Tag: diy

thanks a lot

This weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving, a holiday that is a mixed bag of emotion for most people, particularly Indigenous folks. I won’t speak to that in great detail other than to say that I acknowledge their grievances against the Europeans that horned in on this land several hundred years ago, though I am grateful to be here, personally.

It’s also a hard time for families, and as someone who has chosen not to maintain contact with a sibling, I understand that from some people’s perspective I am part of the problem. I don’t hold it against anyone if they’re upset with me, and I hope they realize that my job as a parent and the head of my own household, is to stop the bullshit at my front door, and provide a safe environment to grow and rest. I’ve done that, and will continue to do so.

Maybe you get it.

Maybe you don’t get it – Maybe you are the ostracized one, frustrated with your family’s lack of empathy, or sympathy. Chances are pretty good that if you’re reading this, you’re ultimately doing okay, since accessing blogs takes a certain amount of privilege. Maybe you’ve had Thanksgiving dinner at the Herb Jamieson before, or perhaps you’re looking forward to a Big Mac Combo in a parking lot by yourself on this festive weekend.

I’ve done both. I promise you, it’s a temporary vocation.

One thing I can tell you is that I’m grateful for the shit-heeled experiences I’ve had – many of which I caused, some of which were done to me. I’ve been extended some of the greatest and most meaningful hospitality when my life was scraping the bottom.

I’m also grateful that I can provide this home to the people in it, and the people who visit it. I remember what it’s like to not have these things available to me. So, to the people who’ve reached out to me when I needed it more than they possibly could have known, I sincerely hope you are repaid 10x over.

And to those who I can help, I hope I do it justice.
I hope I don’t miss the opportunity.

… PS: If you can have thanksgiving without harming any animals out of some misplaced sense of tradition, or due to a social contract, please do.

receiving

I’ve recently returned from a trip with my family. My immediate family… we cast off the shackles of conventional work, boarded an international flight bound for Denver, Colorado and spent the better part of 4 days taking in a heaping helping of life affirming adventures.

The notion for the trip started with my daughter wanting to attend a concert that way coming to town that; if we’d have gone ahead with it, would have been the very first time any of us bought a ticket for a single concert that crested the $1000 mark. None of us could justify it, even that artist’s biggest fan in the house wanted to spend her hard-earned part-time paycheck on such an extravagant outing. I told her “I bet we could get on an airplane and see someone cooler for less money” and as much as I lost that bet by a country mile, we forged ahead with reckless abandon.

We bought tickets to Tyler Childers in Boulder, as all of his Canadian dates were sold out – but an open-air Saturday night concert in Boulder, right up close to the Rocky Mountains sounded like a good plan. We made ourselves a long weekend of it, stayed in a hotel I never would have gotten for myself, and threw down on thrift-store shopping, great food, concert merch, car services, $7 lattes, and at the almost-last-minute, we decided to add another concert ticket to the tab, and got to see Sierra Farrell at The Mission Ballroom while we were in Colorado as well.

I had a great trip with my gals, and my daughter is still beaming through the exhaustion from this whirlwind adventure. It was 100% worth it.

The part that I couldn’t put an earthly value on, was completely losing myself in the most life-affirming way. The type of show that would make a weaker musician give up entirely made me want to play more, write more, tour more, and push my own boundaries more than ever.

My soul was fed and nurtured by both of those incredible artists and I’ve never been more sure of what I’m supposed to be doing… and make no mistake – I was really sure before.

I was given a gift in my attendance of these shows that I won’t soon forget. I am eternally grateful.

witnessing growth

So I don’t talk about it much without being intentionally vague… BUT… I have this kid, and in her 16 years on this planet – an occasion celebrated somewhat recently – she’s done all kinds of growing up and maturing. She’s done things or the smart variety and of the dumb variety and has learned from both. Her unique worldview is something that both inspires me and causes me to stop and think, and she’s masterfully funny – the kind of funny that people are when they’ve had real life experience.

Not only has she already accomplished things I may never accomplish, and lived experiences I may never live, but she has dreams and aspirations of being something important and moving away from her hometown to see what the world has to offer her and although I’m in now hurry to shoo her out the door, I am genuinely stoked.

In the grand scheme of things, although she’s several years away form completely cutting off her dependence on me and her mother, she’s mere inches from (legal) adulthood. Other parents I talk to seem to be genuinely worried about this time for their kids – and while in a financial sense I wonder how she’s going to do what needs to get done with late-stage capitalism casting a dark shadow on all of us, I am; again, genuinely stoked.

