Shopping Tip

Tip: When buying blue jeans on sale, don’t just look at the price. Check to see if they have a zipper or those hard to close steel buttons!

Lawyerly Language

As I begin this experiment in blogging, I already realize that the writing is going to require more work than I may have expected if it is going to be put up on this website. In additon to being careful with my words (According to my children, I may not even know what is or is not politcally correct.), I will need to watch my grammar and will want to use punctuation correctly (I wish that I had payed more attention in some of those English classes – although, to give myself some credit, I can still repeat the opening words of Romeo and Juliet). I do think that what will be hard is to not write like a lawyer. It is hard to imagine a post without at least one “Whereas” or “Now Therefore” but, then again, I don’t want any readers to fall asleep.

Pleasant Synchronicity

Synchronicity – defined as the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (such as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality.

Lying in bed days before my upcoming vacation and not ready to get moving, my mind was randomly flitting from subject to subject. One moment I was planning the day ahead, the next I was reflecting upon what had transpired at the soccer committee  meeting the previous evening, then I was thinking about how thankful I was to have a good neighbour to keep an eye on my home while I am away and so on.

This blog has been on the top of my mind for several days now and so I finally settled on thinking about how it would be a good idea to blog about my good neighbour. I recalled that I have a prized book that was passed from the author, to my grandmother, to my mother and then to me. That book is called “Back-Door Neighbors”. It is a book of poetry written by Edna Jaques which was published in 1946. Edna Jaques was a Canadian poet. In the foreward to this book she is described as “What Robert Burns was to Scotland . . . Edna Jaques is to Canada . . . the voice of the people.” In that foreword it is noted that “Her poems-as says herself-are clad in print and homespun and the rough weave of common folk”.

This book is special because Edna Jaques was my grandmother’s friend and the book has been signed by her on the inside cover with the words “your old neighbor – Edna Jacques”. In another of her books, “Roses in December”, she actually dedicated a touching poem entitled ”My Neighbor” to my grandmother, Mrs. Gordon, Assiniboia, Sask. I had forgotten which of these books contained this dedicated poem. So, it was with the thoughts of blogging about my neighbour that I reached for the book entitled “Back-Door Neighbors” hoping to find some inspiration.

In the rush to create this website for my upcoming trip, I had quickly settled upon the name “Greg’s New Leaf”. I have a (well-deserved) reputation for regularly embarking on an effort (too often short-lived) to make some positive change in my life (hence version 77.3). So, it seemed appropriate to allude in the title to the idiom “turning over a new leaf”. The word leaf originally meant a folio or page and the idiom alluded to turning over a blank page and starting over – when you turn to a new, clean page you are leaving the past behind you and starting over (I can see a personal connection in this idiom both to the new, non-career, phase of my life and to this new project of writing a blog). But, I think I got lucky with the title because the word “leaf” has other allusions. Green leaves are often symbols of rebirth (I like that the thought of that possibility). In literature a reference to “yellow leaf” can be a metaphor for aging and the fall season of a person’s life (not such a pleasant thought but realistic). Apparently, the word “leaf” can also refer to marijuana (not relevant in my case – not that there’s anything wrong with it).

Getting back to synchronicity – As opened the Edna Jaques book the following fell out:

This beautiful leaf, probably once green but now yellow, had been pressed and saved by my grandmother or mother in that book. It had resided safely in this seldom-opened book for many years waiting, apparently, for me open it as I looked for inspiration for my blog. I am not sure if this qualifies as a psychic connection to Edna Jaques, my grandmother or my mother or if it is some other message encouraging me to blog. But, that leaf has now definitely connected widely-separated people and times, and left me with a warm feeling and happier than ever with the title that I chose for the website.

Ever get the feeling that you are being watched?

Elsewhere in this blog I have talked about synchronicity. I didn’t mention that, quickly glancing at my horoscope before this trip to Portugal, it said something like: “the next few weeks will be a good time to think about how you want to show up in the world”.

After the first ten days of this trip I am still waiting for a “eureka” moment filled with deep thoughts and inspiration. However, I have had the feeling that I was being watched only to see four month old Jasper staring at me. No doubt his new little brain is taking in everything as he learns his way into this world. He is learning by watching me!! So, if only for him and my other grandchildren, I do need to think about how I want to show up in the world.

A random thought – but not entirely original: https://youtu.be/2uzK3VwzraM?si=mQhnS6W_95dGJXS7