hospitality industry produces great blog fodder.  That, and it provides limitless material for a comprehensive sociological study into human behavior.  My mother used to tell me it takes all kinds to make the world go ’round but I don’t think she knew the extent of all of the “kinds” when she issued that seemingly harmless statement in my teenage years.

When you work in the hotel and resort business, you become accustomed to adjusting to many sorts of personalities.  Some are completely harmonious with your current state of being and some are like the ‘Lee Press-On Nails’ to the serene chalkboard of your life – although they may look beautiful on the outside, there is a spine-chilling quality that is undetectable upon first impression but makes its presence known very quickly.

nails-chalkboard

 

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After only a brief glimpse of elapsed time following the summer solstice, I have already had the pleasure of experiencing the opposite sides of that personality spectrum.  My heart has been warmed by familiar faces and genuinely caring hugs.  My face has been creased with new wrinkles from so many smiles and so much laughter and the pool of new connections has become much deeper.

But the harsher side of reality has also made its presence known to our unpretentious sanctuary .  It has hidden in a well-packed suitcase and freed itself to roam our pathways.  It has infected the minds of children and made them question things that should not concern a child.  It lurks in the corners and it has the potential to become those aggravating fake nails careening down a piece of porcelain enamel.

Regardless of which side of the spectrum I find myself, I continue to love my job because I love being around people.  It’s in my blood…it’s in my heart….and I can only go into work each day hoping that the good will always outweigh the bad.