The Colour of Audio

It is likely that you have already heard this story, but unlikely in this form. I'm in process of trying to podcast some of my stories (in my magical spare time...) and though I don't have a fancy space for if just yet, you can now listen to The Lemon's Aide if you click that title. Who knows? You might be getting in on the ground floor of a multimillion dollar storytelling industry. You could be famous.

B. Ball Academy

Rick, Sam and Alex were three-way best friends and the three best players on their school’s basketball team. Successful sports had been the school’s pride and joy for the past three years and unfortunately for the rest of the school, the athletic program was really the only thing that the school ever put any money into. Before long, the school had an amazing gymnasium, brand new uniforms, a wonderful basketball team and a building full of classrooms that were totally falling apart. After a while the board shut down their school and all of the kids had to find new places to study. Big schools from the city came and collected students for enrolment, and one of these schools was the B. Ball Academy for Boys.

Sir Benjamin Ball, the man that the school was named after, was a huge fan of basketball. Down every hallway of his school there were gigantic trophy cases filled to the brim with all kinds of metals and pictures and awards. Mr. Nezz, the basketball team coach at B. Ball Academy, was always looking for more players to help him win. He had the best basketball team in the whole province and he hadn’t lost a single game all season. As soon as he heard about a school closing its doors, he made sure he was right in the middle of the chaos to scoop up all of the really great players.

Rick, Sam and Alex were at the very top of Mr. Nezz’s list. Before they even realized what was going on they were suited up in the Academy uniforms at their first practice. “Welcome to the team, boys!” said Mr. Nezz as everyone got together before their work began. “As many of you know, this year we are finally in the running for national championships! And this is what we are going to be working for...”

Mr. Nezz unrolled a giant poster of the national championship trophy. It was a huge, shiny, golden masterpiece of metal. “Okay boys, here’s what we’re going to do. Ten minutes before every game we play this season, I’m going to start this CD and for the first three songs we are going to sit in front of this poster and visualize.”

Mr. Nezz explained that visualizing meant that they were going to picture themselves winning the final game and holding this trophy above their heads. Then they were supposed to think hard about how much the trophy meant to each person and to the team as a whole. After the third song was over they would get up and chant “Champions! Champions! Champions!” until the game began.

“Anyone who does not do this as part of the team I will assume does not want to part of the team at all. I won’t kick you off, however you won’t be allowed to play for the rest of the season. Instead, you will become a waterboy and equipment manager, in charge of doing the laundry and washing the change rooms. Make your choice and make it quickly. Our first game starts tomorrow morning.”

The next day the team gathered together in the locker room. The poster of the trophy had been framed and put up on the wall above the drinking fountain. The whole team sat in a circle and ten minutes before the game began, Mr. Nezz started his music. The team closed their eyes and started to visualize.

Rick, Sam and Alex did not shut their eyes or bow their heads in visualization. Instead, they stood up and walked over to Mr. Nezz who was mumbling “championship” under his breath. Alex tapped him on the shoulder. “Umm, sir? We really don’t want to do this... it’s... wrong. Can we please leave?”

Mr. Nezz looked frustrated. “Are you sick? Are you going to throw up?” Rick shook his head. “No, sir. We just think it’s wrong to focus on the trophy like this. We don’t want to visualize. We just want to play basketball.” Rick and Sam nodded.

Mr. Nezz stood up and cleared his throat. Everyone looked up from their visualization. “Well boys, looks like we found ourselves a couple of waterboys already! Let’s get these kids to work!” Two of the older kids got up and grabbed Alex under the armpits and lifted him up off the ground. A few other boys came and picked up Sam and Rick the same way. Then the bigger players carried Rick, Sam and Alex through the locker room and into the change rooms where the laundry was kept. Rick, Sam and Alex were thrown into the bins along with the dirty uniforms and smelly gym socks.

“Have fun cleaning, boys!” Mr. Nezz and the rest of the team walked out to the gymnasium to play the game. All that could be heard was the chanting of “Champions! Champions!” as the door to the change rooms swung closed.

Rick, Sam and Alex climbed out of the laundry hamper. They looked around the room, expecting to see a huge mess but instead they saw sparkling floors and tidy equipment. They looked back in the laundry hamper they had just climbed out of. The laundry was mysteriously clean and folded. They looked towards the door that the team had just walked out of. There, leaning against the wall with a mop in hand was a kid in a strange uniform.

