Retirement/Recycling/ Re-purposing

I think this is going to be an ongoing conversation in much the same way as my hitchhiking in the summer or my occasional comments as to weaving and spinning sometimes sprout a series of monologues within these pages.

I am no longer an employee of anything. While I have some administrative bits and pieces to do next Monday and Tuesday, yesterday was my last day of contact with students. I will miss them. I will miss teaching them, spending time reading and looking for new sources to share. Most of all, I will  miss being challenged by them. Surprisingly, I think I will also miss the performing. Teaching, if nothing else, surely is performance, a play that gets constantly re-written. It has been a great few years. Fleming is a nice place to work, there have always been enough students to keep me hopeful for the future and the money has been great.

When I was at George Brown College 44 years ago, I thought that one day I would like to teach at a college, but I knew that I would need to work for a very, very long time to become anywhere near as knowledgeable as my instructors were. While I applied a couple of times for part time jobs, and in fact did teach one summer college course during the Rae Days, I never really thought that I would get to teach on a regular basis. It wasn't a failed dream - just one that I had lost sight off.  I am grateful that I had the opportunity to teach 12 semesters at the end of my career when I might have had, on the good days, something useful to teach the students about my profession.

But it is time to move on. It is not that I am tired of teaching (people should leave a job well before they get close to not liking it), it is just that I have other stuff to do. I turned 65 last May and there is just too much that I want to do. Work was getting in the way. I was starting to resent not the job or the students but the time that it took away from my playing with wool and from visiting with my grand kids.  

In the past few years I have had to rush back from the west to be here at the beginning of the semester which at Christmas time meant I was only out west for six days. I seldom got to see my grand kids in Sudbury compete at school sports and never perform at a concert. Having more time to travel and more flexibility when I travel will be great. I may not visit any more often - but it might be at better times.

A number of years ago I wrote a detective novel. Not the world's greatest story but it was fun to do and folks who read it said it was interesting. I sent to a number of publishers, at least two of whom said that it was worth submitting but just not to them. I want to edit it a bit and then get it published on-line. I won't make any money at it - but hopefully some more people will read it. I have a couple of other stories that have been brewing in the back of my head for years. In one case it is just one sentence - but I think I may want to play with it for a few hours here and there.

So much to think about, so much to do....................

13 days and counting

It is just December 12th and I am already hating Christmas. The stores are draped with cheap tinsel and their PA systems ooze the syrupy pap of bad Christmas music. I am not sure if I can last another 13 days without screaming. There are times when I sympathize with my fellow non-Christian Canadians and their very occasional wishes that the Christmas celebrations were less invasive into their lives. While I can perhaps tolerate the Wal-marts, Targets and even Canadian Tire Stores (only because I never go to any of them) needing to dress up their stores to entice shoppers to buy items that are not needed, I am not as sure as to why Shopper's Drugs (a place I seem to be at far too often getting prescriptions) or the grocery store need to inflict upon me their pseudo pagan rituals. Can you tell that I am not happy with the season?

Last week CBC ran, on its news service a brief article as to "5 reasons to cut your own Christmas tree". One of the reasons had to do with spending more time with one’s family. It seems bizarre to live in a world where we use yearly celebrations to find reasons to spend time with family - as if the fact that they are family is insufficient reason within itself. We shouldn't need excuses to be with our kids or grandkids - we should do it because of that special connection we share. In fact I suspect that the additional pressure to visit family and friends, to try to re-establish those connections that have weaken over the preceding months is exhausting and perhaps even non-productive. While we all have friends for whom seeing once in a long while, with the occasional contact through social media, is sufficient, it is not for family. We need to create a world that in spite of the complexities of our personal and collective lives - we make time for those who are important. No that is wrong - we should not just make time for those people - they need to be our priority. All of the research that I have read and done with seniors suggests very clearly that the more social connections that we maintain with people who are important - the longer, healthier and happier our lives will be.

Perhaps we need to figure out how everyone (including those who work in stores), not just teachers get more time off at Christmas so that it is less hectic for all.

It may be because I am going through another career change that hopefully will allow me to spend more time with my kids and grandkids - but I think I have always been aware of the need to stay connected with those people. Forget about the presents, and the tinsel, the sappy music and the repeated again and again "classic" Christmas movies - just promise to visit them more often.

Remember December 6th - part 2

In the past month or so, there seems to have been more media exposure to the issue of sexual assault than usual. In fact there has been the suggestion that because of the amount of attention being paid to this topic – the “problem” is well on the way to being solved or at the very least, a corner has been turned.

What balderdash!!!!

What has been discussed in the past few weeks is the behaviour (alleged) of a handful of celebrities (Cosby, Ottawa based MPPs and Ghomeshi). While their celebrity status should never protect them from these allegations (although it all too frequently has), that same status should not be perceived as making the crime more terrible, heinous or disgusting. To do so belittles the pain that women suffer when assaulted by non – celebrities. We are not having more conversations about sexual assault - we are engaging in our seemingly favourite pastime - bashing celebrities who fall off of the pedestals we place them on. And there is a profound difference between the two conversations.

The fact is that nothing has changed. Women are still being assaulted . Society as a whole is doing precious little to stop it. Pointing our fingers at a handful of well-known individuals will do little to change peoples'  behaviour.

It has always seemed to me to be somewhat strange that while the state can spend millions and millions of dollars on anti-drinking and driving campaigns, and spend even more on the "war on   drugs", we cannot come even close to working out a national strategy to eradicate violence on women. In some parts of Canada, if a person is found to have more alcohol in their system than allowed, they can lose their car for a period of time, lose their license for a year, pay a large fine and have to take a weekend workshop to help "adjust" their attitude. If a male bashes around their partner - the most immediate consequence for the couple is that the wife (if she is lucky) has to leave the home to go live in a shelter. I am not saying that drinking and driving is not a serious concern - I am just wondering why other social problems are not seen as equally important by the law makers of this country. Perhaps even more critically - why the citizens of this country do not see it to be important.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and other similar groups managed, in a relatively few years, to  convince all levels of governments and the general public that something needed to be done. Why hasn't the same strategy been successful in dealing with the myriad of issues surrounding violence against women? Equally as important is the question as to what are we going to do about it.

While it is important that the government be held accountable for its inaction, it is far more critical that we as citizens work to prevent the violence from occurring.  And that means (men) working on ourselves.  It means talking to our males friends;  publically challenging their language or their actions that demean women; talking to our sons and grandsons about equality and living our lives as role models of what life could and should be like.

The terribleness of the events of December 6th is not just that 14 women died - it is that so little has changed since.