Her small army of parents have taught her how to think analytically, and aside from the tangible actions of parenting: scraped knees, dental appointments, food & shelter, et al. – that’s the gig. Nobody’s throwing us a parade, and I know the job is far from over but while I talk to so many parents who are worried about their children growing up, all the while, longing for the bygone days of excited christmas mornings and saturday morning cartoons, I have to say I loved those days, but I don’t really miss them… because looking at the road ahead, I am; again, genuinely stoked.

I loved having a little girl at every phase of life, and as this father/daughter relationship continues to grow, I can say I love this phase that we’re in right now more and more all the time.

I am: again, genuinely stoked.

discomfort

I don’t know if it’s been a particularly trying time, or if it’s been business as usual and I’m dwelling on things that need not have that level of attention. As I take a step back, it’s business as usual, but what’s unique to this time is the vehicular challenges I’ve been facing.

My faithful Ford Ranger (read: capital R, lower-case ‘anger’) pickup truck died on me a few weeks ago, and through some combination of stubborness and mental and emotional fortitude, I have still not sought the help of any professionals in this field. It’s a problem I want to solve on my own, and I have the skills to do it, but what I lack is the time… so as my neighbors quietly judge me (maybe), I continue to try things, test things, replace things, and audibly swear. For those who care, there’s no spark, and I’m close to having tested and/or replaced the entire ignition system, so I must be close.

The insult that’s been added to that injury is that someone thought it might be a good idea to drill a hole in my gas tank and steal the ingredients. They likely made off with about $20 of my full tank, allowing an additional $75 worth to drain into a nearby manhole, and if my impending gas tank patch job doesn’t work, a $1000 part to order and install. I’d rather they’d have taken my catalytic converter, as is the Edmonton tradition. That’s a problem I can solve on my own.

So in the meantime, I’ve been driving my 1962 Ford Fairlane 500. An absolute gem of a car that I love dearly, but it is a project car, and it’s age is showing in some regards so I’d rather not be leaning on it as hard as I have been lately. It’s my love for that car that has taken time away from fixing my truck.

The icing on the cake is that my mountain bike also needs parts… it’s functional, and a lot of fun to ride, so not really a concern… but still, literally every vehicle I own is in a state of disrepair.

The lesson here is probably patience. Most lessons tend to have patience as; at very least, and undertone. Really, I’m finding that I am too busy and my life is too full to really take the time required to solve required problems. This is something I aim to remedy. My girlfriend and I are making a conscious effort to stop & smell the roses, and really enjoy the summer while it’s here. I’ve certainly earned a lovely tan while running in the early morning sun and working on my old-ass house, my old-ass car, and my truck that is getting older & older-ass as we go, here.

At any rate, if all goes well, I’ll be driving my choice of selections from this small fleet of vehicles by the time this blog entry gets posted. In the midst of it all, I still managed to write an absolute banger of a honky-tonk rock & roll song called ‘one problem at a time‘ which maybe you’ll get to hear sometime next year.

Until next time…

service and change

I; or rather, we, have recently been invited to help a family member take on a rather lofty challenge. A change in lifestyle, if I may be so vague – and as someone who has undergone a few changes in lifestyle over the years I can say with great certainty that there is always a blast-radius, and that there are ALWAYS people in the blast-radius.

Those people are often bewildered at the notion that someone might want to improve their situation and they almost always take it personally. This is because change is happening to them, even though it’s peripherally, they really don’t have a choice in the matter any more than the drinking buddies of an alcoholic in recovery would have a say in his or her recovery – though their social dynamic is changing.

These folks in the blast-radius are; in my experience, almost always operating at a lower vibration. Without putting too fine a point on it, they are the crabs in the bucket who are trying to pull someone down in order to keep that person at their level. I’ve been at the lower level, and I know what it looks and feels like. I even tried to pull people down, until one day I decided to escape the bucket myself.

So… I; or rather, we, have been called to service – and you’d be hard-pressed to find an ideology that doesn’t support the notion of helping when called.
And… straight-up: helping suuuucks. It’s ultimately thankless, hard work on the part of all supporters, with none of the glory or accolades when it goes well… so if that’s why anyone’s helping, they’re more than likely standing in the way of progress, whether they’re cheerleading or not.

This situation is no different. There are bewildered people in the blast-radius of this scene, and as hurt as they might be, I have to declare aloud that my act of service is not to them. Furthermore, I cannot take on their hurt feelings as my own. Those feelings are theirs to reckon with… and if I sugar-coat things for them, or try and soften the blow, then I do a disservice to the person who’s actually asked for help. As the old non-vegan 😦 saying goes… “If you want to make an omelet, you’ve got to crack a couple eggs.”

Did I mention this suuuucks?

