Genes

“Just thought I'd let you know that [your grandson’s] tooth cut through! Just noticed this morning,”   read the text from my daughter-in-law.  That was a week ago. 

So the drool was in fact the precursor of teeth, even at three months, in January, when I first proposed the idea that our grandson might be teething.  Signs of teething, at three months.  Could it be?

Well, yes.  His father was also a drool machine at three months.  He cut his first tooth at four and a half months.  Our beautiful boy was five months old on Tuesday.

 

His length and weight also eclipse the norms for his age.  By five months, his father, my son, had mushroomed to twenty-two pounds.   Could this be just coincidence?  Or rather some evidence for the critical role our genetic inheritance can play in our lives.

I’ve always believed that nurture affects our nature more than, well, nature.  The environment in which we are born and raised determines to a greater extent than our genes our propensities and physical characteristics, I have staunchly maintained. The jury seems to be out on whether nurture or nature has the greater effect; both work in combination to produce the human each one of us becomes.

Still, unexpected events give me pause.  My father-in-law, a very social and sociable man fascinated by everything in life, adored conversation.  He engaged every fibre of his being in the exchange, eyes riveted on the other person, a smile on his face.  When that person’s contribution to the conversation extended what he himself knew or had heard on the subject, his smile would widen, his head lift a tad, and turn a few degrees to the left and back again in amazement.  Almost two decades later, while talking to his grandson, our younger son, I stopped in mid-sentence.  My son’s eyes riveted on me, a smile on his face, his head lifted a tad, and he turned his head a few degrees to the left, and then back.  In fact, I was the one amazed.  My son was born five years after his grandfather’s death.  He never knew him.  Chalk up another one for nature.

Those images consume me as my son and his wife discuss their son’s physical development and his evolving tastes.  Turns out our grandson loves music from the fifties, to the point that his father has begun a playlist of his favorites on Rdio.  Now, one would surmise, he might be getting this preference from his dad, who plays bass guitar in a band.  The only thing is, the band doesn’t play fifties music.  At all.  His father just exposed his son to a variety of musical styles, and noticed a heightened response for rock and roll from the fifties.

Here’s the thing.  His grandfather, my husband, thrives on music from the fifties.  When we travel by car, he keeps the radio on the Fifties station.  (House rule:  The driver chooses the radio station.  In fact, that propensity has motivated me to assume my share of the driving, but that’s neither here nor there.)   He grooves to the songs while driving, slapping his knees and the steering wheel to the beat.  It’s happy music, he says.  A person just feels upbeat when it’s on.  Apparently, his grandson shares that opinion.

Add to that our daughter, the artist.  My husband doesn’t draw.  Neither do I.  My mother, though, had a gift.  Now, her granddaughter brings it to life.   Yes, these observations are unscientific.  But they astound me nonetheless, and, as I watch our grandson develop,  I marvel at nature and our genetic inheritance all the same. 

Service

“Can we help you?”  asks the clerk at Sandbox in the City, a ladies’ clothing boutique my hairdresser recommended to me, as she materializes between racks of brightly patterned sun dresses.

“Yes, thank you, I’m looking for a dress for my daughter’s wedding. In June,” I reply, more to the jeans, tunics, dress pants, dresses, blouses, two-piece coordinating swimwear, and jewellery that consume almost every square inch of the retail space than to the clerk’s face.

“Well, you’ve come at the right time,” she reassures me.  In a month, we’ll be sold out.  Really? I thought, struggling to find byte space for the conversation.  Wow.  And I thought I had time to spare.  “What did you have in mind?”

My head rotates back to the clerk, like a flower seeking sunlight, and I locate my smile.  “Something sleeveless, fitted, knee length, in a solid colour.  Not red.  Not black, either, I hope.”

“Why don’t you look around and see what you like, to start?”

I feel intimidated at the embarassment of riches.  This, too, is an elephant, and a small bite is in order.  I separate the hangers to get a good look at the dresses and check sizes, and  I hook a beige and black geometric design on the end of my finger.  Well, I can see what the general effect is, anyway.  Encouraged but not yet enthusiastic, I add a navy lace, a royal blue straight cut with a gold belt, and another to be unveiled at the wedding. 

You know, already, then, that I did find a dress, that the clerk’s enthusiasm for the diverse looks I modelled fuelled my enjoyment of the process, so much that I even tried on the red shift and the bright yellow long-sleeved number she suggested.

I try the winner on again at the end of the process, just to be sure.  While the purchase goes through, she recommends earrings, and tells me where to go for shoes, and who to see there. 

