On the move

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I feel like my last month has been nothing but packing up and moving:

  1. Retirement and leaving a building that was my work home for 13 years.
  2. Moving everything out of my bedroom and two upstairs bathrooms for a renovation/upgrade.
  3. Hopping on a ferry (this morning) and packing up my daughter. She’s heading back to the mainland next month to do her Masters.

Putting life’s ‘stuff’ in boxes, weeding out the unwanted, and still holding on to more than we should.

Moves are healthy. They are the times we actually do reminisce and recall the memories we cherish. They are also the times we let go of things that we should have long ago. That said, the unpacking is not nearly as much fun. It’s one of those things you’ve got to slog through, but it sure feels good when it’s all done!

Quantifying the day

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Summer days can be tricky. The routine of work is gone and schedules are made up on the fly. Today I had a great workout then spent the next 2 hours in the kitchen doing meal prep. Then I had a doctor’s appointment and decided to drop some food off at a friend’s house.

I had forgotten that there was a World Cup semifinal game and was lucky enough to join my friend for the second half, where all 3 goals were scored. As exciting as that was, I didn’t have a lot of sleep last night and was practically falling asleep on the couch. I came home and had a 20 minute nap before a massage therapy appointment this afternoon.

Now I’m home and heading out in a bit for dinner at a restaurant with my wife and our niece. Yesterday at noon, the only thing scheduled for today was my workout and the massage, everything else sort of came up after that. Looking back on the day now, it has been quite busy, which sounds ridiculous to say when a nap was part of the day.

I guess this is good preparation for retirement. What will constitute a busy day will be so much different than what the work day usually entails. I think I’ve had practice with summers off, but I do believe it’s going to feel quite weird when I see my wife heading off to work in September and my summer mode will continue.

I know my mindset, and I think I will need to figure out how I will quantify my days when retired. I have no desire to just make myself busy, but I also know that I can completely waste a day away if I’m not careful. I don’t yet know what my measurements or scales will be, but I will find a way to ensure that I feel good about how I spend my days.

I spent my day very well today.

Stuck on repeat

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I’ve been restarting my workout playlist over and over again. Starting the first song for every set I do. I’ve also been choosing the same 2 songs over and over again when I’m in my car.

I wonder why sometimes I fixate on a handful of songs and just want to hear them over, and over, and over again? What is it about my brain that finds comfort with the same music on repeat.

I’m not like that with TV, movies, or even books. Even some of my favourite movies I’ve only seen once. But the right dong? I can play that on repeat long enough to drive anyone else crazy.

Is this just a me thing?

My last paper book?

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I took a break from reading (listening to) books for a while. I finished a fantasy fiction back in December and then got on a streak of only listening to podcasts. Usually I find a good non-fiction or two between school breaks, then go back to a good fiction on holidays. But this March break I didn’t end up listening to anything and the school year-end (career-end) was too busy to start anything new.

It’s weird, but I do not remember what year was the last time I read a physical book? It might even have been pre-Covid… I honestly don’t remember! In fact, I haven’t read a digital book either for just as long. I’ve read countless articles, but a paper book is just not something I do anymore. There are books I’ve received as presents, of which I’ve liked the recommendation, and so I’ve purchased the audiobook version. There are two books at my bedside that I want to read, they are in a sort of ‘up soon’ category for me… but not until the audio version is available.

As I write this it kind of baffles me how much I’ve converted to audio. I mean, I don’t know if I’ll ever read a physical book again? I’m sure I will at some point, but I am realizing now that the act of reading another physical book will be an anomaly rather than the norm. This bothers me a little, but not enough to change my habits.

I still love a good book, but it seems like I’m really done with paper.

It’s not cold, it’s honest

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I have a strong childhood memory of my Grandfather – Papa B. – Leon Bernstein. I’ve previously shared how to me and many others he was a ‘giant’! He quietly helped hundreds of people, he was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known, and he was a people’s person… It didn’t matter if they were a gardener or a doctor, a grocery store clerk or a Prime Minister, Papa B. was someone who treated everyone with honour and respect, and everyone saw this in him.

One day a person in the community died and I was there when Granny B. told Papa about the person dying. My grandfather’s response surprised us both. Imagine a grey haired Polish Jew speaking with a West Indian accent saying, “Oh shite, bu(t) he was a real jack-ass!”

