Geneve Blue’s interview about I Ching Jukebox

Listen here: http://www.indigostarcrystalradio.info/podcasts.html

Intolerably Tolerant

In my own small world I like to think that I am a pretty tolerant person. I have to be; with two children, two cats, a humongous dog, neighbours, coworkers, two spouses (one former and one current) and friends from all walks of life, there’s a part of me that thinks if I weren’t I would implode from all the little improprieties that surround my life.

There is one area for which I am not tolerant though, and that is intolerance. That’s right. I can’t tolerate intolerance. Perhaps what bothers me so much about this is that there is just so much of it out there. We like to think that we are all broad-minded people, happily living our politically correct lives, forgoing our Christmases and Christmas trees for the more generic Holidays and Holiday trees but you know, the older I get the more I see that most of this is just chimera. We behave the way we do because that is how we’re supposed to, and we can feel proud of ourselves for doing it. We’re paying lip service to propriety.

The problem as I see it is that we aren’t tolerant of one another’s differences. Not really. We live our lives in our own comfortable circles, following beliefs we are taught to accept as the right ones and we feel virtuous for doing so. Where I have a problem I guess is that I have not in my 47 years, ever been able to put a finger on what exactly is the “right” one for anything.

Take religion, for instance. Please. I put this number one on my list because it befuddles me that we have all these organized and quasi-organized entities running around telling us that their way is the right way to believe. With hushed tones and deepened voices they will tell you, “It’s how God wants it to be”.

So here’s the thing: which God are we talking about? The Protestant God? The Catholic God? The Muslim God? The Jewish God? The Buddhist God? How about one of the Hindu ones? And if you chose any one of those, you also have to navigate down to the various sub groups, like Baptists and Sikhs, for example. Every one of those religions has good aspects and some not so good ones, and determining that all depends on your perspective. The sad thing is that if you look – and I mean really look – at all of them they do have some things in common. You just have to get past the rhetoric to find it. Things like honouring your mother and father. Being selfless. Loving your fellow man. Caring for those less fortunate. All very nice things.

But to me, it means nothing if you feel virtuous donating to feed the poor all the while you’re voting against increasing the minimum wage because you’re worried it’ll up your taxes. Nor do I see that sanctioning the murder of doctors who perform abortions (but they murder unborn babies!) as very loving or compassionate. Especially if the law is that abortion is allowed.

We are told that love between partners should be sanctioned by marriage, and yet those of us who are biologically programmed differently aren’t allowed that sanction, in fact they are excommunicated or worse, murdered all in the name of faith. It’s one thing to be told to be honest, quite another to vilify people who are honest about themselves. If we are all made in God’s image, then what are the so-called deviants made from?

Charity begins at home it is said. But to me, sadly, that charity often extends only to those whose home is the same as yours. If their culture or colour or language or sexual orientation is different, well then all bets are off. It only extends so far as when they believe the same thing you do. And that’s a rather myopic way of looking at this very varied world wouldn’t you say?

Some years ago I took the train from Ottawa to Vancouver. I was 21, all by myself, proud of my independence and simply loving all the different people I encountered. I sat for a while beside a man who came from Scotland. He was disgusted with the many hours of trees and lakes and rocks we passed. He was bored silly, and couldn’t understand why we didn’t want towns to be interspersed with the odd cow and farm and then back to civilization. I explained to him that we are here because this is exactly how we like it – all this empty meant an awful lot to us. If it didn’t we’d be in Scotland too.

Later on in the Prairies I was joined by a teenaged girl who was happily looking forward to being a veterinarian for farm animals. She was enthralled that I came from Ottawa – that big city – and even more so that I was of such an exotic extraction as being Irish. She’d never met anyone Irish before. They were all Polish and Ukrainian. I told her that where I come from, that’s a bit exotic, Irish people were everywhere. Then she asked what I thought about a teacher from her province who was being fired and charged with hate for teaching that the Holocaust didn’t exist. She wasn’t sure it was such a bad thing, but I told her a lot of that ambilivance comes simply from not knowing Jewish people and their culture. Imagine, I said, if you were a Polish person surrounded by the Irish and we decided that your history was wrong even though you knew people who had lost family to this, and that you were less than something because of the virtue of the family you were born into? Would that be right? A little light bulb went off in her mind and she thanked me for helping her understand. A little understanding goes a long way.