She was competent, that’s for sure. Many people can be competent.  How many, however, can manage a distracted customer at the end of the day, half an hour before closing, with that customer’s satisfaction rather than a sale at heart, and the ability to convince me that there’s nothing else she would rather have been doing at that moment.  I leave the store surprised that I have something to wear for the wedding, relieved that the pressure is off, and  grateful for an exceptional service experience.

The prize for not just exceptional service but an unparalleled service experience goes to the receptionist of the imaging department of a hospital I visited recently.  Negativity infected the waiting room.  People used their time to grumble about the wait, to remind the young woman managing the area about the length of their wait.  Not to her face, of course.  They didn’t go to the counter and inquire about their turn in a calm voice, smile on their face, confident that all the employees were doing their best to expedite the service.  Instead, they conversed among themselves, strangers joined in a solidarity of the dissatisfied, connected in their irritation, their words just loud enough to be heard throughout the room.

Rather than ignore those complaints and continue about her business, the receptionist addressed them in the same upbeat, joyful tone she used to interact with her colleagues and patients who presented at the window.  How long have you been waiting, sir?  Let me just check for you.  You know, it will only be a few more minutes.   Her decision to maintain a pleasant disposition immunized her from the negative contagion.  In fact, she herself could vaccinate against pessimism anyone entering the room inclined to benefit from her tonic.  Through her command of both her own attitude and the skills necessary for effective service, she innoculated me as well.

The onus is not only on the service provider, however.  To be fair, as a customer or client, I do have some responsibilities of my own.  I want to smile, be positive and patient, wear my pleasant face and minimize the gestures.  That strategy pays off most of the time in better service.    Only when it doesn’t can I give myself permission to invoke retaliatory measures, as long as those measures don’t involve rudness.  For the boutiques where the salespeople can’t be bothered to say hello when I walk in, especially if they’re not  with a customer,  for example, I make a point of not finding anything I like, an apt consequence, I tell myself, for someone who neither does a job nor provides a service.

Congratulations and thank you to the clerk who sold me my dress and the receptionist at the hospital.  Through the joy and pride you take in the service you provide, you make life better for the people you touch each day.  You also remind us what great service looks like, and give us a model to emulate.

Tante

“Hi, Yvette, it’s your cousin Gisèle calling.”

I knew, right then, what her message was.

“Tante Yvette has passed away, hasn’t she?”

“Mom passed away peacefully this evening.”

”Oh, Gisèle, I’m so sorry!”  That was all I could say.  I couldn’t even focus on the rest of my cousin’s message.  I had to ask her to repeat her request several times, to make sense of it, so it could pierce through the images of the aunt with whom I shared a name.

Tante Yvette:

·  the matchmaker, in cahoots with her husband, Henri, introduced my parents almost sixty-five years ago.  My mother, Évéline, took the bus from the city for a weekend visit to the small town where her sister and her brother-in-law lived.   The story was that Oncle Henri didn’t want to venture out alone twenty miles in a torrential July rain storm on soaked clay roads to pick her up, though, so he asked his friend, Hervé, to accompany him.  Hervé and Évéline were married the following January.

·  the hospitable aunt, welcoming me, the shy university student, into her family for Sunday dinner.

·  the proud mother, radiating joy in  her children’s accomplishments.

·  the grieving widow, rebuilding her life after Oncle Henri’s untimely passing.

·  the efficient professional, providing bilingual secretarial services first at the university, and later, in government.

·  the storyteller, trading anecdotes with me over red wine, steelhead trout, and chocolate lava cake in a quaint bistro.

·  the hostess, eyes alight after an afternoon chitchat with my father, when I picked him up after work to take him home.  

Tante Yvette, at 88, is the last of her family, another in the line of indomitable women I am privileged and proud to call my ancestors.  Strong, resilient, unbowed, all of them.   She and my mother, their mother and their sisters, have taught me well.  Now, the torch has passed to me.

Environment

I could have walked to the hairdresser’s this morning.  It’s only ten blocks in our small city.  The cold (−14° C) wasn’t a factor; it takes a lot of weather to phase prairie people.  We know how to dress for cold.  Sure, a one kilometre walk each way is great exercise.  Did I want to squish my new hair cut under a head band or a toque, though?  Maybe not.  So I drove.  For convenience. 

Convenience is bad for the environment.  Think of diapers, disposable dishware, pencils we don’t have to sharpen, pens that don’t need refills, and packaged soaked cloths to clean the floor.  Consider as well single-serve coffee capsules, or pods,  for single-serve brewers.   No large coffee maker, no grounds, no drips, no mess.  So convenient.  And, people who use them tell me, you get a great cup of coffee.  But is the convenience of those single-serve pods worth all the garbage?

