“Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible,

and of changing himself for the better if necessary.”

Viktor Frankl

Saturday morning before I left the house I noticed my hair was laying just right, and my new outfit managed to cover a multitude of sins. With a confident smile on my face I set off into the world. Everywhere I encountered smiling faces, lovely people. When I got home there was a contract for a short story I had written. Truly a wonderful day.

Last Thursday I woke and checked my email. Aren’t computers great? I don’t have to wait for the mailman to be rejected. No. Here it is in my AOL inbox. The start of a truly sucky day was confirmed by the guy who cut ahead in to my line at the post office as I tried to mail those contest entries. And to make matters worse, later that morning, some idiot stole my parking spot on the way in to the library to do research.

Clever writers and readers that you are, you have probably already discerned the difference between my days. While plenty of not so wonderful things occured on Saturday, I was able to assimilate them without much thought. Thursday my mindset was that life sucked, I sucked and actually the world in general sucked.

Our response to ourselves, and in turn the world around us creates a constant, as Dwight V. Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer, puts it, ‘motivation-reaction unit.’

What are your ‘motivation-reaction units’? What do you input on a daily basis that creates your mental and/or spiritual output?

Do you input ‘I am never going to sell’ and ‘my writing is pond scum’ or remind yourself daily that you will be a published novelist? Are you taking steps towards that goal by visualizing, and affirming on a daily basis? Or does your daily input resemble the day before as you create a mental list of why you will not sell–your ‘mental-reaction units’.

What exactly is visualization?

It’s a dress rehearsal for your life.

Begin now, training your mind to accept the positive reinforcement of visualization and affirmations.

Viktor Frankl who lived through the horrors of German concentration camps shared this in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning. “…everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

The bible stories of Abraham, David, Gideon and Peter illustrate the lives of men who initially didn’t see the calling on their lives. They also demonstrate the power of ‘calling things as not as though they are’, and of truly stepping out in the vision of who you are meant to be.

If writing is your calling then start living the vision. If you aren’t sure, then I suggest you get sure. These ideas are applicable to everyone whether you are a writer or a reader.

Stephen Covey’s first habit in his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is proactivity. “Change starts from within and highly effective people make the decision to improve their lives by changing the things they can influence rather than by simply reacting to external forces.”

I challenge you to create your own mental ’scenes’ and ’sequels’ –to plot the story of your writing life, and please remember to add all five senses to your scenes and sequels.

Can you see in your mind’s eye, ‘the call’, the moment the editor tells you she wants to buy your book? Do you feel the excitement bubbling from deep inside you, until it pours out of your mouth as you babble a completely ridiculous response? Do you see your glance moving to the clock which has now stopped as you record the time for posterity?

Do your mental scenes show you on the New York Times list? Can you see your agent calling you with that almost hysterical excitement as she shares the news? Now you are dancing around the room in sheer joy, stopping only to pop a bottle of champagne?

Do you see yourself sitting in the audience at RWA Nationals, nervously smoothing your dress with your moist palms, as your name is called. How are you going to walk all the way up those stairs to accept your RITA?

What about that second book? Can you reach out and touch the ink drying on the contract or are you playing the same sequel of rejection, over and over in your head?

If today you at very least examine your ‘motivation-reaction units’ to the world around you and your writing career, you have made a proactive step towards a positive change.

I’ve been complaining since I gave birth to my son that I can’t get “motivated” to work out like I used to. But that’s not really true. I am motivated, and when I do workout, I love it. When I don’t, I miss it. My problem isn’t motivation; it’s habit. I used to be in the habit of working out six days a week. An hour of my day was reserved for that little pleasure.

When I had my son, my whole life flipped upside down. Suddenly, any and all “me” time wasn’t fulfilling; it was filled with Mommy guilt. So, I limited “me” time until I gave myself none, and found myself sinking into depression like I hadn’t experienced since I was an undergrad. It took me awhile to recognize what I’d done, but I’ve spent the last year remedying that. I started small and with the “me-time” thing that always meant the most to me: writing. I told myself I had to write 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week. It was hard at first, but it wasn’t long before I was smiling a little more often, and feeling encouraged about my decision to make more time for non-Mommy activities. I really was a better, more present mother when I was taking a little time for myself.

My writing time grew, and I’ve found a pretty good balance now. I’m productive because I created a new habit in my crazy new life as a mother.

