Yesterday morning, as I was making coffee, before I put the clean dishes away out of the dishwasher, I noticed I had only one decent-sized coffee mug available to me for my morning java. It is a shiny, yet old, metal Starbucks mug that was given to me by my former partner’s daughter, back in the day when she was a barista. This was, by my calculation, about 14 years ago … ? There it sits sturdily on my shelf, well and regularly used, still. I thought at one time that the lid might need replacing but it has hung in there all this time.
I really like this mug. I like the history of it, the weight of it, the longevity of it. I have a few other mugs that people have given to me at various points in my life, or that I’ve bought for specific reasons. There are very few mugs that I use daily that don’t have some reason for being on my shelf.
For months, perhaps years now, I’ve felt strongly that I have too much stuff. Scaling down has been a theme of mine for some time, not only of my own physical person, but of my physical impact, my “footprint”, on the earth. I have a basket of things here on the main floor that I put things into when I want rid of them, and then I occasionally stumble across someone who needs something out of my basket of things. Currently, it has more garage-sale type items like jigsaw puzzles and old sunglasses. Next weekend, I hope to empty this basket out at a friend’s yard sale. I also make regular use of the “freecycle” option right here in my own building. Useful things get left and then snapped up out of the garbage room with great regularity. Freecycle, the real version, is a wonderful option for larger items.
Yet, I am as susceptible as anyone else in this consumerist North American society to the lure of the purchase. Of the new and shiny. I “consume”. I buy new things. I’m just more careful, and I hope more thoughtful, than I once was. I bought a watch (actually two watches, one of which I promptly lost and mourned for) last year. It is shiny and “new” but feels, to me, “old” in that it seems to belong on my person in that snug old sweater kind of way. It pleases me to think this is the only watch I’ll ever need.
I’m down to two pairs of shoes for regular daily non-snowy use. I have a few pairs, maybe three pairs, of “good” shoes. And a pair of those water slipper things for swimming in lakes with rocky or yucky bottoms.
So, over time, as I struggle with the tension of “too much stuff” vs. “precious and useful stuff” vs. “new stuff”, I’ve tried to come up with some criteria for the comings and goings of things in my world. I’ve not tried to write it down before … but it would go something like this:
1. Do I still use / enjoy this? Have I really used / enjoyed it in the last year?
2. Is it precious to me in some way, and thus irreplaceable? (This is the trickiest category because, depending on my mood, EVERYTHING might be precious to me in any given moment.)
3. Do I have more than one of these already? Do I really need more? (i.e. shoes, coffee mugs, t-shirts etc.)
4. Can someone else get more use / joy from it than I can right now?
Books are tricky items, as are CDs and DVDs these days. I like the tangibility of CDs, especially ones that contain music of importance to me. Yet, about 60% of my CDs are now on my hard drive so this begs the question of whether I really need the tangible piece anymore, especially since my hard drive gets backed up weekly. When music gets transferred to my hard drive, about half the the CDs wind up heading out the door. About half, I just can’t seem to part with.
I’ve purged my books a few times, with mixed results. There are books that have gone out the door that I now dearly wish I’d kept. I can’t find them now - old editions of film theory texts from my university days are like missing teeth on my bookshelf. I can see, almost feel, their absence. Yet, there are books on my shelf that I haven’t read, or opened, or even considered in years. The line around books is pretty fuzzy, really. I like “lending” books, usually with the tacit understanding that I might not actually see those books again. I also like doing things like pulling books off my shelf and just giving them away on the spur of the moment. Taking them, or sending them, as surprise gifts.
One of the things that I don’t think we do enough is honour the things we already possess that are serving us well and that may have done so for some time. Things that Do Not Need Replacing, Upgrading or Augmenting. The act of purchasing or acquiring something new is invigorating, often rewarding. What if we got into the habit of celebrating things we already own that totally rock? Would we buy less? Would we take care of the things we own more if they felt less disposable?
Here is a list of ten things that I use / enjoy regularly that I can’t imagine replacing.
1. My mother’s quilt(s). There are two of these, one of which is pretty ragged. The other is a quite lovely summer weight cover. While at the market the other day with J, I briefly considered upgrading to something schmancier, but have since decided that what I have is quite lovely, thanks very much.
2. Wall art. Original paintings / drawings. The signed Stephanie Rayner poster of a diving loon. The Pam Morris print, . Almost everything has a story, a history.
3. The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Complete with magnifying glass for viewing.
4. Blundstones.
5. The old, yet still shiny, Starbucks coffee mug.
6. The world’s ugliest winter coat. I have a nearly full length winter coat, now six sizes too big for me, that is in the same colours as the Edmonton Eskimos CFL team. That is to say, bright green and bright yellow. It is about 15 years old now. It is profoundly unfashionable. It also keeps me utterly warm during those storms that challenge all other coats. Invaluable.
7. The flamenco guitar. It isn’t old, but it will not ever get replaced.
8. The sofa. Now nearly 15 years old, it has survived storage, mold/mildew and pet abuse. Still the most comfortable pull-out couch I’ve ever sat on.
9. My mother’s valise. If my memory serves about this, when one worked as a nurse in the 1940’s, there were overnight shifts that required an overnight “bag”. My mother used this hard-shell case - it has her initials (maiden name) stamped near the handle. It is now where my sheet music is stored and transported when required. It smells of must and mothballs a bit … and, thus, so does my sheet music!
10. Travel Trunk. I have an old, hard-sided 1940’s era travel trunk, a big blocky cumbersome thing. Right now it stores stuff in my bedroom closet but, in its history, it has been a bookshelf, a prop in a play, a useful thing to move linens in, and, now, a storage unit. It has years of usefulness yet.
So … over to you … can you name 10 items that regularly appear in your world that will not be replaced anytime soon by the shiny and new?
