7 Things My Father Taught Me….

My father has been gone now for nearly 20 years.  He has been in my thoughts a great deal lately.  Here are some of the things that he tried to teach me:

# 1 – We took relatives visiting from Des Moines, Iowa to the Guild Inn. This was an incredible old hotel, with antiquities surrounding the grounds, artist’s studios and an exact replica of massive English cedar maze. I was just four. I ran with my sister and three cousins, all older, deep into the maze. It was late afternoon and I was tired. I couldn’t keep up and was soon completely lost. What had started out as a magical adventure, turned into something much darker as the late afternoon sun slipped behind the clouds and I was surrounded by 9 foot hedges. I started to cry. And then I started to scream.

My maze was much taller!

Very soon thereafter, I could hear my father was calling to me – “Wheeere’s Leslie?” – in a sing-song voice completely at odds with the sound his body made crashing through the hedges. He sounded like a bear coming at a dead run. He broke through the woods in front of me; sweating, and bleeding from dozens of scratches. He lifted me up on his shoulders and I could see our way out of the maze.

Lesson – Sometimes, only sometimes – fuck the rules.

#2 – My father was a very large man, tall and broad, with a deep thundering voice. He was noticed and deferred to in many situations. When we would be in line at a concession stand, at the fair or the beach, the young person serving would always try to serve him first. We would be standing there, impatient, hot and thirsty and my father would say “I think this young man was ahead of me.” and point to the little boy standing in front of us. The boy was shocked and the kid serving might have learned something as well.

Lesson – Play fair.

#3 – When I was about 11 we were at a lovely resort in Northern Ontario where my Dad was the keynote speaker at a conference. In the afternoon, he tried to arrange for me to go horseback riding. They wouldn’t let me go with the guide by myself and my Dad didn’t want to disappoint me, so rather than prepping for his address that evening, my Dad went riding with me. Now I was a pretty good rider – I hadn’t yet made that switch from horses to boys – and it was  wonderful for me to be riding on lovely trails through the woods. I’m not sure that my father had ever been on a horse. At one point the guide advised that this was a good place to – “open ‘em up a bit” – and my dad suggested that the guide and I go on and he would follow at a slower pace.

I flew with the guide through the open fields, and I can almost remember how blissful that felt – to be completely without fear. When we reached the other side, we let the horses catch their breath and waited for my Dad to catch up. I could just see him in the distance, coming our way. Now he had told the stable that I could ride but he was not experienced. They, correctly, gave him a smaller, placid horse that would give him no trouble. So here comes my very large father, on a old horse barely taller than a pony. And they were trotting. A very bouncy trot. Man-china busting kind of trot. And it suddenly dawned on me. He was not having fun. I was having one of the best days EVER and he was beyond uncomfortable. He must have been miserable! “Are you okay Dad?” I asked when he caught up. “As lONg aS you’Re haVing Fun hoNey!” he said, as he bounced right by us.

Lesson – It’s not really fun unless it’s fun for everyone (but you can suck it up for your kids)

#4 – When he would be working on the weekend and my mother would come to the office to join him, he would have her call just before she left the house, so he could go down into the lower level parking garage and be there when she pulled in so she wouldn’t have to walk through the underground garage alone. The first time my father drove home a girlfriend of mine to an empty house, he told her that we would wait in the car while she got inside and checked things out. When she had taken a good look around, she would blink the light to let us know everything was okay, and we would drive away. I have done this maybe a hundred times since then. This taught me about caring for people.. But it also taught me about paying attention. And that steps could be taken to perhaps change the outcome of events. My father would sit calm but vigilant while he waited for that light to blink, and I know that if anything had seemed even slightly amiss, he would have entered the home, and whatever situation was unfolding.

Lesson – Show Up

#5 – One of the biggest lessons was the one I didn’t learn. My father got his degree at night school, while dealing with a full-time and very demanding job, a wife and two daughters at home. When I had the grades to attend University, and he was willing to pay for it, he was flummoxed/gobsmacked/stunned that I didn’t want to go. He tried desperately to convince me to go, but nothing he said – nothing anyone might have said – could have changed my mind. What a jerk I was. This ranks right up there in the list of mistakes that I have made in my life. I was a fool not to have gone to University when it was offered to me. (I did go back years later, after I was married but it was different by then. I had been out in the world for a while and I was much more certain about those things about which I was certain.)

Lesson – Remain teachable. (there is much that you don’t know that you don’t know)

#6 – My father was abandoned by his father when he was four years old. His mother worked long hours in their family store and brought home the vegetables and fruits that were going to be thrown out. My father decided at a very young age that he would not be poor for his entire life. He would work hard – so very hard – to give his family, and himself, the finer things in life. He got really excited by every new car, every nice hotel room, every steak dinner that filled the empty places that he had grown up with. He had been both rich and poor and chose to not be poor anymore. He never put on airs – he and my mother were both clearly mutts who came from poor families and often went without while they were growing up. He made sure that my sister and I wanted for nothing – while still understanding and appreciating the value of everything.

Lesson – Work = Rewards. You can choose the life you have.

#7 – Most important of all, my father taught me that there was nothing I couldn’t do. For a young girl that was extremely important. He believed in me. He thought I was smart and talented and able. I took that vote of confidence and respect into every job interview I ever had, on every first date, in every social or business situation.  Long ahead of the curve, he hired a black women to head up one of the departments in his company. He hired an openly gay man in the late ’70’s when it was more than uncommon to do so. He respected people for who they were and what they could do – and that was enough.

Lesson – Who you are is far more important than what you are.