I’m a blog junkie. I was reading this blog the other day that suggested people who want to begin incorporating exercise into their lives start with ten minutes a day. The idea, the blog explained, isn’t that ten minutes is really enough to make you fit, healthy, and trim; it won’t. It will, however, establish a new habit, and once the habit of exercising daily is established, it’s easier to stretch that ten minutes to fifteen, then twenty, then thirty or more.

When people ask me about writing, my advice is the same: establish a habit. I remember a colleague who was blown away when I broke it down for her. “You write a single page every day,” I told her, “and that book you always talk about will be done in a year.” Her eyes grew and she smiled so big, as if I’d just offered her the greatest gift. Suddenly, she believed she could achieve this goal she’d been talking about for years.

Habits are powerful. We make a habit of exercise, and our bodies transform. We make a habit of eating nutrient-rich foods, and our skin glows. We make a habit of reading to our children each night, and they become educated, inquisitive, confident adults.

The habits we don’t have, we deny ourselves for a reason. Sometimes, we feel guilty for taking the time for ourselves. Sometimes, we don’t feel worthy of the transformation we seek. Sometimes, we fear the very change we long for.

What habit have you been putting off forming? Want to join me as I start in forming a couple new (old?) ones of my own?

While everyone in Northern America is mourning the end of summer (well, except for maybe the kids back at school part), we here in the Southern Hemisphere are looking forward to the end of Winter and the start of Spring.

I’ve not long gotten back from the Romance Writers of Australia conference which this year was held in Brisbane.  I’m from down south in Melbourne, so escaping to warm sunny-in-winter Brisbane for a few days was not a hardship.  To be even more decadent, one of my writing buddies and I decided we wouldn’t rush back to the real world straight after conference, instead we’d take a few days to just relax and hang out and enjoy the warmth.

She lives in the middle of New South Wales, so we figured we’d spend a few days driving down the coast from Brisbane and then to her place. We decided that we’d spend the first couple of nights in Byron Bay.

Byron Bay is the eastern-most place in Australia, hence the first place to see daylight here on any given day. It’s one of those places that attracts both those seeking a laid back, natural, alternative lifestyle and those with money to buy a house in a beautiful part of the world.

It really is beautiful.

Maybe it’s the fact that it is the place the light first hits but the air is clear and bright and the whole place is full of lush tropical plants and houses nestled along the coast.

We treated ourselves to a massage and spa (along with a sauna in a traditional little wooden-style sauna which taught me that I’m slightly claustrophobic in hot dark low places), ate lovely organic food, drank not so organic wine and generally let the cares of the world wash away.

We hiked up to the Cape Byron lighthouse:

which overlooks the actual most easterly point (we were too full of lovely organic food and drink to hike all the way down there)

and soaked up the sun and breathed sea air.  We read the books we’d bought at conference and napped and listened to music. Not surprisingly, after two days of this, both of us suddenly had lots of ideas for our next books and current plot problems.

I’ve never been to Bryon before but I definitely intend to go back there.  For one thing, it would be a fun place to set a book, there’s definitely no shortage of local millionaires or cute surfers for hero material.  For another, it’s just one of those places that really does seem to let you just relax and clear the head.  So who else has a favorite place to get away from it all?  Near or far?  Where do you like to go to recharge?

A few weeks ago, I started training for a half-marathon that will take place in January. (To the left are my new shoes—and normally it doesn’t take five months to train for a half, but I’m new to the sport, so I figured I’d allow plenty of practice time rather than pass out midway through the race.) I keep track of my runs on a great website called Daily Mile, and a while back, someone left a post on the forums titled “I Run Because…”.

What a wonderful way to remind ourselves of the reasons we pursue our passions. No matter how difficult or hopeless things seem sometimes (writing, anyone?), the need to continue is so much stronger than the temptation to quit.

Let’s see. I run because it feels good to be active. Because I want to accomplish as much with my body as I have with my mind. I want to get out from behind the computer and into fresh air. And maybe most importantly, I run because finishing a race is a goal completely under my control—there aren’t any editors on the other side telling me my story isn’t quite right, no judges deciding I didn’t make the team or cute guys saying I’m not cool enough to date (that is, before I was married, lol). For once, I’m the only person who has to approve my efforts, and if I put one foot in front of the other to the tune of 13.1 miles, I’ll do it. Period.