Saw this in Vegas … finally. I’ve had the soundtrack for almost two years and have been curious/fascinated/drawn to the re-visioning of the music that George Martin, and his son Giles, created. They call it a “soundscape”. I call it “marvelous”.
This is easily the most complex thing I’ve ever seen done on a stage. Presented “in the round”, one would get a slightly different show depending on where one sat. Which means, of course, that I have to go see it again and sit somewhere new! The show is like a sensory overload and, fairly early on, you have to let go of the idea of actually taking in each element consciously. That would be frustrating and very hard work. You have to just let the music, colour, movement, interaction … you have to let it all wash over you and let your senses absorb it. At any given time, there are at least a dozen “focus” areas to look at. You can’t really “see” it all, but you can absorb the experience.
I kept wondering what John would think of this. It is presumptuous of me to speculate, of course. It can be said that the Beatles were the first to include the visual in their music. The modern music video emerged from their experimentation with film and also with television. They were highly visual and absolutely not adverse to using commercial projects to get their work out before wider and wider audiences. I think they weighed out any cynical response about commercialism against the positive impact of getting their work out to new pockets of listeners. John was right in there, experimenting always, breaking boundaries. Trying out acting. Trying out nudity. Leveraging classic commercialism (i.e. billboards) to spread a message of peace. Not following rules. Not always saying a kneejerk “no” from a gut cynical place which, we know, he certainly possessed.
My kneejerk gut cynical response to Vegas, as a rule, has been “no!”. As my friend Dry Ice points out in her post after she visited last year, everything is fake. I do not disagree with anything she write in her post. But I decided ahead of time to leverage her experience as a sort of starting place for me, as my emotional response to the place. We know it is all fake, a monument to excess. We know that the resources used - money, labour, water in particular - to construct and maintain this desert adult “mirage” would easily keep several third world countries in a higher quality of life than they are now. (This, I believe, is the real “sin” in the term “Sin City”.) I also know that holding onto my cynicism and anger about this utter waste of resources and energy will not enhance my ability to enjoy any elements of our short stay there that were “real”. The sun, blue sky, puffy clouds. Moments of kindness, humour and connection between strangers. Feeling giddy and playful and briefly “released” from commitments. Being able to be continuously “in the moment” with my beautiful, and equally giddy and playful, travelling companion for almost five days consecutively. Having, and seizing, the opportunity to experience one of the great natural wonders of the world - the Grand Canyon - oddly, so close to Vegas which could be deemed one of the great UNnatural wonders of the world.
So I think about what John might say, in his nasal Liverpudlian way, about “Love” being @ the Mirage, dead centre in Sin City. I imagine he’d shrug off the prerequisite cynical response, looking instead at the audience - young, not-so-young, wildly diverse - sitting, mesmerized by Beatles’ music and message of peace, awareness and, of course, love. I think he’d say “s’alright … “. He might take more of an opportunity to get people thinking about where they are in that moment. But, as we are often told, audiences are smarter, and more thoughtful, than they appear. Perhaps he would trust that next layer of thoughtfulness would come later, after the show, as it has for me.
Here is a link to the official “Love” website, by Cirque du Soleil. Interesting stuff, and the video at the top of the first page is more well lit than the one below. This one, below, is a 10 minute series of teasers from various numbers within the show. I found the viewing slightly better in HQ, but the examples are rather dark. Perhaps this is on purpose, in the hopes of truly “teasing” the viewer into making the journey to the centre of Sin.
I’m on a bit of hiatus from my weight loss endeavours, holding relatively steady at a loss of about 69 lbs since June, 2007. A slow and steady loss. I’m 21 lbs away from my ultimate goal. It has been quite the journey over the past couple of years.
For my entire adult life, I have identified as a feminist, even before I was really clear on what was meant by this. I was quite the activist in the 80’s, ramping up a few local movements in the Niagara Region where I was living, serving on the board of a rape crisis centre, being part of a large coalition that founded the Women’s Studies programme at Brock University, being a T.A./lecturer there in the first three years the programme ran.
There are many schools of feminist thought. I disagree with some and wholly embrace others. At this stage of the game, feminism has served to instruct me on the myriad of intersecting systems that I live within, am bounded by. None of them - from the economic/monetary system and its weaknesses that are now becoming clearer to our food production and delivery mechanisms to the values used within business to interact with either the labour force or the environment to the very rules, most unspoken, that guide our interpersonal communications - none of these systems were influenced in any meaningful way by women, or by people with the deep cellular knowledge that women and men are equal but different creatures on this earth. We swim, all of us, men and women, in a world designed from the perspective of those who hold the most power in our society - white, straight men. Those who thrive within these structures, male or female, are those who can best adapt to these systems.
As A.W. Schaef says, and I am paraphrasing, the white male system is not reality. It is just a system. Once you can identify it all around you, you can see that it isn’t reality at all. After you have your “a-ha!” moment, you can step outside it and observe. And, to an extent, protect yourself and, if you are clever, you can be more conscious of maneuvering in and out of the system and being less damaged by it.
In a way, by revealing the systems we operate in, feminism helped me to understand form and content. So has music. Mozart could write a kick-ass concerto, yet it is still a concerto. The form is intact. He rocked the form. The 20th century saw revolutions of new form as blues and jazz musicians punched holes in pre-existing structures to create brand new ones, on the fly. Phillip Glass comes along and says “fuck the form” and writes whatever sounds good to him. When you can see, touch, feel and deeply experience the “form” as a separate construct, as “not a given” but a choice, you can choose to operate within it, partially within it or to exit it altogether.
