All We Are Saying ...

Montreal. 1969. A lifetime ago, or yesterday, depending on your point of view. John Lennon had just married Yoko Ono, and for their honeymoon they invited the press to hang out by their bedside while they sang about peace. Not my idea of a romantic honeymoon, but hey, I’m not burdened by the responsibility of being famous during a time of war. Of having to decide whether or not to use my influence to fight for what I believe in. It’s something I’ve been thinking about recently. On my way up or down the stairs to the basement, I find myself pausing to look at the two pictures that hang on the landing, reflecting on this moment in the history of the world—and this moment in the history of my family.

The man holding the camera is my great uncle, George Cree. For decades he was a photographer for the Montreal Gazette, and his lens captured many significant moments in Canadian history: Famous faces, royal visits, all kinds of political strife and upheaval—and the time a musician and his new bride laid in bed to promote peace. My Uncle Geordie went into that room in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel to cover John and Yoko’s Bed-In. He came out with photographs that would be a highlight of his career, and a pen drawing casually scribbled by Lennon and handed to my uncle, almost as an afterthought. I doubt he had any idea how much that little drawing would mean to my uncle. To my whole family.

Give Peace a Chance.

For many this sentiment is a quaint, impossible dream … a naiveté. For others it’s a reason to go on when the darkness closes in. For me it’s a wish—blind or otherwise—that my children will live in a world where equality and kindness prevail. It’s a prayer that my daughter will never be discriminated against for her gender, that my son will feel safe wearing a Kippah upon his head. That I will one day not feel a thrill of fear by this kind of public admission of my family’s Judaism. That my children will live to raise the next generation, so that they may raise the next, and the next, and so on ad infinitum.

I often pause on the landing that leads down to my basement to spend a moment with my uncle, who was hilarious and gentle and kind. He is the first person I notice in that photo, not the man with the guitar. More and more I think about the things my uncle saw with his eyes and through his lens. I think about how he dropped out of school during The Depression, how he was a tail gunner with the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II, how he was a witness to history, both the good and the bad.

History. It’s not long before my gaze travels to the man with the guitar. He used his voice to mobilize those who were sleeping, because he believed that peace was more than an abstract concept or a pie-in-the-sky wish. And it occurs to me that, like everything in life, there is no way to make your wishes a reality unless you’re willing to mobilize. My voice doesn’t need to reach millions to make a valuable contribution. If it reaches just one, it can make a difference. And so I pause on the landing to ponder. What will my contribution be?

And yours?

S.M. Freedman

A New Year

Another year gone, another new year started. And with the new year, new resolutions. The start of the year is always the time to focus on improvement. What can we do to make this year, this version of ourselves, better. 

I don't have anything against resolutions, I make a fair number of them myself (and fail to keep more than a few of them). But I find myself struggling with the same bad habit at the beginning of each year. Instead of looking over the past year and celebrating in all the accomplishments, I spend time going through all the "if onlys."

If only I had stuck with it at the gym and the treadmill. If only I had spent more time writing. If only, if only, if only. 

No matter how much effort I put into it, I can't change one second of the past. It's an exercise in futility and I find that it starts to negatively affect my mindset today. There is nothing wrong with wanting to improve, but it's equally important to take a moment and be proud of what you have accomplished. To take a second and recognize the successes that have brought you to this moment. 

I know I need the reminder, and I hope it is helpful for you too. Take a look back at 2016, ignore anything you may see as a failure, and instead find the moments that you are truly proud of. I'm starting 2017 in a whole new decade of my life. It's a bit of a wonky year so far, too many stressful surprises in just a week. But I'm still excited for what this year can bring. I'm still hopeful. 

I've come so far and done so much. There are things I want to improve and accomplish, but that doesn't take away from the victories of the past. Time keeps on ticking whether we want it to or not.  I hope we all can take the joys of 2016 and use them to face 2017 head on with a positive attitude. Here's to the best new year it can be.