What do you do for *you*, that no one else can stop?

How did you feel about this beginning of school assignment every year? Did you love it because you always had tons of exciting things on your summer calendar? Weren’t you the lucky one!

Did you hate it because summer was one long, hot, boring day after another with only chores and daytime TV to pass the time?  Poor baby!

If we could gather all of our old essays together, we’d realize that our summers are a mix of thrills, chills, and watching the dust motes wavering in the blazing afternoon sun, much like our lives. While I’ve always, always loved summer, I didn’t always look forward to writing that essay. Sometimes summer was mostly a bummer, you know?

Like the summer we (the whole family, including me) forgot my birthday. Which happens to be on the first day of summer. Total bummer.

Or the summer I had foot surgery. It was all barefoot, but no sand for me!

Probably the worst essay to write was when I entered the third grade. Talk about a bummer of a summer. My mother was hugely pregnant so we didn’t do our regular trips to the beach or the lake. Feeling guilty, Mom let me go with the Sunday School class to a lake outing. I was thrilled! So grown up. So independent. Off with the big kids and no Mama. Woo-hoo!

Except I was only eight and couldn’t swim as well as I thought I could. You guessed it–I almost drowned. I was happy to get home to Mama that day. And Mama never made another decision based on guilt.

Unfortunately, that summer got worse. My Granny died from a stroke a few weeks before school started. I’d just come to grips with my grief when, on the the second day of school, Mrs. McCance gave us the dreaded What I Did on my Summer Vacation assignment.

Of course, I burst into tears. Poor Mrs. McCance took me outside and asked what the problem was. “My Granny died and that’s all I did all summer,” I sobbed.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I really am. But, surely you did something else.”

“Well, I almost drowned,” I managed to choke out.

She gave me a big hug and said, “Well, why don’t you write a made up story for me. Something you wish you had done this summer.”

I sniffed and nodded, and wrote one of my first short stories. Though it was admittedly a tough summer for me, it wasn’t a total loss.

But this summer, THIS SUMMER of 2009, I’d love to have an essay assignment to write! I had a fabulous summer! Here are few highlights.

I water skied.

I roller skated. Backwards, no less!

I traveled in our motorcoach.

I swam.

I played in the sand.

I biked. I played tennis. I read.

I visited Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello.

I played with my grand-girl, my great-nephew, and my wonderful nephew.

We grilled hot dogs, roasted marshmallows and I saw the Milky Way for the very first time.  Mostly, I was a kid again.

This summer was simply a stunner!

Let me know what you’d write about in your back-to-school essay on What I Did on my Summer Vacation. Hopefully, your summer was a stunner, too. But, if life threw you a bummer of a summer, on a large or small scale, take Mrs. McCance’s advice: Write a story about the summer you wish you’d had.

I can’t wait to read all about your adventures. That will extend our summer just a wee bit more, won’t it?

I don’t know about you, but for me, the best day of the year is always the first day of school even though each child comes home with an inch-thick stack of forms to fill out. By the time I finish filling out the forms, I’ve got a major case of writer’s cramp but even that doesn’t diminish my happiness.

After enduring a full summer of kids whining about being bored, fighting about one or the other of them hogging the TV, or standing in front of the refrigerator complaining that there’s nothing to eat but ingredients, I’m subjected to my definition of hell: School shopping. There’s nothing worse than walking through Walmart with three lists of school supplies among one-hundred other frazzled parents, each with their 1.2 children begging for a Dora the Explorer backpack and having temper tantrums when the kids hear the word no. Hell is trying to find two-pocket folders with the metal fasteners in six different colors, and six packs of three different size post it notes while pushing a cart full of $150 worth of other supplies, all the while concentrating on not taking your hand off said cart because, lets face it, everyone else’s cart looks exactly the same, and you don’t want to start the process over again. I hang onto my cart like my life depends upon it, and the way I feel when I’m finished, it probably does.

