Axe The Kindness

The month of December is to be a month of doing for others. Going the extra mile for the smile of another. It is only the 1st of the month and my spirit of goodness has already been snuffed out.

Going for groceries today I had felt the spirit of giving. As always I left the grocery store, and went to put my cart back to recieve my looney refund. Something stop me and I thought, How many times I had no looney for the cart and was frustrated by the need for one, often having to dig through pockets and seats just to dig up enough change
for a damn grocery cart. I'm sure others have been there, so I pushed my cart to the side, leaving the looney within it, as a free cart for the poor soul like myself, who forgot their looney.
A lady passed by, as I began to walk away towards the van. She informed me to put my cart back to get my looney, as I seemed to have fogotten.
I didn't forget I informed her, it is December and that is my good deed for the day. I LEFT IT THERE SO SOMEONE MAY HAVE A FREE CART TODAY, as there is many a day I have no change myself.
The lady looked at me puzzled for a moment, walked up to my cart, plugged it in to the rest and placed the looney in her pocket and walked away.
I was pissed....I stood there in shock for a moment. Though my anger over took me and there I was yelling in a crowded parking lot. Merry F------ Christmas to you too lady. Looney thief, looney thief I yelled pointing at her.
She jumped into her new shiney SUV and drove off giving me a dirty look.
So I stood there, people passing me by, thinking I'm a looney, little realizing how society as crumbled my Christmas spirit to ashes, leaving me feeling very disturbed.

Later this evening at skating, I bought a coffee and told the clerk about the looney thief. I told her how I wished a chain reaction to the gift of kindness would spill over to the masses and with that I said, wouldn't it be great if all shoppers just for one day left their looney in the cart for the other guy.
She looked at me puzzled and said, ya just think how much money you could make that day if you plugged them all in!
Agghh.......
I turned and left, before, once again I found my self yelling looney thief, looney thief, Merry F------ Christmas to you too you greedy cow.

And that was that. How was your day?

Hockey A New Appreciation

Although I am Canadain and grew up watching Hockey Night in Canada with my Dad on Saturday nights, I was still left with a limited appreciation for what the sport was about.

This year I took up a new hobbie, for the thrill of doing something different, and the great exersise it provided I joined the local ladies hockey team.

I am a skater, though I grew up on figure skates, not hockey skates.
I played indoor hockey in school and could manage a stick and puck okay, so how hard would it be I thought.

Well there is alot more to hockey, then I had realized. I needed full gear to play so my girlfriend and I went shopping. So I though a few bucks for a helmet, some skates and knee pads. Big woop.

Well, lets see. I needed a cup for my crotch, a garder belt, (never owned one before hockey), knee pads, elbow pads, neck guard, shoulder pads, pants that include tailbone pad, kidney guards, chest gear, socks to hold the knee pads, three fingered gloves, helmet with face shield, a jersey, skates, tape, water bottle and a hockey stick. After about an hour, I was completely dressed, sweat pouring off me and thirty pounds heavier.

So off to the game, now I truly understand the need for dressing rooms. As with all your padding you must play in your underwear as not to die from heat exhaustion.
Another realization, hockey skates require a certain amount of skill
to wear, keep you knees bent, and what ever you do don't try to stand up completely straight, as you fall flat on your ass. Thank God for the tailbone protection.

Now skating in thirty pounds of gear is one tough job, but try holding a stick with gloves that are two inches thick with only three fingers. Ya, now you see the difficulty here.

Why do players tape the top of their sticks with big knobs....because when you drop your stick you can not pick it up with those big stupid gloves. So I taped the end of my stick the size of New Mexico ! No problem now, can even play hockey with it upside down.

Why do players spray water from their water bottle all over their face, instead of drinking like normal people. First it's a great way to cool down, cause your so damn hot, even in your underwear. Second the face shield on those helmets have no watering hole...so spray and hope to god you have good aim, or you'll get deyhdrated and die.

Hip checking, the term used for something really heavy because of too much padding whom can't see well, on slippery blades going way to fast and can't stop. This is the best way to stop by running into another well padded individual.

As for the game itself, well the skill in hockey is skating in all that gear. The stick is truly only there to help with balance, and used as a cane when you leave because you can barely walk, as your calves are way too sore.
The puck is just there to make it more difficult, as you can't skate when it's under foot.

All in All, I am truly enjoying the sport. And would like to say it is the most difficult of all sports played. As I'd like to see a soccor player run in thirty extra pounds of padding and two inched of foam added to his soccor cleats with only three toes, and a giant cage wrapped around his head. Now that would be amazing!

PANDORA’S BOX (a true encounter)

I was only eighteen, still seeing the world far smaller that what it was. My life was simple or so it seemed. Doing homework, dating and hanging out with friends kept life easy and comfortable. Though it was my dreams that bought about chaos and confusion.
Dreams about people I hardly knew, or places I never been.

In my grade ten year, I attended a mechanic’s class and there I met a young man named Carl. He was new to school that year, and was living with his grandparents for the semester. His mother lived in the city, and due to her trouble with drugs and hardship he had ran away to live with his grandparents. He was a handsome boy, but quiet and withdrawn. We became friends for a short time, but before the semester was completed he moved back to the city with his mother. During his stay at his grandparents farm he had made mention of them fighting an awful lot, and he was concerned he was a part of the conflicts that arose.

Soon after he left, life went on and I hardly ever thought of him after that.
Untill one night deep in my dreams two years later.