Granny retorted, “Leon, you can’t talk about a dead man like that, it’s rude.”

My grandfather responded, “What? If he was a jackass in life, you think he gonna be any different in death?”

At the time, this totally stunned me. I had always seen my grandfather as a person who only saw the good in people, I don’t think I ever heard him speak ill of anyone before this, it just wasn’t his nature. Now, older and maybe wiser, I understand this a little better.

When you spend your life seeking the good in people and doing good for them, you learn that not all people are the same way. You see the self-centred, the selfish, the assholes, and the jackasses, and you realize they don’t deserve the kindness you give others.

It’s not rude, it’s good calibration. I didn’t know the person who died, but if my grandfather called him a jackass, I’m glad I never met the man. The reality is that such a statement isn’t cold or rude, it’s just honest.

Some people carry with them anger, hate, selfishness, and/or a mean streak that creates more distress than calm, more hurt than joy. And quite frankly in death they deserve to be identified for the character they were in life.

No need to spend time harbouring their ill intent, just acknowledge that they are gone, and continue on as you were before you heard the news. There are so many good people in the world that deserve attention while they are still alive, spend time appreciating and respecting them. Leave the dead jackasses behind and move on.

Routine Ownership

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I heard this quote by Alex Hormozi from Chris Williamson’s Modern Wisdom podcast:

“…if you cannot function without your routine, your routine owns you, you do not own it. Full stop.”

At first this hit me hard. I’m so committed to my routines that I thought he was talking directly to me… a metaphorical gut punch of insight that I needed to hear. That was my first instinct. Now I see it differently.

Basically this is true if you are obsessed with your routine, but otherwise it’s healthy. Only if your routine is costing you your wellbeing or your relationships with others would I agree that a routine owning you is an issue. Beyond the routine costing you in a very unhealthy way, you need the routine to pull you, to ‘own’ you in a way, or it wouldn’t be a routine.

We have some routines that are non-negotiable commitments. For example, if you have kids, you need to feed them. You don’t break the routine and not feed them dinner. But if the routine (or habit) is something negotiable, like meditation, or working out, or a minimum number of steps in a day, for example… Then there are always reasons to break the routine, or break the streak. If you don’t let the routine own you, it will quickly not become routine.

The routine needs to own you or it will no longer be something you regularly do. It’s that simple. If I’m headed to bed, exhausted, and I haven’t written my daily blog post, it’s easy to say, ‘I’ll just skip today.” But then it’s easier and easier to have other ‘acceptable’ excuses… And I would not have recently achieved 7 years of daily blogging. It’s not that I can’t function otherwise, it’s not an issue that the routine owns me more than I own it. In fact, this is precisely what is needed to ensure the routine continues.

I’ll end where I started just two days ago when I said about ‘Streaks and hard things’:

1. Our streaks are part of our identity. They don’t define us, we are defined by the act of keeping them.

2. Do hard things. The effort is its own reward. I don’t know anyone with a hard-to-keep streak who isn’t also doing well in other aspects of their lives, and ‘crushing it’… A life with intentional hard things begets a life where challenges are met and overcome rather than seen as barriers and limitations. 

There might be a reason to stop in the future… but until then the streak will keep streaking.

And the routines will keep routining… but they’ve got to own you a bit for this to happen.

Old Withhold

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I’m cleaning out the bathroom cupboards. As I type this, I’m sitting on the bathroom floor looking at a small blue Cooper bag. It says ‘Barbados’ on the zipper end sides, underneath the ‘Cooper’ name and logo. It’s a miniature of a duffle bag and for decades it was my travel toiletry bag when I went on trips. I got it while living in Barbados and it is over 50 years old now. I haven’t used it in almost a decade and while it has held up fairly well, it is old and looks dirty. It’s time to throw it out.

My two eldest sisters, also born in Barbados, both had one as well. Mine was blue, theirs were red and green. I’m not sure they lasted 5 years for them, much less 50. Cooper was not the name brand anyone identified with back then. I think those were Adidas, Nike, and Puma, in that order, and maybe Fila as a close 4th. But I was not someone who bought into the trends… because I was nerdy, not cool, and I liked my little Cooper bag.

