Tag Archives: memories

What’s Truth

I wrote this on March 11th, 1985. I was 17. I’m digging up a lot of old writing, and while I find it a bit challenging to do so, I’ll share the poem below without editing it… I think I’d rather have it sit as an old work, not something re-worked because I’d change so much if I started editing now.

A poem by 17-year-old me:
—

What’s Truth

Everyone sees you a different way
Yet you the same from day to day.

You always worry about what they think
You feel paranoid with every blink.

You tell yourself don’t worry ’bout it
But inside you know that’s really shit.

You really worry and that’s a fact
About what they say behind your back.

People say things when not at face
You do the same with them in your place.

So why can’t people just be true
And tell everything right to you.

This separates man, from other life
The ability for words to cut like a knife.

Man is inable to be perfect
Because of feelings of love and respect.

These protect us from each other’s fire
So as not to hurt, we all become liars.

“Do you like my hat?”
“Yes I like it a lot.”
[It should be ripped to shreds and left to rot.]

What purpose was man put on this earth
What are his feelings really… really worth?

He cannot live in full honesty
He won’t care about this humble plea.

You know as you read that this is true
But you ask yourself, “What can I do?”

And it’s at this point that this dream
Starts falling apart at the seams. ~David

David: Did you like it?
Reader: Yeah, it’s kind a neat.
David: The truth…
Reader: …It’s good.
David: thanks?

The purge

Our garage was a mess before our big renovation, and since then it has been an absolute disaster. A couple days ago we threw out a lot of garbage. Yesterday I started cleaning out boxes I’ve had stored for years. The last time I did go through them, I just went down a nostalgic path and kept everything. This time I purged.

I was pretty ruthless. I took a few photos of things, but I also dumped a lot, including photos too. I realized that if these things have stayed in boxes for 15 or 20+ years already, why keep them in a box for another 20? It’s not going to get easier moving them around at 74 years old.

Besides, I just don’t feel attached to ‘stuff’ anymore. Here’s an example:

I wore #13 in high school, and when the school got rid of the reversible caps and got a set with ear protection, the coach gave me my number… that was 1985 and I still have it. The blue & white #9’s and red suit were from the Maccabiah games in Israel… that was 1993. Well now I have that photo above and the items are off to the dump. These, and many other items that would otherwise end up in a box for many more years, have now been tossed out.

Some of the more unique items I dumped: the rough start of a script for a water polo movie; A collection of tacky owls that my grandmother bought for me over many years because she knew I liked owls (these were sold by my wife on Facebook marketplace for a whopping $40); Wedding albums I used to promote my wedding photography business (I gave enlargements of any photos I kept to the couple, and they got all the negatives, so I wasn’t throwing away anything unique); Animal bones… So, this probably needs an explanation… No I wasn’t a kid who tortured animals and kept their bones, I travelled all through the southern US with my dad and kept some pretty neat skulls I found on our adventures.

Stuff.

Stuff I’ll never use. Stuff I don’t need. Stuff that doesn’t need to sit in my garage for another decade or two.

I’ll keep a few items. Books I find hard to part with, and other nostalgic articles, but what was 6 or 7 boxes will probably become just one. Still just stuff, but a lot less of it.

Early morning silence

There is a special kind of quiet in waking up before the birds start chirping. A stillness. My cat knows it’s too early for me to let him out, and he nestles into my lap. The leaves outside are motionless. Even the air feels still, though not stale.

It reminds me of being at a cottage in Ontario. I can imagine the glass-smooth reflection of the water, the quiet of an open, still space. The crispness of the morning air.

It’s like my mind is taking still photographs, witnessing frame after frame, rather than a continuity of time. The silence is the space between the shots.

Silence is the space in between. In between the night and morning. In between the sound of my fingers typing letters. In between sounds of any kind. Silence is a comfortable solitude. Early morning silence is not lonely, it’s comfortable. Silence keeps me company.

There is no better way to start the day, than with early morning silence.

Grad celebration

Tonight I’m off to Victoria for my daughter’s university convocation tomorrow. Then on Wednesday evening my high school graduation ceremony is combined with our school award ceremony in an event we call iHub Annual (named so by a former student). Being a small school, we started this tradition in order to create a bigger audience for our grads, but this year we are only inviting grads and their families and we are hosting a YouTube Live event for the rest of the students. This might become our new way of running the event from now on.

Graduation is a special event for students. However, I didn’t go to my first two graduations. I was undergoing nose surgery for my high school grad, straightening a break that happened in a water polo game. Then my first university graduation happened almost 3 years after it should have and I decided not to go because I literally would have known no one else in the grad class. I hadn’t even set foot on the campus for two years at that point. Oddly enough, this delay was also for water polo, I took my final courses at a different university so that I could play varsity water polo for a year, then I ended up not applying for graduation… not knowing that this was necessary.

The first time I crossed the stage was for my UBC education degree with my new wife in the audience. Then she was there again with me when I crossed the stage in Eugene Oregon for my Masters. When I got my first university degree I shared, “I’m done with school, never again.” When I finished my Education degree, I declared again to anyone who would listen, “I’m done with school, never again.” Since finishing my masters, I haven’t said it… because that phrase doesn’t seem to be something I follow through with as intended. 🤣

Despite missing my first two grads, I understand the significance of the celebration. I know that for students it’s an important day. The end of high school, the end of a hard earned degree, these are big transition moments in a students life, a time to both look forward and back. It’s a time of trepidation and of excitement. It’s as right of passage ceremony that signifies the end of one part of a student’s life and the start of a new adventure.