Another more pertinent example has to do with the ongoing, fascinating and irritating discussion of “butch/femme” as identities within lesbian and queer circles. Notions of maleness and femaleness, the “rules” which govern these as forms of existence, do not originate with the women who live their particular slant out, or are at least conscious of this gender dichotomy as they go about making their choices about how they present to the world. We didn’t create gender constructs - a society that is governed by the male gaze did. So, once you understand you are being asked to play a game that erases your natural identity and replaces it with a version acceptable to the male gaze, you can decide whether to play along and ruffle fewer feathers, to rebel and scream bloody murder at being shoe-horned into someone else’s definition of your gender … or make up your own gender twisting game. (Gender twisters have more fun, in my experience … but I digress …)
Power - or as feminists are more comfortable stating, “empowerment” - exists in understanding the form, the rules, and thus understanding that one has choices about how to relate to the form.
Choice. Choices. Options. As I look back on so many years of thinking about all of this, I can see that feminism has programmed me to build my own life, according to my own rules, and to seek to always operate from a position in which I have the greatest number of choices. I can choose to play along. I can choose to rebel within the context of any given situation. I can reject entire frameworks and circumstances and re-create new ones that are more life-giving. Ultimately, I think this is what our feminist foremothers had in mind.
Parallel to being a feminist for my entire adult life, I have also always been large-ish. Each year, I’d add a few more pounds. Mostly, this didn’t bother me much. I felt healthy and reasonably fit. Aside from my weight, I’ve never much cared for what I look like, thinking I was rather odd-looking and knowing that there was not much I could really do about that. Besides, as an out lesbian feminist hanging out with mostly other out lesbian feminists, we all were so much above the white patriarchal rules that equate physical appearance with having value. Pshaw. Beauty emmanates from within and rises above any notion of physical self, right?
Along came a series of events, including some weight-triggered health issues experienced by a member of my immediate family, that made me look very closely and carefully at my choices around my particular physical form. Changes needed to be made, and I am the only one able to affect them. And so it began.
I need to state here that, as of June 2007, I also strongly disliked how I looked. My external “heavy set” presentation to the world did not reflect my internal sense of self. There was a disconnect.
I used the support of an excellent commercially available system which I’m not willing to promote here but will happily chat to anyone about if you’d like to contact me privately. The weight started to come off as soon as I made some significant changes to portion sizes, upped my fruits and vegetables and eliminated vast quantities of carbs. I realize now that I’m actually in a life-long struggle with carbs.
As the weight came off, it became easier for me to be more active, and to be more motivated about being active. In 2008, I started to do some strength training.
Right around the half-way point, almost exactly at the loss of 35 lbs., I became visible to others in a way I’d not experienced before. Men, and women, were suddenly more interested in engaging in conversation, flirting and otherwise noting my presence. I found, and continue to find, this fascinating, flattering, and disturbing. With almost every drop in weight - and I do tend to drop five pounds at a time, and then plateau - the ratio of visibility has risen.
I like the experience of being “seen”. It makes life a bit easier in some ways. It feeds my confidence which adds more positive energy to the mix. I certainly like the changes that strength training has created although I can’t say that I’m particularly enamoured of the activity itself. I like feeling strong and healthy - I think this projects something out to the world beyond simply that my body is smaller and a different shape now. I adore how my cardio levels have improved to the extent that I don’t feel like I’m coughing up a lung every time I come off a hard shift at hockey. I seem to be skating a bit faster, as anyone would if they were stronger with fewer pounds to heft about.
This experience of being “seen” is a mixed bag, though. It makes me angry that men who work in the same office as me now stop by my desk to chat, for no reason in particular. I was never acknowledged before in this way, at all. Women who had never taken the time to chat me up before actually make the effort now. If I may cut to the chase, our Western, male-programmed view takes for granted that “smaller, fitter” means “hotter” … yet, this has always been something I’ve questioned and very consciously rebelled against. Surely, our collective programming around responding to a particular “form” and making assessments about “content” from it is simply learned behaviour and not that ingrained.
And herein lies the real kicker. This experience has taught me that my own deep internal programming matches that of the men and women now taking the time to acknowledge me. I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t think I look “better” now. I can’t tell you how conflicted this makes me when I consider this issue, and how it takes the punch out of me being really truly angry with anyone for chatting me up. It happens early on, this programming, and it runs deep.
Perhaps part of what people are “reading” differently is that the disconnect I experienced before - the outer self not reflecting who I felt I actually was - has been addressed. This body feels more “me”, and perhaps that is what people are responding to, more of a sense of wholeness. Apparently, the revised “me” also has much longer hair … and that requires a blog entry all of its own.
I see that I actually started writing this post in the first week of March 09. And here I am, about to hit submit in mid-May 09. There is so much more to say on this issue … and I hope you will join me in the conversation.
I was coming out of the subway the other evening, around dinnertime, and was nearly bowled over by a tall young man in a rush. He was carrying a plastic grocery bag in one hand, dangling it in the normal manner by its handles, and cradling a package carefully in his other hand. It balanced horizontally across his hand and wrist, wrapped in a brown paper bag. Likely a styrofoam container of take-out that he was being careful not to spill.
It was the brown paper bag that caught my eye. We don’t really live in a brown paper bag society anymore so when they appear, I tend to take notice.
Brown paper bags used to be the default. Ubiquitous. The entire time I was growing up, groceries were carried in heavy brown paper bags, sometimes with logos, sometimes not. You carried them in your arms, like small children, not dangling down by arm-lengthening handles. I wonder what this says about our evolutionary place that we are less inclined to carry things up close to our upper bodies and more comfortable dangling them in bags close to the ground. In what way is “dangling” more convenient than “carrying”?
In our house, brown paper grocery bags were folded and saved up for important duties like “lighting the furnace” or “lighting the garbage pile” or “collecting kindling”. Garbage sorting seems to be a new concept for urban dwellers, but on the farm we were cutting edge. We sorted into metal/glass (for hauling to the dump), non-meat food scraps (for composting, or tilling into the soil, or feeding the pigs), and everything else - paper, plastic and all other refuse - which was burned in the garbage pile. Not really the current standard, but we did have a crude jump on this whole garbage sorting business. The paper bag played a role in getting things into our house, and then getting things out. They do break down nicely when left out in the rain.
