Keep Calm and Carry On

Keep Calm and Carry On is a catchphrase that originally appeared on a World War II British public safety poster. It was intended to be used to strengthen morale in the event of a large-scale attack or occupation, which many considered inevitable at the time. The intent was to help reassure the masses and to finish what they started. It’s a mantra I am trying hard to adopt.

A friend gave me a gift that touts this saying…it makes me happy every time I see it. As an added bonus, it came with a postcard of the saying (which I immediately blinged up and hung on my desk at work) and a small sticker which I placed on my car. Mainly it helps me find my car in a sea of cars in a parking lot because I can never seem to remember I have a new car and where the hell I parked it, so this distinguishing mark helps me find it and arrive back home.

Keep calm….that’s not something I’ve ever excelled at. I tend to be very much like Chicken Little – the sky is falling…the sky is falling! I grew up in a big family and I think I have that mentality that if it doesn’t happen right now, it won’t happen. That’s part of the downfall of a large family. You develop this mindset that it has to be RIGHT now or it’s not going to happen. You don’t even realize you are living this way until others point it out. Maybe always meant no, we’ll see always meant not a chance in hell, and go ask your father/mother always, always meant it wasn’t going to happen. Keep Calm and Carry On would have served me well during my younger years for sure.

As an adult however, I find it difficult to shift the learning that I have. I know, I mean in my head, I know the difference but somehow it doesn’t translate into my soul. I know you shouldn’t expect one thing from anyone else. Nothing, nada, zip….but I do…I always do and that’s where I go off course. I expect things in return…common sense to be used but how can you expect that from someone when their definition of common sense may not even come close to your own?

I love the curiosity that young children have. They have no fear, no worries they pretty easily go with the flow….it’s too bad we lose that as we get older. Last weekend we had a family get together up at cabins on Leech Lake. It was a fun family bonding time and I got to spend some uninterrupted time with my 2 year old nephew who was happy as a clam to pee outside, sit in the water with Auntie and pick up rocks and toss them in the water over and over and over. We picked up rocks, filled our bucket and tossed them in the water….marveling at the splash each one made. Somewhere along the line he’d pick up a fairly large stone and barely toss it in with a grunt like he was working sooo hard to toss the rock. That was the extent of our day – tossing rocks. It was so very relaxing to just do nothing…play in the sand, toss rocks and enjoy the sun. As we gathered our rocks to toss, we found that along the dock was where tons of rocks settled….I’m sure they were pushed to the side due to the waves and over time one blocked another and another until they became a pile. It was a nice endless source for us so I didn’t have to dig them out of the sand. Problem was as things sit in the water over time they get slimy…from the algae and various other things….like fish stuff and other lake items. So some of the rocks were kinda gross…but as a good Auntie does, I just powered through the slimeyness and keep filling the bucket. My nephew helped and at one point he turned to me and said…look Auntie, it’s stuck. I look at what he is trying to pull off his finger and it’s of course a leech. I mean we are in LEECH lake so I imagined at some point in time it was named that for a reason. Now I’m NOT the great outdoors woman I pretend to be….I hate bugs and I am not into fishing in anyway other than I do enjoy a boat ride – so I had to be the calm one and pull this leech off him. It was stuck pretty good on his finger and as I tried to grab the slimely little bugger off him it would latch on again, finally I got it off him and me and managed to do so without freaking him out. He was pretty excited to tell everyone he had a leech. Ahh the things we do for children.

I could have totally freaked out like the time I found a tick on the inside of my thigh on the car ride home after traipsing around in the woods like I was freaking Little Red Riding Hood. I was with my sister, her husband and my little niece who was maybe 3 or 4 years old. She was conked out and I literally threw my leg up and out the window as we were speeding down the highway assuming the wind would blow the tick off. It didn’t but you can imagine this sight. I moved like a ninja for sure! But with the leech, I calmly pulled it off and we went back to our rock adventure. Keep Calm and Carry On.

So...here we are back to life, back to reality and all the things that seem so stressful and out of our control seem really small and insignifigant when you put them in the perspective of "things could always be worse". I could have never found that leech stuck to my little nephews hand, I couldn't not have bravely pulled it off and continued on our path of rock throwing...would my world be any different? Probably not, but now I feel a tiny bit braver and some of the things that were stressing me out before I went away for the weekend don't seem quite as bad a pulling a leech off.  So...Keep Calm and Carry On my friends...keep calm.

Possibilities are endless

I love the word POSSIBLE. It gives me hope. It inspires me. It makes me happy and giddy with the possibility of something new and fun.

Somedays you wake up and everything in life seems possible....other days it feels totally impossible...but yet we keep plugging away and putting one foot in front of the other until it feels possible again.

This weekend is going to be FULL of possible! My father passed away last year - kind of unexpectedly but if anyone knew him, it wasn’t really THAT unexpected. He had been sick on and off for years. Multiple emergency trips to the ER that my sisters endured, often early in the morning or late at night, because they were the closest not only personally but locally. He was often not expected to pull through the latest bought of some sort of medication/heart failure/blood pressure kind of mess….but he always did. With his stubborn, strong as-an-ox pace maker assisted heart, he always pulled through…until the one time he didn’t. But that’s not important now.