I miss him still.

Dance, Dance, Evolution….

My eldest son got married a few weeks ago. It was an incredible day – magic in so many ways. We held the wedding at our farm and it turns out that it is way more work than just writing a cheque to the golf course down road. Live and learn.

One thing that was very difficult in the execution of the wedding was the transitions; moving people from their cars to the front yard for the ceremony, moving between the ceremony and reception tent, sitting down to dinner, starting the dancing, etc. When it was time for the band to take it’s first break, we switched to the dance music that I had racked up on my iPod. To get the ball rolling, I grabbed my husband and we started to dance.

Shall we dance?

Now here’s the thing. We can really dance. Both my husband and I are pretty good dancers – always have been. And Oh, How We Danced…On the Night…That We Met…(that’s a song kids). We met in the afternoon and he invited me to an ‘oh so cool’ club opening in downtown Toronto. Turned out, I was the only white chick in the place. It wasn’t scary enough being out with a guy I had just met – I was also way out of my league in the cool department in a very hip, downtown crowd. Until he asked me to dance.

That’s what I’m talking about!

You see – we danced the same way. The very first time we danced, it looked we had been dancing together for a long time. We felt the music in the same way, our timing was the same, we moved really well together. And don’t think we both didn’t realize it meant something. I told my mother that night that I had met the man I was going to marry – and I was right.
So after 27 years, we have gotten even more in sync with our dancing – it actually helps that we are both sober and don’t tend to go spinning off, banging into unsuspecting fellow dancers. But there’s a problem with dancing well. We look like we rehearsed it. And nobody would come on the floor with us when we were dancing! And this was a crowd that danced their asses off all night!

Everybody Dance! or maybe not…

We called to people and gestured for them to join us on the dance floor.  Nobody did. People just watched us. Some clapped for heaven’s sake! One friend of my son’s even tweeted about it. Good Lord! The photographer even spoke about it on her blog: http://blog.navynhum.com/2012/07/michelle-elton-country-wedding-in-king-city.html

Afterwards, my husband’s partner asked where we had taken lessons. Please let the record show: We have never taken dance lessons. We didn’t rehearse for this event. In fact, my husband didn’t even know what songs I was going to download for the band breaks.
We just dance well together. Always have. My son says when he watches us dance he can tell what we must have been like when we were young. I love dancing with my husband – I remember what it was like to be young as well. Burns my ass somewhat that he looks almost exactly the same as he did nearly 30 years ago but what the hell.  Lucky me.

Time to Spin the Big Wheel!

It was my birthday last week so it is time for me to spin the big Birthday Wheel. You know the wheel right? My husband discovered it many years ago. Once you turn 40, every year you get to spin an imaginary wheel that provides you with a brand new, unwelcome and non-returnable gift.

The first one that most people receive is “READING GLASSES!” This one comes up a lot. You will see people holding small bottles of medicine out at arms length to try and read the label, or insist that it is only bad lighting in the room that is forcing them to squint in such a bad way. I only received half of this spin – my doctor recommended ‘mono vision’ for me which means that I wear one contact lens for distance in one eye and leave the other free as it can still read small print perfectly. This is not nearly as disconcerting as it sounds – your brain automatically chooses the best image at all times so you are not aware that your eyes are seeing completely different things.

Another common spot on the wheel is “PEE AT NIGHT“. When I was young and had been up late (and up to no good) and knew that I would have trouble getting up for work, I would drink an extremely large glass of water before I went to bed. When my alarm went off in the morning, it was only the need to pee that would force me from my sheets. Now, my sleep is interrupted in the night by having to go to the bathroom. I used to think I was pretty clever – I would keep one eye tightly shut and only open one so I could turn on the light in the bathroom and not be blinded when I returned to the darkened bedroom. My friend Chris pointed out that I didn’t actually need to turn on any lights at all – it wasn’t like an obstacle course between me and the facilities. Plus my years of excessive movie going have made me well suited to see in the dark.  I always sneak a glance at the clock on my way back to bed and hope that it’s 2:45 am and not 5:15.  I really want to get back to sleep and if it’s near morning it’s hard.

A strange spot on the wheel is called “PLANTAR FASCIITIS“. If you don’t know what that is, please skip this paragraph because they are still not sure what causes it and perhaps knowledge of its existence is part of how it can get you! Suffice to say, if you have extreme pain in the arch on the bottom of your feet when you first get out of bed in the morning, this might be happening to you. Exercise, physio, massage, Lourdes – try them all but start with sitting up in bed and pulling the tops of your feet back with a scarf before you get out of bed. That will help.

The mental ones on the wheel are the most scary. “LOSS OF NOUNS” seems to come up for people quite often. You are perfectly able to speak intelligently on any number of subjects but for some reason the actual name of things seems to disappear. Sandra Shamus says that it isn’t like you forget the word for tea, it’s like the word for tea never existed. ‘I want the thing where you put the bag in the hot water and it changes colour and you drink it”. I can run into a person that I have known for years and remember everything (and I mean everything) about them – except their damn name. If we are ever out together and I don’t introduce you to someone who joins us, please figure that I can’t remember and just introduce yourself.

l play a little tennis (daily) and not just because it’s fun.  Researchers studying neuroplasticity have found that combining mental and physical activities is a good way to keep your brain growing and healthy.  I started taking bridge lessons to help my brain as well.  Bridge is hard.  You can fight getting old but you are bailing against the tide.

taking the long road together

The only thing that makes it bearable?  Having someone to laugh and share it with.  Nobody gets out of here alive.  You just gotta try and enjoy the ride.