Three Easy Pieces

A Street Crossing

17th Avenue South runs from prairie farms in the east to rolling foothills in the west across the city of Calgary. Except for a small detour round the Stampede Park it is as straight as any arrow shot by Robin Hood. It goes through industrial parks, residential colonies of immigrants from developing countries, some more now upscale industrial park and office buildings to enter the fringe of downtown where it has fashionable boutiques, restaurants and services for the rich and famous living in Mount Royal to the south. West of this elite span of a few blocks there are fast food restaurants and one of the busiest crossings in the city with 14th street West. It is at this crossing that I noticed the strangest combination of stores. On the northwest corner there is a massive used books store which is doing a brisk business even when buying books seems to have gone out of fashion. Across 14th street in the north there is a drug store. A large music store in the southeast corner has all kinds of paraphernalia for youth bands attractively displayed in the window. But it is the building in the southwest corner with a unique combination of three stores that drew my attention the other day on my way to an opera rehearsal.

The building is old and dilapidated, waiting to be bought by a developer, torn down and replaced by an office or a condo tower. It currently houses an elegant and popular Indian restaurant at the back. On the front, you enter a chocolaterie through a revolving corner door. It is bright and very well furnished with elegantly attired servers and has sparkling windows and an attractive signage. Next to it is a rather unpretentious and dimly lit store with a fading sign “Smoke Shop”. It is where you go to buy rolling tobacco, pipe filters and hookah supplies. It is the third shop which makes the combination amusing and the crossing unique. The sign, again faded and hard to read, says “Health Food Store and Vitamins”. The entrance and windows could do with a cleaning job and the door is uninviting. All the same, it has what you need to recoup your strength after chocolates and smoke have depleted your body so you can return the next day to repeat the cycle of a quick visit to one of the nearby hamburger joints, enjoying a variety of mouth watering chocolates, satisfying draws of the pipe and health and chewing spirit reviving nuts and vitamins. If after all this pampering you still feel a little down hearted, cross the street to the used book store and pick up a work of your favourite author for a couple of dollars. Still down in the mouth! Cross the street once more and enter the drug store; the pharmacist there may have just the pill for you. Not happy yet? My dear friend you are in the wrong area of the city unless you want to start a band to compose and sing mournful songs with a group of teenagers.

Wretchedness Shared

“If we didn’t have our history you would be the ideal person for me to marry,” David said to Susan in one of his rare tender moments. However, tenderness does not always beget tenderness and Susan merely smiled in response, not the beautiful sparkling smile she was famous for, but a forced smile that wouldn’t fool even a doting husband. What went through her mind was just the opposite, “If I weren’t married to you already, whatever the history, I wouldn’t get within a hundred miles of you.”

This is typical of the frequent exchanges between long married couples. They married decades ago with their own dreams and expectations, rarely in harmony. They do not have the same level of tolerance for each other’s foibles and certainly not for the other’s temper tantrums and snappy answers while under physical and mental stress. They look at their past in different light and would like to spend any remaining good years of their life doing different things. This is a modern day problem; in the days gone by it was rare for both to survive till their old age. It is a strange quirk of human nature that we remember only the good things about the departed souls and only the bad deeds of those living with us. Our parents and grandparents could spend their old age lamenting the passing of their partners of whom they had nothing but the fondest memories. The long lasting couples of today only remember the grievances caused by the other; pleasant events are the things of the past and long forgotten. They have to live with each other and their bitter memories; reminding the other of their misdeeds relieves the pain but only momentarily.

The sages have said in many different ways that only purpose in life is to make the people around you feel better than they would without you. You can not do this if you store in your memory bank the past sins committed against you which crowd out the pleasant events. You must feel good enough in yourself to make others feel better in your presence and this will only happen if you forgive others the harm they did to you regardless of their intentions and remember only the kindnesses bestowed on you. It is contrary to normal human tendency and therefore very hard to do. If happiness came by without much effort there would not be so much misery in the world. But it is not impossible. There are fortunate couples who achieve this state of nirvana. Unfortunately, the survivor of these couples finds the solitary life empty and does not live long alone.

Why Women Need Men

As a man who fathered three very accomplished women, I see no real reason why, in this age of free sex and birth control, a woman would wish to have an albatross round her neck as most men, including myself, tend to be. There have to be some deep-seated needs. Two – one physical and one emotional – come to mind.

First the physical need: the old saw - you can’t live with them and you can’t live without them - is how most women see men. They are demanding, they think they bring the bacon and they can tell their woman how to cook it even when they can’t cook and worse still when the wife earns more. They watch every cent spent by women and throw away dollars themselves. Yet, women need them to lift and move heavy items, paint the ceiling, dig out the roots, you get the idea. Even for a woman with the smarts to earn and manage family money and look after most essentials, there are jobs that need muscle and it is more convenient to have it around than to hire one who arrives at inconvenient times and costs a bundle. Help in disciplining the kids is a bonus.

Second the emotional need: Many women are masochists; they need an in-house agent to make them feel inadequate, even outright incompetent by his constant niggling and who makes them downright miserable. The other side of the coin is the sadist women, rather rare among my acquaintances, who need some one around to make him feel absolutely in the pits by reminding him of his real and imagined shortcomings and past misdeeds, by correcting his errors pointedly and giving snappy answers to innocent queries. This applies equally to men and relationship works wonderfully when the partners compliment, no pun intended, each other.

If you study the Creation you will note that Adam lived by himself for a long time before Eve arrived on the scene. She realized straight away that she had to make herself indispensable to Adam who was perhaps used to his solitude and may even have loved it. It is a great compliment to Eve that she worked hard and succeeded against heavy odds. Since then women of every generation have struggled to be appreciated by men to a varying degree. On the other hand, Adam never had to make efforts to be wanted by Eve. Indeed, it was her work and skills that kept them together. Times have not really changed. It is the mothers whose efforts keep the men from straying and hold the families together today as they have from the day Eve was created from Adam’s rib.