I spent way too much time in a mall yesterday with my daughter.
I need to preface this whole entry by saying, we ended up at a mall after trying valiantly to find what she needed at smaller businesses outside of the mall. I try to buy local when possible but this was not to be. Even if there is someone in my city who ethically produces running shoes with good arch support, I'm sure they would blow my budget. I should also say, I don't enjoy shopping in general and I don't like malls. So there we were on a busy, rainy Saturday two hours before closing. The place was packed. We were so far into the debauchery I agreed to take us to the Food Fair for fortification. We indulged in Food Fair poutine. (I'm serious. It was delicious.) Then we shopped. We managed after two hours to find what we needed. As we were making our way to the exit, both of us tired, for a moment we pretended we were zombies (as you do). With our arms outstretched we lurched mechanically towards the door. Then the twelve year old says: "I think it's the fluorescent lights that make me so tired in a mall." Now, she's probably heard me say this before. I'm one of those people that feel drained by fluorescent lights. Sure, I could be making it up or it could be the recycled air that causes me to lose energy inside a mall, whatever it is, I have been heard to blame the lights. This comment about the lights Dear Reader took me right back to the days when I did not hate malls. That's right. I used to love the mall. I mean what's not to love? You've got all your favourite stores, there's a fountain in the middle, there's Orange Julius and you don't get rained on. C'mon! Because I grew up in the suburbs, the mall was our city centre. There was no where else to go. When I ended up getting a job at a mall as a teenager, it was the best. In hindsight, it was the best because it cured me of my love for malls for life. By the time I was 20 I started looking adamantly for other shopping options. It's the lights or the air, I don't know, but I feel my life-force draining from me the moment I step foot in one. (Disclaimer: If you like malls, I'm not judging you, just don't ask me to come with you.) I also don't like the sameness, how malls all look the same on the inside wherever you are in North America (except West Edmonton Mall, duh). I don't like how the stores are all the same. You could be anywhere inside of a mall. It's disorienting. You could spill your Orange Julius, hit your head on the fountain, wake up and think you were Halifax when you were really in Langley. It's not right. The good thing about working at a mall in my formative years was that all that sameness that gets thrown at us constantly from media and advertising anyway, was launched at me with even more force while I was immersed in mall culture. Sure there's something oddly comforting about being able to get a Purdy's almond dipped ice cream at the mall now, that tastes the same as the ones I ate weekly as a teenager, (half the size, twice the price), but that doesn't mean it's good for me. In fact, I'd likely be able to retire ten years earlier if I'd cut out the daily Purdy's and put that money in a savings account. This blog has not been about what I intended it to be about. I realize that by writing about the mall I have wandered aimlessly through my mall-thoughts as though I was in an actual mall, wandering aimlessly. It's frightening. It's where the zombie apocalypse will likely occur. Mark my words.
