Wisdom from The CulDeSac.
[Music]
as a writer
a community activist and a searcher
i’m someone who believes and happy ever
after
and yet i still carry this angst that i
haven’t quite yet accomplished are
achieved
i’m kind of cut between a rock and a
hard place
externally i look like i have it all
together
yes i teach and i have been part of some
really good stuff
work-wise but i always find that
i think i’ve more to do i haven’t quite
got there
i started out teaching personal
development over 25 years
ago they say you teach best what you
need to learn most
and i suppose that’s true for me
for instance i would have started off
reading
man search for meaning scott peck the
road less
traveled then further along the road
less traveled questions on the road less
travel
and i then found that i never
quite knew where i stopped i always
searched and went outside
so 2020 was to be the year draw the line
in the sand
and i was going to step out of my
comfort zone and practice what i
preached
i started off by booking my one woman
show
why i haven’t met oprah yet
i was so excited had a theater book list
old the cultural capital of the world
and then just at the end of february
early march my father had a fall
fractured his hip and as a result
complication set in and
he never really recovered so sadly he
passed
away i wrote his eulogy
i called it the father tries because he
used to say a musical instrument won’t
play itself unless you pick it up and
give it a go
this is a man who could play ten
different instruments he was self-taught
he couldn’t read sheet music
he was a plumber by trade he taught
everyone on the cul-de-sac how to swim
i remember the time he made a raft out
of pallets that he had in the shed
he put it on his bedford van and brought
us all down to the river daughter
there must have been about 10 or 12 of
us sitting on this raft
with sticks as paddles we thought we
were in the movies
i can still recall the glee
what my father was saying was give it a
go
try it live now not soon
i found myself then back in the same
cul-de-sac i was brought in
locked in with my 81 year old mother and
all my old neighbors
and in a strange way this pandemic has
put us all into a force cul-de-sac
where we’re all leveled where aesthetics
and prestige
don’t matter as much i looked around me
and i watched my neighbors
lily betty tony molly k
i watched them wrestle with change all
in their own unique way
my mother used to take out her prayer
beads she used to keep them in a little
sachet a little purse and every day at
half 12
she turned on the television and joined
in
with the covet rosary and then at
lunchtime she’d say i feel i did some
good today
i feel i’m fighting the virus as well
because prayer matters and then molly
your friend up the road 88 used to walk
up and down her garden this is a woman
who took up art in her 70s
still plays bridge always has a lovely
necklace on her lipstick
she said to me one day as i pass by
i think they’re going to have to teach
us how to walk again
if we don’t move we’re going to lose it
and then we share a laugh
across the road peggy
who has hands that are gifted she made
everyone’s communion dress
there was nothing she couldn’t do with
her hands and our garden
looked like it could win prizes
then i used to call in to lily she had a
fantastic mind i remember as a kid being
sent to a message to lily
and she’d always bring me in she made me
my first cup of coffee
on hot milk i remembered the skin in my
mouth and it burning me
but she was telling me about the velvety
and rabbit i’ve never forgotten it
lily today has two knee replacements and
they get too
hot in the summer so she couldn’t come
out in the garden and talk so she used
to
sit at the window and we used to talk to
her
and then there was sky news nora she
kept us all informed of the news and the
trivia
a great brain she knew the workings of
the government
nationally globally and she knew the
trivia the facts the soaps
she knew who was who and what was on
she has lost her husband
her grandson and her son in a very short
time
so she knows grief intimately
and she still gets up and says yes to
life
before covet i was traveling at a pace
of not to do to go to fresh to carry
multitasking thinking that was the way
of the world
i’d barely look up and say hello to my
neighbors
and missing out on the richness that
they held
these made me realize
the importance of connection because
what i was looking for
was something even more primal than that
i was disconnected i was in my own
cul-de-sac
i was looking to belong to be part of
the bigger picture
more innately actually what i realized
was
i had had it all along in the cul-de-sac
you see in the cul-de-sac time stand
still
time is immortal and they still see me
as the kid i was and
i suppose i still see them as the
wonderful big people
who were my first role models who
informed me
whose lives they were all interspersed
matter of factly
we got on with our lives rituals
rites of passage all looking out for
each other
everyone’s kids belong to each other
the first time i fell coursed
kissed got lost was heartbroken
is etched on the lines in the footpaths
on the walls that i know
it’s in the gardens in the houses in the
smells in the trees that i know so well
today more than ever the elders are
teaching me again the importance of
connection
because they’re just getting on with
getting on
they’re meeting life where it’s at
they’re feeling the fear and doing it
anyway and that’s without a book
the importance of a hello how are you
connecting my father from wherever he is
now
is saying show up
give it a go that shows that you care
be present connect just do your best
in all this time
what i was looking for was right beside
me
i had had it all along
what i learned in this cul-de-sac
was the best lesson i could have ever
got
the importance of connection and i could
put it into three words what the
cul-de-sac teaches you
it says how are you and it really means
it
so i invite you the next time
that you’re sitting with a neighbor or a
friend
to really ask how they are
and enjoy the wonder and the magic
that unfolds thank you
[Music]
you