In high school, my lunch was packed in a small brown paper bag, probably its least suitable application. They were always breaking, fruit got bruised easily and the bag got soggy and useless if anything leaked. When I hear the term “brown bag lunch” - often the term organizations use for lunchtime workshops for employees - I think of squished sandwiches, licking peanut butter off of saran wrap, and orange peels.
Heavy brown paper bags are excellent sturdy transport for chinese food take-out because you can stack the containers in such a way that they don’t fall over easily. I like the commanding stapling of the folded top of such a package, usually with a receipt or a menu included. I like the stapling, until I impale my index finger on one of them, which almost always happens.
Things can be hidden in brown paper bags. Magazines that you don’t want your neighbours or mail carrier to see … these were famously offered in “plain brown wrappers”. Alcoholic beverages can be “hidden” in a brown paper bag, although these days an open bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag fairly shouts “THIS ISN”T FRESHIE I’VE GOT HERE!” You can take surprise gifts to friends in a brown paper bag, pulling out the surprise and really revealing it in the moment, rather than having them guess the shape from a less mysterious form-fitting plastic bag.
(Aside: In 1976, Rita Mae Brown published a book of angry funny feminist poetry called “A Plain Brown Rapper”. Angry and funny - that’s our Rita Mae. Plain - hardly.)
Brown paper bags, and packages made from them. Low tech solutions in an increasingly high tech world. More appealing, certainly, than plastic bags and the mess we have made of trying to reduce, re-use and recycle them. There is just something refreshingly simple and almost honest about a brown paper bag. It is what it is. You can use it a few times, and then use it to start a fire without releasing carcinogins, or bury it in the ground where it will break down. Or leave it out in the rain where the same thing will happen. Or tear it up for birds to use to build nests. It is a good thing, the brown paper bag. I’d love to see more of them.
I was informed a short while ago that I’m soon to be spending some time with the person responsible for the greatest lesbian break-up song of all time.
Snippets of these lyrics go through my head with great regularlity and have since I first heard the songwriter perform them on a Live ‘85 - the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival album - back when there was vinyl. They are firm, direct and heart/gut-wrenching … depending on when you hear them in the cycle of a relationship.
I’m particularly fond of this part:
“… life don’t clickety-clack down a straight line track … it comes together and it comes apart.”
Do have a listen, someday, if you can manage.
Ain’t Life A Brook
I watch you reading a book
I get to thinking our love’s a polished stone
You give me a long drawn look
I know pretty soon you’re going to leave our home
And of course I mind,
especially when I’m thinking from my heart
But life don’t clickety clack down a straight line track
It comes together and it comes apart.
You say you hope I’m not the kind
To make you feel obliged
To go ticking through your time
With a pained look in your eyes
You give me the furniture, we’ll divide the photographs
Go out to dinner one more time
Have ourselves a bottle of wine
And a couple of laughs
And when first you left
I stayed so sad I wouldn’t sleep
I know that love’s a gift, I thought yours was mine
And something that I could keep
Now I realize that time is not the only compromise
But a bird in the hand could be an all night stand
Between a blazing fire and a pocket of skies
So I hope I’m not the kind
To make you feel obliged
To go ticking through your time
With a pained look in your eyes
I covered the furniture, I framed the photographs
Went out to dinner one more time
Had myself a bottle of wine and a couple of laughs
And just the other day
I got your letter in the mail
I’m happy for you, its been so long
You’ve been wanting a cabin and a backwoods trail
And I think that’s great…me…
I seem to find myself in school
It’s all Ok, I just want to say
I’m so relieved we didn’t do it cruel
But ain’t life a brook
Just when I get to feeling like a polished stone
I give me along drawn look
It’s kind of a drag to find yourself alone
And sometimes I mind
Especially when I’m waiting on your heart
But life don’t clickety clack down a straight line track
It comes together and it comes apart.
Cause I know you’re not the kind
To make me feel obliged
To go ticking through my time with a pained look
In my eyes
I sold the furniture, I put away the photographs
Went out to dinner one more time
Skipped the bottle of wine
Had a couple of laughs
And wasn’t it fine….
It has been roughly seven weeks since I’ve been able to even consider blogging. I can’t really apologize for this as it has been a fantastic seven weeks. I’m clearly in a “work hard, play hard” phase of my life and it takes me away from some of the processing place I get into when I write. I do miss it and I hope to find a way to integrate it back in. As part of my weekly “to do” list ritual, I keep a list of notes on future blog posts, little text sketches of things I need to say, or mull over, or share. I re-write the list each week, and usually add one or two ideas … their time will come.
“Work hard, play hard.” My Mom would SO approve of this. Of “getting out there”, as she would say. Trying things, finding barriers, working around them. Making mistakes. Responding carefully to that reality. Giving. Taking. Playing fair. Laughing. Feeling blessed. Feeling hurt. Keeping it in perspective. Feeling loved. Not being afraid of the intensity. A little cowed, sometimes, but not letting that stop me. Keeping it real.
Yes, Mom would be pleased that my hands-on working/playing life has taken over from processing and analysis for a while. So, for Mother’s Day, I dedicate this entire active busy intense jam-packed spring season to the memory of my Mom. It was her favourite time of year anyway - she loved being out in the garden, fussing, planning. She died in her garden, in the spring of 1998. Death in a place of growth and possibility. In my experience, these last two - growth and possibility - trump death every time.
I hope everyone has enjoyed a connection with the maternal, however it appears, this weekend. Happy Mother’s Day!
I had an unexpectedly quiet day today. I had, in my head, held part of the day open for a meeting that wound up being deferred. So, I had only one concrete reason to leave my house - a scheduled visit to donate blood.
