Celebrating

The Heart of Celebrating

What comes to mind with the ringing suggestion, “Let’s celebrate!” Parties! Friends! Presents! Fun. Food. Time off from the demands of daily life. Oh yes, and for whom are we rejoicing, or for what achievement. Whatever. Good times are on the horizon. Who can resist?

The perception of good times differs with the person and the event. A child’s birthday party usually values presents, games and cake more than a sixty-year olds festivity. Good times to recognize thirty or forty years of marriage or a retirement may look forward to recalling stories of special events and missed people.

Whether the celebration takes the form of two people going out for dinner or family and/or friends coming together, they all show the reason for gathering is more important than the normal activities of the day. Religious holidays (celebrations) are so important that workers have time off with pay. Some people travel long distances to attend weddings, anniversaries, graduation or award ceremonies. Interrupting normal life for the benefit of a person is an uplifting action. Attending says a person is so important that I will change my normal plans. It’s like a friend spending hours and hours observing you to find out what you would really like for a present. Also it’s like friends or family that spends days organizing your special event. Those actions say you are really worth it. That is the heart of participating in a person’s celebration.

There are many celebrating events for people in my novel, Baggage burdens. In one case an event is invented to honor a person. But what happens if these special days are forgotten or just missed all together?

“Another special occasion?” asks Crystal, server at the Norseman Restaurant, as she greets Jill and Joseph. She’d served them when the Teemoskys joined Jill and Joseph for dinner six weeks ago.

“Today we’re celebrating our fourteenth wedding anniversary,” informs Jill, as they are lead to their usual table. “Our wedding date was two days ago.”

“What was it last time you were here?” asks Crystal. “I know you told me, but it didn’t stick.”

“Appreciation Day,” says Joseph.

“Oh yes,” recalls Crystal. As Jill hangs her coat on the hook by their table, Crystal adds, “And speaking of appreciation, I have to tell you I love your dress Mrs. Kreshky.”

“Thank you. Last time, Joseph said we were going to celebrate a special day, so I should buy a special dress. And I did. He likes it so much that he insisted I wear it tonight.”

“Would you turn around again so I could admire it?”

Without Daniel knowing it, Joseph watches his son struggle pulling the saddle off Hoss and dragging it to the sawhorse. Daniel carefully balances it, before grabbing a brush to groom the horse.

‘That’s it!’ Joseph remembers a saddle that Daniel has been admiring, one more his size, one Joseph said he could have when Daniel had his own horse. ‘That’ll be his birthday present! A trade.’ Joseph smiles. ‘A consolation for missing out on the party he dreams about.’

In many ways Daniel’s birthday party is a success. Three days before Daniel’s party Jill recovers. She wakes up early to make breakfast and lunch for Daniel. She is excited about the coming celebration. Joseph is relieved to see Jill’s lethargic behavior disappear.

Daniel is excited about his parent’s party too. It’s his second party. The first party took place at school. Daniel’s teacher discussed Daniel’s low spirits with Joseph. Joseph explained a family gathering was replacing Daniel’s usual birthday party. The teacher asked Joseph if he would mind if she organized a small surprise party for Daniel at school. She explained that she was already planning a celebration of the students’ achievements for their first reporting period. Adding a surprise birthday party for Daniel would give her a chance to talk to the rest of the class about their self-discipline. Could they keep Daniel’s birthday party a secret? Her plan worked. And Daniel’s close friends brought presents too.

haiku capsule:                 

for someone special

a party to applaud you

a celebration

Next blog: Pet’s Place in a Home

Work Turns Sour

Work Turns Sour

 If you don’t like the work that you are already doing, work can’t turn sour. It’s already sour, sour like a stick of rhubarb. Work is a means to an end. On the other hand, if work were a pleasure, then why would it change? 

A critical factor in the joy of working is the element of freedom of choice. You can do what you want, when you want, for as long as you want. Take that freedom away and joy flees. It still can be done but the passion has left. Choosing a quality of life that is beyond one’s means can do that. 

However, the coffee cream hasn’t curdled yet. When family and friend relationships deteriorate or the need for money becomes unending, the job turns worker into slave, slave of the dollar. Work is now sour. The cream has now curdled. Time to throw it out. Thoughts of quitting the job may result in bankruptcy or even a family break up. Is it possible to see this downhill slide in its infancy so that it can be stopped or does transformation sneak up and remain undetected until it's too late?

If you’re conscious that work is becoming a means to an end perhaps it is possible to detect trouble, but if you aren’t suspecting that trouble it may be missed. In my novel, Baggage burdens. the signs are evident. Can you see the signs in the following selections?