At 8:05 in the morning, after giving my youngest a hug and a kiss goodbye, and saying the words I say every school day “Make it a good day, Sweetie. The decision is yours.” I watch her climb the steps of that beautiful yellow school bus and feel a sense of freedom. I want to do my own version of the Snoopy Happy Dance, but not only is it 8:05 in the morning, I haven’t had time to finish my first cup of coffee and there’s a line of cars waiting behind the school bus who will witness the show and probably consider calling 911 certain I must be having some sort of seizure. So every year I walk sedately back up the slowly deteriorating concrete steps that make the steep hill from my front door to the street somewhat manageable with my coffee in hand. I step through the door and am greeted by my two very happy dogs, who are free to do the Snoopy Happy Dance, since, like Snoopy, they are dogs and care nothing about humans thinking they’re insane or epileptic. They’re just thrilled to be rid of their competition for Mom’s attention. I finish my coffee, clean up what’s left of the disaster of the kitchen, and participate in a ritual I’ve had since the first day my youngest child started first grade and all three kids were going to full-day school.

A few days before my first day of freedom in over 10 years, a very good friend of mine sent me a one-pound box of See’s Chocolate and a bottle of wine with instructions to open both, run a nice bubble bath and indulge. After the bath, most of the chocolate (if you haven’t eaten See’s Chocolate you haven’t lived) and about a half-bottle of wine, we had an on-line party, which was a necessity since Kay lives in Seattle and I’m in Maryland. We instant messaged each other, celebrating our newfound freedom while ingesting a week’s worth of calories and catching a nice buzz. I’ve done this for six years, and I have to tell you that this year my play day won’t be on the first day of school, I’ll have to fill out all those forms while not under-the-influence of my lovely Shiraz which makes the writers cramp tolerable. Don’t get me wrong, I have the bottle of Australian Shiraz, I even have the 1-pound box of See’s Chocolate, unfortunately I also have a home-schooled 13-year old.

Last October I began home schooling my pre-professional ballerina who studies an hour and a half away and dances 30 hours a week. When the middle school refused to let her out a half-hour early because she’d miss part of her study hall (oh, the horror) I had a decision to make. I could either have her live with a host family close to her dance school and attend the local public school which allows the dancers to skip gym and humanities and leave early so that they can spend 30 – 40 hours a week dancing, or I could home school her. Since I’m not willing to give my 13 year-old up just yet, (although there are times the idea does have a huge amount of appeal), I teach her and drive back and forth Monday through Thursday. Twinkle-toes spends Thursday and Friday nights with an amazing host family, does school work on her own Friday before dance, and we pick her up on Saturday evenings.

Friday’s are my only day of freedom. So, on the first Friday after dance starts again in September, I plan to be taking a lovely bubble bath, stuffing my face with chocolate, and washing it down with a fabulous Shiraz. Then it’s on to my on-line party. Let me know if you want to join me and tell me what you do to celebrate freedom, or what you would do, if you had the day all to yourself with out kids. Curious minds want to know.

You would think a vacation would be a great time to read, wouldn’t you?

In 1999 BW (Before Writing), I read an average of 3-4 books a week.  Now, I’m lucky if I squeeze in one.  During the school year, I work part-time as a crossing guard to support my writing addiction.

(I’m one of the few women in the world who stand on the corner for a living and wave to the police as they drive by.) 

Limiting my reading time is the only way I can keep my less-than-svelte body in front of the computer, so I restrict myself to the 2 thirty-minute periods each day that I’m waiting to cross kids and while I’m on the treadmill.  Otherwise I’d get very little written.

This discipline also includes saving my favorite authors’ novels for times when I’m not working.  If I didn’t, I’d never summon the willpower to put down the books. I actually hoard Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Suzanne Brockman, Rachel Gibson, Linda Howard, Janet Evanovich, Jennifer Crusie, etc. novels in a special to-be-read pile that I reserve for days when I know I’ll have the time to get caught up in a really engrossing story.  Times when I need a good distraction—such as during a boring stint at jury duty or a long flight or car trip.

Fortunately, as a yet-to-be-published author, my everyday, humdrum life is extremely flexible and allows me the luxury of occasionally taking a day off from writing to simply veg out and pluck a book out of my special pile.  So when I’m on vacation, rather than relaxing on a chaise like a lot of people whose daily existence is more hectic than ours, I want to do all of the ACTIVE things my hubby and I don’t do all year long. Yeah, we’re those dweebie tourist-types who like sightseeing, attractions, and shows more than sunbathing all day and drinking gallons of tropical drinks and dancing the night away.  As our kids would say, we’re just BORING.

