SOCIAL MEDIA BLOW OUT

…I hit the wall last week on social media thanks to a wonderful family gathering with the in-laws.

It's Thanksgiving weekend in Canada and I'm filled with warm, childhood memories of simpler times and Thanksgivings gone by at Mom and Dad's. Mom was not one known for her culinary skills. Her remark, "I'd rather we could take a pill," pretty much summed up her love affair with cooking. But she always rose to the occasion when it came to family celebrations, especially Thanksgiving, after all we had much to be thankful for.

Mom was always the last to come to the table, taking off her apron along the way. Despite her pleadings for us to start without her, we'd wait for her arrival with our plates piled high.

My Dad would ask the obligatory, "Does anyone want to say grace?"…

Giggles. "Grace" said the more irreverent family members.

Without missing a beat he would continue on, "For this, our daily bread, may we truly be thankful."

We'd linger at the table over our dessert of pumpkin pie and whipped cream not wanting to break the spell of calm, contented, satiation and Dad, the old "philosopher" would share what he was thankful for. "We have our health," he would say this even when his own health was failing, "and we have each other. No matter where you are, or what life presents you with, I hope you will always remember these times and be grateful."

I do and I am.

Thank you turkey; thank you "Dad's" dressing

So what does this have to do with my social media "fast"?

During my visit I observed how we, I include myself here, have become obsessed with our devices. In the last post, I wrote that they help me connect with family members and friends who are geographically far away. There is no doubt that, used within reason, they provide the desired link. But, they also take me out of the present moment and away from my own creative devices.

Anxiety ridden, dissatisfaction-fuelled, advertising worms its way insidiously into my life filling me with impossible desires. Petitions, all for very good causes, leave me feeling powerless despite the actions I take in real life to defend the ocean and its inhabitants. Requests for donations at every turn arouse a sense of hopelessness for the earth. If only money talks and has power then we truly are doomed.

Where does the time go while I'm swiping through FB, answering e-mails, texting while "taking time out" to chill and "watch" a program on TV? Spreading myself so thin divides me up into little pieces. I'm scattered, ramped up; wanting.…What?…Anything but what I already have, it seems.

Add that to the chaos that accompanies every family gathering: the unspoken expectations, good intentions, subconscious agendas, spontaneous change-ups, miscommunication, emotional triggers; a cold in incubation, and you get someone "undone" by life. Time to unplug.

A week later, more grounded, calm and creative I ask myself, "Do I want to jump back into the throng?"

May this time with your family find you unplugged, feeling grateful, and filled with memories to warm your heart.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING ALL!

Life Lines

© Nance Thacker 1984
click on image to enlarge

The weekend has found me in a reflective mode. In my ongoing quest to de-clutter and simplify my life I've been going through my "stuff". Actually, not really my stuff, rather memories of the lives of others recorded in letters from family and friends that I'd received during my early years in Victoria.

I've carried boxes, filled with these letters from the '70's and 80's back and forth across the country and I think it's time to let them go, but not before reading them once more.

My sister-in-law, Di, and I were talking via g-mail phone the other day, marvelling at how technology keeps us connected in so many ways. Today there's: g-mail phone, i-phone favourites that allow fee free calling, Face Book, Skype, Face Time, texting, What's App, Tweeting, e-mailing and I'm sure there's a whack of stuff out there I've never even heard of. Communication is immediate and, for the most part, glitch free.

I don't buy that technology is isolating us. Face Book is where the Dream Team (my peers from dream teacher training I and II living all over the world) meet, share our dreams, inspire and further each other's education in dreams. Technology is my life line to friends and family living afar.

Back then though "snail" mail was pretty much all that we had that was affordable. Daily, I'd look for word from "home". Every letter received was like a big hug.

While I was out here living the life of a struggling artist/yogi, my friends' lives were moving through major transitions: marriages, home ownership, "real" jobs and careers, births, raising children, illness, deaths, and all the financial and family responsibility that goes with the territory. Others were studying and or travelling abroad: hiking, bike trekking and living with "friends" they'd made along the way - to be honest, I envied them the most.

Though our lives were so different, family and friends were supportive of my aspirations; often asking how the cartooning was doing. My younger sister, in letters from the mid '80's told of meeting 2 women in the Maritimes who knew of, and followed, my work in Monday Magazine - that thrilled me!

It got me looking through my cartoons and this one popped out as it pretty much summarized my life experiences at that time. No, I didn't have a meat cleaver thrown at me, but the crazed cook (and inspiration for the "chef" in the cartoon - he made Gordon Ramsay look like a pussy cat) at the Fat Cat Café a 24hr diner on lower Yates Street did threaten me with a knife while I was on duty once. Yup, life was different back then.

Anyway, that's another story…

What will I do with the letters? I'm mailing them back to the authors with a letter of appreciation and thanks for all their love and support over the years. They have no real idea how wonderful it felt for me, living on my own in my own world, to receive these life lines from home. But they are filled with their memories so, maybe when they read what their younger selves recorded they can reflect and appreciate their life's journey too.