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When I was a kid we lived in Calgary, Alberta for a very short time. I was eight years old. In my Trick or Treating prime. I was old enough that the occasion no longer scared me. The emotional and physical scars from burning my fingers on the sparklers my first year of Trick or Treating had healed. (Oh, the 1970s. Let's give the small child lit sparklers to hold. until they burn down to her fingers). But I was still young enough so that the night was filled with magic and mystery. Plus of course all the candy. With a few Halloweens under my belt I was confident I knew how this thing worked. You go to a door. You yell "Trick or treat". There's a small chance you might be asked to actually do a trick or sing a song. But, mainly you hold out your plastic pumpkin and collect the candy. I even had new friends already. My next door neighbours Leanne and Jill were my age. We were going Trick or Treating together. I was so excited. I felt sorry for them though that they didn't have the cool store bought costume like me with the cheap plastic mask. (I think I was a witch that year.) Instead their mom had turned them both into playing cards with beautifully hand drawn and painted designs on the front and back that they carried over their shoulders. So I'm giddy with excitement for the Trick or Treating to begin. Our parents aren't even with us. We're roaming the dark streets on our own (again the 70s). We arrive at the first door. We ring the doorbell and I belt out: "Trick or Treat!" at the top of my lungs. But something is not right. I'm still saying the words when I realize my friends are saying something different. Something foreign. Something possibly Albertan. (Even at eight, I had already noted several differences between the provinces, mostly that I was behind at school in my new province but I'd been ahead in BC). What were my friends saying at the door? "Halloween Apples!" What? That's no fun. Where's the 'trick'? Where's the 'treat'? Who wants apples? I don't want apples. Leanne and Jill looked at me strangely. I stared back at them. Disappointment hung heavy between us. Nothing was said. This is how it was going to be in this strange new land. I had to say "Halloween Apples" instead of "Trick or Treat". Which I did of course, because I had to get the candy. We moved the next year to New Brunswick, where thankfully they still said "Trick or Treat". When we moved back to British Columbia they were still saying "Trick or Treat". I never had to say "Halloween Apples" again. When I tell this story no one else has heard of this. Leanne says now it was a short period of time that kids said that in Calgary. If you look on the Interweb sure enough saying "Halloween Apples" seems to be a regional thing in Canada identified mostly with Alberta and some parts of Manitoba. And it seems to be mostly a thing of the past. Whatever you say, Happy Halloween. I've been sick most of this week with some kind of flu. Whenever I get sick, which thankfully is not often, it feels to me like being underwater. I feel cut-off from the rest of the world. Removed. And it's not just the physical isolation (as I did in fact sequester myself instead of infecting everyone around me), it's a mind thing. My mind feels submerged in a watery underworld when I'm sick. Come along with me as I continue with this half-baked water theme, won't you? I'm not a strong swimmer but I love swimming once I'm actually in the water. I'm terrible for getting into water if it is even the slightest bit cold. This is tough when you're Canadian because there are few bodies of water that aren't cold. Most lakes in the summer near where I live are quite delightful to swim in and don't take much getting used to, but I'm still a total chicken anyway. People will be flopping, diving and jumping all around me and I will be slowly wading in, prolonging the unbearable shock of that first full dunk. It's the transitioning from dry to wet that I don't like. Once I'm in, I'm good. Until then, it takes me way too long to get in. This past summer it took me almost thirty minutes to get in a lake with my daughter. This was a lake I had quite happily swam in the day before, but because the sun wasn't shining this particular day, my body rebelled. It did not want to go in the lake. This was a jump-off-a-dock scenario you understand. There was no slowly wading into the deep, the aquatic plants were too thick and icky for that. I tried to slowly go down the ladder, but that sent me scurrying quickly back up to the dock and under my towel. So I leant over the dock and splashed myself with lake water, but that only made me shiver more. Eventually there was nothing left to do but jump. After the initial shock (my body was correct, it really was a tiny bit colder without the sun), I felt compelled to apologize to my daughter for being such a chicken, It really was poor modelling behaviour. She had intently watched the whole sorry performance from her, half submerged position in the lake, floating on a foam noodle like some kind of preteen manatee. After hearing my apology she said, with kindness: "That's OK. You live and learn." It is so humbling when your children are calmer and wiser than you are. I have a friend who's father so hated, then Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney that he used his hatred as a way to get himself into the chilly Pacific Ocean when he wanted to go for a summer swim. Perched on top of the rock he intended to jump from, he would then convince himself that he was Brian Mulroney and then he'd feel so angry at himself/Mulroney, he'd throw himself/Mulroney off the rock and into the cold water below. If' I'd been trying to get myself into a lake today, I might have attempted this technique by using my feelings for our current PM in a similar way on myself. Depending on how the election goes tomorrow I might have to throw myself in a lake anyway. I figure this technique could come in handy. That's why I thought I'd share it. If you wake up really unhappy on the morning of October 20th, throwing yourself in a lake might be the only thing to make you feel better, or at least alive. This technique could help millions of Canadians, but let's hope we're not going to need it. I have a complicated relationship with yoga. I like it. I feel like it has enriched my life, but I'm not gaga about it the way some people are. I don't study yoga. I go to a once a week yoga class. I always feel better after yoga, but in a much more subtle way than I feel after a dance class for example.
