When does zero begin?

Rowan: "Dad, when does zero begin?

Me: "What do you mean?"

Rowan: "Like... when does zero begin?"

Me: "You need to use other words."

Rowan: "Um, when does zero begin when a baby is born?"

Me: "Aha. OK, great question. When do you think?"

Rowan: "When they come out of Momma."

Me: "OK, what are they before they come out?"

Rowan: "Well, maybe zero is when they're inside and they're this big." (Holds hands out measuring the size of a large bass.)

Me: "OK, what are they before that?"

Rowan: "Well, maybe it's when they're thisss tiny." (Presses tips of fingers together as if holding a speck of dust."

Me: "OK, what are they before that?"

Rowan: "Dad, have you ever been in jail?"

Mary, Joseph & Jennifer

Rowan: "I'm going to be in a play at school?"

Me: "Oh, what's it about?"

Rowan: "It's about donkeys, sheep, what was the girl beside me? She was a goat, I think. And there are three angels. And there's a guy named Joseph. I think he is the baby. No, I think Jennifer is the baby.

Me: "Is that the one in the manger?

Rowan: "Oh, yeah. Jesus is the baby. And there's a girl named Jaylin. She was Mary, I think. Simone was an angel. Ruun was an angel. And Graydin is the last Angel. Max was one of the people petting the goats."

Me: "Was he a shepherd?" 

Rowan: "Oh yeah. Max was a shepherd. Angels don't pet goats."

Me: "Who do you play?"

Rowan: "I was a donkey yesterday. But it changes every day. I think I'm Jennifer today. But I want to be Mary."

Grace Full

The rhythm of the day. Each day we live is a song, with cadence and pace, a beat, a feeling, a tone, a natural rhythm, breathing, we can ride this wave, we can navigate with the beat, sensing it, hearing it, feeling it, and going with it, riding it. And yet so often, we kill it. We play white noise over our song, rushing through our day, madly eating, yelling at the kids to move, move, covering over the beat, can't hear it, muffled, we stumble through unaware the song that runs in the background, the song that guides us, directs us, inspires, points us like a compass. Like we're behind sound booth glass unable to hear it, and so we ram ourselves through our days, as if a Hummer making its own path through pristine wilderness, like when two songs play at the same time, a jumbled mix of beats and vocals, can't distinguish my own.  And yet, when I stop, and listen. Really listen, it rises up, as cream separates, and I begin to hear it, faintly, then bits, and more, a rhythm, sometimes fast, super fast, and then slow, really slow, stopped, pause, space, repeating, and I breathe, repeating, and instruments fill the space, and I follow them and then a voice, a voice that pulls and lulls, opens up, awakens, connects, and it is my voice, I have found it.

Backyard Revolution

What if we were to rip up our perfect lawns and plant food. Lots of food, different kinds, food we could eat right out of our own backyards. Grown intensively in small spaces, peas up fences, beans on trellises, tomatoes -- large and small -- red and orange, eggplant, potatoes, kale, and the list goes on. What if we were to make it a priority to grow stuff, to get help to figure it out, to dig, prepare beds, make compost, plant seeds. Imagine what our kids would learn, what we would learn -- connected with our own food, where it comes from, the smells, textures, getting dirty. From backyard to plate, how beautiful is that? And possible. And what would happen if we got our neighbours on board, and their neighbours, and the whole block was growing food, different things, and sharing it, and talking to each other, connecting, and building relationships and community, and we had a whole city block of connected backyards growing and talking. Bridging the neighbour gap. And imagine then if all the front yards started growing food, and there was a revolution of perfect lawns to garden beds. And then another city block. And another. And then public parks and spaces. And the city becomes alive with growing delicious food and inspired people. How cool would that be?

Umwelt actually

ac·tu·al·ly  (kch--l) adv.