Once Thomas sees his children are busy playing, he announces his good news. He’s landed a bathroom renovation job in Camrose. The work involves moving old main floor bathroom fixtures to a new basement suite. Then he’s to modernize the one upstairs. He asks Joseph if he would be willing to help.

Joseph hesitates, trying to determine if he can do the renovation job and still have Jill’s new dresser ready by Valentine’s Day. He prefers the prospect of curling up on the love seat before the fireplace in the evening with Jill.

In an attempt to encourage Joseph to accept, Jill whispers that she sees they can use the extra money to buy new cutlery. Joseph’s everyday dishes were scavenged from three different sets. Jill confesses she’s reluctant to serve company with them.

Seeing the hopeful look in both Thomas and Jill’s eyes convinces Joseph to accept. He hopes that by working in Camrose all day and working on the dresser at Thomas’ at night he can meet his promised deadline.

After two weeks of working on the renovation project, Thomas tells Joseph he has another contract. He asks Joseph to work on it too. Joseph chooses not to tell Jill. While Jill doesn’t complain that he often returns home after she has gone to bed, Joseph misses being with her.

Joseph saw the holiday as an opportunity to spend time with Jill as husband and wife. Between her studies and her teaching they had little time for each other. What bothered him is that Jill didn’t seem to mind their time apart, but he missed it. One of the reasons he chose to work on the Swanson house was to see if Jill would miss him. When she showed no concern, he had considered quitting his work with John. Then John asked him to help with the plumbing. That’s when John offered his Hawaiian condo. Joseph’s dream of spending time alone with Jill revived.

Early in the new year John, Joseph’s employer, asks Joseph to work twelve-hour days. After checking and receiving Jill’s encouragement, Joseph agrees. It’s an opportunity to earn extra money. They’d spent more on their Hawaiian holiday than he planned.

“You mean we can go!” Jill can hardly believe she won his approval. The expenses were high. She had prepared a list of several reasons why he should agree at least to going to Disneyland.

“Yes. I had to figure out if I could save up enough money for the trip, but I think by March I should be able to meet your estimated expenses. I might have to take a few extra jobs in the winter, but I should be able to do it.”

“That’s wonderful!”

“Of course that’ll mean I’ll have to work a few more evenings.”

“I can make a power point presentation for the kids or maybe burn the highlights of the trip on a DVD.” Jill’s excitement prevents her from catching Joseph’s last words.

“You don’t mind?”

“Don’t mind what?”

“Me working more evenings?”

“Oh no. We’ll have a wonderful holiday.”

A frown momentarily crosses Joseph’s face. He turns around and goes to the cupboard for a glass of water.

She can’t see his disappointment.

“You said you had two things you wanted to talk about.”

Jill waits until Joseph sits down at the table. A blank face greets her. ‘Something bothering him?’

“Well?” asks Joseph. He sets his glass down.

“Our twenty-fifth anniversary is coming up.”

“November 13^th, I know.”

“It’s kind of a super special time. I thought we might really celebrate the event.”

“Meaning what?”

“Have a big party here. We could invite Mary and Ed, Ann and Pete, Thomas and Rebecca, our pastor, some of the people from the Sunday school staff, and some from the drama club. I was wondering if you had someone else you might want to include from work.”

“How about a small intimate gathering of family and close friends only?”

“You mean skip the Sunday school teachers and the people from the drama club?

“Yes. The spring holiday will wipeout our savings. I don’t want to add more expenses.”

“If we’re short of money we could always use our line of credit to cover our holiday.” Jill feels like her recommendation puts her on thin ice, but she really wants to invite everyone she identified. “Twenty-five years of marriage is a major achievement. Don’t you want all our friends to know about it and join us in celebrating it?”

“I don’t want to go into debt unless it is an emergency. When we had the second mortgage, I felt like I had a noose around my neck. I had to work long days, weekends and not get sick. One slip and I was dead. I won’t have that again. If you want a big anniversary party then we will have give up the spring holiday. You choose. What’s more important?”

His stern response surprises her. She senses little room for compromise. It’s the first time she heard him take such a strong position.

“Our holiday,” responds Jill, without a moment’s hesitation.

haiku capsule:                 

unrestrained spending

expenses exceed income

joy of work stolen

Next blog: The Heart of Celebrating

Living a Dream

Living a Dream

Advice that followed the question, “What do you want to be when you graduate?” said “Choose to do something you love doing.” Being paid to do something that you see as fun is like living in a dream. How much you earn, an employer's idiosyncrasies, oddball fellow workers fade in the background. Of course what you do must provide value, value such that you can meet the needs of yourself and your family. Put those two conditions together and you can look forward to a happy life. Passion driven workers take pride in finding new and better ways to produce a more superior service or good. Your customers’ thanks and praise is like a bonus cheque.