During and after dancing I feel waves of pure joy. During yoga I experience repetitive waves of aggravation and frustration, my own smallness (but sometimes my own largeness), moments of peace and occasional personal insights and epiphanies. After dance, I feel sure that I love dancing. After yoga I feel grounded, lighter and hungry. See what I mean about subtleties? I don't go to one of those classes with mirrors or where students are wearing the latest gear. It's all about the breathing and undoing and going inward, or so our respected teacher tells us. It is only because of the wisdom exuded by my yoga teacher that I don't judge myself too harshly for not becoming a full-time enlightened yogi or for the erratic, all too human thoughts that pass through my mind when I'm supposed to be fully present in the pose. Years ago, while we were all upside down in Downward Dog someone called out "How long will it take to like Downward Dog?" I did the math in my upside down head and realized I'd been doing the pose for a decade and had just come to a place of not hating it. I didn't call out "ten years!" to my labouring classmate. (Am I the only one who expends a lot of energy every class stopping myself from NOT blurting out my thoughts?) But let me say to that man now, wherever you are Sir: "TEN YEARS MY FRIEND, TEN YEARS!" I try to practice regularly at home. I don't always, but when I do, my body and sometimes my soul thanks me for it. Here, in no particular order are thoughts I have had during yoga classes:
Namaste. Blissful moments for me lately involve pausing, usually from a sitting or horizontal position. The other day, when I intended to write this blog, instead I took to the couch with the latest Nick Hornby novel and a cup of tea. I can't believe how happy this made me. It occurred to me in that simple moment that pausing in life, is like making art. Making art is all about framing. The artist chooses what is important and then puts a frame around it. If my blissful moment had been a scene in a movie (sorry, film), the camera might have zoomed in on my cup of tea and my face (played by Reese Witherspoon). There might be some emotive, dramatic music too. The artist would choose techniques to communicate to the viewer that this is important. In fact, the artist would have already made that choice by including the moment in the film in the first place. . But of course in the day to day of our lives we don't have film crews, songwriters or painters following us around to frame the important moments of our lives and make meaning for us. We have to do that ourselves. Thank goodness. Which is what I was going to write about on the weekend instead of reading my book. Sort of. I was thinking about storytelling in families. I have researched a lot of the history on both sides of my family tree. I'm lucky because I'm not the only person interested in genealogy in my family. So, when I set out to research my family, a lot of the basic work had already been done. It's amazing to have all that information and be able to trace ancestors back ten generations or more. But there are frequently errors and omissions in the records we use to trace our family trees (birth, death, marriage and baptism certificates for example). We can never really know for certain what transpired in the past. As a storyteller, this frees me up to not worry about the details too much and to focus on the stories I want to tell. To frame what I want to frame. To frame what I think is meaningful. Stories are magic. They keep the spirit of the past alive and for those of us who no longer live in our ancestral homelands (pretty much most of the world it seems) that can be incredibly grounding. To know where you are rooted is pretty powerful. For hundreds of years, people on both sides of my family lived within a very small radius of the world. Sometimes it still feels like my body is bewildered living on this other coast. Like it hasn't caught up yet with the fact that it is living somewhere different from all the generations before. I have written a play, monologue really, about my maternal grandmother. The writing of that was surprising because I was able to weave together many seemingly unrelated stories, fragmented lines from stories and vignettes that I had collected over the years. The stories came to life as I wrote them. They rushed in and found each other. It was like they wanted to be together and be told. Like they didn't want to be forgotten. And so as the storyteller I believe that. I believe them. I believe the stories whether they happened exactly that way or not. Just like I think Reese Witherspoon should play me whether you agree with me or not. I've got two chapters left in Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman. To