Now summer is fading fast, and rather than feeling my usual sadness over losing my freedom for another nine months, I’m almost relieved this year.  My time off has been less than flexible, relaxing, or productive in regards to writing or reading.  The RWA conference in DC, several go-go-go vacations, and FOUR minor medical tests and procedures (squeezed in between) have left me dizzy and a bit fuzzy from all the anesthesia—not that I’m normally that clear-headed.

Even though my style of vacationing doesn’t give me a lot of book time, I do enjoy reading en route to our vacation destinations—assuming I’m not the one driving, which I was on my recent trip to North Myrtle Beach with my sister-in-law and Suzanne Brockmann. 

No, Suz wasn’t physically with us—although, if she ever wants to join us we’d happily include her. I did, however, take Suz B’s newest book which I typically would’ve saved for a vacation with my hubby. Suzanne Brockmann is one of the authors we both enjoy, so I read aloud to him on car trips  while he drives.  David thinks Sam has become a little too touchy-feely since Ash was born.  The writer in me, however, insists Suz has softened the tough ex-Navy Seal on purpose so she can transform him back into a kick-ass hero to save Alyssa in Hot Pursuit, which I was so-ooo eager to read I took it to N. Myrtle Beach to enjoy without my husband.

Well, fate conspired against me.  (I think my husband has an ’IN’ with the Big Guy.)  Despite spending a week at an oceanfront condo with a wonderful balcony view (right), I was so busy swimming and chatting with my sister-in-law during the day and dining out and attending shows each evening I only managed to read two chapters on the beach.

Lucky for me, summer isn’t quite over yet!

Tomorrow I’m flying to Chicago to stay at a resort in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, (the dairy state) for a farewell-to-summer vacation with my milk/cheese-hating hubby. I’m really looking forward to the flight, because I’ll have a chance to finally finish Hot Pursuit. Unfortunately for David, I’ll be reading silently.  He’s just going to have to read HP to himself on the way home while I start one of my other favorites.

Now I’d like to hear how you feel about the end of summer. When and where do you like to read most, and which authors do you save in your ‘special’ TBR pile? Are you the immediate gratification type who devours novels by your favorite authors as soon as you get them, or do you save them to savor slowly? Did you go away on a vacation this summer, and if so where?

Me? I’m heading off to pack. AGAIN!

Did you know that:

August 8 is Sneak Some Zucchini onto Your Neighbor’s Porch Night

August 25 is Kiss and Make Up Day

September 13 is International Chocolate Day

September 19 is Wife Appreciation Day

Now I can really get behind that last one–but I can’t help but wonder who makes up these holidays?  And how official are they?  I heard about the Sneaking Zucchini holiday–the brilliance of that one is obvious to anyone who’s ever planted a couple of zucchini plants in their garden and ended up with wagons full of big green veggies–and went searching for more information.  I found a couple of sites on the web that list these special days and lots more.  They made me laugh–and they also made me think.  If I could make up my own holiday I know just what it would be . . .

Jammie Day! For my family Jammie Day is the ultimate luxury.  Every so often the planets align and we find that we have a day in which no one has to work or go to guitar lessons or gymnastics, or play paintball or soccer.  The pantry is stocked and no one has an emergency school project requiring an  immediate trip to acquire poster board/paint/printer ink.  When that happens–rarely–we gaze at each other in wonder and shout in unison:  Jammie Day!

It’s a simple celebration.  We eat a big breakfast and we do not get dressed.  We snuggle up in our pajamas, wrap up in blankets and relax.  We read books, watch movies and play board games.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten my butt kicked at the Bionicle board game.  We order pizza so mom doesn’t have to cook and we always find something for dessert.  My kids revel in the feeling that they are getting away with something–like playing hooky from life for a day.  I just relish the day of uninterrupted and stress-free togetherness.

So–how about you?  Do you have a favorite odd holiday?  A fun family ritual?  If you could make up your own holiday, what would it be?  Because I’m celebrating my upcoming release Her Cinderella Season, I’ll give away a copy of its prequel, An Improper Aristocrat to one randomly chosen commenter.

The hero and heroine are battling terrific odds. Will they make it? Will they end up together? As the music builds to the climactic crescendo, our hearts are in our throats waiting for the final kiss. The crash of cymbals. The sound of trumpets. We reach the final page. Close the book. The music fades away.

Yes, I did say music. It makes scary parts scarier, tense parts tenser and—what we’re all shooting for—romantic parts more romantic.