“Enjoy your night, boys! I'm pretty proud of you for standing up for yourselves and for what you believe in. Well done.” At that moment the door opened and Mr. Nezz came back in. He was reaching out for his whistle when he froze and stared at the floor. It was all... sparkly. His jaw dropped as he looked around the room and then up into the faces of Rick, Sam, Alex and the mysterious new kid. He blinked hard and gave his head a bit of a shake. When he opened his eyes again, the fourth kid was gone. “What just happened here?!”

“That kid...” Rick was having a hard time making sense of it himself. “He just... did everything so fast and he saved us like... hours and hours of work! Then he just... disappeared!”

Mr. Nezz was in shock. “Wow, I... don’t know... I mean, that kid! ...You know? Okay, boys. I don’t know what just happened, but if you can clean this fast you must be like Speedy Gonzalez on the court! You’re back on the team for sure. And no more of this crazy visualization stuff anymore. Clearly you don’t need it! It’s probably not a great idea anyway. Maybe it’s even wrong. I’m sorry I tried to force you. Will you come and play now?”

Rick, Sam and Alex played an amazing game that night and Sam was even made captain a few weeks later. The coach made sure they never had to visualize anything about that trophy ever again... and they still won the championship!

A Case of Rapunzel Blues

Once upon a time there lived a girl who fancied herself a princess of sorts. She had big dreams and an untameable imagination and too much time to herself to think. This particular combination of attributes has led her into terrible, complicated messes in the distant and not so distant past. She, in fact, expects that it will likely cause her problems throughout her life, though it may someday lead to paying off her student loans... but that is not the point of this story.

She used to have this pen-pal. He was a pretty cool guy, a prince of a sort from a neighbouring kingdom. For a long time they communicated by carrier pigeon, letters coming every other fortnight or so. After a time, their lettering became more regular and the princess-esque girl and her imagination were racing. Without warning her heart decided to get involved, and soon she was outnumbered: imagination and heart verses reality. It was a competition she could hardly hope to win. And so she lost it, with a smile.

Well, as it happens, all of the major kingdoms in the area held a conference and all of the princes and princesses were invited. Some of the other courtly members attended the event as well, since it was slightly less formal than a royal ball. No pumpkins were involved, no mice or other members of the rodent family, but (to the princess, now mentally held hostage by her daydreaming imagination and her trapped-in-a-tower heart) the day did possess some of those fairytale qualities. Reality was disconnected and the dream lived. His name, by chance, was Kingly. Prince Kingly suddenly went from pen and ink to flesh and blood and voice, and the princess was completely overwhelmed. In folklore, this would have been identified by an exaggerated "swoon" moment, but she didn't recognize it, and was blinded to hesitation, conflict, warnings and holds. As far as the princess was concerned, this was the beginning of her happily ever after. But then, it was all heart and imagination at work. She hadn't really consulted her mind in a while. In fact her mind was still shackled to the dungeons of her being when the day ended. Naive, dangerously encouraged and with little resolve to give her head a shake from the clouds, she finally headed home to her castle.

There is always a bit of a problem when the mind is locked up; even when released, it has been starved and shut away from the sunlight, it is weak and soft… it takes time to recuperate. It took four passes of the full moon for the princess’s mind and heart and imagination to make peace in her body. There is still some tension there. As previously mentioned, it is a battle that her mind will likely fight forever. But it’s balancing out slowly. The problem was, in hindsight, a very complex issue for the princess, but one important and now recognized element was a simple conundrum that no part of her apparently multi-personalitied psyche had anticipated: Prince Kingly was one of the only well matched princes she had ever spent much time with. He was the only pen-pal she had invested any thought into, any imagination, any heart. Other suitors had come and passed through finding little traction with the princess at all… perhaps because she was so enamored with this one friend.

So, where are they now? Well, they’re back in their own castles, their own worlds, overlapping by occasional carrier pigeon. It was not her ideal, but maybe that is because The King has something better in mind for both of them. She isn’t always sure what His plans are, but then, who is she to question the will of The King? He knows his kingdom and his family better than anyone. It’s His role and His rule, and He does both very well. And so, she has returned to her tower and her birds, trusting that The King will figure out major details as they need to come together.