Sometimes I think we are suffering from the problem that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Recently I was at a dinner where “those knives that those Muslim people wear” came up. I held my tongue, having known a few of these very foreign people – but I did tell them that knife was called a kirpan. What I didn’t tell them is that it is only the Sikhs, not all Muslims who wear these and there are specific reasons why they do. Perhaps I should have said that they are forbidden to draw those knives but I didn’t want to start a war at the table. They had a new word for their vocabulary but I’m a little disappointed with myself for not explaining the little that I know about the subject. I just wasn’t sure it would have made any difference at all in their opinions, as fixed as they appeared to be.

It all comes down to one’s perspective of things. In general people want answers, they want the simple way and if it means parking logical thinking or one’s emotions to follow those rules, so be it. It’s far easier to say, ban smoking from public places and throw insults at smokers than it is to realize that this is a strong addiction to a substance that is legal to procure and use. I smoked a lot when I was going through my marriage breakup, and to the people who clucked clucked as they passed by me outside, or said disparaging comments I often wondered what the reaction would be if they were to switch “you xyzing smoker” with “coloured person”. How acceptable would it be then? Not very much I would say. As much as I wanted to point that out I didn’t because my heart was breaking, I was under a lot of stress and I was self-medicating the only legal way I could and still function. But I’m saying it now: be careful of publicly approved insults. This is just another form of discrimination.

Discrimination happens in all sorts of ways, and the hardest to stomach for me is the ones against physical disabilities. There are those who will berate people who park in handicapped spots who aren’t in wheelchairs that never know that there are some who are entitled to them; perhaps they have a heart condition and can’t walk far. I have a child with an autistic spectrum disorder and I was thrown into the world of the invisible disability a few years ago. I have had people shout insults at me when my young child was having a meltdown in public. I had a lady chase after me with a box of crackers insisting I was starving my baby, couldn’t I see? Actually he had just eaten and was disturbed by the lights and the crowds in the store. But I was a bad mother, not a mother desperately trying to cope and managing the best I knew how. I have had the police called on me for middle of the night meltdowns (the night was storming him and the windows were open because it was hot). I have been told I need to discipline him better, that one child could go to a birthday and but not the other because he was just “too much” – and an aside here, one of the reasons I dearly love my daughter is because she had the courage at a very young age to tell that lady that if he can’t come she wasn’t either. We have been thrown out of McDonald’s, harassed at Wendy’s, and all because something is different and I tried as best I could for us to be normal.

I used to say to my friends that I don’t know what normal is. You know what? I still don’t. Six year olds who still couldn’t sleep through the night to me was normal. Being a single mother and abandoned by friends and some other people who I thought would be supportive when I left a hurtful situation was normal. Trying to find love and be whole and creative and publish my writings without a degree was normal. “Living in sin” for me is normal, because it is legal and I choose to live that way. Divorce is a long and painful process, expensive and wearing and I choose not to put myself in the possibility of that situation again. Some would argue I should have held the marriage together for the children, but to me raising a child in an unhappy home is not normal, or fair.

Life isn’t fair. If there’s anything I’ve learned and truly believe it’s that there is no black and white, only myriad shades of grey. Laws are made based on votes of elected officials and these elected officials are supposedly representing the majority of our society. For the most part, it works. I would hate to live in a society where we are dictated as to how we should feel or think or believe. There is a little of that here, no doubt about it, but I am grateful to live where I do where there are so many differing opinions and cultures and beliefs. I can choose to agree or disagree. I can be confident that most likely the law will err on the side of compassion, and I like that. It doesn’t mean I’d ever have an abortion because for me that decision would haunt me forever, but I would never deny a person the right to choose that option under the law, and I would never vote for a law that denied a woman that medical procedure. I will not be the person screaming at a stranger to stop doing what they’re doing if it is their right to do it. I’ve been on the other side of that voice and I can tell you honestly it hurts like hell and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

We all have a right to our beliefs and opinions and that’s good. It’s just sometimes people don’t see the hypocrisy in what we do. There are bumper stickers that people put on their cars these days that drive me crazy. They read: If you don’t support our troops, feel free to stand in front of them. Now I’m all for supporting the troops’ efforts, but how is threatening people to support them or they’ll use their weapons on you something that will make me want to support them? Isn’t that kind of behaviour what we’re over there fighting against?

