Thoughts

I’m just getting over the flu that felt like a cold with runny nose and sneezing on Thursday, then progressed to severe headache and muscle aches on Friday.  I spent most of that day in bed alternately sleeping and reading, dreaming strange dreams and thinking.  It’s occurred to me before that sometimes sickness is an opportunity to review my current situation and make changes.  Perhaps it’s that mind body connection, and the body says all right I’m going to knock you out for a while so you can’t do anything but lie there.

Originally I started this blog because a friend encouraged me to do it.  I hadn’t ever done one before, hadn’t read many.  I did some research, decided I would go ahead and write a sort of personal diary on topics that interested me.  Which I’ve done for a couple of months now.

However, flu dreams and re-reading Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, plus a recent spate of being very busy has made me rethink not only this blog but what’s dissatisfying about my life right now.  Actually the discontent has been going on for a while.

I left a full time decent paying job about 8 years ago to devote more time to my personal writing, taking on contract work to help pay the bills.  That’s been exactly what I wanted in the main.  I’ve had short stories published in the past in magazines and anthologies, broadcast on radio, won a few prizes and awards, and I expected that after a few years of concentrated writing I’d be able to get a book published.  It hasn’t worked out that way, but writing still remains a central part of my life, and writing after all is about communicating with other people.  A writer needs an audience.

In my early years as a writer ‘vanity publishing’ now called ‘self-publishing’ was frowned upon.  If you were a ‘real writer’ you would eventually find a publisher went the popular wisdom, especially if you’d had publications in anthologies and magazines.  Well, times have changed.  It’s a lot more difficult to get published (and I’ve heard this from published writers as well as publishers) these days.  Some small publishers have liked my work but said it needed editing and they can’t afford to hire editors.  So I recently paid an editor myself to look at one of my manuscripts, and I’ve investigated the process and costs of self publishing.

On the positive side, times have changed.  Anyone can write a blog, set up a web site, do a U Tube video, find ways to share their work.

So I’ve decided rather than continue to use this blog as a personal diary, next month I’ll begin posting my writing.  I’ll start with published work, shorter pieces perhaps.  I don’t know how many words can be posted at one time on a blog, so at times I may have to break a piece into sections.  At any rate, I hope those of you who’ve been following Serimuse will continue, and please tell your friends.  I hope you’ll enjoy the stories.

Justice

Today is World Day of Social Justice, created by the United Nations to encourage people to think about how social justice is connected to the eradication of poverty, social and economic exclusion, and unemployment.

In 1995 the World Summit for Social Development was held in Copenhagen.  At the meeting more than a hundred political leaders pledged to make the eradication of poverty; full employment; stable, safe and just societies overriding objectives for their countries.  Leaders met again in 2005.  Then in 2007 the UN named the day and it was first observed in 2009.

It’s easy to talk and set goals, simple to name a day.  It’s significant action for change that appears to be difficult for politicians.

With recent and ongoing events in Egypt, I’m reminded of other historic times when ordinary people took to the streets to speak with one voice about their wants and needs: the Hungarian Revolution of 1959, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and Tiananmen Square, 1989.  In all three instances people spontaneously began to gather and call for change.  In Hungary it ended after 19 days when Russian tanks rolled in.  Over 2,500 Hungarians and 700 Russians were killed and 200,000 Hungarians fled.  In China, the army moved in after seven weeks and started shooting.  Following that there were widespread arrests and foreign journalists were banned.

For a better result we can turn back to Hungary, which in the summer of 1989 opened its borders.  This resulted in floods of East Germans making their way west through Hungary.  Students in Leipzig, Germany began to protest and ask for the wall to be opened.  On November 9, the Minister of Propaganda announced at a press conference that the wall would be open for ‘private trips abroad.’  The news spread immediately and thousands of East Germans began to gather at the wall in Berlin that evening demanding passage.  Border guards were confused, didn’t know what to do and allowed people through; let them climb onto the wall, drink champagne and so on.  The wall was figuratively and soon literally gone, and it didn’t take long for Germany to be reunited.

I hope for a good result for the people of Egypt, but it will take time.  Germany’s problems didn’t go away with the fall of the wall – they just changed, but at least the people made their voices heard and succeeded in making a peaceful change.

We still have too much poverty, and high food prices are causing significant hardship in many parts of the world.  In other words, the goals of the Day of Social Justice are yet to be met.  Here in Canada we face those and other problems as well, although we have a much higher standard of living and a better society than some other countries.

We are very lucky to live here and though many times I don’t agree with politicians or political and social processes, I think we are privileged to have the vote – municipal, provincial, federal.  We have protests in the street on occasion, for specific issues, but we can get rid of leaders we don’t want or respect more easily.  In a recent by-election in Saskatoon, the vote was very low (which apparently is common in municipal politics), but there was a slight increase from previous by elections.  And a much younger candidate won the seat, due perhaps to her use of social media.  If enough people vote we can get rid of politicians we don’t want, and create a more just society.

Chocolate

Dark, bittersweet, smooth, lingers on the tongue and lips, makes you feel good.  The Latin name for the cacao tree is Theobroma cacao, meaning ‘food of the gods.’

