#6 - Gone Camping, But Still Here
Small Gratitudes; RIP, Ryuichi Sakamoto; Don’t Share, Self-Care
Hello, my friends,
If you’re reading this right when it goes out, I am most likely waking up in a lovely, recently-purchased tent, hopefully not too hot in the sleeping bag borrowed from my in-laws. Let's hope everyone slept fitfully and are ready to relish day out in nature, but realistically, I was probably up all night peeing, taking a child out to pee, disturbed by someone’s snoring, figuring out what to do because a child peed in a sleeping bag, wrassling with a bear, and who knows what else (but it probably involves pee). Will camping with the whole family be fun? You’ll have to wait till the next issue to find out.
Small Gratitudes
Recently, I remembered a childhood trip to Pic’N’Save (now Big Lots) where my parents bought my brother and I a very simple game. It was a piece of cardboard with a hockey rink grid printed on it, little cardboard player figures, dice, a set of 10 hockey cards, and the rules. I recall that one of the cards was of Mike Modano, who we hadn't heard of at that time, but later found out was a superstar. I’m grateful that my parents bought us that game because we played it till it tore! Then, we began creating our own hockey (and later basketball) games based on that one with intricate stats-keeping and more complex rules. For several years, we played numerous home-made versions of that game, even going as far as creating whole leagues with our hockey and basketball cards. So why small gratitudes?
Well, because some reasons for gratitude are minor in the big picture, not even close to life-changing, but somehow still meaningful. An example of such a gratitude was when I remembered that during the time Igor (my brother) and I played those games, we would run our drafts and games with cards and boards covering the entire dining room table for days, sometimes weeks! It almost feels too odd to say, but I am grateful that I can’t recall a single time when our parents asked us to remove the cards and boards. They just let us play! Moreover, when we built whole cities in the living room for our Hot Wheels cars and action figures, they stepped over our creations and never made us move the stuff.
They left our imaginations intact, literally. I guess sometimes a small gratitude is actually a big gratitude.
RIP, Ryuichi Sakamoto
Music has always been a somewhat solitary experience for me. I rarely share my explorations with others and usually discover artists through YouTube algorithms, the odd blogger, interesting album covers on Freegal, and other seemingly random encounters. It doesn’t help that my tastes are truly all over the place.
It follows that I learned about Sakamoto sideways by way of his group, Yellow Magic Orchestra (following my penchant for delving into sub and sub-sub genres of electronic music). Soon, I fell in love with his album “Playing the Piano” and created enduring memories of listening, humming, and tapping the table to it when 2-year-old Michael and I breakfasted together — simple, lovely, moments that I will never forget. Ryuichi Sakamoto died last Tuesday (March 28th) after a battle with cancer. Thank you, Mr. Sakamoto, and may you rest in peace.
Don’t Share, Self-Care
Sharing is a vaunted attribute, especially among youngsters. Sometimes, parents will even go overboard by taking a toy away from their child because another child is interested in it with the admonishment that they should share. I’m not sure that’s right — the other child could have been taught to wait their turn especially if it’s a zero-sum game like a single toy. Recently, I refused to share a cookie! It was my cookie and I wanted to eat the whole thing. Do I feel bad about it? I do not. Just thought I’d share that…