There is too much fighting in this world. On the grand scale, in our tiny lives. If we just step outside of our own view of things, just for a moment and try to feel things from the opposite end, well, I guess you’ll be just as messed up about life as I am.

And I’d be very happy if you were.

© Catherine M. Harris, June 2009.

The Cat On The Stairs

The cat on the stairs
Is a magnificent creature
A wonder for the eye to behold

Silken and spotted
He answers your questions
Talk and you think
He understands

Like any cat
You know he knows
With a glint in his eye
Inscrutable
A word of wisdom
Fixed on what?

That’s the question.
If it’s a mouse
There’s a twitch in the
Swishing tail
Chatter from tiny teeth
Sharp

Not one to be messed
Around with.
Unless of course you
Are a dog.

Then all bets are off.
Big puppy horses
With hearts larger
Unbelievably
Than the stomach

They all  say all he wants
Is to play
Be it with a rubber bone
Or with a tiny tire

But as any wise cat
Will tell you:
A dog is a dog
With gnashing teeth
And a gleam in its eye
Large, so very large indeed
Not something
To trifle with
Even if

As we all know

The cat is the one who
Rules the roost.
No.
When faced with
The prospect of brute force
Loving or not
It just isn’t dignified
(or so he’d have us believe)
To be chased by
A big black dog.

And so he is
The cat on the stairs
Standing behind the gate
His kingdom waiting
(and he won’t mention
the other big orange cat
who just doesn’t care
and just ventures everywhere
anyway)

No.
Instead our big strong cat
With wild blood
And polka dots
Banned in places
Who just don’t know
A bengal is a spotty
House cat

Doesn’t.

The secret’s safe with us
Until and when
The feline world is safe again
With sleeping dog trapped
Behind the little mental bars
Of his cage
Where he lies sleeping
Oblivious

Of wandering cats proclaiming
The territory once again
Until it seems,
Its daytime.

For you must know
As every cat does
That daytime is for dogs
And squirrels.

Night time is
The domain of cats
On the prowl
And that’s that.

So spotty cats
Will wait upon a stair
Expentantly.
Not impatient, no
Without a word or notice
That would be unseemly
For such a noble cat.

Some Things Are Special, by Catherine M. Harris

A boy and a dog

Some Things Are Special

Memories are made

Of little things

A touch, a word

Something left unsaid.

Some things in life

I wish could go on forever:

The smell of a new baby’s hair

Their first word,

First step.

So many memories.

Those are the big small things.

Other things,

Much more important

So soon forgotten,

Are the times between words

When we are who we are

And we do what we do

Because we do.

And somebody loves you for it.

Believe me.

They do.

It’s what you do in small things

That matters more than anything.

———

So long Wizard, we love you.

March, 2009.

Winter Birds

I heard the cry of birds – chickadees
Calling chickadee dee dee
From a tree branch near my back door.

It mattered not to them that every other limb
Wore thick white tufts of snow and ice;
That the air outside was minus ten degrees celcius
Or that the weather forecasters had proclaimed
A major chance of freezing rain to shelter from
Coming within a matter of hours.

What, it seemed to me, the birds did care about
Was that the sun in the sky seemed just a little warmer
Than it had been, and that somewhere in their avian brains
They knew that snow or not, the sap was beginning to run
And that meant old seeds to pick and leaf buds to nibble
Or maybe small insects were beginning to stir in otherwise cold
Tree branches.

I stood and stared in that cold open door
While I waited for our nonchalant puppy
To finish bounding in snow banks,
A huge lump of black sinking into not so pristine white
My toes turning cold and just listening to
The sweet sounds of these first harbingers of spring.

When the winter’s snow fell and the ground froze
And these little birds went wherever they go at that time
The world was a rather different place.
They wouldn’t know that banks collapsed next door
And jobs were being lost in the thousands
And that interest rates and gas prices fell
Or that seniors saw their retirement funds vanish
And others their entire fortunes disappear
Seemingly overnight.

And I don’t think they’d really understand
The importance of a Democrat, the first black man
Becoming President of our neighboring country
Or know that the busses in our neighboring city went on strike
For 52 days. People walked, or drove, and would have envied them
Their ability to fly had they been around then.
Not that little wild birds care about such things.

