My books can be found on Goodreads, of which I became a member a few years ago. Blindsided is my only published book so far that has gotten ratings on Goodreads, and I was pleased to see that it has garnered 4 out of 5 stars (4 = I really like it, and 5 = It was amazing). It still sells, seven years after it was first published.
I have nearly finished writing a new book about modern workplaces, this time with an emphasis on what employees want. I will be publishing it very soon.
But for those of you who haven't read Blindsided, perhaps now is the time to think about doing so.
"Some say a man ain't happy, Unless a man truly dies, Oh why, Time, time".
Rest in peace, Prince.
I remembered yesterday that my brother Ray, who died last year at the age of 54, loved Prince's music. So my heart got ripped open yet again (like after David Bowie died), because these artists remind me of my brother. I realized yesterday that this is how the rest of life will be defined--dealing with loss and letting go. The challenge will be to find joy in the midst of all the sorrow.
"Sign O' The Times"
Oh yeah
In France a skinny man
Died of a big disease with a little name
By chance his girlfriend came across a needle
And soon she did the same
At home there are seventeen-year-old boys
And their idea of fun
Is being in a gang called The Disciples
High on crack, totin' a machine gun
Time, time
Hurricane Annie ripped the ceiling off a church
And killed everyone inside
U turn on the telly and every other story
Is tellin' U somebody died
Sister killed her baby cuz she couldn't afford 2 feed it
And we're sending people 2 the moon
In September my cousin tried reefer 4 for the very first time
Now he's doing horse, it's June
Times, times
It's silly, no?
When a rocket ship explodes
And everybody still wants 2 fly
Some say a man ain't happy
Unless a man truly dies
Oh why
Time, time
Baby make a speech, Star Wars fly
Neighbors just shine it on
But if a night falls and a bomb falls
Will anybody see the dawn
Time, times
It's silly, no?
When a rocket blows
And everybody still wants 2 fly
Some say a man ain't happy, truly
Until a man truly dies
Oh why, oh why, Sign O the Times
Time, time
Sign O the Times mess with your mind
Hurry before it's 2 late
Let's fall in love, get married, have a baby
We'll call him Nate... if it's a boy
I don't even remember what prompted me back in July of 2009 to apply for a garden plot in the community garden down the road from where we live. I suppose I had read about the garden in a magazine or newspaper, and just really liked the idea of having our own plot. Since we live in an apartment in the city, we haven't ever had the possibility to plant a real garden. So here we are at this point in our lives, about to become city gardeners. A new adventure.....
The community garden is called Egebergløkka parsellhage, and was started in 1917 as a community potato garden. One of the men who sits on the garden 'board' gave me the keys to the community garden tonight and gave me a tour of it. The community garden is a nice mix of Norwegians and non-Norwegian gardeners who grow everything from potatoes to raspberries. Two people keep bees, and sell the honey that the bees make at the end of the summer season. There are challenges in the form of garden snails (the Iberia snail being the most common) but it is possible to deal with them.
The seven-year wait was worth it, for several reasons. I took a look at the plot of land we've been allotted, and it's quite large, so we'll be able to really grow a few different kinds of vegetables. There is a lot of work to be done, but I can't wait to get started on clearing the plot and doing what's required so that we can begin to plant in mid-May. I will be planting broccoli, cauliflower, beets, spinach, and pumpkins. One of the nicest surprises was finding out that our plot has some fruit bushes already growing there--black currant (solbær), red currant (ripsbær), and gooseberry (stikkelsbær) bushes--which makes my husband very happy. Other garden plots have apple and plum trees growing there. Getting this garden plot has made me the happiest I've been in a long time. There has been so much stress and sadness this past year, that just knowing that I can be outdoors, in nature, in the sun, working in our garden, has given me back some of the joie de vivre that I seem to have lost. I am grateful for this blessing and privilege--to be near the earth and in touch with what is real and good.
Last year I posted a photo of a blackbird outside my office window (http://paulamdeangelis.blogspot.no/2015/01/a-winter-visitor-outside-my-office.html). I managed to get a few shots of a blackbird this year as well; I wonder if it's the same one? I set out bread crumbs in order to attract the birds; sometimes I get magpies, other times bullfinches, but this time I got a blackbird. He's a plump little bird and very cute.
It's a beautiful sunny day here in Oslo, and the crocuses in the yard are in full bloom, loving the sunshine. The first bumblebee of the season also made its appearance (the first one I've seen at least), in love with the crocuses. It made its way from flower to flower, landing on each of them and then rolling around in the pollen sitting on the top of the filament, quite a happy bee. One cannot take the bees for granted anymore, due to colony collapse disorder and bee deaths. So I was glad to see that this bumblebee was healthy and functioning. A bumblebee watching site on Twitter contacted me to tell me that this is Bombus hypnorum, a tree bumblebee, also called a new garden bumblebee. These bumblebees often live near human settlements, like to build their nests above ground and often inhabit bird boxes. You can read more about them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombus_hypnorum.
