Category: General Learning

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So, I grew up in Canada. In Edmonton, Alberta (though the picture above was from Christmas Day in Utah). It is in Canada that my primary family system of parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins lived. I didn’t know so much about stereotypes of Canadians then. The ones about being earthy, kind, good-hearted, like when you need to face the cold together. When you need to shovel snow together. When you pull over to help push a car that is stuck in the snow. These are all things that we just did. It was a way of being. Generally.

At a deeper level, there was an inherent turning to one another. To be helpful. To tend to each other. To interrupt what perhaps was, or perhaps has become, an obsession with tight schedules, mechanistic systems that often have us apologizing for anything that is short of super-human. Most modern systems with their impressive accountabilities don’t account for what happens when nature takes over.

I love the way that William Young (Canadian-born by the way) expresses this in his novel, The Shack, written in 2007. It’s a small bit of text, not particularly germane to the overarching theme of the book. However, as soon as I read it, I recognized some of the thinking that has me appreciating snow storms and those days growing up in Canada.

“There is something joyful about storms that interrupt routine. Snow or freezing rain suddenly releases you from expectations, performance demands, and the tyranny of appointments and schedules. And unlike illness, it is largely a corporate rather than individual experience. One can almost hear a unified sigh rise from the nearby city and surrounding countryside where Nature has intervened to give respite to the weary humans slogging it out within her purview. All those affected this way are united by a mutual excuse, and the heart is suddenly and unexpectedly a little giddy. There will be no apologies needed for not showing up to some commitment or other. Everyone understands and shares in this singular justification, and the sudden alleviation of the pressure to produce makes the heart merry.”

 

Thanks Jerry Nagel for this. I love him for his humor and for his insight.

It all depends on the story you know, right?

Happy Holidays to all.

 

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It has arrived in Utah. And now to stay. Six inches in the valleys. One to two feet in the mountains.

You can take the boy out of Canada, but you can’t take Canada out of the boy. There is something cozy about this to me. I like the way it makes people pay attention to each other just a bit more.

Like slowing down the driving. Slowing down ourselves. As I tell my daughter when she plans on driving, “twice as much time, three times as much distance between cars; pump your brakes, don’t slam them.”

Like shoveling a bit extra of the sidewalk to help the neighbors. Of course they can do it themselves, but it is a kind of code in winter hospitality.

And hospitality always matters, right.

Cozy, indeed.

 

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I’m not quite able to take this complete rest at the moment, but feel very aware of how utterly attractive it feels.

I’m like many. I have to justify a rest as being abnormal. Or worse, get sick in order to feel it is legitimate. Crazy, right.

Thanks Margaret Rode, for including this in her recent email, foretelling a shut down time for her business of the end of the year.