No, they care about the length of the daylight and
The strength of the sun’s rays on feathered wings
They care about seeds hanging from branches
And twigs and bits of string with which to build a nest
And what would be the safest spot to construct
Away from the prying paws of squirrels and dare I say it
Cats, my own sweet housecats fearsome
Feline hunters when faced by something small.

Regardless, I watch these two wee birds hopping gently from
Branch to branch and marvel at their agility
And ability to remind me
That no matter what
The cold will pass, the sun will warm the earth
Flowers will bloom and grass will grow
Laughter and the sounds of life will soon enough
Fill the once frozen air
Irrespective of portfolios and General Motors
Uninhibited by reluctant bankers and layoff notices.

As it should be.

Catherine M. Harris
(c) February 16, 2009

This also appears on Helium at: http://www.helium.com/items/1343294-chickadees-winter-birds-coming-of-spring

To Dad

Dad, you and I

Were partners in crime

Never quite what others expected

Even as daughter and father

But that was fine with me.

You were that handsome

Witty and cavalier man

How the world loved you for that

So did I

And yet such wanton ways

Lead to your leaving us

Too soon.

I told you once

Just be my friend

Don’t try to be my father

This meant the world to me

You being you and me as I was

I knew you better, I think

Than people who

Shook their heads in disbelief

Who chose to believe other things

But us, we were the best of friends

At a time when it mattered most

And now that all is said and done

What matters most to me

Is how very much you loved me

Daughter, friend, whatever

I could confide in you

And you in me

As time passes on dad

I miss you

In ways more than words can ever say.

I am a Helium writer

Just thought I’d post the link to my Helium articles in case anyone is interesting in reading what I’ve written there.

http://www.helium.com/users/34495

I Believe

I believe in curled up cats
And black dogs dusted white by
Fresh fallen snow.
I believe that if I listen hard enough
You will hear me in your heart
And if the wind blows cold
Memory burns hot.
I believe that there is hope
And tomorrow will be better
And if it’s difficult right now
The tide will turn our way, someday.
I believe some words are
Best forgotten
And unspoken sentiments
Are often the loudest sounds of all.
I believe in the the best of people
That beauty lies within
And souls shine brightest
In the dark of night.
But most of all,
In spite of it all,
I believe
In you.

I’ve been told I should save my Cathi’s Comments here too so here’s my New Years one for 2009

Cathi’s Comments for December 31, 2008

As I spend the last few hours of the year 2008 having a quiet evening in – just us and the kids -I am appreciating the contrast between the end of this year and how incredibly busy and difficult it has been. Not just personally, but in our country and the world. I am sure there are many that are happy to see the back end of this long dark year.

As much as it was difficult, there were some major strides made here. I got my level B in French, finished another university course and got an A, worked on a book and got that out, Jim and I started a business, and I’m working on getting my Off Air book out as well as a hard cover version of my poetry book out on Lulu. I haven’t had the money to start my next university course but that did have the advantage of being able to work on my writing, something I’ve missed doing. One of the highlights certainly was the sale of the house in Mississauga and daughter and ex moving close by. They’ve been here a month and it has been a true pleasure knowing I can drop by if I need to and having the weekend trade off of kids again.

Much as the world saw the righting of excesses and the start of a recession, my own financial world suffered through getting stuck with expenses not my own. It is a very scary thing indeed to be a couple of days away from losing hydro, and to have people show up at the door serving papers for being a cosigner I didn’t think I still was. I’m still considering a class action suit on the cosigner thing (why do cosigners never find out there’s a problem until it’s too late and there’s a black mark on your credit rating? And why don’t banks honour letters from lawyers saying someone isn’t a cosigner anymore?). My other thought is the fact that if Hydro cuts off your power or you receive 2 disconnection notices, they will impose a 2 1/2 times your highest bill penalty to hold for how long? Until they say so. My first thought is hydro should be considered an essential service and should not be cut off except in dire circumstances (how about non payment for six months or more instead of late for 3 weeks). Second, following Peter De Wolf’s case against Bell Expressvu and their late payment administration fee that he won (but of course is under appeal at the moment), such horrendous fees should be illegal. The hydro by the way was as a result of me helping out a friend by letting them use our garage for carpentry. Who knew that a few tools and a heater could rack up over a $1000 on a bill? More than once? Um, I do now, and that was the end of my RRSP. Sigh. I’m still stuck paying for stuff I shouldn’t from somebody else (who isn’t Jim in case anybody is wondering) so Jim and I work 4 jobs. The last year I’ve been doing night time janitorial work which is shitty (pun intended), but on the upside, I’ve nearly lost all the weight I gained quitting smoking. Janitorial work isn’t the most pleasant of jobs but it is quiet, and the nice thing about that is janitors by and large are invisible which, after a long day doing full time work with often times cranky clients, invisible is a good feeling. I hate the amount of time it eats up in my evenings though so my aim this year is to make enough money elsewhere so I can stop doing that. I will be looking for more money in better ways, and with great hope that at least some of it will come from my creative endeavors.