I can’t share a specific memory of using it, I just know that it has been a trusted travel companion for most of my life and I find it hard to let it go. The garbage bag is waiting, I’m hesitating. It logically makes no sense to keep it. I’ll never use it again. I won’t. And yet it’s so hard to say a final goodbye.

How many things do we hoard, that we cherish in a way that makes us want to hold on to it, to withhold it from a beckoning garbage dump? Not because it doesn’t belong there, on the contrary, we know that’s where it belongs. But this item, whatever it may be, is a piece of our past, a relic that ties us to our memories, a keepsake to remind us of who we knew, what we did, and ultimately who we are.

Some items will stay as long as we have room, but today I say goodbye to my Cooper bag. It doesn’t have a nostalgic hold on me anymore. 50 years is long enough. A final farewell and into the garbage bag it goes, never to be seen again.

Streaks and hard things

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I read Chris Kennedy’s post this morning, ‘Still Running – A Long Read’. It might be long, but for anyone who uses streaks to make a commitment, it’s a great read.

This is my comment. I think each of the points will eventually be a post on their own, but for today, I’ll leave them as I wrote them:

Two thoughts come to mind.

1. Our streaks are part of our identity. They don’t define us, we are defined by the act of keeping them.

2. Do hard things. The effort is its own reward. I don’t know anyone with a hard-to-keep streak who isn’t also doing well in other aspects of their lives, and ‘crushing it’… A life with intentional hard things begets a life where challenges are met and overcome rather than seen as barriers and limitations. 

There might be a reason to stop in the future… but until then the streak will keep streaking.
💪😄👍

Recipe Alterations

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My absolute favourite salmon recipe, cooked on the barbecue over a soaked cedar plank, comes from a cookbook… Sort of. The recipe calls for a marinade to be made with sun-dried tomatoes and fresh parsley being the main ingredients. And the very interesting thing about this recipe is that the marinade is made the day before, but it isn’t put onto the salmon until you’re just about ready to barbeque it. I follow the marinade instructions but I take a lot of liberties with the ingredients.

First of all I put copious amounts of everything, well above the ‘suggested’ amounts in the recipe: parsley, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, salt and pepper. I also do equal parts of parsley and cilantro, adding a third main ingredient. When I make this for my sister who doesn’t like cilantro, (coriander), I swap out cilantro with basil for a small batch, but my family and I like the cilantro flavoured version too much to only do basil. My final alteration is that there is also olive oil in the recipe, but I use the oil that comes with the sun-dried tomatoes instead.

I couldn’t give you any more details because I measure nothing. Not a measuring cup or spoon in sight. This is my favourite kind of cooking, taking a recipe and making it my own. Not starting from scratch, altering a recipe to create something better.

I do try to follow a recipe precisely the first time I make it. I like to see why the recipe got into a cookbook on its own merits. But unless it’s sensational the next time I make it, I’m going a bit (or a lot) rogue… and subsequently every time after that too because I almost never measure my alterations with anything other than memory and instinct.

7 years of daily blogging

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Yesterday marked my 7th anniversary of writing a daily blog. I ended the original post that started this streak saying,

“I’m not getting younger and more than ever, NOW is the best time to start.

I tried over a decade ago, now I’m going to do it – a short daily blog.” ~ Daily-Ink, July 6, 2019

It wasn’t quite 10 years earlier, the idea for Daily Ink was actually attempted September 29, 2010. I was living in China and had purchased a leather bound book and decided that I’d write in it, take a picture of what I’d written, and post it on a blog which I changed addresses from datruss.davidtruss(.com) to daily-ink.davidtruss(.com).

In the original ‘first post’ I explained:

“The title ‘Daily Ink’ is inspired by Stephen Downes “Ol Daily” and his “Half an Hour” that he attempts to decticate to writing each day… and to my former student Kris Bradburn whose blog is cleverly named “Wanderng Ink”.

I stopped reading the Ol Daily for a while but Stephen has started sharing it on LinkedIn, and I’m back to reading it again. Also, just a couple days ago Kris’ substack blog arrived in my email. It’s wonderful to see the two original inspirations for my blog title still blogging.

Although it took almost a decade to make it happen, once I committed, I committed. How much longer will I go? I’m honestly not sure. What I do know is that I’m not ready to break the streak. The reward of writing every day exceeds the effort. Like I say in my byline:

“Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.”

And so my Daily-Ink will keep getting inked for a while longer…