We finally got word that we will be getting a garden plot in a nearby community garden (in Norwegian called 'parselhage'), and will pick up the keys very soon. We've been on the list to get a garden plot for about seven years; last year we were told that this year would be the year. My plans are to plant vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, pumpkin, beets, and spinach). My husband would like to plant fruit bushes, among them raspberry bushes. We haven't seen the plot of land yet, so we don't know how much space we'll be getting. Plots range in size from 800 to 2000 square feet, fairly large by my estimation. I've already started some plants from seed, and they are growing fairly well so far, especially the pumpkin plants (see the photos below).
Don't ask me why this came to mind--our graduation song from kindergarten, a long long time ago. Perhaps I was thinking about going back to work tomorrow after having been on vacation for over a week, and I got to thinking about school days and the approach of summer vacation and looking forward to that when we were kids. In any case, the song was written by Carolyn Leigh and Cy Coleman, and our teachers 'adapted' the lyrics for a kindergarten scenario. The song has been performed by Louis Armstrong, Johnny Mathis, Bing Crosby, and Lucille Ball, among others.
Hey look us over
Lend us an ear
School days are over
Vacation time is here
No more painting pictures
No clay in a cup
But when you are in kindergarten
The only way is up
And we'll be up like a rose bud
High on the vine
Don't thumb your nose
But take a tip from mine
We’re a little bit short of the elbow room
But let us stand and shout
Hey look out world
Here we come
-------------------------------
and the original song:
Hey look me over
Lend me an ear
Fresh out of clover
Mortgage up to here
But don't pass the plate folks
Don't pass the cup
I figure whenever you're down and out
The only way is up
And I'll be up like a rose bud
High on the vine
Don't thumb your nose
But take a tip from mine
I'm a little bit short of the elbow room
But let me get me some
And look out world
Here I come
Yes, hey look me over
Lend me an ear
Fresh out of clover
Mortgage up to here
But don't pass the plate folks
Don't pass the cup
I figure whenever you're down and out
The only way is up
And I'll be up like a rose bud
High on the vine
Don't thumb your nose
But take a tip from mine
I'm a little bit short of the elbow room
But let me get me some
And look out, world
Here, I, come...
Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.
Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.
And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.
For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil.
Sometimes the things we want are defined by the things we do
not want. That’s true for me to some extent, but as I get older, I know pretty
much exactly what I want:
a) Peace and quiet = without these, I cannot relax. I do not
want to be around people the entire day, and that includes my work day. I want
to be able to close my office door and to be by myself. I need peace and quiet
at work and at home, in other words, some hours to myself where I am beholden
to no one. I want alone time that is responsibility-free and guilt-free, and
that is not invaded by pointless conversations or people wanting me to feel
guilty for not paying attention to them.
b) Real communication = without it, nothing works. If I
cannot have real honest communication, then I’d rather not waste my time and
other people’s time talking. I don’t want to fake conversations or interest in
things I have no interest in, nor do I want to compete with others for
listening time. If I am in conversation with you and all you want to do is to
talk about yourself and how lousy your life is or how important your life is compared
to others, then I don’t want to be your conversation partner. In other words,
don’t waste my valuable precious time complaining to me about how miserable
your life is or how important you are, because you have no idea what others
might be dealing with on a daily basis. And they don’t burden the world with
their problems or their inflated ego.
c) Simplicity = without it, life becomes a meaningless
drudgery. The trend these days is to complicate everything. Workplaces are
exercises in frustration and lack of effectiveness because administrative routines
and rules have become too complicated. We worship on the altar of triviality. At
home, the same can be true. I’d rather cook simple hearty meals from scratch,
with fresh vegetables and foodstuffs, than load us up with excess salt and
sugar from processed foods, pre-packaged foods, or foods that have been suffocated
in plastic to ‘protect’ them (plastic wrapped so tightly around vegetables that
it cannot be healthy for them). Why can’t vegetables and fruit be free and
uncovered? Why must we waste time, money and energy on packing each individual vegetable
into its own plastic housing? Why can’t we keep it simple? Grow some of our own
vegetables, or support local farmers who do. Buy unpackaged vegetables or those
that will be tossed away because they don’t ‘look’ appealing. Cut down on the
amount of food purchased. You don’t need pantries stocked full of food, unless
you believe the apocalypse is coming.
d) Farewell to competition and to expectations = I’ve
reached that point. I no longer want to compete. I don’t see the point of
competition anymore. I no longer want expectations of greatness placed upon my
shoulders by others who mean that I should aim high and have grandiose
ambitions. Those days are gone; they belong to a past time when I was much younger.
I’ve seen the light and accepted it, why can’t my leaders at work also see it?