Anthropologists have found cacao residue in Honduras on pottery that is estimated to be from 1400 B.C.E.  At that time the pulp of the fruit was fermented into an alcoholic drink.  Wow, what a combination!

Later on the Spanish brought it back to Europe, sweetened the drink, and its use spread.  It wasn’t until 1628 that a way was found to make powdered chocolate by removing half the fat – a Dutch chemist is responsible.  Joseph Fry is credited with being the inventor of the chocolate bar.  But I think the best chocolate bars are made by Europeans.

We know that chocolate stimulates the release of endorphins in the brain; leading to good feelings (is that why I want to eat chocolate on cold, grey winter days?)  It also contains flavonids which help to protect the heart, and reduce the tendency to blood clots.  Some research shows that eating dark chocolate also reduces blood pressure.  High quality dark chocolate provides the most benefits and has more antitoxins than milk or white chocolate (which isn’t really chocolate).

So what’s to complain about?  Valentine’s Day coming up, chocolate lovers indulge!  Unfortunately the fats and sugars contained in chocolate are not so good for us.  Can cause weight gain (no, really?!), and probably clog up your arteries, if not offset by exercise.  It also contains caffeine, so that’s not good if you eat it before going to bed.  Dogs should not be fed chocolate – it can make them sick, cause seizures, even kill them.

I remember seeing a movie (Woody Allan, I think) in which a woman mixed cocoa into her bath water so she could get the good feelings without the weight gain.  Seems like a waste of chocolate to me.  Why not eat the chocolate and then go for a run or brisk walk?  Or if you’re into water, a swim.

I recently found a web site that listed the 50 best chocolate makers across the world.  Most of them I hadn’t heard of, but Green and Black’s (London, England), I agree is good, while Lindt to my mind is so-so.  They didn’t list Ritter (from Germany) which is one of my favourites -- I like the variety (plain dark, dark with hazelnuts, dark with marzipan), it isn’t too sweet and doesn’t have a lot of additives.

Hot chocolate is great made with squares of bittersweet chocolate and milk, and then frothed.  But it’s terribly potent (lots of caffeine, fat, sugar) so not a drink you want to indulge in very often.  I like to add cinnamon to my hot chocolate, but have never tried cayenne or chilli peppers.

Most of the world’s chocolate grows close to the equator, specifically in Brazil, Equador, Ghana, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Malaysia and Indonesia.  And unfortunately the cultivation of it can involve child labour, and the growers themselves are often not paid fair prices.  However, you can find fair trade chocolate, even organic fair trade, and it’s good.

Enjoy!

Writing

Last week I was eating a late Sunday brunch (love to sleep in on cold winter days) and reading a book about the discovery and translation of the epic of Gilgamesh (The Buried Book by David Damrosch), when several ideas coalesced in my brain and suddenly I had an idea for a new beginning to a novel (or series of novels) I’ve been working on for years.  This sudden magical flash is one of the things I love about writing.  I grabbed my notebook and scribbled down several pages

Had to stop and dig out Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces so I could refresh my mind about the kind of journey my heroes might make.  I’ve got bookcases in every room of my house except the bathroom (and that’s missing one only because it’s small and I haven’t gotten around to bolting a shelf to the wall).  Joseph generally resides in my writing office (I’ve got three of his there), along with my collection of SF and fantasy fiction.  Books on writing live there too, along with my old ‘new age collection.’  They all seem to cohabit happily together.

Then the dinger went off on the dryer and I decided to stop writing (since it also had dried for the present) and make the bed while listening to CBC radio.  On Tapestry Mary Hynes was talking to Dacher Keltner about his research into human emotion, particularly compassion, and the idea that humans are wired to be good.  They segued into talking about moments of awe or peak experience, and I thought, that’s what I just had.

Awe can come when you see an amazing sight – a forest of huge redwoods, a beautiful cathedral, a sunset – but it also comes during the creative process, transcending the self.  I’m sure other writers and artists experience this.  Perhaps it’s a kind of addiction, one of the reasons we keep doing it.

Those moments certainly don’t come every day or even every week.  Most of the time writing involves hard work, keeping at it, slogging along even if I feel as if I’m stuck in a swamp for days or weeks.  Then again, I may make progress, and things are working in the story, but not in that exciting, magical way of connection.  I love it when ideas from several swirling clouds zip out and streak across my brain to collide in a totally new arrangement – fireworks or the birth of a world.

Initially I write for myself (though eventually I want to share it with other people).  An idea, a character, a situation, a place comes to mind and gains my interest.  Where is this place?  What people populate it? What happens next?  The journey begins and takes me off in new directions. My brain starts to spark, electrical impulses move through the grey matter, connections are made between cells.

I once read that when you think of a fruit – say an apple or a banana – the parts that make up the whole – smell, look, taste, feel – come from different areas of your brain.  It’s not surprising, then, that creativity uses that ability to make connections from a wide variety of stimuli.

Of course, when the magical moment of inspiration passes in writing or any other creative endeavour, the hard work begins.