The Lemon's Aide

Living a life in constant yellow can be a wearying existence. When you’re yellow, people expect you to carry on as though every moment of your life is bathed in sunshine from dawn ‘til dusk, but the truth is that even Yellows have blue days. Just ask Lemon.

Lemon was a tough guy to peel. Although bright and smooth in appearance, he often struggled with keeping up with the expectation of being the life of everybody’s party. He compared himself too frequently to Banana and Passionfruit – one admired for his form and one for flavour – but even with this self-troubling habit most others in the fruit basket couldn’t see past his goofiness to the sour pit he was feeding. Lemon was sad – but when you’re so yellow, there’s no opportunity to show off some of the other colours that are experienced just below the surface. The pinks of love, the reds of anger, the blues of melancholy and the oranges of adventurousness never saw the sun on Lemon’s peel... but before too long there was another colour that began to seep out from his core.

“Lemon,” Papaya commented one afternoon, “You’re looking a little lime... are you okay?” Lemon did what he could to let the comment roll off his back: “I’m fine, I just need a little more Vitamin D, that’s all.”

But sunshine wasn’t enough to stop Lemon’s greenness from spreading. In a few days, everyone had noticed – and they began to talk. “I know he’s been hanging out with the Veggies recently,” Tomato said to Peach as they watched Lemon roll slowly from one side of the basket to the other. “Maybe the Broccoli has been rubbing off on him a little too much?”

Lemon’s friends tried to cheer him up and get his yellow back, but they couldn’t figure out the root problem. Lemon was looking more and more lime everyday and everyone was worried. “Is he... rotting?” a little grape asked. The response was uncertain. “He’s sick, honey... tired maybe, maybe more.”

It had been nearly three weeks from the time that Lemon’s hue began to darken to the day Radish got thrown in with the fruits. “Are you a squash?” Radish asked, quite innocent of the gradual pigmented depression Lemon had found himself in. She based her observation solely on that which could be observed: the once yellow Lemon was now a very dark blueish-greyish-green colour, quite like that of Butternut. “I’m a lemon,” said Lemon.

Radish furrowed her eyebrows. “What has happened to your sunshine?” Lemon sighed heavily, brimming with tears. The dimples that had once served to highlight his cheer now seemed to emphasize the depth of his creases and the weight in his eyes. “I’ve lost it,” Lemon confessed. “It’s been gone for a terrible long time.”

Radish smiled gently. “I will help you find it again.”

Radish listened while Lemon told her about his deep blue. He spoke of the wear his friends had on him at times, of no fault of their own, but which nevertheless caused Lemon to tire. He confided in Radish and for a long time while she said nothing with neither tear nor smile; she simply listened. Little by little, Lemon’s grey lightened. The blue faded and the green disappeared. Little by little, Lemon was yellowing. When he had explained everything that he had been keeping to himself and all pressure had been released, he laughed. Radish smiled back. She seemed... different, somehow.

Before Lemon had a chance to inquire, Radish nodded quietly and tipped her head just a little to one side. “Did you know,” she began, as though it were a question, “that colours are contagious? They have an amazing quality about them that is transferable – blues and yellows and even pinks – they can be passed on or pulled in my others. You’ve gotten much yellow back, and I’m got some of that now too! But I also took on a bit of your blue and a little green, to help you get rid of it. So that’s why I look a little odd – I’m brighter, but also darker than when I arrived here. More the colouring of an unusually ripe apple, than a radish, you might say.”

“But I don’t want you to be blue or green,” Lemon said. Radish smiled. “It’s okay Lem... it’s what friends do. We share the good and the bad, the blue and the yellow. We trade off and balance out and compliment. It’s our design.”

Lemon gave Radish a hug, which may seems strange to you until you remember that a radish is rarely a radish in such tales and such tales are rarely told with the simple intention of entertainment; rather that they often come prepared with an applicable punch: When life gives you Lemons, be the Lemon’s aide.