Blood donation is a social behaviour I can get quite evangelical about. The downsides, as far as I can see, are tolerable. It does take time out of one’s day, but only once every 56 days. The interrogation process, designed to root out all manner of possible blood-borne cooties, is tedious, irritatingly repetitive, short-sighted and lesbophobic. Or certainly lesbo-blind. One steels oneself to be asked peculiar details about one’s sexual history by a stranger, the RN. Today, when the particularly nervous RN started what felt like her 10th question that began with “Have you had sex with a man who has … ” I interrupted her, as I am wont to do, with “All my sexual partners, for the last 24 years, have been women.” She glanced up from the page momentarily and stammered, “I really DON’T need to know that,” and continued with her questioning about whether or not I’ve recently had sex with a man who has handled monkey fluids. They also want to know if I’ve paid, or been paid, in exchange for sex. I wanted to respond “With or without monkey fluids?” but I held my tongue. We had a bit of a tussle, as we always do, about the details regarding Liberia as a nation in Africa and my unfortunate need to be honest about having had a relationship with a woman who was born there. Many years ago. I can’t help it ~ they ask and I answer. They don’t really seem to care about Liberia, per se, but are very keen to know if she lived “anywhere else” in Africa. This is asked with an edge of mystery to it. Not only did she not live anywhere else in Africa, she wasn’t sexuality active for the period of time she WAS in Africa. But this seems of less interest.
I am aware of Canadian Blood Services’ (CBS) equally blindered policy regarding not allowing gay men to donate but I think my outrage at this stance is a poor reason not to donate when, as the slogan says, I have it in me to do so. We only have one blood service and they need our raw material. I will, and do, find other ways to educate on this matter.
It hurts a bit when the needle goes in, and also when it comes out.
That’s it for downsides, as far as I can see. Time, bizarre scrutiny, an efficient but tunnel-visioned organization, and a needle ouchie. For this, you get an update on your blood iron, accurate blood pressure and heart rate readings between check-ups, samples of your blood get tested for the afore-mentioned cooties, and you get all the peach juice and Dad’s Oatmeal cookies you can eat afterwards. Today, though, they had a tray of yummy day-old treats from Starbucks, which was a special bonus. It is like a temporary licence to eat sugar.
Oh, and your blood goes to help someone somewhere, once it passes muster. S’all good.
So, with no other business to attend to outside my abode today, I schlepped over to the clinic in my schlepping around the house clothing. Jeans, grey t-shirt with a sort of swirly applique on it (dubbed the tattoo t-shirt by my “personal trainer”), blue flannel shirt (open), and my cool new hockey hat, a sort of skull cap black toque, pulled down over my ears. Blundstone boots. I’m not sure what I looked like but, if asked, the nurses would not have immediately shouted out, “Professor of Business and Technology!” or “Business Consultant!” if they were lined up, Family Feud style, and quizzed about my supposed line of work. I was “in cognito” or, more accurately, I let my schlep-self come out for some fresh air.
The signals were mixed, though. Blundstones aren’t cheap, although mine are quite “distressed”. I had both a Blackberry and an iPod. My coat gives me away as a non-vegetarian, monied kinda gal. But my coat was in the coat cupboard for most of my visit and I think I came off as an articulate unemployed person with a technology addiction and extraordinary good luck at Goodwill.
While sipping my peach juice in the little lounge area after donating, I was joined by a friendly young man who had just finished donating a few minutes after me. He was seeking some juice and a cookie or two. I directed him to the tray of Starbucks goodies and his eyes lit up. One of the efficient nurse/phlebotomists, Lucy by her name tag, offered to fetch him his juice of choice. She bustled off to pour his juice when he responded “orange”. Lucy bustled, that is the only way to describe her movement. She was a bustler, all around the clinic it seemed. But then, suddenly, all her make-work movements stilled and she came and sat down with us. Friendly Man asked her how long she had to train to become an RPN. Lucy replied, in an pronounced Chinese accent, “Eight months at private college. But at public college, takes two years.” She nodded wisely. “But … back in China, I am doctor. So I did private college. Could do it fast.” Friendly Man and I looked at each other with a mixture of sorrow, resignation and embarassment. “I’ve just been served peach juice by a highly skilled, underutilized, and underpaid medical professional,” was all I could think for several minutes.
Lucy went on to tell more bits of her story, gently prodded from time to time by Friendly Man. I quietly nibbled my cookies and drank my juice like a little kid in jammies being told a story at bedtime. Lucy shrugs off and accepts the inability of the Canadian govenment to “spend the money” it needs to if foreign-trained professionals are to get certification here. She shrugs and says, “I knew this … my decision to come anyway.” She is actually a fully trained gynecologist and her husband is a hemotologist. In China, you go directly from high school to medical school. “I do not understand … why four years undergraduate here before med school? Waste of time! You smart, you go to med school right away! Get training early. No need for literature or politics before medical school. Waste of time.” This speech was accompanied by many hand gestures. She then explained that, of eight years in medical school, two years are spent studying Chinese traditional medicine. “This is mandatory, must have both traditional Chinese and Western medicine in China.” So, now, her husband practices Chinese medicine from their home and has clients from all over the province and New York State, some of whom drive hours to see him. Lucy shrugged and smiled and chewed her gum, “It is better here anyway. It works out.”
There was silence for a while and I drained my second cup of peach juice. This caused the “bustle” switch to be thrown in Lucy and she jumped up. “You want more peach juice?”
“No,” I smiled almost apologetically, “No, this is fine. I should be on my way.” Lucy smiled and thanked me, and Friendly Man, for donating. We both mumbled something. What does one say?
