A few things I learned from my dog

When it comes to learning, who says animals can't be just as good of a source? Macy, like others of her kind, has it right all along. When it comes to the most important things in life: keep it simple.

1. Be a good sport. Sometimes you just have to do things you may not want to do that someone else does.
2. Persevere in the face of difficulty. Getting a treat out of that Kong chewtoy can be more mind-boggling than most of our problems.
3. Always give your friends a shoulder to lean on.
4. When in doubt, sleep on it. Take more than 1 night, if you need it.
5. Life is a game of give and take. Remember to give more, and take less.
6. It's okay to be sad sometimes. Even if it's just because someone leaves you home alone for a few hours.
7. Share and share alike.
8. Let your feelings show!
9. If what you want lies buried, dig deeper. Use all your paws.
10. Don't let anyone stare you down.
11. Keep your eye on the ball. Run after it, catch it, and you'll be asking for more.
12. Stand your ground.
13. Be yourself.
14. When it's in your best interest, practice obedience.
15. Keep learning new tricks. It's the only way to grow.
16. Every day is a good day to treat yourself.
17. Always stand up for your owners. Friends. You know what I mean.
18. Question authority.
19. Exude confidence.
20. If you bite off more than you can chew, keep chewing. It will pay off in the end.
21. Patience is usually rewarded.
22. Romp daily.
23. Take time to dream.
24. Keep your eyes on the sun - you won't see the shadows.
25. Laugh. And do it often.
26. Bark softly but carry a big stick.
27. Strive to be beautiful inside.
28. Never underestimate the power of looking cute.
29. Take on new challenges. They keep you sharp.
30. Start every day with a song.
31. Practice mindfulness.
32. Remember that a bark can be bigger than a bite.
33. Don't be afraid to make new friends. Just don't sniff their bums in the process.
34. Rise to every occasion.
35. Pick your battles. Walking away is just as brave, if not more.
36. Try to catch every ball thrown your way. And when you do, do it with grace and humility.
37. If you've got something to say...speak up!!
38. Perfect a firm handshake.
39. Know thyself.
40. Let it all hang out.
41. Take time to sniff every blade of grass. Though maybe not in search of a place to pee.
42. Keep a low profile.
43. Never bite, when a growl will do.

To err is human;
To forgive,
Canine.

The Lazy Form Of

Everyone who loses somebody wants revenge on someone, or God if they can’t find anyone else.

In Africa, the Ku believe the only way to end grief is to save a life. If someone is murdered, a year of mourning is ended by a ritual called “the drowning man trial”. There is an all-night party beside a river. At dawn, the killer is put in a boat and taken out to the water and is dropped by his bound so he can’t swim. The family of the dead then has to make a choice: they can let him drown, or they can swim out and save him. The Ku believe, that if the family lets the killer drown, they’ll have justice, but spend the rest of their lives in mourning. But if they save him, if they admit that life isn’t always just, that very act can take away their sorrow.

Anger is the lazy form of grief.

I believe, that this applies to any type of grief, not only a death of a loved one, although this would be the most extreme, but any type of loss, when we feel that something that is not part of our plan, that we feel is unjust, happens to us.

I observe, that anger is the lazy form of a lot of other emotions: jealousy, insecurity, feeling loss of control, among others.

It is the first and easiest emotion for our heart and head to get to, when we are either trying to mask the real emotion, or simply afraid to look into ourselves and admit it.

Accept it.

We may not ever have to forgive, but if we truly accept that things happen and are the way they are for the best, that is when we can really move on.

Ask the Ku. Their ancestors' old tradition, protected solely by its own ignorance to the modern world, may seem primitive; but the underlying premise of its lessons, is based on nothing but conscious growth, self-awareness and evolution. They are the oldest form of insight into the human psyche, of learning how to live our lives without regrets and negativity.

25 Random Things About Me

1. My closet and dressers are organized by categories (T-Shirt, Blouse, Dress, Pants, etc.), then by sub-categories (Sleeveless, Shortsleeve, Longsleeve, etc.), then by colour from light to dark. This started when I was a child - ask my sister, I even did hers back then! Though only one of the very few things I'm anal about, this gives away that I am kind of a freak.

2. I can't live without: Books (everything from the embarassing Twilight series to Victorian novels to the newest fiction and non), Music (anything and everything, from Bach's cello concertos and Arvo Part piano pieces; mellow classic jazz and nu-jazz; indietronic and house; to mostly things in the 'Rock' family as in Classic, Folk, New Prog, Post-punk - am currently listening to Patrick Watson, Muse, Sigur Ros, Doves...the list goes on), Movies (just not any stupid Jim Carrey ones), a Camera (to capture those easily-forgotten candid moments in life), and great Food and Wine (to share with friends or with me, myself and I).