Without divulging too much, I’ll also state that the folks in the blast-radius have been taking advantage of the person who’s asked for help – and I’m related to all of these people – BUT, that doesn’t change the dynamic.

You might get asked for help.
People on the periphery might get upset about it.
You cannot let them distract your from your purpose – which; in that moment, is to fulfil an act of service.

For me; or rather, us, it’s a scene that will play out over a long period of time, so I expect I’ll get more than one blog post out of it, too.

mindful action

I recently heard a comedian talk about ‘mindfulness’ and the buzz around that word in the context of being aged in a tech-forward time. He’d stated that the notion of being mindful wasn’t a thing 30 years ago because if you had to ride the bus somewhere, all you really had to entertain you was the other people on the bus or the view out the window, and if when you got where you were going – say, a movie or something – and the person you were meeting got there 20 minutes later than you, your only option was to wait.

You might have had a portable music player but they were so horribly inefficient at that time that you might get 4 hours of cassette play out of a set of batteries, and that carrying around what would eventually be a dead walkman was actually a hassle.

So you were forcibly “in the moment” more often than not.

Now, we have mass distraction whenever we want it. We have a casino, weed shop, strip club, 24-hour sports channel, and tabloid in our pockets at all times and we can constantly see what other people are doing, or even spend an incredible amount of time planning and uploading a selfie.

We have the option to never be in the moment again, as our brains can constantly be elsewhere.

This is why art is so important to me.
When I’m writing this, it’s all I’m doing.
When I’m playing guitar – for people or not – it’s all I’m doing.
When I’m running – it’s all I’m doing.

I’ve long time been a proponent of delving into a thing – running, for example – and being in that state as long as possible, connecting with nature and seeing what can happen at the edge of my capabilities, but I’m coming to understand that it’s more than that.

It’s also meditative, and present.

If I’m not present when I’m running, or riding a bike, I fall. If I’m not present when I’m performing or practicing, I give a lousy performance. I have to be focused and meditative in order to get the job done.

If I’m driving a car while looking at my phone, it’s incredibly dangerous – yet people still have massive struggles with putting the phone down and being present… and as far as I can see, it’s because they’re out of practice. Even in conversation with someone else – if we are watching my phone at the same time, we’re cheating both parties out of this experience and fellowship, and possibly even showing disrespect.

Mindfulness is a muscle that needs to be exercised, not only to keep it strong, but to prevent it from becoming week.

It might sound crazy – even after 3 years of writing this blog, but I’m 42 years old and I’m (still / again) learning how to be alone with myself.

everything is a gift

Despite my propensity to tune in on the regular, I’ve grown to loathe most aspects of social media. I can never say it’s 100% good or 100% bad because there’s a lot of observational evidence to deny both, but as I try to be less critical and judgemental of people, I’ve been finding that the majority of what I’m seeing on social media is what I’m trying to stop doing… which, as you can imagine, makes me want to judge people for judging people.

I’m at odds with it.

The voice of god put a book in my ears recently. It was “From Punk To Monk” – the memoir of Ray Cappo, singer of Youth of Today and Shelter, yogi, and Krishna devotee. I got a lot out of this book, so much so that it makes me want to try and contact the author – but one of his primary things he had a hard time letting go of as he made steps toward became a monk was his judgement of other people.

He addresses it multiple times, but none quite so succinctly as when he states that everything, including success, is a gift from Krishna. As I continue to paraphrase, we are all equal in our undeserving of the gifts Krisha gives us, but it’s through Krishna’s grace and generosity that we receive anything at all – so who are we to question the motives of Krishna if he gives more success to someone we feel is less deserving? Just because that gift was not meant for us does not mean we are of any more value… because we are all nothing, and deserve nothing.

He goes on to say that success, like beauty, expires with time and before long we’re all forgotten.

Then I look around my house and the beautiful things I’ve come to acquire in my life thanks to a good job, usable skills in multiple fields, a beautiful family and a handsome and well-behaved dog, and the means to maintain our lifestyle while having nothing beyond a highschool education – then any passing feeling of jealousy of someone else’s musical success, or luxurious vacations they might be able to afford, or cars they get to drive… all these feeling become so fucking trivial that I feel a sense of shame for feeling them, knowing I should be focused on my own purpose and my own path.

I wouldn’t say I’ve ever been one to sit and stew over someone else’s success, but I can certainly say I’ve peered over the metaphorical fence to see how proverbially green someone else’s figurative grass might be.

Like all of us, I am a work in progress. I will continue to be. But if I can be more focused and grateful for what I have and less concerned that of other people, I’ll be more fruitful. As the since-disgraced Louis C.K. said “the only reason you should ever look into someone else’s bowl is to make sure they have enough – not to see if they got more than you.”