Don’t you hear it while you’re reading? I know I hear it while I’m writing. The music library in my computer’s digital jukebox is overflowing with the soundtrack of my novels. Soft classical strains of Beethoven and Mozart paint the scenes of my Regency countryside. But Enya and Loreena McKinnitt can also lose me in the far-off times and far-off places of my stories until I forget I’m actually sitting at my kitchen table, it’s eleven pm, and I have to be up at dawn to get the kids to school.

Bold, soaring movie music accompanies my action sequences. I’m particularly fond of any of Howard Shore’s LORD OF THE RINGS music, the soundtrack to THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS(it doesn’t hurt that I can alternately imagine Viggo Mortenson or Daniel Day Lewis as my hero) or if I’m feeling particularly dramatic I can’t beat Wagner for soul-stirring drama to get my words flowing faster across the page.

Love scenes can be tricky, and though I write historicals I don’t necessarily turn to classical composers to get my juices flowing or my hero and heroine ready to tear each others clothes off. I’ve found that rock singer, Dido can’t be beat for the inner angst and yearning in our characters’ hearts. What I feel in her music translates to my screen, and if I’m doing my job right, you’ll feel every emotional curve along the way.

But occasionally I’ve found inspiration in country music. Stars like Keith Urban and the group, Rascal Flatts are experts at lost loves and might-have-beens. And for some strange reason, the rock group, Nickelback is the voice of every Alpha male, heating my blood and sending my heart racing as fast as my heroine’s.

As you can see, I don’t play favorites. It’s whatever moves me and moves my characters through each scene. The emotional white noise that gets me where I need to be to convey the drama.

I know many writers who tell me they need quiet to work. Music is a distraction. An interruption to their muse. I’ve tried turning it off, but like turning down the soundtrack to a good movie, my writing just doesn’t have the same emotional power without it. I lose the impact when I lose the musical undercurrent.

Luckily, my muse knows better. She just keeps changing the stations, flipping the dial until she finds the music that fits the scene and the artist that connects my brain to my soul and my soul to the page.

To follow your dreams.

Repeat after me: You’re never too old to follow your dreams!

If someone scoffs at you, turn a deaf ear. If you hit a brick wall, dust yourself off and try again. Persevere! Works for me.

Today is a very special day for me. It’s the birthday of one of my heroes, my grandfather, William “Duke” Procter. The Duke is in quotation marks, because it’s a nickname. The story goes that when he was a toddler he strutted around like the Duke of Wellington, so his father tagged him “Duke,” and Duke he remained until the day he died, December 14, 2005.

If Duke were still alive, he would be 110 years old today. Which sounds unbelievable until you consider that he didn’t die until he was nearly 106.5 (after 100, those halves become important again). Okay, so the years after 105 are all downhill. At least they were for Duke (“Grampa” to me). To be honest, the years after 103 aren’t a cake walk, either. Neither are the years after 95. But when you’re determined and you’re blessed with good health and you truly and honestly believe that you can do anything you set your mind to…well, you pretty much can.

When I want to say, “I can’t,” I think of Duke.

You see, he didn’t just live to a ripe, old age in remarkably good health (unless you count the prostate cancer, but when you’re diagnosed in your mid-nineties, the odds are pretty good it ain’t the cancer that will kill you). He lived life with a vengeance. He embraced it wholeheartedly. When he died, he was one of the last three Canadian veterans of The Great War (as in WW I) and the last surviving veteran of that war in my province. Probably the only reason he survived the war was because, by God’s grace and not Duke’s choice, he didn’t fight. He enlisted at 16, trained hard, and traveled to England with the rest of his battalion. While they waited to go to France, where most of his battalion would eventually die during the Battle of Vimy Ridge, it was discovered that not only was Duke underage but he knew how to fell trees. They needed men (boys) like him to log in Scotland for wood for the trenches. Duke did not want to go to Scotland. He signed up for the war because he was sick of logging and farming. He wanted adventure, he wanted to see the world. He wanted to fight. The irony is that if he had been sent to France, he likely would have died at Vimy Ridge. Instead, he lived for the boys who fought when he was told he couldn’t. He lived for his friends who died.

When I was about 10 or so, I learned Grampa was born in 1899. I remember having a conversation with him where I challenged him to live until at least 2000 so he could set foot in three centuries. Not many people get that chance. He laughed, but as he aged I realized, “Dang, he just might do it.”