I dreamnt of him, in a home I had never been. I could see him very clearly asking question upon question to his mother. I could see his mother in my dream, a women I had never met and knew very little about. She was frail, but younger, almost too young for a boy of his age, her hair long and blond with deep burdened eyes. As my dream played out the grandparents appeared in their younger years raising a family of four girls. Carl had told me that his grandfather was a step grandparent, as his grandmother had separated from her husband when the girls were teenagers, and remarried. The dream played out in the night and by the wee hours of the morning I awoke to a terrible tale.

In the morning I gathered my thought and wrote them down like many dreams I had experienced. And as I wrote the pieces fall together and tale unfolded, the hair on the back of my neck stood tall.

Carl had revealed to me that he never knew his father, and although often questioning, people seemed not to know or refuses him an answer. My dream had played the life of his mother, his grandparents and him and a terrible secret.

In my dream, Carls mom was about 14 when he mother remarried. Shortly there after she became pregnant and moved out on her own. She lost contact with her mother and stepfather, and after Carl was born, her live spiraled down into one of drugs and hardship.
For years the family remained distant, though social services would sometimes interveen and Carl was sent to live with his granparents for short periods of time.
As Carl became older, he would visit his grandparents farm on his own. Though it seemed if he stayed for too long conflict arose, especially times when his mother was brought into the conversation.


You see, his step grandfather was his father. The only two that knew this was his mother, and stepfather. So as the visits increased, the tension of reality became to dreadfully close to the surface and Carl was sent packing.

In my realization of this through my dream and the lives it affected I sobbed. I felt as though a burden of others had been given to me, and now the years of anger and deceit placed in my hands. I could wash my hands of it and forget it, or could I.

The next day was Friday, I went to school and tried to distract my mind. I had not seen Carl in two years, so this could easily be put behind me. Or could it.

That evening my girlfriend called, she wanted to go out to the bar for a few drinks and dancing. I was tired from my week but felt a need to go, that their was a deeper purpose to the evening.

In dim lights off the bar, the dream was all but forgotten, we danced and visited, and soon I felt a tap on my shoulder. When I looked to see who it was, I gasped ad their stood Carl.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him almost annoyed.

“I came up for a visit, as it has been a long time,” he said.
“ I also need to talk to you in private, if you don’t mind.” he asked.

We went outside around the corner of the building, and I asked him what was new.

“This may sound crazy, he said, but I really don’t know why I am here. You see I had a dream the other night that I was here in the bar, talking to a woman, someone I had to talk to, it sounds so crazy,” he said. “Though when I got here I didn’t know who or why, and then I seen you, and then I knew it was you in my dream, I needed to talk to you?”

So Carl and I went for coffee, we talked into the night and into the early hours of the next day. I revealed my dream to him in it’s entirety, and he responded already knowingly like. He has always suspected but noone confirmed it. He was shocked at the details of my dream. Just as shocked as I was about the whole events of the night. Who wouldn’t be? For life can truly be a mystery. My dream had provided missing pieces from the puzzle, and although he felt it, it was still an unnerving reality.

I never seen Carl after that night, today many years later, I often wonder why this happened to us.
Though I did hear, through the grapevine, that his grandparents separated shortly after that night.
As well, a year following his mother was found dead face down in her dinner, as a chicken bone got lodged in her throat. As for Carl, I ran into some old friends of his, they said shortly after his mother died he got mixed up in heroine, and became a junkie living on the streets noone had seen or heard from his since. Noone even knows for sure in he is still alive.

Today I often wonder had I not gone to the bar that night would life for Carl had been different. Had I been given an evil seed of destructions of so many lives and sowed it unknowingly. Today, I am much more cautious of my dreams, and although I am revealed many secrets in the sleeping state of my mind, I go there not. Would you?

To other Carls, that may dream they need to speak to me, I hold my dreams, as it is too tragic to open PANDORA”S BOX.

A Great Read

"Hey Nostradamus" by Douglas Coupland

I recieved this book from a friend not long ago. I skimmed through it once already, blown away at it's hidden intent. From religious dogma, to the complexities of human nature, it covers a large range of thought provoking perspectives. Then tonight I picked it up again, feeling the book had more to offer that I had overlooked.
The hair on my neck stands up, at the thought of someone buying me a book that is a reflection of my inner conflicts.
Perhaps I than realized that the world is far to small, we all think, and assume our thoughts our unique of ourselves but in truth much of our programming is innate in all of us. We dwell on the same field of complexities.

"You never said much around the house, but you were a formidable opponent. I could see in your eyes , your were competition. Children are cruel in their ability to instantly identify a fraud, and that especially, was your gift and curse. I was so insecure about my beliefs that I feared being exposed by my own child."

The author writes from many different perspectives, from a young man, woman, from a parent or caregiver. He has mastered not so much his writting skills, but his deepth of understanding human nature.
Although the book is fictional, it is of it's self, a form of healing. Truly enjoyed and highly recommended.

If you are in spiritual limbo, please read, may it help "AWAKEN" you.

Thoughts From The Journal

People live life only standing by the fire. Nobody ever jumps in. Sure we like the comfort of the heat it lets off, the flicker of the flame. Though without the blister of a burn how can we say we lived life to the fullest as we just been sitting around the damn thing admiring it.

People frustrate me for there inability to be honest with themselves. They go through life tormenting themselves in accordance with the social norms. Fitting their life within the hidden guidelines and expectations of others around them. I hate the dependency we have on others to give us reflection and feed back on who we are and what we are to become.

People are so alone.... going though life only to graze the sleeves of others. Yet all of us urning for more, to be understood, to be loved and accepted for all we are.

I wish, that when we die, that we may be free from all the physical and social barriers that wedge between us. That we may be free spirits, souls without fear to somehow connect by only the desire and need to do so.

I feel that our lives somehow have purpose for us, some reasoning between all we can't understand. Like somehow we are connected beyond the pain and the hurt that affects our reality.