A close second would be Love, Friends, and Family - just kidding. Who needs friends?? ;-)

3. I have an incurable dislike towards all insects, reptiles, or mostly anything that is smaller than a dog and not in pretty colours like butterflies (and by 'smaller' I mean anything smaller than Macy - sorry to Chihuahua lovers out there).

4. I can't understand what is so difficult about differentiating among "their, they're, and there", or between "its and it's", "you're, and your", etc. Get it right, people!!

5. I plan big things, but always leave the details to the last minute, in my attempt to balance the organized/flying-by-seat-of-pant persona I try to portray. It drives my 'planner' friends crazy. Time to get me some new friends (just kidding!).

6. When I was little, after I was done playing with my Barbie dolls (all 20+ of them which I shared with my sis), I would put them back into their original boxes. I still have them all somewhere in my parents' storage. Saved for whom, I'm not really sure. But that kid is going to have an insane collection of dolls, complete with all their matching pairs of shoes. (see #1 - I think there might be a connection there)

7. When I was young and was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answers varied (but never different) from the following: teacher, interior designer, architect, psychiatrist. Glad to know that I have fulfilled a small aspect of each of them in my real career (respectively: train staff, creative field, numbers, and...managing people).

8. I am fascinated by psychoanalysis. I blame it on my over-active analytical mind.

9. I was caught climbing back into the classroom through a window with a few other girls in grade school, and our principal made us climb in and out of it 100 times, with her standing there counting aloud.

10. I have always wished that I had dimples. On my cheeks. The face, that is.

11. When I was in elementary school, all my report cards consistently had similar comments along the lines of "[I was] a good student, but if only [I weren't] as disruptive to other students in the class". I think the teachers mixed me up with some other kid.

12. I turn on the TV when I'm at home, just so I can have sounds in the background. I'm not sure why I wouldn't just turn on my ipod player instead - I think the human voices talking has something to do with it.

13. My favourite colour, ever since I was a child, is cobalt blue (bright blue). It is the only constant "favourite" thing I've ever had in my life, while everything else changes with time (food, drink, flower, books, shows, movies, etc.).

14. I can twist my tongue in such a weird way, it kind of freaks people out. Ask me to show you (but save the dirty comments).

15. I have an inexplicable preference of orange-coloured jelly-like sweets over all other colours (e.g. ju-jubes, gummy bears, starbursts, sour kids, ...), that I pick them all out first and eat them. I may actually throw out, or if you are lucky, give away all the other colours (unless you also like the orange ones, in which case I will have to arm-wrestle you. ps: I am tougher than I look).

16. If I read a book part-way and don't like it, I skip to the last chapter and read the end to find out whether I want to continue reading it. I have only done it a few times; nevertheless, admittedly I have. So there.

17. I wear my emotions on my sleeves. It is my downfall. But I'd like to think that it is also the cause of my thoughtfulness. Except for those times I am being blunt.

18. I am a good swimmer; but in the ocean, I develop an irrational fear of drowning whenever I am snorkeling more than 50ft away from the shores, except when I'm on a surfboard (but try snorkeling with a surfboard - it's sort of counter-productive).

19. If I could live somewhere outside of Vancouver, my choices would be New York City, San Fransisco, and London. Of course right now, not the last one - given the current global financial state.

20. I hate doing laundry so much, I actually used to buy new underwear whenever I ran out of clean ones. Now I can go on for probably 2 months without doing laundry, and not using a guy's solution to turn them inside out instead (and that's not counting the days I can technically go commando)!

21. I have about 25 different colours of Havaianas flip flops. I would purposely wear a colour that is completely different from my outfit - just so no one actually knows I probably can match it perfectly and thinks that I am a freak. (Do not even attempt to speculate/comment/question)

22. I have recently discovered a newfound relaxation place at a Korean bath house. There is something liberating about walking around being completely in the nude and enjoying the saunas with a bunch of also-nude strangers.

23. Dark hair and Blue eyes are my vice.

24. I have spent nearly a third of my life working for the same company. Sad, but true...I still haven't decided whether that's a good or a bad thing.

