Oh for a muse of fire...

One of the joys that comes with writing is seeing others react to your work positively. If success leads to more success - and for a writer, having someone else enjoy reading what you write is success, then why is it that writers who are good at their craft often find it hard to do. Is it a planet alignment thing? Shakespeare's cry, which titles this blog, is one that I am positive many writers have cried throughout time. The answers are always there, and they are always easy... to give, but when factors such as lack of time to write, lack of time to write, and ohhh, let's see... lack of time to write are thrown into the proverbial mix, then it becomes clear that 'said' time for writing becomes time for playing with the kids, or time sleeping, or time doing a myriad of other things that are not writing. (That was a long sentence that I had to nip in the bud... it was in danger of going on for many more lines, phew, but I digress...)

I have decided to try the suggestion that is thrown out to every writer who faces this situation, and that is... wait for it... to write! So here I am sitting here and writing while I am labelling a disc on my computer. (Actually, I am beside my computer, not on it, and the computer is actually doing the labelling, not me... I just told it too...)

If you have noticed a tendency to ramble here, it is because I am. This is because I am following the aforementioned suggestion to write. Is it working? I don't know. I guess if someone leaves a comment (hint, hint), I will know. (Sorry for the blatant attempt to garner written feedback about my blog... well, not really.)

I am going to end this blog with the promise that I will attend to it on a regular basis and a more frequent basis.

To all those of you out there who write, remember that the muse of fire was considered the highest muse, the one most sought after by wordsmiths, hence, the one that Shakespeare calls upon. May the fiery muse visit you and keep you company.

While my [computer] gently weeps...

I've been playing around with twitter recently, and I must say it has been an interesting experience. I signed up quite awhile ago, but never did anything with it - much like this blog, which I intend to update at least weekly, and it has actually been closer to yearly, (something that is changing with my re-discovery of twitter). I started playing with twitter again because I kept coming across references to it on msn, and facebook, etc. However, I found it a somewhat lonely experience, mainly because I had no followers. I went several days without any when I decided to look up an old friend on twitter. She lives in Sri Lanka and is very active in the facebook/twitter communities. I found her and followed her, and within minutes she became my first official follower... I was thrilled. Even more thrilling for me was the fact that within five or so minutes I had six followers. Now, I know that six seems paltry compared to some people's thousands, but I am happy to have these six because it means that I have six people from all over the globe that I can share my thoughts with.



I am still figuring out twitter, with all its little codes and stuff, and I'm sure that eventually it will become old hat. I don't want to turn this blog entry into an advert for twitter, so I'll stop here, suffice it to say that I am really very happy to have discovered it.

The good, the bad, and the way it is...

The last few weeks/months have been tough ones for me and my family. However, I am repeatedly reminded, because I repeatedly forget, that it's way too easy to focus on the things that go wrong in life and take for granted the things that go right. It is also really easy to mistake the two... what we often perceive as right isn't necessarily so and vice versa. Some friends of ours have lost a baby, and my heart goes out to them. My wife and I are expecting a baby soon so this loss is closer to home to us in many ways. I know that time, the great healer, will move forward inexorably and life will fall back into its semblance of normalcy for our friends, whatever normalcy is, and joy and happiness will return to their lives.

It seems funny and somehow both merciful and cruel that when we are in the depths of sorrow life goes on for everyone around us. Even when it seems our lives have stopped, everyone else's seems to go on. I learned a long time ago that the word 'fair' is just that, a word. It is a word that is steeped in so much subjectivity that it is close to meaningless. I have had the opportunity and blessing to travel quite a bit during my adult life, and I have seen and noticed things that would challenge almost anyone's notion of fairness. However, I have also seen people who are amidst this unfairness laugh and smile, play with their children, and find joy where many of us would be unable to. Walt Whitman wrote a poem called "O Me! O Life!", and it is a very poignant poem. I suggest to anyone reading this blog to go out and read this poem. In it Whitman discusses the gross wrongs and evils of the world, and the futility of existence. He asks a question, "what good amidst these? Then he follows it up with a very powerful answer. In fact, let me post the poem here for you.

Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.

166. O Me! O Life!

O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;

Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;

Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)

Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;

Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;

Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;

The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?


Answer.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;

That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

Time will always move forward, the laws of thermodynamics ensures this, and life will keep pace with it. Change is a reality, but it doesn't have to be a harsh one. If we accept change in all of its myriad forms then we will become stronger and we will contribute very powerful verses.

When in Rome...

We were sitting in the piazza just in front of the Duomo in Milan when someone on a bike approached my son and asked him for money. My son was 6 years old. Needless to say, my son was not only unsure as to what the man was asking for - Liam didn't speak Italian, he was also frightened. The latter was due to the fact that when Liam did not reply, this stranger on a bike became very agitated, and began to gesture wildly, as Italians are often wont to do. I approached the man on the bike and asked him to leave my son alone. He then began to swear at me quite loudly, which then agitated me. Now, having seen this fellow scare my son, and then try to do the same to me was more than I was willing to let go. I responded in like, which was not the best way I could have dealt with the issue, and my tirade brought about two responses. The guy on the bike screamed louder and then finally rode off, and my wife let me know in no uncertain terms how she felt about the whole situation. The moral of the story is to make sure your wife isn't around when you start swearing in a foreign language that she understands... no, just kidding. The moral of the story is that you should take the high ground, be an example to your kids, and keep your wife happy by walking away.