I have never been able to understand the popularity of these machines in an age of environmental consciousness.  They decorate many a kitchen counter in home and office.  Imagine the accumulated waste!  How many cups of coffee per day for each person, multiplied by the number of people in the office or home, multiplied by the number of offices or homes.   No wonder that discarded K-cups, 8.3 billion in 2013 (Keurig only, not counting other brands), could circle the globe almost 11 times (author Murray Carpenter did the math in Caffeinated, referenced in Macleans by Rosemary Counter, “Pop people, rise up,” February 2, 2015).   I feel vindicated.  No one else I know seems to be worried about it.

Make no mistake—I am no environmental saint.  My sins add up, and I confess them here :

·  I love disposable pencils and pens.

·  I still cave to Iced Cappucinos, despite the one-use container (technically recyclable).

·  I don’t compost (yet, I tell myself).

·  We don’t have solar panels on our home.

·  We have a large, older home, that requires a lot of energy to heat.

·  I shower daily—longer and hotter than they would need to be.

·  When menstrual cups were touted as an answer to the waste from sanitary napkins, I swore I would be the last person to use them.  I drew my line in the sand right there.

·  I enjoy packaged wet cloths for the floor.

·  I don’t plant a garden any more and yet.

Over the years, however, I have tried to do my tiny bit for the environment.  Think globally, act locally, to borrow the social justice mantra.  Serious environmentalists might scoff at my minimal efforts; still, I do manage a few actions that at least don’t make the situation worse.

·  I use bins and cloth bags for groceries.

·  We recycle.

·  I keep my vegetables loose in the grocery cart and out of one-use plastic bags, whenever I can.

·  I take a travel mug to meetings and on trips.

·  I purchased a water bottle with a filter to avoid plastic water bottles on our last trip.

·  I used cloth diapers for all three children.

·  I stop the car for trains and road-construction queues.

·  I reserve disposable dishware at home for gatherings of more than thirty people.  When my fanatical side has clawed through the barriers of both convenience and difference, I have taken my own dishware along to functions, even to Taste of Manitoba years ago.

·  I very seldom purchase single-serve prepared food.

·  I purchase paper towels and toilet paper made from recycled paper.

·  I purchase as much organic produce and products as availability and my budget allow.

So given my exposed vascillation on environmental action, why do coffee pods bother me so much?  Companies, just as much as individuals, I feel, have a respsonsibility to contribute to an environmental solution, not to the problem.  Single-serve pods create garbage.  Recycling for those pods that can be recycled is messy and labour-intensive.  Why put something on the market that doesn’t consider the environmental impact?  Why encourage people to create more garbage?  The obvious answer, to make money, just doesn’t cut it.  K-cup packs won’t be recyclable until 2020.  That’s at least 8.3 billion times 7 years (2013 – 2019), or 58.1 billion cups in landfills.  Is convenience so important to us that we are willing to pay that price?  “If companies start out with a more corporate responsible product, that'd make more sense,” add the makers of the Kill the K-Cup video posted to YouTube a few weeks ago.  In the meantime, Keurig and Ekobrew offer a reusable filter option that uses ground coffee.  Why not have integrated a reusable cup into the nature of the machine in the first place, and dispensed with the disposable pods?  Would the gadget be as popular without the disposable option?  If not, what does that say about us as consumers and our concern for the environment?

 

For now, our household continues to forego the convenience of a single-serve coffee maker.   I am grateful to Mr. Carpenter for crunching the numbers on coffee pods, and to Macleans for reporting on his book and on the coffee-pod phenomenon.   I don’t feel so alone any more.  

Class

I admire class.  Not class as a societal stratum, for sure.  Not class as a look, either, although refined elegance in dress and manner always entices me to pause and appreciate.  Not even class in bearing—shoulders squared, head held high, look direct and approachable, eyes soft and steely, mouth always ready to smile, mouvements sure and unhurried, although such self-possession does approach my ideal. 

Class in action is what I look for, and having found it, carve its every detail into my memory as a composite of a vision to emulate.  For me, class has particular characteristics.

1.      Class is humble.  It diffuses any credit coming its way.  Class prefers “we” to “I” and is a team player. 

2.      Class pays attention.  It notices details about others and remembers them to integrate into conversation.   

3.      Class strips away hierarchy and shuns prestige or privilege.  Jean Béliveau, a forward with the Montreal Canadiens from 1950 until 1971 who passed away on December 2, 2014, asked why he always gave 100% effort in every game, replied that, if that game happened to be one a fan had traveled a long distance to attend, and, for that fan, might even be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, that fan deserved to see the best.  Beliveau—the epitome of class.