25. I have been in several serious relationships, and have been in love once. I mean really in love, in the I-cant-live-without-you-I-wanna-be-a-better-person-because-of-you kind of way. That was when I learned that decisions in life shouldn't always be made with the heart but also with the head; that love is not something that happens to you, but something you do; and that you can, after all, live without someone.

happiness

In my journey for the entire of the year past, through my trainwreck of a personal life barely non-existent, and without time to reflect, I tried to figure out what would make me happy. Having a job I hated, which took up 90% of my time, and caused mental, physical, and emotional anguish, I truly believed that once it was over, things would become clearer; I would be able to focus on what it really was I wanted, and I would become, once again, blissfully happy - a moment which last occurrence I cannot seem to recall. I believed that my unhappiness stemmed from something that had been a big and important part of my life for my entire adulthood.

Once the storm did finally calm, and I was able to eliminate lack of personal time as the root cause of such evil, at the tail end of the year, after a few trials and errors during the year, I found something really great. At the time, though I had this gut feeling of how much potential it could have, things were uncertain, and at the very end of it all, I learned that I couldn't have it after all. My upcoming time away, I had hoped, was going to clear my head from all of it. Perhaps it was not at all what I thought I felt; I justified the feeling as something that happened to be the first great thing I had stumbled upon after such an exhausting year.

Time away made it easy to adjust once I came back. Only two weeks have passed, and I want to give it time. But as I lay here realizing what this all means, I am finally admitting to myself, that I am not.

An Excerpt

"For the first time in my life I understood the meaning of the word never. And it's really awful. You say the word a hundred times a day but you don't really know what you are saying until you're faced with a real "never again." Ultimately you always have the illusion that you're in control of what's happening; nothing seems definitive....And I think that even a few seconds before dying, "never again" would still just be empty words. But when someone that you love dies...well, I can tell you that you really feel what it means and it really really hurts. It's like fireworks suddenly burning out in the sky and everything going black. I fell alone, and sick, my heart aches and every movement seems to require a colossal effort.

...Thinking back on it, this evening, with my heart and my stomach all like jelly, I have finally concluded, maybe that's what life is about: there's a lot of despair, but also the odd moment of beauty, where time is no longer the same. It's as if those strains of music created a sort of interlude in time, something suspended, an elsewhere that had come to us, an always within never.

Yes, that's it, an always within never.

...Because from now on, ...I'll be searching for those moments of always within never.

Beauty, in this world."

- The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Muriel Barbery)

The risk of it is

We were brought up watching the ease of romance, everlasting love, and the existence of soul mates. A few of us may have had the fortunate opportunity to be taught that it is not easy to water and nurture something, let alone get it to start growing, when the time comes. No one certainly told me how complicated it all was, when people's histories and emotional states are involved to merge into one, even if everything else seems to fit.

Fittingness: How do we know when to stop, or move forward when it comes to matters of the heart? When do you decide how far you would risk the very thing you are trying to protect and give away at the same time?

Some of us take longer than others to mend a broken heart, and we use nearly every excuse to convince ourselves, more so than anyone else, that we are simply too busy for love, that other priorities come first at this point in our lives.

I have done exactly that.

But when I really looked deeply inside, I was, just like every other human being who has ever experienced great loves and lost, scared shitless. How can we trust someone new, let alone trust ourselves that this fragile, beating being is not going to take over our emotions and mind, lose our good judgement for what seemed like a fleeting moment of bliss?

In that moment of epiphany, not one that happens overnight, I know the risk of it is.

And the answer is Trust.

I like it when

I like it when I can hear the rain fall against the roof,
on a quiet night under a warm blanket.

When things that don't make sense
solve themselves with time;
When I see people smile,
laughter overcomes fear, joy overshadows sadness.

I like it when my hand is held;
tightly,
safely,
loosely touched in times of anxiety,
or for no reason at all.

When there is a challenge in thoughts,
opinions, and situations;
simple matters and difficult circumstances.

When someone or something makes me realise
that I might be wrong,
the world may not be fair,
and that perfection is of subjective relevance.

I like it when I fit perfectly in a warm curve,
an overwhelming contentment,
feeling his breath against my hair.

When I am surprised;
continually, unexpectedly so. A sweet surrender,
to giving in.

I like it when things are not always in order;
I fall asleep on the couch, being carried to bed, a glass of water is offered in case I am thirsty.

Things unsaid are resolved,
Things broken are fixed,
Things untouched are blessed.

I like it when
I remember that life is an overzealous adventure:
that one needs to continually seek lessons within it,
to change oneself because of it;

that love is to be sought after, and accepted graciously;
that it is not easily handed over, taken for granted;
that one can never know for certain what creates it, sustains it, or destroys it and when;
that the best thing one can do is to be patient and pass it on.