Speaking of creative endeavors, it was great to have the opportunity to take glass blowing with Jim (his Christmas present to me) from Chris Van Zanten. He has a studio in a wonderful spot in Pakenham and I do hope that time and money will allow us to continue on with taking this very interesting skill. It is a lot harder than it looks but is a wonderful feeling to create something from molten glass and have it work out. He also gives stained glass lessons which I will definitely take whenever he starts giving them out of his studio. I started, but didn’t finish the Nanowrimo this year but then again I was busy with helping with the move from Mississauga that month. I helped them find their new place since ex was busy packing and stuff, and then spent the last week there helping them move and to sign the papers. The good news on that is I am no longer a co-owner of the house, but the bad news was that I didn’t get everything I was supposed to from it. So I still wait for my full portion, but it was a little help on my situation and a new start for ex and daughter.

One happy event with the world money market melt-down was the falling gas prices. I have very much appreciated that, let me tell you! To go from $1.40 a liter to around 60 cents makes a huge difference and I do hope that they will stay low for some time to come. Interest rates are another thing, and while my own financial crisis led to my mortgage renewal offer being a bit on the high side for a 5 year fixed rate, I settled for the variable interest one, risky yes, but I was happy that they renewed it at all after all the nonsense that has happened on my credit record. Anyway that’s turned out in my favour since the interest rates have plummeted. Now I hope that the government will see to it that interest rates being charged on the various credit cards are looked at because in this time there is absolutely no reason for any credit card to charge 25% but one of mine does (thankfully a small one) and that one of course I’ve stopped using. My plan this year is to keep the overdrafts empty and the line of credit as well, so that I am not bouncing cheques by accident or paying ridiculous bank fees. Barring any more emergencies I trust I can do that. A lot depends on whether ex gets a job so I won’t be paying for stuff that I have been, and I’m sure that’ll happen; the job situation here is much better than in the Toronto area for him.

This has been a year of corrections on many fronts, again both politically (in the US) and in terms of people’s relationships. It has been a sad year for some of my friends but it seems to me the universe is forcing things that aren’t working to end so that what should be will be. Thankfully for us, we’re still okay and I am happy to have good friends around me as well.

So what do I see in the year ahead? Well, I’m thinking that on the world stage things won’t be getting much more bright yet; the corrections will force everyone to look more closely at what is necessary and how we treat our fellow man and that to me would be a good thing. There is no room for “my way or the highway” thinking anymore. Greed and selfishness that has been prevalent since the early 1980s has to stop given what it has done to the world economy. The election of Barak Obama in the US is a sign that once great nation is fed up with the destructive policies of Bush and his cronies. The world cannot be run by religious zealots, and we must, all of us, be more accepting of the differences of peoples, and to be more compassionate. I know I sound like a broken record about compassion, but how I wish I could have my own people accept my situation and look at us as who we really are instead of who some think we are (and sadly, those opinions are wrong but I haven’t been able to stomach the insults to try to correct that). Oh well. I have my children, Jim, and some very good friends and that to me makes my world special.

Here’s to a much better new year, and for everyone I hope their wishes for a brighter future come true. For me, well, here’s to more learning, creating, and growth.

À la prochaine,

Cathi …..

I Ching Jukebox by Geneve Blue

I am so happy!  I Ching Jukebox, third edit, is now just great.  That means that sometime this evening I’m going approve this version for widespread publication and it will shortly be available through Amazon.com, .ca, .co.uk among others.  The ISBN # is 978-0-557-01382-1.  If you wish to purchase a downloadable version, go to www.lulu.com/mrssauga .

Yay!