Glenn Kubish

From up here on latitude 53, here are some things that made for some happiness and gratitude this past week.  Three Things, episode 101:                             1. Family reunion   On our way to share a Christmastime evening with musician friends, we crossed paths, in the lobby of their building, with Shelagh’s cousin. This happens routinely. Ninth of nine, with uncles and aunts with big families themselves, Shelagh reunites relatively often, impromptu-style, with her clan. One day we were walking in Ottawa, and there was Anna. We were out cycling near Beaumont, and there was Michael. Michael, the son of Mike, that is, the cousin of Michael, both Michaels the grand nephew of the late Michael—Michaels, and a Michaela, happen in Shelagh’s family, too. The Mike who is the father of Michael could have called his own uncle Michael Father, the latter being a Catholic priest. I’m now out too far on this limb, b...

If I remember right, Chris Hadfield made the suggestion that, instead of envisioning success, we should all picture failure. Imagine the countless ways that things can go wrong. Engineers like Hadfield build bridges and launch rockets and keep the Talus balls from rolling into the North Saskatchewan River*, but what they're really acquainted with is collapse and the rest of the long, sad list of how things fade, snap, break, shatter, splinter, fragment, turn to ash, and, essentially, are torn asunder. This is the honest way of making sure the centre holds for as long as the centre can hold. Taken to its extreme, it means living life by remembering that I will die. Not that everyone will die, not we all must die, but, me, the tapper of these keystrokes, I will die. Morose? Maybe. Pessimistic? Perhaps. True? Yes. A flight plan for happiness if interpreted in a healthy way? I am beginning to believe so. Westlawn Yesterday I pedalled through the city and considered...