4.      Class is more concerned about the other person than itself.  Class converses with others about them, not about itself.  Class shows interest in the activities and events in the lives of others, and, in so doing, affirms their life experience.

5.      Class always has time; it is never in a rush, and never busy.  Class waits for the guest to stand and signal the end of a visit.  Class  is calm and unflappable.

6.      Class is inclusive; it makes room for everyone.  Class will leave a dinner table to sit with someone fated to dine alone, even if the potential solitary diner’s  stubbornness has created the situation.

7.      Class acknowledges people, regardless of their appearance or their station.  Even when an acquaintance arrives at the very moment it must welcome a celebrity, class will greet the unexpected arrival, initiate a conversation, and, the celebrity on his own to leave the limo and walk to the entrance, prolong the conversation so the acquaintance and the celebrity can be introduced.

It’s so easy to be dismissive.  In a careless moment, the brain detaches from a conversation to focus on what has to be done next.  It prompts the fingers to key in a phrase, or close a file.  In that split second of preoccupation, the eyes lose contact; they might look away, or disappear behind an invisible curtain.  All it takes is one careless minute.  The individual involved gets it.  He or she looks away, shuts down, abdicates from the conversation, or ends it and leaves.  The damage is done.   

That's why class is so important, and why I enshrine it in my memory wherever I find it.

Alchemy

It turns out that alchemy, the ancient preoccupation with turning base metal into gold, is relevant to my life.  The practice, or tradition, as it is sometimes referred to, is a concept I have relegated to the far corners of my cognition as handy to dust off for trivia games, but of no practical value.

Since I finished The Alchemist, by the Brazilian author Paulo  Coehlo, I have begun to think of alchemy in the abstract, rather than the concrete.    It does apply, more than a little, and here’s why.

Alchemy is about perfection and transformation.  That perfection come about as a result of a separation from the constraints of the world.  Lead, a bright and silvery substance when first excavated, becomes a dull blue when exposed to the air.   That its original gleam tarnishes in the real world would make its subsequent transformation to gold remarkable for more than the wealth that would follow.  That’s the concrete side of alchemy.

There’s a spiritual side, too.  Transformation applies to humans, as well.  In fact, the author Coehlo emphasizes that “each thing has to transform itself into something better” (p. 150).  Has to.  Not could, might, or has been known to.  Must.  An obligation.  A duty.  As I see it, the transformation has two possible pathways—ourselves, and others.

We are required to be the best we can be.  We must take our given set of physical characteristics, our innate talents, propensities, or interests, and develop them.  I can point to a few personal metamorphoses in my own life.  One would be interacting with large groups of people, which required overcoming a natural shyness that still lurks sometimes in the untended brush of the frontiers of my personality.  Another would be music.  Somehow, thanks to a transformative friend-teacher who took me under her wing to further my piano studies and the patience of musician colleagues, I learned not only to overcome the chasms in my musicianship, but also to silence the voices of inadequacy chanting in my head since childhood.  The  confidence thus mortared through the years brick by brick has enabled me to learn to play the harp.  The base metal of my lack of talent has become the gold of my actualized abilities.

We are also required to help others be the best they can be.  That’s the second pathway of spiritual alchemy.   A smile and a sincere question for a harried cashier elicits a sparkle in the eyes and relaxation in the shoulders; a few minutes of conversation with students at the beginning of class creates a connection; support for people at the start of their careers provides encouragement; patience and feedback help a learner achieve confidence and vanquish demons.  The base metal in the people we encounter every day becomes the gold of their best selves at little cost to us. 

In transforming ourselves and our surroundings, then, we become alchemists.  “That’s what alchemists do,” Coelho says.  “They show that, when we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too” (p. 150)     What might happen then, when we strive to become better than we are and encourage others to exceed their perceived possibilities?  Understanding, maybe, and patience; dialogue and openness.  The refusal to use random assassination, kidnapping, or massacre to make a point.  Lead transformed into gold.  Alchemy relevant still.

Reads

My reading life has taken a hit this year, broadsided by the relationship I cultivate with my harp every day.  Well, everything has a price.  Still, I did read beyond newspaper and magazine articles during the past year.  As I inventory the titles, I notice that the reasons behind the choices tell a tale as compelling as the books themselves!  In that spirit, here’s a taste of what I read during 2014, and why.

As nostalgia,

·  a reread of the Outlander trilogy (Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, and Voyager) by Diana Gabaldon, mostly to appreciate and assess the mini-series that aired in August and resumes again in April.  The characters, all of them, not only Jamie and Claire, are like old friends I revisit from time to time.  I never tire of the story.

