The Pits and Pieces

  We’re not beacons of wisdom just because we’re older. To prove that  my post today is about small things that sometimes occupy my mind. *   Is it a sign of aging when we become increasingly irritated by the thoughtless behaviour of others? Does it shrink our world to notice and be annoyed by such things? It’s Saturday morning and I arrive at my club for my weekly doubles match. I walk towards the little bay area where my locker is situated. I know what to expect. It’s always the same. Strewn on the floor around my locker, jutting out into the hallway sits a huge gym bag, shoes, a coffee cup, various bits and pieces, towels, all in a sprawling, unsightly heap on the floor. Across the aisle, also spilling out into the narrow hallway sits a similar pile. I grit my teeth and try to shove aside a portion with my foot as I sidle up to my locker. The two owners of the gigantic piles of possessions, saunter from the shower area, towels wrapped around their waists, chatting at high volu

  Despair:   over humanity and the atrocities we can inflict upon each other, upon innocent children. Disheartened:   over the divisiveness that prevails. If one asks for humanity, then one is called out for being anti something else, or of being ignorant of the facts and history. If one says nothing, one is deemed insensitive. Everybody talking, shouting over each other, no one listening. Everyone convinced of the ‘rightness’ of their words and viewpoints. And meanwhile, children are either dying or condemned to a lifetime of post-war trauma. Horrified:   over how a world can watch a war that is raging on innocent civilians. Self-defense is the act of protecting oneself. But, for how long and by what barbaric means?   Does a heinous act justify more brutality? Sadness:   over the tragedy on each side, the hostages, the families, the man from Gaza who was interviewed on CBC and who said he regrets bringing children into the world, into Gaza, because he cannot protect them. Those we

  Since I moved here almost 7 years ago, I have taken numerous pictures of spectacular sunrises. They fill an album in my phone, creating ‘memories’. But why keep them all? Why do we store so many pictures on our phones and rarely look at them? Same for keepsakes tucked away in cardboard boxes. Memories occur when we reach back into our minds and hearts and re-live an event from the past. But with smart phones, memories now seem to live outside of ourselves. They’ve been outsourced . Here are your memories, our phones tell us. Here – have a taste of sunrise from 2021 and a serving of Christmas solitude from 2020 along with a side of pasta in Italy in 2018. Memories are within us, there to be recalled at will or triggered organically and unexpectedly by a smell, a glimpse, a taste, a phrase, a song. They’re not meant to be served up to me on a platter. That’s not how it works. But we’ve willingly bought into this new definition and processing of memories, and I can’t decide whethe