So this is Christmas

Do you have certain traditions that your family enjoys every year? We have several, but the majority of them are connected with Christmas:

Birmingham's German Market

• Walking round the neighbourhood posting Christmas cards 
• Hiding in the bedroom to wrap presents 
• Decorating the tree while listening to Garth Brooks Christmas songs 
• Colour coding the wrapping paper for prezzies under the tree 
• Making dozens of mince pies and three Christmas cakes 
• Watching a family movie with mulled wine and roast chestnuts 
• Playing Poker, Scene-it and a host of other team games 
• Eating a full Turkey dinner with crackers and all the trimmings

And the real family highlights: a trip to the German market (oh those bratwurst), singing Christmas carols outside Warwick castle (more wine/chestnuts), and one of the best, when the whole family walk round the local fields, wrapped up against the crisp December chill on Christmas morning. A quick straw poll had all five family members picking something different, most people torn between two or three.

Carols at Warwick Castle

I could only find a couple of tasks which weren’t fun: the annual argument about how to construct the base for the 7ft tree, and painstakingly replacing each bulb in the multi-string lights to find the duff ones. However, even for the total Christmas addicts (like me), there's always the danger when the genuinely fun activities are repeated year after year, that the novelty wears off. People may become less willing to engage, doing it out of a sense of duty/just to please, when they'd rather be playing with some electronic gadget.

Every new addition to the family brings with it a new energy, a different viewpoint. This year we're joined by my son-in-law, a Ukranian guy who’d never set foot in the UK before this month, let alone been faced with a plateful of mince pies when he entered the house.

A Winter Wonderland

He is enchanted with every aspect of our country/home and family, taking great pleasure in many things we've taken for granted for so long we rarely give them a second thought.
It’s an absolute delight to experience everything through his eyes, re-discovering the many joys this season brings.
Thank you, Artem, for helping us to reconnect with the awe and wonder of Christmas.

What about you? Do you have special family traditions? We'd love to hear more about your celebrations.

Pizza Bombs and Other Truths

The kids ate chocolate before breakfast. And we celebrated the first snowfall of the season with pizza bombs and hot chocolate with marshmallows for dinner. Oh, the kids ate chocolate as part of their after-school snack as well, because we celebrate the season with an Advent calendar that contains sweets. They also each had a jellybean after dinner. Because we have two different Advent calendars.

On the flip side, St. Nicholas, who brought us the morning chocolate in the shape of golden coins, also left us oranges, which were eaten with a balanced breakfast. For lunch, the kids ate self-packed healthy food. No treats for school meals, mama’s rules. Snack in the afternoon contained a fruit and dairy. And the pizza bombs were accompanied by fresh salad and fruit.

I try to balance it, keeping the treats just that—treats. To be eaten on rare and special occasions. But anyone who knows me knows how much I love my Lindt Lindors and Jelly Bellies. Anyone who knows me also knows the gym is essentially my “place of work.” I go for about two hours a day to get my brain in working gear so I can function for my kids at my best level. It’s had a side-effect on my body, making it leaner, more muscular, and faster than any other time in my life.

The point?

Anything taken out of context or seen without all the pieces, is not the truth. You can’t take a snapshot of my kids eating 7:00 AM chocolate and berate me for being a terrible parent with kids who have uncontrollable sugar issues. Nor can you take a picture of me running a sub-six minute mile or curling forty-five pounds of iron and claim I wouldn’t touch candy or pizza. Using one piece of knowledge to prove a point serving your own agenda is not telling the truth. In fact, I would call it lying by omission. Or just straight-up lying.

And that’s how a lot of news stories seem to be running right now. And how a lot of political figures seem to be talking. People say, “Well, you have to look at the source. You have to do your own research.” And I’m stuck there, a little glassy-eyed, wondering how on earth I’m to know what source is putting what kind of slant on any information. Clouding issues is social media—essentially anybody has a platform on which to speak their opinions as fact, and truth can easily become lost in the random murk of deception.