Injury to Insult

The warm and fuzzy feelings that so frequently follow a hug are harshly stripped away the moment you discover once and for all that you are a loser. It isn’t your fault, really; you were created a loser and there is nothing you could have done to change that. No amount of delay would have helped. Some might say you were fated to fail. Whatever the reason, the fact remains; you are a loser.

As if being a loser wasn’t enough, as though you needed more conformation to know that your life was a horrible disappointment, you are carelessly and heartlessly discarded – trash, garbage, worthless, valueless – the loving embrace you had lived in is gone and with it goes all hope of appreciation or status, of joy and of having a place in the heart of a very special someone... or a mildly tolerable anyone. You are thrown out and onto the street, left to end your days being trampled by the sopping, muddy shoes of the world.

How quickly we discard the losers, without so much as the respect to provide a proper burial for them; not in a cemetery, not even at a place for cremation, not even taking the time to make sure that all those losers end up exactly where they should; namely, the recycling.

Yes, I’m talking about all those “Please Play Again” mistreated Tim Horton’s loser coffee cups. I’m not trying to make a serious argument that your personified hot beverage holder has feelings – because it doesn’t. It’s made of cardboard and wax – but I would like to submit to you the idea that our planet is, to some degree, alive. So, this is a letter for you litterbugs: sidewalks are not trashcans, snow banks are not blue-bins and the street is not your personal garbage bag. Give your loser coffee cups a respectful and responsible finale to their short-lived and thankless lives. If you will not reduce or reuse, then please stop adding injury to insult: recycle.

Center Stage

Life is an improv. There is no written script for daily conversation and no time is allotted for practice or preparation of dialogue; we have to rely on each other for inspiration and co-operative creativity. Not everyone, however, can provide that necessary counterpart. There are people in life that can completely deflate self-confidence. You know the kind... a heckler. Everyone faces them, and for the most part, we face them alone.

But life was not designed to be a solo act – great improv happens in groups or teams or pairs: the set up to your punch-line, the laugh track to your slap-stick, the clever banterer, the matched wit. Someone you can trust without hesitation or reservation, someone who will laugh at your bad puns and meet them with and equally horrible joke, someone to join you on stage and face the audience side by side, someone to fight off the hecklers, someone to spark your imagination.

I’ve found one of these people; my best friend. We are an amazing improv team. She is the superhero to my sidekick and the background music to my rock-opera solo. We work, and I have taken to the stage with her many a time... but eventually she will go on tour with the man(ager) of her dreams and I'm a little worried that I will be left on the street corner with a couple of old jokes and a guitar I can’t play... unless...

What I need is a partner in crime; someone who would be willing to join my act and come with me on a tour of my own. I’ve been running informal casting calls my whole life, but I’ve decided to stop the hunt. Take down the signs, gents; no more interviews. This is improv, after all, and you can’t force funny... funny just happens. Humour either works or it doesn’t. People fit or they don’t, you can’t change their style any more than you can change your own, so I don’t know why I’ve been trying so hard for so long. That’s the whole point of improv, isn’t it? You don’t have to try, you just are. You don’t write lines, you just start talking and the show moves forward. I know that I will eventually discover my hilarious, talented, quick-witted equal and together we will rock this life. Until then I will build up my act, learning and teaching and sharing the spotlight with all of the other comedians I know.

The Wake Up Call

For a few seconds I thought that the deafening, high pitched screech was part of a dream; by the time I realized that I was definitely awake, I was wishing that the alarm had been a figment of my imagination.

After weighing my options (facing the wintery darkness outside or staying inside with the heat no matter how hot it got) I grumbled internally and made my way to the kitchen. My roommates and I worked our way around the apartment collecting jackets, boots and scarves, mumbling mildly profane curses at the still-screaming alarm on the wall. “Fire” becomes an equally resentful curse to any other four-letter-word you could think of at 12:43am. As we followed a few other students outside and did our best to zip out the cold, we could just barely hear the sirens over conversation and chattering teeth.

A few minutes later, a fleet of fire trucks could be seen flying up College Drive. After speeding into the parking lot (and clearing the huddling mass of students a little further away from the doors), uniform-clad firefighters slid out of their seats and sauntered casually into the building.

