Share Your World January 2nd 2023
It’s a new year. Flip the calendar and try to remember to write the correct year on your checks, if you write checks. I write maybe a dozen a year and that’s only because way out here in the sticks, small vendors don’t like the additional charges they add when you use a credit cards. They take cash or checks. When you’ve got a big job — replacing windows or adding gutters — they might finance you. Mostly though, it’s wise to get know the small suppliers who live locally. When they know you, they will often make “special” arrangements if you need a bit of help with the whole “money” thing.
All the new things that are new in the new year in my old house
Where was I? Oh, right. A new year, a new number because we need to “name” things. Garry and I have birthdays in March and April about which we could be more thrilled. Birthdays were a lot more fun when we were younger. The new year is not a clean slate. It’s the same old slate with another number attached. The new year doesn’t mean nothing, but it doesn’t mean a lot, either.
Did you stay up to see the New Year in?
Yes. We always do. We watch the ball drop in Times Square, we push the dog off the sofa and a long kiss for a sweet New Year.
Are there any special occasions or events coming up in 2023 for you or your family?
No.
Do you keep a diary?
You mean this blog isn’t enough? I should also keep a diary? Really?
How did yesterday differ from January 1st 2022 or was there no difference?
There is never any difference between one year and the next. It’s a mental exercise. Time is continuous. It runs endlessly along and we bite off a piece and call it our life. The “changes” are designed by us. We made the clocks and the calendars. Maybe someday we will unmake them.
Gratitude? Is this gratitude?
New Year’s Eve, I had to go to the grocery. It was crowded. It is pretty much always crowded. I had a near collision with another shopper. I smiled and backed up so she could pass. She said: “Thank you for smiling. No one ever smiles anymore.” It was a lovely compliment, but it was also alarming. No one smiles anymore? Is that true?
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Categories: #Flowers, #gallery, #Photography, #SYW, Anecdote, Humor, Share My World, time
SERENDIPITY: SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
Despite all the doom and gloom in the world in our corner of the world you still get a friendly smile at the supermarket and friendly conversation with random strangers. Before Christmas we were getting a few things at our local Woolworths and kept crossing the path of the same lady who was filling her trolley. We had a few friendly words and a laugh. I’m lucky that the people I meet at the Visitor Centre are on holidays so mostly in a good mood although you get the odd one having a bad day.
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A lot of people seem rather angry these days. I’m not entirely sure why though I can make a few realistic guesses. Mostly I think the world has changed a lot and quickly. I suppose a lot of these changes were brewing for years and have “caught up” with us. Especially small towns like this where they’ve been resisting changes for decades have been abruptly shoved into a modern reality — and they don’t like it. Maybe they will perk up. I think smiling and being friendly has to start somewhere. If a few more of us give it a try, maybe it will become a trend.
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It often works.
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I was talking about the smiling syndrome to Suze the other day. We were also remarking upon the lack of the smile as well as the courteous acknowledgement from walkers. Do people forget to smile now? Did the pandemic take that away as well OR was the smile becoming a lost art as well?
It was a bit like a young woman around the mid twenties mark was visiting someone on the allotment and the gardener had a basket of potatoes freshly dug up and the young woman [ l think an older grandchild asked why the gardener had a basket of dirty rocks?
The gardener said “These are potatoes dear, surely you know what they are?”
The young woman answered with, “Oh yes of course, but l know what the potatoes look like in the supermarket when clean and in plastic but l never knew they came out of the ground!”
Suze, me and the gardener were literally shocked … so we know the smile is disappearing alongside basic common sense.
We are in trouble as a planet …
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Way back when in the mid 1960s, my first husband and I lived in a small apartment complex near the university where he worked and I was doing a few courses towards a (never completed) masters. In the bottom level, there was a “milk vending machine” You put in a couple of quarters and out popped a quart of milk. Voila!
I remember we joked about whether or not a generation would grow up thinking milk came from machines rather than cows. After all, they knew a lot more about vending machines than bovines. It’s both hilarious and scary to realize our humor may have been right.
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It is frightening Marilyn – more so the reality struck Suze a few years ago when she bought some books for her grandkids and the first thing the youngest did when he opened the present was to swipe at it.
He was mortified to learn it was something so manual and thought it was some kind of iPad … Suze looked at her son as if to say “Really? Your youngest son doesn’t know what a book is??”
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Yikes!
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i know, that was frightening.
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Happy new year Marilyn! Hope you do have a good one, and garry too!
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Happy New Year to you too! Let’s hope this IS a good one. We all deserve some positive energy.
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I haven’t stayed up for the ball to drop since I was in my 20’s. 🙂 There are no special events this year, I do not keep a diary, and when you’re our age one year just slips into the next. I’m grateful for a lot of people and things, and I’m with the lady at the store – not many people smile anymore. It seems like everyone is in a hurry, tense, and just wants to be left alone. I was at a medical office last week, and the man next to me who was about my age started a conversation. I was shocked. I looked around the room, and everyone else was staring at their phones, and we were talking. It was like I’d traveled backward in time 25 years. 🙂
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We are at that age where being alive and in acceptable health is — by itself — a big deal.
People seem so ANGRY these days — especially younger people. I can guess why. The future they expected doesn’t seem to be there anymore. I suspect they are wondering what in the world they are going to do with their lives. It has made them all a bit surly. I used to have a lot of those “waiting in line or in the waiting room” conversations. Not so much now.
The changes in our lives have been abrupt and for many people, unpleasant in many different ways. We may be getting toward the autumn of our years (thanks Mr. Sinatra), but younger people wonder what they should be doing. Youth is complicated enough, but I suspect it’s a whole lot worse now.
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Nice gratitude. Our aim is still to make at least one person smile every day…… and that does not include each other. Thanks for sharing your world Marilyn.
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We smile — and we are patient. But we are past the busy period of life. We aren’t in a hurry anymore. We don’t need to be in the front of the line. We aren’t rushing anywhere. All those busy people who have always been hurrying from wherever they are to wherever they want to be are at a loss. I’m not sure they know what to do with themselves. Maybe after a while, they will find some goals that give them a sense of direction and that will improve their attitudes.
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Likewise. We plod at our own pace and get there in the end. That was one thing we loved about the boating life, you couldn’t rush anywhere on the water and it suited us.
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I hope it isn’t true! Hopefully people are still smiling 🙂
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I think they smile a lot less often. My son works with “the public” and he says people are more typically rude and snarly. I suspect all it will take to change that is to smile and people will smile back. It has to start somewhere. Maybe we can be the “initiators.”
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Yep, I think we can be the initiators – I do host “The Weekly Smile”, don’t I? I guess that puts at least part of it on me 😉
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I try to be generous and not pushy. I had a lot of years when I was very busy with kids (mine and then a granddaughter) — plus more than full time work — and all the other things women tend to wind up doing in addition to the paid work, kids and home. I’m not that busy anymore. If I’m not at the front of the line, it’s okay. I can wait. If I have work, this is probably it.
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Beautiful capture and wishing you a wonderful year ahead.
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And a wonderful year for you, too.
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