Clearly, I wasn’t the only person in that clinic who was “in cognito” this morning. The difference, as far as I can see, is that I had a choice about which element of myself I would present to the world this morning. Lucy was robbed of some pretty significant options when she arrived here. She claims she came “by choice” but, of course, one wonders how bad it has to be in the country of origin for a person to willingly give up their trained professional qualifications for a new life in a foreign land. The inner peace it must take to be happy with bustling around a blood donor clinic instead of practicing medicine, even when the need is great in many areas of this country, is humbling. And I am reminded that we are all, in some way, each day, in cognito. We choose what we reveal, who we are, in each moment and, in the reality of our complexities as human beings, we highlight different things in different moments, letting other elements fade to shadow, even if only briefly. We can’t possibly reveal all, each moment and in each interaction. Those who try are quickly dismissed as “socially inept”. So we learn what, and how much, to reveal to whom. I can’t help wishing, for Lucy, that she had as much choice as I did this morning about who she could be. I think we’d all be better served by such freedom for her.
My March break is ending now, just as so many other people are starting theirs. It has been a pretty intense couple of weeks, actually, including the so-called “break” week. It didn’t feel much like a break to me, between stacks of grading, meetings, and quick turn-arounds on proposals and such. At least I managed to keep up with hockey and gym commitments.
Speaking of which, I was really pleased to learn my BMI has shifted considerably, even though my weight has not dropped since before Christmas. I’m actually okay with staying exactly the same for almost three months in a row. It proves that I can maintain a weight once reached. I have 21 more pounds to go to my target weight. Anyway, in terms of my BMI, I’m down three units of whatever-those-units-are since last time this was done, yet I believe my actual weight is close to the same. This means that fat tissue has been converted to muscle, which is very encouraging indeed.
So, in periods of intense and demanding activity like this, I have these little recurring mental motifs, like little pieces of toilet paper stuck to my shoe. I’m going to take a few minutes to jot them down here so maybe they’ll stop bugging me. My life is about to get even more intense, so this may be my only chance for a while to be in a blogging kinda mode.
Where Did All These People Come From?
I’ve said this before, out loud, many times. It always takes me by surprise how many damn people there are in the world. How can I walk around downtown, through familiar streets, and not see a single person I know, and yet pass literally hundreds of faces? I just returned from a trip out to Brampton to watch a hockey game and there were still more strangers there!!! How is this possible??? I bet if I went to any one of the hundreds of small towns and cities across Canada to watch hockey games, THOSE arenas would be filled with still more people I’ve never seen!
Of course, I’m being facetious, sort of. It really does take me aback how we can float through our lives, essentially surrounded by strangers with whom we have no connection. Yet, we count on them not to drive across the yellow line in the road and hit us head on, to keep a civil tongue in their heads in public, and to fly planes that we trustingly board.
It is a little weird when you think about it.
Molasses
Me’n’molasses go way back. On the farm where I grew up, there was a barrel of molasses sitting by the outside corner of the barn, near the entrance to the silo. It was used as an additive to the silage (corn stalks and field corn cobs and other materials left in the silo to “mature” as feed for the cattle) to aid its fermentation. But I loved to dip my fingers into the molasses as I walked by the barrel, if no one was looking. I just love the stuff.
My mom and I used to make popcorn balls as treats, especially around Hallowe’en. Our recipe involved boiling molasses, corn syrup and a dollop of vinegar until the medium ball candy stage. Then you pour the mixture over a bowl of popcorn, slather your hands with butter, stir the mixture around with your hands and then form popcorn balls. If you can keep yourself from eating the stuff, that is. Can you imagine? Two of my favourite things in one place - popcorn and molasses … HEAVEN! So much fun for kids to do, this recipe. I remember one year, grade seven or eight, I took popcorn balls to class for the Hallowe’en party. The teacher somehow dangled a row of single popcorn balls on strings from the ceiling. I think this was offered as an alternative to dunking for apples ~ we had to race to eat the popcorn balls, no hands. That was fun.
I haven’t had any molasses on my shelf for ages. This past Christmas, when I was doing all that baking, I saw a jar of blackstrap molasses at my new favourite bulk food store and it somehow fell into my cart. Molasses is an excellent source of a wide range of minerals, most especially iron and calcium. So, once or twice a week I’ve been enjoying a teaspoon or two as a treat. Yum.
I sense popcorn balls in my future.
Construction Zones Not Good For Tires
In order to get to the entrance to the underground garage for my building, you have to turn down one of two lanes. Each will take you by a construction zone.
In the past three months, I have had three “soft” tires, each turning out to have been punctured by a screw or a nail.
Hm. It is getting expensive to be living beside active construction projects. Add this to noisy and dusty and one could get quite irritated by it all. I am endeavouring to be zen about it rather than irritated. Four could send me over the edge, though.
Too Many Things
I still own too many things. I have felt strongly about this for a while now. I keep giving things away, or leaving them for others to use in the recycle room downstairs. Yet, I had a bout of consumerism this week, resulting in a new hockey bag for my gear, and three new small appliances in the kitchen. I couldn’t get the boxes and old appliances out of my place fast enough for my taste. It feels embarassing to feel like I “need” things like a griller with removable plates, or a slow cooker that I can actually clean properly. Yet, I crave pot roast. What’s a girl to do?
One of the tasks that I had hoped to do this March break, but did not get to due to the unforeseen intensity of the week, was a pass at removing yet another sweep of clothing from my closet and drawers. This kind of purge always feels wonderful, and it is easy for me to do as some stuff just doesn’t fit anymore. There is a clothing drop off for students this week at my college. They are looking for business type clothing that students can wear on job interviews. I hope I can get this done in time to drop some clothes off for this effort.
After a long session of student presentations last Friday, one student turned to me and said, “I hate doing this. I know I have to do this, and I have to get better at it, but I hate making presentations so much. I get so nervous. I’m really terrified.”