Admittedly, we could spy no smoke and we didn’t feel like there was an impending doom, but a little get-up-and-go would have been nice. We waited. Sooner or later one of two things was bound to happen; either the building would burst into uncontrollable flame and all of our possessions would be scorched, or they would let us go back inside. Either would have been fine with me... both options would be warmer than shivering ourselves into mild hypothermia, and I’m sure I could have used the excuse “the fire ate my homework” at some point. Finally, after each of the four fire trucks had stood vacant for a while and the police SUV had lapped the parking lot, we were called inside. We waved a sarcastic farewell to each vehicle as it passed the double doors and rode off into the distance.

If the fire had been a real one, I’m sure the spin of this particular entry would be incredibly different. I am thankful for people who are willing to do what I am not always ready to. There are few things that could drag my butt out of bed and across town at 12:43am, and a false alarm is not one of them. But what am I willing to react like that for? A friend in need would get me up. I would run across town for anyone in my family... but what about a stranger?

People will ask “Where’s the fire?” if they catch you in a hurry. Most of the time it’s not a fire that has you on the move, but something did get you motivated. God used to make me move like that. I used to talk about Him to people as though I could be saving their lives... like the Fire was real. Somewhere along the road I started believing that people were calling in false alarms. If firefighters stopped responding whenever they thought they were unnecessary, people would burn and die. I have become a lazy firefighter. Am I responsible for the fires that are set? No, they are not my fault; however, I can be held responsible if I don’t take action to stop them from growing, and try to stomp them out.

In Ephesians 6:13-18, we are given spiritual battle equipment in the armor of God: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of readiness and peace, the shield of faith, the sword of the spirit and the helmet of salvation. In today’s world, I think we need to add a few more elements to our God gear: the hydrant and hose of love. God made love to be under pressure within us, and also to have an explosive reaction to our world! When we tap into the love of God and aim our lives at people, they will get blown away. There is no way I’m going to sit on that truck anymore. Fire or no fire, this world is about to get soaked.

Let’s Talk About “Soap”

What makes a really good soap? Is it the texture, the smell, the colour, the fresh feeling of being clean again? I think it is the unique combination of all of these elements that attracts people towards a certain brand of soap, and makes favourites out of a select few.

Personally, I’ve always fancied mint scented soaps. I know, mint isn’t a common sudsy smell, but for some reason mint is my kind of bar. But it’s hard to find a good mint-scented soap, so when I find one that suits me, I tend to get pretty attached... as long as I’m the only one using it.

I’d like to think it’s a respect thing, but if you boil it down it’s probably pride. Whatever the core motivation, I can’t use exactly the same kind of soap as anyone else. I like my scent to be somewhat exclusive, and I’m a little possessive about my soaps, with one exception.

I have a friend. She’s amazing and beautiful, and I look up to her in many ways. We have a similar taste in soaps, both oddly attracted to mint. I’ve always thought she made good soap selections; similar to mine, but the brand was different. Recently I discovered she had switched brands. You can always tell when someone starts using your soap, and (though I’m not proud of it) I often find myself wafting the air to make sure no one around me smells quite the same. She started to. Unfortunately, it smelled pretty good on her.

I decided to ask her about the soap. I was sure I already knew, but then sometimes your senses can mislead you. Well, she was indeed using the same soap. At first I got a little territorial over the scent... after all, it was a good mint and not easy to come by... but after a time of listening to her talk about this soap, how it had kind of grown on her, how clean it made her feel, how much she liked the texture, aroma, colour, packaging... almost everything about the soap, and some things I had not even noticed about it myself, something inside of my sudsy soul told be to back off. She liked the soap in a way I couldn’t, and it was actually a much better soap for her than it was for me.

So, the soap I’ve been using isn’t one I really want to use anymore, partly because a shared smell loses some of the lustre and appeal a special soap has... but mostly because her friendship is far more important than any kind of soap. Now I’m keeping my eyes and my nostrils open for a different lathering agent. I still like my mints, but I’m going to have to find another brand... or maybe it’s time to try out something completely different, like orange or vanilla scented soap. For the time being I’m going back to the standard Ivory, the soap-scented-soap. It may be a while before I can find a satisfactory replacement for that last mint one; or maybe I’ll find the perfect kind in Wal-Mart tomorrow, who knows? Right now I’m trying to be satisfied with just being clean.