Years later, I learned that the 21st century didn’t technically start until 2001, which, gulp, tacked on another year for Grampa, or he would lose my challenge. Silly me.

Here was a man who took up horseshoes (seriously, not just as a thrice-a-summer affair) at the age of 75. He eventually became the oldest competing horseshoe player in Canada, as in playing in tournaments…somewhere around age 97 or 98. He built a horseshoe pit in his front yard and played every day, alone or with others (if they dared challenge him) until 105. When my grandmother was alive, they squaredanced. She died a month shy of her 89th birthday, but Duke wasn’t ready to give up his dance shoes. He loved to dance. He continued squaredancing until he was 103. He was very popular, too. There were a lot of widows at those dances. They needed partners. Duke was happy to oblige. Every single week.

Duke learned to bowl (five-pin bowling, which apparently only exists in the Great White North—the balls are smaller and don’t have finger holes) at 92. Ninety-two! My grandmother had died, and he needed more to do, you see. So he took up bowling, played in two leagues a week, and earned his last strike at 104. Not bad for a newbie.

He drove until 101, put in a huge garden every year, and canned his own fruit, which he ate everyday, until past age 100. He’s been the subject of a documentary, and had a song written about him. He lived in his own home until 105, when a bad fall put him in an old folks’ home. He’d had a bad fall at 103, during a trip to Vancouver to receive the Queens Jubilee Medal for his service in The Great War. He spent his time in the hospital instead. That was it, we thought. He wouldn’t recover. But he rallied and returned home, receiving his award via a personal visit from a Canadian senator several weeks later. He was proficient in survival, you see. After all, he had brain surgery in his sixties after a tree fell on his head. I’m not making this stuff up! He changed his winter tires himself in his nineties when a phone call to the tire shop revealed it would take too long to have it done for him. He had things to do! He had to go vote (we were having a federal election). He didn’t have time to waste sitting in a tire store.

It just didn’t occur to him not to believe in himself. Which was why, when my cousin took skydiving lessons and then suggested to Grampa that he should go tandem skydiving for his 100th birthday, by golly, he took her up on it. (Tandem skydiving is when you’re strapped to the instructor, who pulls the cord).

Grampa wasn’t feeling well around his 100th birthday, however. Certain medications for his prostate cancer and other considerations were taking their toll. We held a massive (and I mean massive) squaredance for his 100th birthday, and he wobbled on his feet as he walked to his seat of honor on the stage (oddly, he danced easily enough). We feared this birthday would be his last.

A little over a month later, permission from his doctor in hand, he went tandem skydiving, all right. Here’s his landing:

And here he is celebrating with the dive team after the dive:

Note, he’s standing on his own two feet (he’s the bald guy in the middle). He became somewhat of a Canadian celebrity for a bit there following this skydive, and as he aged he’d get telephone interviews for newspaper and magazine articles (he appeared in Canadian Living, our equivalent of something like Family Circle or Good Housekeeping, and McLeans, our equivalent of Times or Newsweek). I was visiting him during one such newspaper interview. The guy was old, around 103, and, okay, sometimes his memory was foggy. The interviewers were always interested in the skydive. This one asked Grampa if he broke his leg during the landing. I was a few feet away. I heard Grampa try to explain that he landed okay, but the interviewer confused Grampa’s story about breaking his leg a good ten years earlier when he fell off his roof while cleaning the gutters (again, not making this stuff up!) with him breaking his leg during the landing following his skydive.

Let me set the record straight: he broke his leg falling off the damn roof in his 90s, not skydiving at 100!

There, I feel better now.

Well, I’ve rambled. Which isn’t unusual. I inherited it from Duke. But I still smile, I still get a tear in my eye, I still feel my heart swell with love and pride when I think of him. And whenever I feel down, whenever I feel like I just can’t go on, that following my dreams is too hard, that I keep hitting brick wall after brick wall and it’s not worth it, I can’t do it, I think of my grandfather. And I know that I CAN.

How about you? Who’s your inspiration?

(For those interested, Duke finally died of old age and a series of small strokes at 106, several weeks after hip surgery as a result of a fall in his room in the middle of the night at the old folks home. His heart continued beating a good ten minutes after he stopped breathing).