1. In fact; in reality: That tree is actually a fir, not a pine.

2. Used to express wonder, surprise, or incredulity: I actually won the lottery!

What if I really actually did what I say I'm going to do? What might happen... Actually following through on telling my Dad I love him. Actually calling up my nephew to ask how his hockey game was. Actually doing the uncomfortable thing that pokes me, challenges me, confronts. Actually living as if my life depended on it. As if I'm going to die. And really going out there. Going out on a limb. Trying stuff. Getting down on the floor to play with my kids. Taking every moment as a goldmine. Sifting through each second as gravel in a river bed, sifting, shaking time, and being with the people in my life, really seeing them, for who they are. Sifting through the stories, and gossip, the landfill filters I experience the world through.

There is a biologist named Jacob von Uexkull who used the term umwelt to describe the world around a living thing as that creature experiences it. For many years (until very recently actually), I thought the word for the chess piece "pawn" was "pond". And I lived in that reality as if it were true, and every conversation I had about chess would re-confirm my reality, as I would hear "pond", and would say "pond". No one corrected me, I imagine, because they heard me say "pawn", as it matched their reality. (Or they were just being kind.) And then there was this moment when I learned that pond was pawn, and everything shifted, like a whole new reality. The brilliance of the word "umwelt" is that it captures how we experience the world in all the ways that we do, seeing, hearing, smelling, all the senses, and all the ways we take in the world and shape it to make it real.

Another time when I was up in front of a class, and the teacher reflected back his experience of me. I had mentally left the room. "Mike, you've gone away. You aren't here right now." And I had gone away, in my mind. I was physically standing there, but had left the building. I was just a shell, smiling. I'd disappeared, quite conveniently, really, when threatened, mentally leaving seems quite a comfortable option. Then I don't really have to engage, interact, deal with what's there. The interesting part was that I thought everybody did that. I thought everyone experienced the world that way, and that there was no other way, no other reality. That was it. Until I came back. I returned in that moment, and experienced a different way of being. A different reality. And I was there. Present. Engaged. Alive. And then I had choice. To show up or not.

We now know that there is not one space and one time only, but that there are as many spaces and times as there are subjects, as each subject is contained by its own environment which possesses its own space and time. 

--Jacob von Uexkull

Theoretical Biology

The View from the Oak

Uncle John's Enchanted Toilet Bathroom Reader

"I'm sorry I spread poo all over the bed, and that I stuffed the book into the toilet, and made the pile of stuff in the corner of my room," said Rowan, out of the blue, in the car, three weeks after.

~

Mary-Kate and I had stepped out of the house for a short meeting. Left the girls to play and be looked after by three friends. We were on the front porch for about forty-five minutes, came back in the house, and a chorus of screaming welcomed us. All three kids, crying, screaming, whaling, and then one of our friends says,

"That's a parent's job."

OK. That would be me. I go upstairs to find a potty in the middle of the girls' bed, and the target has been missed. And then spread around. God knows how this happened. I'm in some kind of twisted family CSI episode, looking for clues. And then I turn to see the toilet overflowing, rush over to plunge, and see little ripped bits of pages flowing over the edge of the seat. Rowan! Any idea what's happening here? Why the toilet is overflowing?

"Oh, we stuffed a book into it."

OK. So I roll up my sleeves and reach down through the floating bits of pages and the other chunks, and I find paper jammed hard, and not breaking down. So I begin to pull them out, bit by bit, little pieces of text, all the while trying to figure out what book this is, and why. Why? How did this happen? Row? 

"Well, we just didn't like that book."

OK. Pause. Breathe. Flush. And the literary waterfall re-gushes. So I reach down further, as far as I can reach, and there is still more book chunks. And still it is clogged. So I get out the special plumbing auger snake, and twist it in there, and keep pulling out more and more text, from deep down. It really travelled, this book. OK, the last bit. Finally it's free. I'm free.

~

"That's OK Row. Thank you for apologizing. What do you think is going on during those times?" I say.

"I just have a lot of energy," she says.

OK. What to say as parent. Where is the learning here? Is there any way into anything rational here? Is there any kind of "catch and re-direct" button on a five year-old? Any way to pause, and step back.

"Do you think there are any other ways to spend that energy?"

