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31
Oct
2021
Sunday October 31, 2021
When did I grow old? I knew aging had to happen, but I thought it would take longer.
When I was young, the inevitability of growing old never occurred to me. I was Peter Pan; aging was never-never.
Even into my seventies, I didn’t think of myself as old. Sure, my hair developed what an internet wit called “wisdom highlights.” But I still had employable skills. My mind and my muscles still worked. I still had a future stretching ahead of me.
And then one day, I realized that things had changed.
I didn’t think of myself as old. But I couldn’t think of myself as young either.
And the future contained more of the same. Or, more likely, less of the same.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: aging, Ralph Milton, platinum years
29
Thursday October 28, 2021
I am awash in provenance.
In the art world, provenance identifies the origins of artwork. The art could be a painting, a statue, a piece of music or literature. Often, provenance enhances the value of a work of art. Mozart’s Requiem takes on special status when you know that Salieri wrote it out for a dying Mozart – at least, according to the movie Amadeus.
That’s why art galleries provide information about the artist, and about the history of that piece.
In my case, I have too much provenance. My daughter and I are the only leaves left of four family trees.
Everything funnelled down to us has a story.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: stories, Art, provenance, legacy
24
Sunday October 24, 2021
Jill Sanghvi wrote her thesis in India, for Vrije Universiteit in Brussels, Belgium.
Sanghvi recognized that most studies treated autism as a “deficit.” That is, it rendered the person less than normal. Handicapped. Victim of a disability.
The words themselves have negative connotations.
So if that’s what you’re looking for, that’s what you will find.
These studies were all by non-autistic adults. Writing ABOUT, or FOR, people with autism.
Sanghvi resolved to do something different. Young people themselves would tell their stories. And she would not ask them about the “deficits” they experienced as objects of ridicule, bullying, or pity. She would ask about their “wonderfulness.”
Tags: autism, India, Sanghvi
23
Thursday October 21, 2021
I can tell how old you are, without asking. I merely have to cite three words: “Fibber McGee’s closet.”
Did you smile? Even laugh out loud?
Then you’re probably over 80.
Fibber McGee, for those of you with blank looks on your faces, was a radio program of the 1940s and parts of the 1950s. It featured the improbably named Fibber McGee. Who put everything he didn’t know what to do with into his closet. So, naturally, every time he opened his closet door, several hundred pots and pans and other clanging things came crashing out.
Tags: comic strips, radio shows, synapses, memoirs
16
Sunday October 17, 2021
We who live in the enlightened western nations tend to heap scorn on the Hindu caste system. We don’t recognize that we have our own caste systems.
Indigenous communities scattered across the boreal north are our Dalits, the outcastes, the untouchables. “At any given time,” writes the Council of Canadians, “there are drinking water advisories in dozens of First Nations communities across Canada.”
Most recently, Iqaluit residents were assured their water was safe, even though it smelled of diesel. Then this week that assurance was reversed – it was now unsafe even when boiled.
Can you imagine an entire city, like, say, Regina, being told its tap water was unsafe for drinking, for cooking, for washing, even for washing your hands in? There’d be hell to pay.
But this is Iqaluit, not Regina.
Tags: COVID-19, Iqaluit, castes, Molokai, Damien