In truth, this is actually a composite student because, with each round of presentations, at least six students per class look to speak with me privately to confess their terror and fear. The course is Business Communications and I freely admit that my personal bias is that I lean away from emphasizing the writing aspects and more towards lifting up their presentation skills. In 14 weeks, I can’t make students better writers when most of them come in with such a poor grasp of the basics of English. However, in 14 weeks, I can see vast improvement in personal confidence, organization and team-work when we focus on individual and group presentations. Therefore, this is where I invest most of my energy and effort.
Over and over, as I speak with these students about their fears, I hear the following truths flow forth from my lips:
Feel the fear, and do it anyway! Being afraid of trying something isn’t necessarily a good reason not to make the attempt.
The number one fear in our population, as shown in survey after survey, is public speaking. This fear is greater than death, heights or snakes. And, yet, the activity of public speaking has never, itself, been known to cause physical harm or death.
Repetition and preparation. These are the keys to reducing your fear. Feel prepared and ready. Keep trying. Keep practicing in front of others. Acknowledge your success every time you stand up in front of others and speak - just the act of trying marks success!
As I engage the students on a deeper level, asking them what they are actually afraid of, getting them to talk about their fears, it becomes clear that they are afraid of failure. Of being perceived as failing. By others. By themselves. It shakes them to their core.
It is harder to get the students to reflect on the role of failure in their learning processes. If I could get them to think about this a bit, I’d suggest that all learning requires new behaviours, new thought processes, new ways of assembling information. By definition, it is a numbers game. In order to learn anything, one must experience failure, or partial failure. Tiger Woods didn’t emerge from the womb hitting perfect golf balls. He has had to hit thousands, perhaps millions by now, in order to hone his technique. The vast majority of these attempts could be seen as failures or partial failures. And yet, he is regarded as being highly successful in his profession. Failure is a crucial element to success.
Men seem to be socialized to manage a higher degree of risk/failure tolerance. Boys are encouraged to stretch themselves physically, to try many activities. To physically engage with the world, to have an impact on it somehow whether through team sports or building forts or bashing each other in a Wii environment. Girls, on the other hand, are trained to be more sedate, less encouraged to go out there and have an impact on the world. Boys are acculturated to “do”; girls are encouraged to simply “be”.
So, when women experience “failure”, we experience it as a failure of “being”. A failure at some essential level of who we are, an indication of some flaw of our very being rather than a failure of some activity we have attempted. Some of us have connected, very closely, the notion that what we do is also who we are. It is no wonder that the students who confess to me their degree of fear regarding making presentations are predominantly women.
The universe plays clever tricks with me. A long time ago, I learned to listen to the input I’m asked to give to others, be they students or friends, and to ask myself “what am I supposed to be listening to here?” In other words, when situations present themselves to me and I have some opinion to offer, I tend to mentally turn the tables and ask myself if there is something in my own words to (or about) others that I’m supposed to be listening to myself. Is there something about “feel the fear and do it anyway” that I need to hear myself right now? Have I blown my own fears out of proportion to reality?
Have I associated my own feelings about failure too closely with my perceptions of my essential self? Am I letting these fears hold me back from moving forward in any way?
The answers are complex. I’m still mulling this “table turning” over. I know I’ve spent more time than I’d like to so far this calendar year struggling with amorphous fears that are like ghosts moving through my life. I brandish my mental sword of analysis at them and they disappear, momentarily, only to re-appear and hover over my emotional life, lending a cold leaden chill to practically all I experience. I know that the times I feel sunniest and most at peace are times when these ghosts have retreated far far away. The trick, of course, is to remember - as I keep reminding my students - that fear is like a filter, a lens, through which we see situations and circumstances. It does not help us interpret reality accurately. Rather, fear is designed to distort reality. It is best acknowledged (feel the fear) and then set aside so one can proceed (do it anyway).
I’ve got about six blog posts started and not yet finished. It has been that kind of month, I guess. I have all these big ideas that are in the cake decorating sleeve and no matter how hard I squeeze, the nozzle is plugged.
I’m going to try to unplug it by working on my second installment of “why I put this song on my birthday playlist”. We are in February and my birthday was in September. At this rate, it will take me until my next birthday to finish this!
Closing Time (from Celebrate Canada) performed by Leonard Cohen): I’d call myself more of a Leonard Cohen admirer than a fan. I “get” why he is so revered and I do own a couple of Leonard Cohen tribute albums of other folks covering his work. The man can write. He just can’t sing. I’ll never forget the look of shock on his face in 1993 when he won Best Male Vocalist at the Junos and famously quipped “It’s only in a country like this that I could win Male Vocalist of the Year!” In any case, this song does not appear because of anything to do with Leonard Cohen. In the mid-90’s, J and I would often attend an aquafit class at the downtown Y and our favourite instructor used this song after the high energy cardio portion as a “warm down” and it has always sort of stuck with me, reminding me of splashing about in the pool like a three year old.
Come To My Window (from Greatest Hits), performed by Melissa Etheridge. Once again, Ms. Etheridge at her garment-rending best. The woman must have been a bodice-ripper in a former life.
Day Too Soon - Mock & Toof ReMix (From Some People Have Real Problems), performed by Sia: Still can’t find this actual edit anywhere on the Internet. Adore it. Apparently no one else feels as strongly.
DJ Play My Song (from Revival), performed by Jully Black: I have a friend who, until extremely recently, was a big time clubber. Every Friday, and most Saturdays, out she’d go to a variety of clubs. Lots of stories to tell, most of which prove to me that lesbians do not have a monopoly on drama. Straight gals got their fair share. Anyway, this song makes me think of my friend, the ex-clubber. Over the Christmas holidays, she travelled to Sri Lanka, met the man of her dreams, essentially got engaged, and will be moving there in the summer. Times change.
