Getting, Gathering, Guarding and Grooming.

“The world is too much with us; late and soon
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers"

This wonderful quote of William Wordsworth was sent by a blogger friend the other day in response to my post on Crackberries.

It got me thinking.

Then again most things these days get me to thinking.

As in: most of our lives revolve around stuff. The getting and gathering of it, the guarding of it from predators, the grooming (i.e. maintaining and cleaning) of it.

I’ve been as guilty of this as anyone. Maybe it is the elder years that throws a clear sharp floodlight on to our own behaviours. It is only now I see that all of it is so empty and frivolous and meaningless. One only has to go to a mall and sit on a bench and be absolutely and completely astonished at what people are doing there. What is everyone buying? Really. And is there ever enough of it?

Lately I think that what brings me the most pleasure is the interior life that is only satisfied with stuff that can’t be bought.

The sunsets that I resolved to see daily since the beginning of the year.
The daily walk on the shore or around my daughter’s locale with one of our dogs.
The perusal of driftwood or a lovely stone or a shell.
The satisfying woodpile beside my stove.
The glowing faces of dear friends and family across the dinner table (and I’ve had a surfeit of that in the last two weeks and still want more!).
The smell of cooking and baking on the wood stove.
The recounting of the daily doings of friends and family,
The knitting of a few rounds of a sock,
The CD painstakingly copied by a friend because he knew I would enjoy it.
The revisiting of pictures of the work of the architect Gaudi with dear friends,
The multi-generational chat with my daughter and the grandgirl of a book all three of us had read,
The news of an upcoming wedding of a nephew in Ireland,
Being privy to the lives of a whole batch of young nieces and nephews who’ve befriended me on Facebook,
The plans for a dinner dance in my village this Friday.
And getting out of Dodge while fam and friends are still telling me my stay was far, far too short.

I return to The Rock tomorrow. To my beloved Newfoundland.

{Photo above is of the Toronto Eaton Centre}

TO DIE FOR

There’s something so infinitely sad and sickening about all of this.

The frantic rush to acquire useless Chinese tchotkes at a reduced price.

The doors of the store opening at 5.00 a.m. 5.00 a.m!!

200 people fighting to get at the meagre goodies manufactured by exploited and unregulated Chinese workers half a world away.

One poor store employee standing in the way, trying to control the onslaught of the crazed shopping mob.

He was then trampled to death by these very same shoppers while doing his best to do his job of crowd control.

A pregnant woman and another worker were also trampled and were subsequently hospitalized and released.

And this quote sums it up rather succintly:

“When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, 'I've been in line since Friday morning!'" Cribbs said. "They kept shopping."