Upon his death my siblings and I gathered to clean out his house, to basically erase his existence from this earth with a family pow wow one Sunday afternoon in April. Within several hours, all traces, well almost all traces, of Vic was removed from the apartment he called home. His belongings boxed up to be sold or donated and some claimed by his grandchildren and children, but mostly, within a few hours he was physically and materialistically gone. All that was left to do was to say our good-byes and bury him. We actually cremated him. I don’t recall right now if that was HIS wish or ours…but it made sense. My father was never one to plant his feet anywhere and call it home. He has a few brothers left in Chicago and Nebraska but other than that, just us, his remaining gene pool, to call his world. So we cremated him. We all seemed to be in agreement of it, which is a feat within itself to get a large group of people to agree on anything. I remember all descending upon the funeral home we chose and I often wondered if that funeral director ever had that many people in a room making the last choices of an individual. The room was filled with my sisters, my mom, my nieces and nephews (his grandchildren) and if I really think back, it’s possible a pet was in there too. Anyway, we had him cremated and in a few days we could pick him up and do what we wanted with him.

Ahh…the possibilities!

It was probably the first time that I can ever remember that we, the children, got to make ANY decision regarding him. In one way, it was a little empowering, in another, quite sad for my siblings….as this was their last moments with their father. So there we had him…all neat and tidy in a small box ready to do something with him. We knew he loved fishing, probably was the one thing in his life he actually LOVED. That apparently was where his happy place was…so we decided we would let him fish forever by releasing him into the water he loved so much. So we planned, we made it possible, everyone adjusted their life, their schedules and we went, as a family, to his happy place and we read a poem, sent him away on a boat and sprinkled him into the waters he loved so much. Just like that, Vic was one with the water.

The possibilities for him now were endless. He would become part of something so much bigger than he ever was, he would meld and blend and become one with all that touched that water. There were tears, there were stories, there was drinking….a toast of his favorite greek beverage that tasted like lighter fluid and we all went back to our lives with the solemn vow that once a year, we would gather as a family and spend some time together while we were all here. We agreed upon a weekend in June and we all planned our lives around it. That weekend is coming up…June 8-10. Yes the siblings and their families are gathering and celebrating life and family and all that we are….in tiny cabins nestled along the waters our father cherished so much.

There will be stories, there will be drinking and I’m guessing there will be tears - but the possibilities of this gathering are infinite. The weather looks to be beautiful and both my brother and brother-in-law have boats so among the large gathering, we may be able to score a boat ride or two. There will be kids, adults, my mom, multiple nieces and nephews and their significant others and of course pets. There will be pets. Now picture this….we have reserved three 2-bedroom cabins that each accommodate possibly 6 people. Each cabin has the same things – bedroom 1 sports a queen size (or double?) bed, the other has 2 twins and each cabin has a futon that folds out. So…..potentially 6 people could sleep there……moderately comfortably I would say but as usual….with this group, we are an exception to the rule. In my cabin there will be 8 – possibly 9 adults and a dog. In cabin 2, my brother and his family I believe are at the count of 9 plus two dogs and finally in cabin 3, I think they are at 9 as well, a 2 year old and an 8 year old but pet free….so yes….the weather MUST cooperate for us.

Oh the possibilities of this weekend! I am giddy with a touch of apprehension. This is going to go one of two ways, it’s either going to be insanely fun-filled, laugh packed and silliness abound or it’s going to be a chaotic nightmare that seems like there is no escape from….50/50 shot. I know last year we had more space and less people in a room and yet we all gathered in my sisters cabin at night and laughed until my sides hurt and told stories and had an absolutely delightful time and I was in a knee brace having blown out my ACL. I was in a moderate amount of pain (no pain pills) and I still had a rocking good time….so I’m led to believe that this year, the possibilities of the same are pretty high.

I imagine we will be outdoors all day Saturday playing, boating, building family memories….it will just be the night time when the possibilities change. I’m driving all by myself…mostly because I want to have an escape option if I need it and also, I am really feeling like with that many people crammed together, I might really enjoy the 3 ½ hour car ride alone. Details of the weekend will follow.

I wonder, if my father had not died….what possibly would have made us gather together as a family and share some time in our lives like this? I mean we do this at Christmas but it's usually only a few hours and then we all go back to our lives, touching base here and there but rarely as a whole group. We get so busy trying to create our own lives, our own purpose, raising kids, taking care of pets, working or looking for our life partner that we forget about the family connection. It seems only in times of tragedy do we pull together to remember the possibilities that family offers – the fun, the chaos, the madness that makes us.....us. The people that unconditionally love us despite every single fault or mistake we’ve ever made.

So here's to the possibilies life offers us. May you find some possible in your own life and not wait for life to force it upon you.