What happened to honesty? Why purposely print misleading and incorrect information? When you get in front of a microphone, why change your numbers or your promises, or hide your intentions? Shouldn’t we be able to trust our media? Or the leaders of our country? At what point are we allowed to collectively shout: “Enough!” Because I’m there. I’m ready. I want to know what’s really going on in the United States and the rest of the world. I don’t want information purposely sugarcoated or beefed up. I don’t want it purposely tarnished or spun with negativity. I don’t want lies. The whole picture matters more than judgements based on ratings and political rants. I want the whole shebang. The pizza bombs and chocolate, along with the gym time. Everything.

Music was my first love.

If you were asked to name the one thing that defines you, what would you say? Most people might say mother/father, or maybe some other kind of familial relationship. Then they might say something about what they do: mine would be writer, healer, teacher and engineer - in that order. But peel away those onion layers (I know, I've been down this path before), and what's left starts to get to the real essence of you. Try it. I'm guessing that somewhere soon, you'll hit on a hobby - maybe a sport or craft into which you regularly pour your most creative energy. As I've hinted at before, I don't function well (which means at all!) without music. Like my mother, "she shall have music wherever she goes." It used to be turning the radio on in every room, now I can carry it with me on my iPod. Problem solved.

So now, this love of music is entering my writing. As well as creating a soundtrack to each book (full of Journey, Queen, Bowie, Thin Lizzy and a hundred other fantastic artists), one of my characters (Carrie, in Wolf in Sheep's Clothing) mentions some of the soundtracks to her life throughout the book. That was great fun, and people who follow me closely will know that a fair proportion of my chapter headings in all my books are indeed song titles. But now it's taken on a new dimension.

Journey have been my favourite band since the early eighties when I danced round the front room to “Escape,” drawn to the superb story-telling in every song. In 2008, I spent a week in hospital, recovering from an operation, and needed to occupy my time, so I wrote a musical (as you do!) based on twenty of Journey’s greatest hits. I’ve always had the idea of turning it into a story.
I wrote it originally with all songs taken from the Steve Perry heydays – from Escape, Frontiers and Raised On Radio. After the Newcastle gig in 2008, I spoke to Jon Cain and he suggested they might be interested if I put some new songs in. So I re-wrote it with songs from Arrival and Revelations. It’s kinda sat on the back burner since then, but I’ve thought about doing something like this many times.

The story of the musical is “Faithfully” tailored to the sentiment of each song, and the main characters are determined by the situations suggested by the lyrics. Finding a credible setting for the diverse story threads to intertwine might have proved challenging, but the diverse nature of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival adds a quirky element so often found in jukebox musicals like “We Will Rock You” and “ Rock of Ages.”

As Journey fans will know, relationships are at the core of their sensitive, emotional ballads, so it’s no surprise that this is a character-driven story exploring three contrasting relationships. The way the three stories intertwine highlights the differences in attitudes between a couple meeting for the first time, another trying to patch up a dying marriage and a third who are tentatively rekindling an old passion. This stretched my experiences to their limit, but I know enough people struggling with long distance relationships to get ideas, and the lyrics were a huge help.

Part of my research included reading Neil Daniels’ excellent biography, “Don’t Stop Believin’: The Untold Story Of Journey,” and I contacted the music journalist for advice. He was incredibly helpful, particularly about the stringent copyrighting issues, and agreed to read a copy. I'm absolutely thrilled by his endorsement in the front of the book.

I was a little concerned that people might not appreciate this ambitious project; it was especially tricky to conjure the essence of each song without breaking copyright regulations, particularly when two of the characters are writing songs, but my biggest hope is that someone will like the idea enough to collaborate in bringing this to stages in the West End and on Broadway. I can dream, can't I?

Released on November 11^th, “Don’t Stop Believing” is available at the discounted price of $1.99 (or £1.63 in the UK), but only for the next week – it will be back up to normal on 18^th November.

Word!

Words have meaning. They have power. With them, worlds can be created or destroyed. And so can the humans within those worlds.