Donde Esta Yolanda (from Sympathique), performed by Pink Martini: I could be accused of thinking that EVERY Pink Martini song I hear is my FAVOURITE Pink Martini song. But, really, THIS is my fav. Honest.
Odd trivia - the aforementioned ex-clubber? She turned me on to Pink Martini oh so many years ago … sometime around 1998 I think, she handed me Sympathique and said, simply, “You MUST listen to this!” She was SO right, young and clever those Queen’s grads! She was about 23 at the time and I would have been about 35. The friendship, and the mutual adoration of Pink Martini, has endured. We went to their concert in March 2008 together and we both still agree it was the BEST concert either of us have ever been to, bar none.
Dreams (from Women & Songs 2), performed by The Corrs: Here is an example of a cover song that freshens up the original. Not many of those around.
Falling For The First Time (from Maroon), performed by Bare Naked Ladies: The album appeared right around the time that J and I were facing the beginning of the end of our relationship. This was also right about the time that I was nursing / fighting a massive crush on someone completely and ridiculously unavailable. This song reminds me of that time, in a good way. The lyrics make me sit up and take notice, in particular these lines in the chorus:
Anyone perfect must be lying, anything easy has its cost
Anyone plain can be lovely, anyone loved can be lost
The video that I have linked to … it was the only one I could find that played the original tune as performed on the album.
Figure It Out (from It Won’t Be Soon Before Long), performed by Maroon 5: I’m a recent convert to Maroon 5. Love anything that leads with interesting layers of percussion, like this cut does.
Harder To Breathe (from Songs About Jane), performed by Maroon 5: The lyrics are … difficult for this feminist to get her head around. It really isn’t clear whether they are truly misogynistic or ironic or something else. Putting that aside for a moment, this song just rocks! I can’t believe that I entertain fantasies of singing lead on this Very Angry Song … it must touch my inner head-banger.
I’m Yours (from We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.), performed by Jason Mraz: What a cutie! The song is cute, the fella is cute and he has just about the cutest damn web site of any musician I’ve seen. Cute overload!!!
I Can’t Decide (from Ta-Dah!), performed by Scissor Sisters: This particular video includes the lyrics which are kinda R-rated. OK - confession time. January 08, I was gearing up to overcome major fears and quit the job I’d left teaching to do. The whole situation sucked. In order to get myself into the right mental space, I sang this song at the top of my lungs as I drove the 1.5 hours out there. To burn off the adrenalin after the conversation, I sang it at the top of my lungs all the way home. I especially love the lyrics in the bridge:
Oh I could throw you in the lake
Or feed you poisoned birthday cake
I wont deny I’m gonna miss you when you’re gone
Oh I could bury you alive
But you might crawl out with a knife
And kill me when I’m sleeping
I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’ (from Ta-Dah), performed by the Scissor Sisters: I have nothing to say other than I LOVE THIS SONG!!!! Best heard at extreme volumes.
I Feel Lucky (from Come On, Come On), performed by Mary-Chapin Carpenter: My friend SPL and I are recovering line dancers. We met on the dance-floor, each with a different jo-ann. This song has exactly the right beat and timing for a raucous little two-step or line dance of some kind. This song, actually this entire album, reminds me of very happy times kickin’ up our heels and getting very retro indeed.
I Wanna Be Like You (from This Beautiful Life), performed by Big Bad VooDoo Daddy: I am so sad that I can’t find a decent version of this online. It’s a bitchin’ big band cover of the Jungle Book tune. When it comes on in the car when I’m driving, I tend to dance around in my seat like a very silly person. Come to think of it, the original is pretty darn good, too.
Asian Vibes (from Real World Music), performed by JOI: This is one of those songs that I crank up when it shows up on my car sound system.
Just Came Back (to Say GoodBye) (from Sudden Stop), performed by Colin James: Love how the song segues from the old style blues guitar to gritty rockin’ big band blues.
Just Keep Me Moving (from Lesbian Favourites), performed by k.d. lang: Yes, I actually DO own a CD called “Lesbian Favourites”. Hey, it is a no nonsense title, straight to the point. Kinda like wearing comfortable shoes.
Like The Way I Do (from Greatest Hits), performed by Melissa Etheridge: And yet, I own only ONE Melissa Etheridge CD. Good lord, check out the hair in this video!!! I suddenly don’t feel so bad about my hair now.
History Repeating (no idea where this is from), performed by The Propellerheads with Shirley Bassey: Don’t know how old Ms. Bassey was when this was shot, but I wouldn’t mind being in as good a shape as she is when I reach that number. Whoa. Rowr. Purrrrr.
Littlest Birds (from Blue Horse), performed by The Be Good Tanyas: Although this is their original video, the music is stronger on the actual CD recording. Also, the CD doesn’t speed up towards the end like this version does.
Come to think of it, I have several bones to pick with the Be Goods. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favour of Canadian female artists. But this is yet another time this particular bunch has let me down. This song, as recorded on Blue Horse, is gorgeous. Totally gorgeous. Intricate. Some may recall this was used in a Zeller’s commercial a few years ago. However, the audio on the video sounds like it was taken from a practice track. My other major bone to pick has to do with the one time I saw them in concert in Toronto, a cold January a few years ago. I’d snagged one of the last remaining single tickets and I was sick as a dog, but determined to hear them sing Just This One Song. Well, to my enduring disappointment, they arrived on stage half in the bag and carrying plastic tumblers of red wine. They performed this song mid-point through the show, always debating the playlist in low mumbling tones, never making eye contact with the audience or speaking to us or acknowledging us in any way. Honest to pete, it took until part way through the song for me to even recognize that it was THE SONG I’d come to hear.
In spite of my issues with the Be Goods, this song still is very high on my list of songs I’d love to perform with a small all-female vocal group someday. Maybe after I retire.
OK - I should stop now … only 19 more songs to go to wrap up the first of three giant playlists!!!