This particular blog entry was inspired by an article on MSN about scams that people will pull on unwary travellers. I have travelled several times to Europe, and I lived in England for a couple of years. These experiences have taught me a few things. For example:

Again in Milan, my son and I were walking out of a market stall by the Duomo and a rather tall fellow walked up and offered to give Liam a free bracelet. I put my hand out to gesture no and before I knew it he had tied a bracelet on my wrist and was cutting off the extra string with a pair of nail clippers. Once he had done so, he then asked for a "donation" for his starving family in Africa. Liam, bless his soul, wanted to help out and pulled out his change purse which was full of coins, (low denominations) and the guy told him that he would take the whole thing. I handed the fellow a few coins from my pocket and told my son to put his money away. I learned that from that point I would just say no, and keep my hands at my sides. By the way, I still have the bracelet.

Once, while I was in Napoli, I was leaving the Circumvesuviana, a train that has stops around the volcano Mt. Vesuvius, and entering the train station at Napoli. I went to pull out my ticket for entrance into the statione and discovered, when I put my hand in my back pocket to get the ticket, that there was already a hand in there. I was surprised because I didn't feel a thing, and I thought I was savvy enough to be aware of being pick pocketed. The person on the other end of the hand pulled it out of my pocket and walked quickly away.

At a train station in Rome, one enterprising fellow grabbed one of our suitcases and started running. He yelled back at me to follow him and that he would find us a place for my family to sit on the train. I am a big fellow. I was wearing a backpack and I was more concerned about our belongings than any innocent people I might have barreled into while trying to keep up with said belongings. My wife and son did their best and managed to keep up with us and apologize to everyone in my wake. True to his word, the man with our bags did find us a berth on the train. The people who now found themselves sharing said berth were less than happy, but after some polite banter and a fast paced game of scopa, we won our place in their hearts and had an enjoyable trip. What about the guy who found us this place on the train? He demanded several hundred euros for the service, but walked away with only ten, which I still felt was too much for a service that was not requested, nor required.

Travelling is, in my opinion one of the best experiences that a family, or couple, or an individual can have. You meet new people, experience different foods, music, and cultures, and you walk away with memories that make wonderful stories.

'Tis the season to... muse.

It's less than two weeks until Christmas, and I am slightly bemused at how many people are surprised that it is less than two weeks until Christmas. I remember how, when I was much younger, the build up to christmas was often more exciting than the actual event. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the opening of presents and the eating of food, but once it was all done, well... it was all done. I always seemed to feel a sense of bathos, (an abrupt, unintended transition in style from the exalted to the commonplace), which usually began on Boxing day and lasted until sometime within the first few weeks of the new year. The older I got, the more I became consciously aware of this feeling. I still feel it. However, since I am now firmly enmeshed in the world of adults, which is distinguished by the need to earn a living and be responsible, the feeling is less intense, and far more brief.

I guess, upon reflection, it is understandable why people are surprised when Christmas arrives. Even though the season is festive and music, food, clothing, etc tend to be centered on the holidays, there are a few mitigating factors for the lack of awareness that leads to the biggest holiday surprise of them all, that Christmas has come and gone. First, since life continues whether or not there are holidays, said life must be maintained, which means work and responsiblities are major claiments on our attention. Second, I don't know about you, but I have never been able to nail down an actual date as to when the holidays actually begin. It seems that the tired old statement that the holidays seem to start earlier every year may have a modicum of truth to it. This is important to our discussion in that since the holiday festivities all start far before the actual day, we become inured to the Christmas spirit in the same way that we form calluses. We begin to become desensitized to the Christmas spirit and all that it represents, and it often becomes a burden to be endured instead of a joy to be experienced.

I don't want to sound like I am one of those who have left Christmas behind with their childhood; far from it. In fact, on some visceral level, I still believe in Santa Clause. I love hearing my children talk about Christmas, and Santa, and the birth of Christ, and what they want as well as what they want to give, etc. I love the carols, and the colours of the season. I love it that for even a brief amount of time, people are more aware of others. Although this awareness should encompass a global democratic, rather than just local ones, and it should span the whole year instead of a few weeks, the fact that it is there at all is, in its own way, a miracle.

Day 4, A Thursday

Today is the last day of school and I am here providing crowd control and not much else. A few of the kids are talking about the year just ending and the year to come in September. I started thinking... it seems to me that we spend our cognitive lives in the past and the future, but very rarely in the present. Is it because the now is so fleeting? The past will always be there, whether we remember it or not, and the future, although not guaranteed, is waiting for us to catch up with it. I guess what I am saying is that we seem to plan for the future, and relive the past, but we do these things in the present.

I was reading this blog entry to another teacher and a student who was listening yelled out, "Who would read that?" It's a good question.

Working with kids has been great for my perspective. I feel that I have gained a somewhat clearer view on what really matters. I often hear people say to me, "How can you teach? I could never do it." My response, if only to myself, is... how could I not.

Day 3, A Wednesday

I'm out at one of the schools that I sub for; there are only two days left in the school year. I sometimes watch these kids and I sit in awe. For example, I just saw one kid trade an ipod for a keychain. Needless to say, I had a few questions: Is the ipod stolen? Is it broken? Why would you trade an 80 gig ipod for a keychain? The answers were: no and no and it's a really cool keychain. Today's journey is starting out very interestingly.