·  Written in My Own Heart’s Blood, by Diana Gabaldon, the ninth book in the series, a disappointment, sad to say, in a facile ending that might satisfy readers rooting for a happy outcome, but that I found difficult to accept even in the context of time travel and the requisite suspension of disbelief.

To entice my grandson, a rediscovery of my favorites in children’s literature for the very young :

·  Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? by Eric Carle, a repetitve book that will leave the child with an entire collection of descriptive verbs;

·   Jelly Belly, by Dennis Lee, especially “Rock Me Easy, Rock Me Slow,” “Five Fat Fleas,” and “Doodle-y-doo”;

·  The Random House Book of Poetry for Children, selected by Jack Prelutsky, especially “When All the World Is Full of Snow,” by N. M. Bodecker.  This is a precious collection; be sure to check out “Mama Doesn’t Want a Dog,” by Judith Viorst, and, for my teacher colleagues, “Miss Norma Jean Pugh, FIRST GRADE TEACHER,”  by Mary O’Neill;

·  Marcel Finds a Friend, text by Julian Beutel, illustrations by Dominique Beutel, produced for their nephew’s birth day.

To support professional activities,

·  Grading Smarter, Not Harder, by Myron Dueck (2014), a practical manual on grading that tackles thorny issues ignored by other assessment authors.  On the paradigm shift that might be required from some communities to accept that students have an opportunity to redo tests, he says:  “Those who have benefitted from the more traditional, regimented forms of testing may feel that their hierarcy is threatened as less successful students gain access to academic proficiency . . . the lord and ladies of academia do not wish to share power with the peasants” 
(p. 111 – 112).    Amen.

·  Never Underestimate Your Teachers by Robyn Jackson (2013), a book for instructional leaders on bringing out the skill and will in teachers.

To support local authors,

·  Remarkably Ordinary by Susan Harris, a Trinidad-born writer I met at a Christmas craft in our community.  Relating vignettes from her life experience, she shares what those experiences taught her about living intentionally.

·  The Other Side of Fear, by Marie Donais Calder, a Saskatchewan writer telling the story of her father’s experiences with the occupying force in Germany at the end of World War II.  When her father befriends a German boy and his family, he discovers that people resemble each other more than they differ, no matter where they live.  The strength of the book lies in that central theme.  Calder tells the story over a series of nine young adult novels (I have read only the first).

To risk the edge,

·  The Rings of Saturn by W. G. Sebald, a German writer I heard referenced on CBC’s Writers and Company, hosted by Eleanor Wachtel.  As both Wachtel and her guest lauded Sebald’s prose, I thought I might learn something from reading his work.  This book recounts the author’s experiences during a walking tour of the eastern coast of England.  In a style reminsicent of Marcel Proust, Sebald weaves together descriptions, encounters with fellow travelers and friends, and historical details.  Throughout, his comments provide a fascinating perspective on varied but esoteric topics like weaving and raising silkworms.  For example, on writing he says:  One could not say whether one goes on writing purely out of habit, or a craving for admiration, or because one knows not how to do anything other, or out of sheer wonderment, despair or outrage, any more than one could say whether writing renders one more perceptive or more insane. (pp. 181-182).  The book was an enlightening read, but not a page-turner.

To further an area of interest,

·  Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond (1997), a book about why power and influence has graced some societies and not others.  Turns out, geography plays a pivotal role, and Diamond explains why in a very readable and clear style.  I read Collapse :  How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005), a few years ago, and was hooked.  I had to track down the first book.

·  Runaway, by Alice Munro (2004).  When Canadian writer Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize for Literature earlier this year, I scoured my personal library for any copies of her work.  A master of the short story, Munro has perfected concise writing, especially gripping and information-packed beginnings.  A second collection I found, Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (2001), sits on my to-read pile.  This time, I plan to finish.

Works in progress,

·  Buffy Sainte-Marie:  It’s My Way by Blair Stonechild (2012), whom I met while I was a faculty member at the University of Regina Baccalauréat en éducation program, and who, it turns out in a felicitous coïncidence, is my neighbor’s brother!

·  The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho (1988), a Christmas gift from my sister, seems to be an allegory about how to realize your dreams.  I’ve already jotted down a few gems.   Here’s one:  Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it’s all written there. (p. 74)

Quite an eclectic collection, I see, to put a positive spin on a bizarre set of odd titles and reading purposes.  All of them have been worth my time, and some have been more compelling than others.   The gripping reads kept me glued to the book, of course, during long drives, at airport gates and in airplanes, at breakast and before bed.  The others, quaint and useful, required discipline, planning, and a lot more time, to complete.   I can’t wait to see how this year’s list will evolve.

Happy reading in 2015.