No matter where you go…

More than half a life ago I had a girlfriend that was a fair bit older than me. She was very well travelled, including a solo trip to Africa in the early 80’s. While I haven’t seen her in almost 30 years, I still remember one of her favourite sayings, “No matter where you go, there you are.”

That saying is said by a lot of people, but I finally understood it when she said it. There is no escaping yourself. If you are kind in life, you’ll be kind in a sunny destination spot. If you’re a jerk, you’ll be a jerk at a touristy landmark. If you feel lost, you won’t find yourself on the peak of a mountain. You take whomever you are, wherever you go.

So whether you seek adventure, excitement, relaxation, or rest, it’s your own expectations and hopes that will determine what kind of trip you have. Disappointment because the room wasn’t quite what you expected, or although the room wasn’t what you expected the view was spectacular and made up for it? The food was more expensive than expected, or the food was pricey but you would have paid double for that red snapper last night? Are you looking for disappointment or are you looking for opportunities to see, hear, and feel positive experiences in a foreign land?

No matter where you go, there you are. Sometimes it takes travel experiences to truly understand what that means. As the world opens up, I hope people find exactly what they are looking for when they travel… just make sure you are looking for the right things.

The cry of the bird

I wrote this in my Grade 13 year in Art class (‘Early 1986). It wasn’t an assignment, just something I chose to write near some doodles of a loon.

—

The cry of the bird

The beauty of the bird disguises the pain

But it’s call is not heard anymore

Unless you go north where it is slowly but surely disappearing there too

The pain is not that of the individual bird but that of the species

It cries out but nobody listens

The beauty is lost

Who can find beauty in a world of pain

Goodbye beauty

Goodbye bird

Goodbye pain

There is nothing left to feel the pain

Its life is over

The bird will not sing for our grandchildren

There will be nothing but a flying animal that they may some day read about in a book

An illusion on paper

That sings no songs

Feels no pain

Perhaps it may have beauty

But it is not the same

It is not the same.

_____
*Update: A friend sent this to me. I forgot that this poem was printed in our school yearbook.

Different memories

One really interesting thing about getting together with my sisters is hearing their versions of past events. Sometimes they’d share something that I did, and I have no memory of the event. Sometimes I’d remember it but there would be differences in both circumstances and significance. For me, this is fascinating.

Most of the events we shared were minor. Small instances where we said or did something silly, or times when things didn’t necessarily go as planned. We shared a lot of laughs at who we used to be. Old photos helped us recall some of these memories.

We are shaped by the memories we have. Some of these memories are monumental in building our character, our relationships, and our identity. Some memories hold power over us and hold us back… but they are not what happened, they are what we remembered, and how we add meaning to them.

I believe that we can change our past, we can alter our thoughts on how much a memory means to us and what it means to us. We can find silver linings in memories that are dark clouds. We can allow angry moments to fade to black and white. We can tuck memories away where they feel more distant and have less of a hold on us.

The fact that every person remembers things differently tells us that memories are pliable… and so why not use that to make memories work for us? After spending time with my sisters, I like a few of their versions of shared memories more than my own… and I think I’ll keep their versions.

The waterfall experience

In March of 2017 I was in Costa Rica and we visited a beautiful waterfall. This was my description on Facebook.

Take 43 seconds out of your day and watch this waterfall in slow motion.

Nature is amazing. There is a reason why we are drawn to the outdoors, and why natural formations like peaks, vistas, and waterfalls become beacons that draw us to them.

But what made this a truly incredible experience was that it was felt as well as seen. It was a full body experience.

Cone of silence

When I was a kid I used to watch Get Smart, a ridiculous comedy about a bumbling secret agent who seemed to always accidentally solved his case. Whenever his boss was going to tell him something top secret, Max, agent 99, would insist on using the cone of silence… a device that succeeded in preventing them from hearing each other, and could always be heard from the audience’s perspective, outside of the cone.

I sometimes try to put myself in a cone of silence, not watching the news, not paying attention to social media posts related to news events, not discussing anything related to the news. I try to block things out for a couple days and just live in blissful ignorance of the world beyond my daily life.

Does it work? Not always. But every now and then it’s fun to try.

Ripples over time

Facebook reminded me that I just recently passed 14 years since moving from teaching to administration. My FB memory led me to reread this post, Ripples and Tidal Waves, which I wrote 2 weeks after my promotion. I had so many things that came together at that time, which led to me being a presenter at Alan November’s conference a couple years running. I was even toying with the idea to go and work for Alan. How different my life would be now if that was a wave I chose to ride!

Looking back to that point, I had no idea what was in store for me. Living in China for 2 years? Not even a consideration back then, but I did just that a year and a half later. Co-founding a public, inquiry based school? Not on the radar. The only thing I can say that was expected is that I’d still be blogging all these years later.

We never know how circumstances and decisions will end up rippling and leading us to different opportunities and challenges, but we are fortunate when we can look back to a point in our careers 14 years ago and think, “This has been a great journey I’ve been on!” From here, I have less than 1/2 this time until I retire, and so I’m left wondering what ripples lie before me? Retirement for me will not mean gardening or golfing, and I can’t sit still for too long, so in the next few years I need to look for the ripples that come my way… or I need to make them.