Unreal. Impossible. Not really. Unfortunately there are far too few stories about people who find this kind of success. My novel, Baggage burdens. shows several characters who pursue their passion and achieve a joy that drives them to seek new ways to succeed. Mary, owner of a café/ bakery, excels in serving people. She makes a point to know as much as she can about her patrons. Her knowledge-seeking strategy and her love for her customers builds her business and infects Jill, her employee and friend. Jill follows Mary’s passion for connecting with others and experiences a growing self-confidence, other’s respect, and happiness that has avoid her most of her life. Bill’s love for psychology and Joseph and Thomas’ love of farming and market gardening spur them to greater achievements and willingness to accept new challenges.

Jill gleans as much information as she can from Mary about the customers. When it comes to mini biographies, Jill sees Mary as a social encyclopedia. Mary’s information comes complete with cautions––what can be said in public and what Jill has to keep to herself.

Over the next two weeks, patrons express their surprise to Mary at how soon Jill begins greeting them by name.  Even though they suspect Mary has filled her in on their personal history, they are still impressed how much Jill correctly knows about them. 

Young customers begin coming. Word circulates about a new attractive employee at Prezchuck’s Bakery Plus. Their efforts to extract information about Jill’s past fail. Jill adopts her grandmother’s strategy, “it’s a woman’s right to maintain a degree of mystery about her.” Jill's response to their probing transforms into an invitation, even a contest, to see who can extract tidbits of Jill’s treasured past. While no one succeeds, the desire to be the first continues to challenge a growing number of young males.

After working at the bakery for a month Jill encourages the current whispered gossip about her. She adds an auburn tint to her hair, a few streaks to her bangs, or a new top or pair of slacks to her wardrobe supplying the boys and some of the older, flirting men with new opportunities to engage her in conversation. The number and size of her tips testifies to Jill’s success and increases her ability to splurge a little more on herself. 

Under Mary’s tutoring, Jill’s cooking skills develop to a point where Jill comfortably claims credit for some menu items. Her first success, mastering Mary’s already highly prized cinnamon buns, becomes a celebrated event that attracts an even wider cliental. Substituting dried mixed fruits for raisins, results in Jill’s buns selling out before Mary’s. Her newly acquired skills earn respect among the older female customers too. Jill’s revelations, about experimenting to provide alternates to Mary’s dishes, enhance the word of mouth advertising.

By the end of the first week in November, Jill begins to share with Mary samples of gossip she overhears while serving. In turn, Mary evaluates Jill’s sources and provides her perspective on Jill's recent news story. Together, they build a more complete profile of their patrons’ personal lives.

haiku capsule:                 

most rewarding job

what your heart hungers to do

labor fulfillment

Next blog: Work Turns Sour

A Barbed Winning Strategy

A Barbed Winning Strategy

What an gloomy notion for a story!

Barbed like fishhooks of the past. The hook slides easily into the fish’s mouth. Extracting it involves ripping the flesh. Ouch! 

Winning Strategy, a plan designed to accomplish a good deed, is easily accepted. Unexpectedly the plan backfires, causes excruciating pain. How can such an awful outcome happen as a result of a trying to make someone happy?

This is a situation that highlights love is blind. In my novel, Baggage burdens. Joseph supports his depressed wife’s desire to complete her education. Later he defends her desire to home school their children, an action strongly questioned by their close-knit community. Her self-image is restored, but a skeleton from her past, twists Joseph’s appreciated effort. The consequences of Jill’s changing goals lead to demands too great for Joseph to handle. In the end his pain also becomes her pain.

Joseph decides to break the silence that’s building like a threatening thundercloud ready to dump its contents. “If anyone thinks my children are neglected by Jill, then let them ask Daniel or Amber or me. What they might learn is that Jill works so hard that she satisfies all of us—the children, herself, and me. That should suggest she should be held in awe.” Joseph leaves his chair, goes to Jill and puts his arm around her shoulder. He plants a kiss on her forehead.

“You don’t get it, do you?” He pauses for a moment giving Jill a chance to think as he considers whether he should be as blunt as he feels. “I don’t love you anymore. It’s like you are poisonous fruit now. I don’t want to see you or hear from you ever again.”

He brushes past Jill and opens the truck door.

haiku capsule:                 

gift, loving aid

a quicksand grasp, good will lost

devastated friend

Next blog: Evidence––Work Follows 

Your Passion