It was great to cycle back home tonight and breathe in the air and the smells in it. Riding down a street through the smell of birch wood burning from one of the last pit fires that someone will have for the year in their backyard was intoxicating. It instantly made me feel comfort on a deep visceral level. Cruising past one of the seniors' complexes on my route homeward I caught that exact smell, wafting out of some open window, that matched one of my earliest memories of the aroma of my Baba's* delicious cabbage rolls being fried and browned with that perfect dose of finely minced onions and salted lard. That memory struck me as if I were hit by that very grey speckled enameled frying pan she used to fry them in after I smelled that. There is a signature note as the plants begin their respiratory phase in the evening, a sweeter tea-like one coming from the neighbourhood gardens, as extra sugars, starches, and life energies are being used and infused into the last of their fruits and seeds; they are labouring to do their best before the killing frost arrives, which could be any day now. If that's what the smell of plant sweat is, it's a welcome one. I wonder if this sense of smell intensification is an evolutionary thing: a prompt for us to start eating more and fatten up for the coming winter. There are some unpleasant odours that become intensified as well, like that of the migrant skunk wandering around somewhere around my block, and other people's BO, but for the most part they are clean and refreshing. This magical effect that the air has now, during this week or so just before the actual autumn equinox and the frost, is what makes this my most favourite part of the fall season.
Yesterday was September 11th. It too was a very pleasant day. What helped make it a good day was a mindful choice. For about eleven years now, I have informally adopted and endorsed a personal tradition for that day I now term "Ignore the Media Day". Everyone should give it a try. It generally goes as such:
- You avoid the newspapers and all news related programming; better yet, just don't watch TV, or tune into the radio, or surf the Internet at all. Don't worry. . . you will survive!
- You consciously opt to wake up and start out the day by making it better for yourself and others in the present, instead of listening to some talking head on a news program regurgitating stories about a woeful past, or ones that spark fear about the future.
- You don't let word of negative events and propaganda at home, or from half a world away, control you, or let it determine what kind of 'mood' or 'day' you should have. You, and you alone, are solely responsible for that.
- Realize that all national and global news you watch and hear, no matter if it's mainstream or alternative, from CNN to Al-Jazeera, is broadcast to satisfy a broader political agenda: to influence and control you with uncertainty, fear, and your own sense of outrage. The corporate interests then attack you with ads so you can quell these fears with mindless consumption.
- Realize that there is something really pathetic about someone who sits around watching news all day indoctrinating themselves with political claptrap, and then acting like a self-righteous intellectual, yet who but never goes outside of their little room to interact with the real world.
- Dare yourself to try something creative and original for a change for some progression toward your own betterment and inner peace rather than immersing yourself in the details of someone else's meme warfare.
- Wave you nation's flag less, and wave hello to your neighbour more.
- Try reading something more rational, and completely unrelated to politics, economics, and religion: things which are most likely to create civil unrest and wars.
- Avoid online discussions about 'this day in history', or any other so-called 'related current day events'. It is said that time heals all wounds, but not when you are exposed to a constant stream of depressing stories that keep ripping off the scabs. Do you automatically remember the details of the Blitz in London during World War II? Of course you don't. Thousands more innocent civilians died in a single day during those times, and a lot more historical and cultural edifices were lost than a couple of skyscrapers, but there wasn't the constant memorializing and intensifying of the tragedy with constant replay of events in the media, depressing and demoralizing people; the prevalent simple, more positive message, was "Keep Strong and Carry On." People actually got on with their lives, and worked for the better.
- Avoid those who always try to find some soapbox to stand on. Generally, I find those who are constantly pontificating their opinions about world events they can't control continue to blame others for their personal problems that they are perfectly capable of fixing themselves, but choose not to; constantly externalizing their flaws. They may also try to con or guilt you into believing in taking ownership of some of those problems that, in reality you have no part of. Like the news, they try to involve you unnecessarily. Avoid these morons like the plague, along with other such nagging personalities. Be courageous enough to enjoy peaceful quality time alone rather than hanging around these sorts of people.
- Get outside and enjoy the beautiful fall day. Get some exercise, eat some real food, and most importantly, breathe in and savour the air.
*- Baba = My Ukrainian grandmother; and no, she never hit me with frying pans, she was a loving person. That was hyperbole.
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