We are all Rob Ford

What is it that both fascinates and disgusts? Like watching the cars in a train wreck piling on top of each other and smashing everything around the disaster, we still watch. We revel in it really. We don't say we love watching disasters. But we do. Because we're not in them. We are not them. We are not the people in the tragic news story. We are safe. No matter what complaints we have, they pale in comparison to that catastrophe on TV. Those poor people. How awful. And thank God. We are dry, in tact, alive. We are separate.

And yet are we? Are we really any different?

Catching the next Rob Ford story. It's fascinating, exciting, embarrassing, unpredictable. Like a child. The temper tantrums are wild, inappropriate, dangerous. Like protecting someone from their own seizures. There are no adult filters. There is raw child playing the games that children play. On a bigger stage. A world stage. To survive. To get attention. To be loved. These are the ways we learned to navigate in our world. To get by. To stay alive.

When a 3 year-old lies on the floor, flails his arms, kicks his legs madly, screams and cries, we get it is appropriate to the age. It's what kids do. And yet, the games of a 3 year-old on an adult man in city hall look weird. But it's not even that they're on an adult. It's that he's a public figure. He's our public figure. He represents us. He is us. And we see us in him, and hate him for it. For so glaringly uncovering the brutal ugliness of being human. Of revealing our humanity in the drooling, stuttering, clumsiness of a lying fool. Turning our own ugliness out to the world. We don't like it because we don't look good. It's not nice. It's un-Canadian.

Zero to Six

What if we are mostly formed by the age of 6? Molten lava flows down the mountain for 6 years, and then hardens. Into who we are. And then we spend the rest of our lives doing things to compensate, to adapt, to recover from the flow. And yet it's not the stuff that happened to us. It's the meaning we make, the story we tell. As humans, this is our gift and our curse. Our brilliance and how we survive. We make meaning. Instantly. We experience something, and presto, the machine takes over. My parents fighting = I've done something wrong. It's my fault.

And if we are formed in these first 6 years, how might we raise our children in this flow of lava. How might we support their growth, water them, nurture them, hold them. Spend time with them. Or are they just babies to be diapered and spanked? And we should save our time with them until the teenage years, when they really need it. That's when they really need our attention, our love. But is this too late?

The thing about a seed that grows is that it needs care early on. It needs the right soil, the right amount of water, sunlight, love. And then it does it's thing. Reaches up towards the light. Only an acorn becomes an oak tree. In the right environment. With the right conditions.

What is it to water a baby? To hold our children. To set expectations. To draw boundaries. Define limits. Inspire joy. To spend time with them. They change so fast. Learn to walk and it's gone. Learn to speak and it's gone. And we miss it.

Non-Negotiables

I've realized recently that I have some non-negotiables. Ways of living, relating. Principles. Things I'm not willing to negotiate in my life. No matter what. Base lines. I've only recently become aware of them, fundamental ways I want to live my life, that were not within my view previously. Not in the frame. In the blind spot. #1 Non-negotiable is "being available" to my kids. Available in all ways of the word --  present, open, playing at their level, spending time together at different times in the day, not only when they're going crazy before bed. And being available to my wife. Emotionally there. Sexually there. Feeling desire. Being horny. This is not negotiable. I will not live my life in a way that I lose this, take a job that sucks this out, bleeds me dry, shuts me out. No financial security is worth losing this one thing. No consistent pay cheque. No pension. All decisions take into account the non-negotiables. Big & small. And anything that crosses the line has an easy answer. No.

Giant TV

Rowan: Poppa, I dreamed last night.

Me: Yes.

Rowan: I dreamed that a giant is watching us.

Me: OK.

Rowan: Like we're the TV, and the giant is watching.

Me: Where is the giant watching from?

Rowan: From another planet.

Me: OK.

Rowan: Like, he's sitting on the other planet, and he's watching what we do, like we're on TV.

Me: Wow. That's quite a dream.

Rowan: I dreamed it when Khona and I watched Diego on the iPad.

Me: OK?

Rowan: Like when we watched, we were like the giant.

Me: Oh.

Rowan: Like we were watching from another planet.

Me: Got it.

The Green Room

We live as if it's all going to be around forever. As if we are forever. We buy furniture we never sit on. Perfect clothes in the closet, never worn. We even bury ourselves injected with preservatives, covered in glistening wood. That will not decompose. Will not end. Not for a thousand years. So we can extend the masquerade. Keep pretending we can hold on. As if we can stop time. Freeze ourselves. To be remembered.

We're like actors in the green room waiting to go on stage. And never going. Because we forgot. We forgot there even is a stage out that door. The green room has become our stage. Just waiting comfortably. Near the costumes. But stuck in the character we were given. Thinking this is who I am. And this is my little room to keep my perfect life in order. Where mistakes are erased and failure is avoided.

Occasionally, we hear the ruckus out there, and the laughter from the crowd. But can't translate it. Because it doesn't exist. That's not for me. That's for other people. Out there.

And yet just maybe, we can find that door, and step out into our own life. Under the lights where the imperfections shine. And there is laughter. There is a lightness in the air. A sense of wonder. Of life as a child's drawing. Free and unpredictable.

The Temporary Kitchen

We have a temporary kitchen. Built with found materials. That have an expiry date. We knew it wouldn't last more than a couple of years. The counter tops made with Re-Store particle board. The walls primed white. The cupboards ripped from our old kitchen. The great thing is that things don't matter. We're not attached. We can try things with it. Experiment. It's temporary. It's the time before. Before we get our real kitchen.

Last Halloween, I saw the brilliance of the angled pumpkin top. I always wanted a compost bucket underneath our kitchen counter, so the food could just be swept in. Why not? It's a temporary kitchen. So out came the jigsaw, and there I carved a pumpkin top right out of the middle of our island counter. Slid the bucket under, and presto, my compost dream came true. Temporary. A beginning and an end. A place to try things out. Experiment.

I was standing in the kitchen the other day when I remembered.

It's all temporary.
We are temporary.
And it is real.

What if we lived that way? As if our lives were an experiment. To try things out. To get out the tools and cut through. Move things around. Change things. Change them back. Take ourselves less seriously. To bring some lightness to the significance of the permanent life. To get that we all have an expiry date. That we are all to be returned to the soil. And life is about mixing the baking soda and vinegar. Just to see what happens.