Musing

today’s Musing written and published from south Calgary, near Fish Creek Park

[note to readers about feedback - I circulate virtually all feedback that reaches me, but lately it seems firewalls and the like have caused a lot of ‘reply’ mail to not reach me –which means that if you have not seen publication of your response, that means I didn’t get it; please, if responding to musings, write to me directly at mark@markmusing.com rather than hitting ‘reply’ and hopefully they will get through]

1C/34F, light snow falling, steady north wind; Gusta’s fur rippled fullness spliced with wet sleet-like filling, the wetness of which we could only appreciate on our walk back around that moonscape-like lagoon, wind full-on stinging wet faces, it was fabulous

feed me, feed me back what you think – no need to give me pro or con on what I think or write about – tell me what you think about, what gets you up or gets you down; add a bit of you to my collection . . please

something is lacking; maybe it lurks in those feedback emails that haven’t been getting through, but I think it is something else; I used to say I loved it, but I hated it; I hated criticism, hated – yes, really hated – the barbs of the sharp tongued acerbic negation of what I had to say; I found that each person who dismissed me or ridiculed me got the fur on the back of my neck standing at attention

in time, with help, I learned to dismiss extreme types for the idiots they were – then, I learned to listen for sincere feedback-givers, the ones I began to thrive on were those who pointed out, often awkwardly or rudely, when I missed a point or overshot my target, those who call a spade a spade and better yet, those who call it an effing shovel; thriving on that – my tilting at windmills phase I suppose – until it seemed to not be as necessary as before

some of that I attribute to greater confidence in what I do, comfort in writing as if I was wearing a very old floppy comfy sweater – the comfort of knowing the boundaries are set only by my mental limitations; maybe what I miss is the sparring, different than sparking by a simple letter, the adding of a single r means the difference between a beating and practice . . the difference between sparing someone a brutal beating by helping them tone up, tune up and get ready for the real contest

there it is . . getting ready for the real contest - the real contest is not the match in a ring, competition on a stage, battle of wits or for survival – the real contest is to live more fully today than yesterday, or there is little point

I like these days best; Thursday, most often a day of high productivity without much chat, lots done without going out, without meetings, errands or frenetic rushes here or there – but not an aimless day, not a shirking day - these Thursdays arrive with early week urgency behind me, end of week panics still ahead; a day to spread my wings, work, agenda wide – very wide - day for time-taking, progress-savoring, a day for facing (literally) weather and looking both in and out to see whether things matter or not


Mark Kolke
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... with your voice, teach in order to learn


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