"I could jump on the trampoline. I could skip in the skipping rope. I could run around the kitchen island."

"All great ideas Row. All great ideas."

"Any chance you could notice when you have a lot of energy. Maybe let us know, so we can help you do some jumping and running?"

"Yes, Poppa. Can I have a freezie now?"

The Scattered God

I drive by casinos and snicker at the number of cars in the lot. I am aghast at the flagrant disregard for life. Gamblers. Poor, poor gamblers. Stuck in there pulling down on the arm of that machine. Pulling. Hoping. Dozens of cars. In the afternoon. On a Monday. Where do these people get the money to pour into the machine. These people. As if I am different. I am enlightened. Above. Beyond the low desperation of the Depends-clad die-hard slot-machine addict. I would never stoop to that world. Pulling. Spin. Pulling. Coins. Spin. Bing. Bing. Lights. Pulling. Spin. For the promise of winning. The hope of victory. Of fixing all my problems. Saving myself. If I only had a million dollars. I would be out of this rat race. This hamster wheel. Always trying to survive. To stay alive. To keep afloat. On top. Treading water. Making money. Spending. Making. Spending. Those people. Who are they? Those people with flashing lights, and the bing, bing of a cell phone text comes in. And my body tingles with excitement. Have I won? What juicy lemons have lined up for me. And it’s not even my phone. But I salivate for my own email. Just to check. Maybe I have one. A message. A golden message. And I crave checking. If only I could see. Just one email. Just check it. Just one text. Just give me one. It could be Important. Relevant. Spin. Pulling. Coins. Pulling. Bing. Bing. For the promise of winning. The hope of victory. Of fixing… and so I am those people. I am that car in the lot. I am a Depends-clad die-hard email addict. And I am not.

There is a program for writers called Q10 that blacks out your screen, provides green type-writer font, and a rectangular, blinking cursor from the first Commodore 64. Nothing else. No distractions. No checking email in the middle of writing. No looking at Facebook while I think of the next thing. No background screen image to wander into while I wait for inspiration. Just a bright green blinking cursor. And the tick tick tick of the keyboard. Back to writing on a typewriter, rolling the page back with white-out to fix a mistake. Just the ideas. The flow. The writing. We are trained to distract. To look for the next thing. To check the text. We are conditioned to follow the monkey mind. To worship it as a kind of scattered God. The scattered God. The mind as God. Distraction as our Church of Worship. We sit at the Sacred Alter of Multi-Tasking and feel productive. Feeding the scattered addict. Over and over and over again. We spend our days as if our head is us. We are our heads. And stopping is sacrilegious. Breathing is blasphemous.

Why do they make wars?

Rowan: "Poppa, why do the make wars?"

Poppa: (pause) "That's a great question Row."

Rowan: "I don't like wars because people get killed."

Poppa: (pause) "Yes."

Rowan: "Why do they do that?"

Poppa: "You know when you and Khona want the same hippo stuffy."

Rowan: "Yess."

Poppa: "That's why."

Rowan: "What are other reasons?"

Poppa: "Well, sometimes, people fight over bigger things, like houses."

Rowan: "Can't they just get married?"

Poppa: (pause) "Yes."

Rowan: "What else?"

Poppa: "Sometimes, it's over bigger things like rivers or lakes."

Rowan: "Can't they just get in the same boat, and get along?"

Poppa: (pause) "Yes."

Rowan: "There are other ways to do it then wars. Right Poppa?"

Poppa: "Yes, Row. Yes there are."

What is School for Poppa?

Rowan started Kindergarten last week.

"That was super fun Dad," she said after her first day. "I loved playing with all the kids."

As I was walking her to the doors this morning, she looked up at me and said, "What is School for Poppa?"

(Pause) "What a great question," I replied. And then I did what any great parent does who doesn't know the answer.

"What do you think?"

"I don't know," she says. "I can't figure that out."

"Well," I said, "maybe you could find out the answer today at school. Try asking your teacher."