My super-productive days are over. I want an ordinary life, with ordinary cares
and small worries each day. I want to putter, to garden, to hang out at home,
to pursue my hobbies, to not have to measure up to specific metrics imposed on
me at work, and to not have to worry about how I look or what I wear. If I want
to walk around in jogging pants and sneakers, so be it. I want to walk in the
sunshine, to be free to do so, to not have time constraints on me, to not have
to have homework anymore in the form of articles to write or articles to read
or review. I want to be free of grant applications and progress reports. I want
peace, quiet, real communication, simplicity, and an unencumbered life.
Sometimes there are dry spells when it comes to creativity,
energy, and motivation, and I’ve had some dry spells recently, when it seems
that writing, photography and all of the other creative things that nourish the
soul, are not worth pursuing. A spiritual malaise sets in, and sometimes spills
over into the physical realm. The darkness and grayness of winter can sap a
person for strength, ditto for soulless workplaces that do nothing to nourish
the soul. They rather destroy it slowly.
What I don’t want at this point in my life: I don’t want to
work anymore, at least not in the traditional sense. My soul derives nothing
from the daily 9 to 5 grind that I used to love so much. It gets zero
nourishment from a public sector workplace that is dominated by a bureaucracy
that kills all motivation, by numerous leaders who are completely ineffective
and who could care less about their employees, and by a level of inefficiency
that in and of itself could drive a normal person to drink. Albert Einstein
wrote that “Bureaucracy is the death of all sound work”. He wrote that line
during the early part of the 20th century and was completely spot on!
The saving grace of any workplace is of course your co-workers, many of whom
feel the same way as I do, so there is some amount of shared commiseration while
we all plod onward in the muck. But some of them are younger and haven’t
experienced soul-sucking environments for years on end, so they are not as
weary of the whole thing as I am. I still have several years to go before I can
retire, and I honestly wonder at times how I’m going to survive those years
without burning out.
I also do not want to work all day in an office the size of
a tiny kitchen that I share with another person, with windows that open a
crack, with fluorescent lighting that can never in a million years take the
place of sunlight, for the prescribed number of hours. I find all sorts of excuses
now to be out of my office, to be outdoors, or to leave early. Modern workplace
buildings, for all their so-called environmentally-friendly architecture and
technology, are completely divorced from nature, from wildness, from the
outdoors. There is nothing like fresh air, a gentle breeze, sunshine on your
skin, a walk along a river, or just being outdoors, to restore the soul. I want
to be outdoors any chance I get. My body makes those decisions for me, and I am
learning to just follow what it wants, because it wants healthy things for me.
I don’t want to listen to or to watch endless news stories
about all of the horrible things going on in the world for which there are no
solutions. All those stories do is create despair. Newspapers and television
have become like the Dementors in the Harry Potter books—soul-sucking creatures.
They bring up a problem again and again, propose few to no solutions, and suck the energy from those who try by bombarding them nonstop with stupid questions. If
you are going to have an opinion about the problem, then for God’s sake have an
opinion about the solution to that problem. I know the world is in deep
trouble; tell me something else. Tell me about the people working to change
things, trying to solve problems, trying to help, and tell me about all that in
an intelligent, respectful, and decent way. Stop being belligerent, aggressive,
nonstop pandering machines. Stop pandering to the lowest common denominator in
listeners--to the basest instincts in people, every chance you get. Don’t
encourage bigotry, hatred, and violence by talking about it ad nauseam. Stop
making the rest of the world think that America is filled with pro-Trump and
pro-Palin idiots. There are over 315 million people in the USA; the news media
in Europe would have us think that all Americans support Trump; the American
media are doing very little to dispel that notion. All of the Americans I know
that are family and close friends, do not support Trump or the other GOP
idiots. So there. My appeal to the media here and in the USA—please shut up
unless you have something positive to say or some solution for how to get rid
of Trump before November.
And while we’re at it—could we please end the reality TV
culture and celebrity worship? I don’t want to see another Kardashian (any of
them) on my TV screen or in any newspapers for as long as I live. I don’t watch
these shows, never have and never will, but it seems as if whatever so-called 'celebrities' do is news-worthy. Here's a quick tip--NOT. Is
this what money does to people’s brains? Can heads of the media no longer see what
quality is and what crap is?
I no longer read the newspaper at breakfast. I read the
comics page (since it is actually more intelligent than much of what passes for news--you need only to read Bloom County to know that)
and then put the paper aside until later in the day. I refuse to discuss the
grotesque goings-on in the world when I first get up. There are many things to
be thankful for--the life we have been given, the chance to live another day,
the chance to wake up to sunshine, the chance to love those in our lives
(humans and pets), to chance to choose healthy, and the chance to appreciate
the world we live in and to take care of it. That's how I want to start my day, and live my day.
The best prayer of all---so much wisdom contained in one little prayer. If we followed its advice, we would save ourselves so much pain, complaining and irritation.