When my third son was three, he began to bring up death-and-dying subjects. A lot. It was a bit out of the blue, I thought, though it wasn’t overly concerning to me. Yet. One day he asked when I would die. Another day he asked me if I was going to hold his baby brother when he died. It all became clear to me when he posed this question: “So, after Easter, then we’ll die?” He asked so honestly and openly, without any sign of concern. And it hit me. For the past couple of weeks we’d been talking about dying eggs for Easter. He had been hearing our words and making his own interpretations based on his knowledge experience. He knew about death. He didn’t know about this holiday tradition. Feeling horrible, I explained that we meant we would color eggs for Easter, and that none of us were going to actually die.

We come into situations carrying our past. Simple words can morph into an entirely different context, based on whatever we’ve faced in life. This is why it is so important to slow down and really understand what is being said. To understand the intent as well as the message, before responding. It’s easy to feel defensive, belligerent, or hurt. It’s easy to hold onto past grievances and form grudges. It’s easy to act on those feelings. But what if we took the time to find out where the other person is coming from? What if we could separate our prejudices and preconceived ideas from the person standing in front of us, and base our communication within the context of “now” balanced against the knowledge of “before”? 

We have so many words thrown at us over social media, within news platforms, from political persona, sports players, movie stars, and the average Mary and Joe. Everyone believing in their own story, and wanting all of us to follow their lead. Well … what is the reality? Isn’t it always more than one-sided? When we don’t question the source, when we don’t know the intent, when we make assumptions, we are missing an opportunity. With understanding and knowledge, we can break through biases and fears.

Taking the time to listen and understand doesn’t mean we have to agree with one another. It just means we don’t get to jump to conclusions and be mean to each other. Using our words to build our relationships and add more truth and hope to each other’s stories will strengthen our communities. With stronger communities, we have hope for a peaceful and respectful coexistence. One where people can live fearlessly, dream endlessly, grow exponentially, and love absolutely. Regardless of backstory. Regardless of disagreements. Regardless of differences.

Take the time to listen. Words matter. The humans behind the words matter. And sometimes all it takes is understanding to change death to life.

Do we measure up?

Every year around the anniversary of 9/11, my daughter’s school does a “Patriotic Chapel.” The choir sings songs like God Bless America, America the Beautiful, Proud to be an American and, of course, The Star Spangled Banner. I attend this chapel every year as my daughter is one of the singers.

I have to admit that I love it. I love the music, the pictures, the symbolism, and the message of pride in our country that fills the auditorium. I love the stories from our history that are told, even when they’ve been slightly embellished. I love that for one hour, our children are reminded why they should be thankful for the lives they live and to not take a single moment for granted.

I love all of that. What I didn’t particularly enjoy this year was another message one of the speakers put forth. Perhaps it was unintentional, I can’t say one way or the other. Regardless, it came across loud and clear.

This speaker discussed how she felt that the younger generations weren’t as patriotic as the older ones. She gave examples of young people in schools mumbling through the pledge of allegiance as though it meant nothing, and of an Olympic athlete not placing her hand on her heart during the playing of our National Anthem.

First, when did it become okay to measure another person’s love for their country based on symbolic gestures? Teenagers will mumble through anything that doesn’t involve a video game or their latest crush. That might mean that their priorities are askew, but it certainly doesn’t mean they don’t love and respect their country. 

As for the Olympic athletes “disrespecting our anthem” by not covering their hearts with her hands (Gabby Douglas wasn’t the only one), I’m more than a little tired of hearing about it. The hand-over-heart gesture is required when saying the Pledge of Allegiance, but standing at attention is the norm during a rendition of our National Anthem. Some choose to also place their hands over their hearts, and I think that is beautiful. I don’t think, however, that it means they are more patriotic or respectful than those who don’t.

And second, since when is this kind of lack of symbolic gesturing something only the younger generation is afflicted with? There was a whole lot of gesturing going on in the 60s, and I don’t recall any of it being particularly patriotic.

I guess my point is this: Perhaps we should place less importance on symbolism and more on what’s in a person’s heart. If we are so hell-bent on measuring people, let’s do it based on their character, on how they live their lives, and on how they treat others.

Come to think of it, that last bit works for far more than measuring patriotism.