When I picked her up this afternoon, and we went for a little hike on the way home, I checked in if she'd remembered the question.

"Yes Dad. Why do we go to school? That's the question."

"Great. And what did you find out?"

"Nothing." she says.

"Did you ask your teacher?" I say.

"Oh yes. She doesn't know." (Pause)
Rowan looks up at me. "She REALLY doesn't know Dad. Really."

"Well, what do you think?" I said.

"I think we should stop talking about this and look for frogs."

Nail polish & Santa's Village

I like putting numbers in boxes. I love doing taxes. And reading instruction manuals at bed-time. In grade 11, I spent many of my Saturdays hand painting one inch tiles on a pop art piece I was doing for class. It grounded me. Gave me a sense of control. Order. And it was these skills that landed me the job of painting Mary-Kate's toe nails before the wedding near Santa's Village. A Muskoka wedding, up north. With three kids, a wedding up north demands some creative childcare solutions. And you can only leave the kids in a McDonald's playland for so long. So, despite Rowan's vote to stay in a motel and watch movies all day, Mary-Kate found Santa's Village on the map, just around the corner from the wedding. "Santa's Village?" I said, "In the summer?" "It's only open in the summer," said Mary-Kate. And so begins the adventure. Santa's Village is the perfect film setting for a CSI episode, or the Mentalist: elves and reindeer walking around, Santa's hat the frame for all signs. Mrs. Claus has a bakery of course, and all the rides are Santa themed -- reindeer leading the roller coaster, Santa's toy-shop bouncy castle. We even saw Santa one day walking by. "You didn't stop and look both ways young lady." Santa just told Mary-Kate that she didn't cross the train tracks safely. That was the only interaction we had with Santa. It was the end of the day. He was tired. The best part of Santa's Village is Ricky. Ricky looks a lot like Santa Claus, but has been miscast as the driver of Santa's River Boat. This boat is like a jet ski for 50 people. And Ricky has been driving it 20 times a day every summer for 30 years. 30 years! Every day! Ricky loves his job, and man, does he do it well. Playing Chipmunks, and The Chicken Dance up and down the Muskoka River. "How's the fishing!!!?" he yells to some local cottagers. They smile and look away. Ricky drives a school bus in the winter. "Half way through the school year, I really miss this boat."

Now, Santa's Village also has a campground across the road where we had set up our tents. A large white pine trailer park for dedicated Santa's Village repeat elves. It was in this dusty campsite where I was very carefully painting Mary-Kate's toes with neon orange-red nail polish. Oh, girls, you've got to get a picture of this. So Rowan & Sikhona smash open the camera case, and each put a camera around their necks. Sikhona figures out how to press the silver button to take a picture. And just starts taking them. On motor-drive, she's taking pictures, close-ups really, of various things, wrists, sky, trees, ground, oh, we're in that one. I'm carefully painting. Staying within the lines, trying to layer the polish not too thick, avoiding streaks. Rowan has the other camera right up close. Nails, painted. Hands, knees, other body parts. "You might want to back up a little girls. Get a wide shot. The whole scene. And poof! A cloud of wood ash billows up around Sikhona as she falls backward into the fire pit, holding the camera, looking just fine really. Picks herself up, dusts off, and keeps pressing that silver button. I finally finish my work of art. We send the girls off to Santa's Village with Megan and all our towels, and Mary-Kate and I get our wedding digs on in the campground washrooms. Open-style I would call them. The women's washroom is closed for cleaning, so Mary-Kate just bursts in anyway, and says to the man, "I'm going to a wedding. I have to get ready. Just keep doing whatever you're doing." He leaves. She sets all her stuff up in one stall, and then discovers there's no hot water, so she jumps from stall to stall trying to shave her legs. I have no soap, so I keep leaving my shower with a t-shirt wrapped around my waist to pump soap from the sinks. The doors are wide open, and I do my best not to moon the kids across the road on Santa's reindeer. We do make it to the wedding with no evidence of our roles as extras on a CSI episode, other then Mary-Kate's beautiful Santa red toes.