me, Go Set a Watchman feels like an end of summer book. Once I'm finished reading that book, summer is officially over for me (and I can also then scour the reviews to make more sense of what I'm reading. When was this book written?) MId-September also brings my brother Will's birthday. Will is the funniest person I know. I don't remember him being at all funny as a kid, (just annoying), but as an adult he is quick-witted with a dry delivery that I appreciate very much. I feel fortunate to have a sibling I not only get along with, I seek him out. How did I show my appreciation on his birthday? I sent him a bacon chocolate bar. But, I know, that he knows, the effort it took to get something in the mail to him in time for his birthday is the real gift. I must really love him if I could do that during the first week of school. Back to school. Back to scheduling life in between extra-curricular activities. The leaves are starting to turn, the air has a chill in the morning. Fall is coming with all it's transitional turmoil For me the change in weather brings the added surprise of being reminded now daily of things I got rid of in June and have not replaced yet. You see, I'm doing my own version of The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo. Kondo advocates for doing the tidying up all in one go (as in consecutive days or weeks), but she is also the same person who comes home from work and removes every item from her purse and puts it in its own space for the night and then presumably puts it all back in the morning. This is clearly nuts, so I'm not going to do everything she says. I can think for myself. Thinking for myself is my excuse for why I'm stretching out this process over months, possibly years (I'll report back next year). However, I did get a little over zealous in June with Kondo's advice on how to declutter your clothes when I got rid of FIVE garbage bags full. I felt really light afterwards. But, now that the seasons are changing, each day I find myself in need of a different item of clothing that I haven't made the time to replace yet. It felt great in June at the beginning of summer to fling aside almost every sweater I owned, but now that it's getting nippy in the mornings and evenings, not so much. That's OK, that's what September is for, searching out a good sweater, finishing a novel on the hammock, watching the days get shorter and celebrating the September people with bacon chocolate bars. I am reflecting on a moment in my twenties, I was at a research camp on the island of Borneo. We had been startled awake in the middle of the night by a loud explosion and people yelling "fire!". Honestly, I can't remember what had exploded, but something had and not surprisingly, in the jungle, there was no fire department to call.
So, roaming, nocturnal, wild boars be damned, we were out of our beds, in the darkness, carrying buckets of water back and forth to put out the flames. What I remember most about this night was Helen from New Zealand. Helen was on the other side of a large bucket filled with water, so heavy we had to carry it together and walk sideways like crabs. In the middle of the mayhem, from the other side of the bucket, she yells over to me. "This is what I love about this place!" Back in Canada decades later, on another night, I was woken not by an explosion, but by a very heavy rain. On this night I found myself desperately filling plastic grocery bags with sand from my kids' sandbox. As my husband and I raced to stack the sand bags outside our flooding basement, I don't recall looking at each other filled with zeal exclaiming "This is what I love about home ownership!" The difference? Responsibility. I knew what Helen meant. She meant she felt alive and vital. Also, that night in Borneo, we were somewhat confident that the fire would be extinguished and also we weren't the ones in charge. The night of the flood? We didn't know how much more the basement would flood (a lot more) or if the furnace was destroyed (it was) or if insurance would cover the costs (it did, mostly) I have found that once I am thinking about insurance, I've pretty much extinguished the flames of vitality and zeal. That is my analysis of the difference between the two aforementioned nights. Still, putting an adventurous spin on things can make life more full or at the very least more colourful, if only in my own mind. As Joseph Campbell used to say, "you have to say 'yes' to the adventure of being alive." All of it. Even ice cold raindrops down the back of soggy pajamas. I was going to title this post Ferry Rage, as a play on road rage, but that's too strong. Rage is not what I'm feeling, it's more angst-like. Annoyance rather than anger. I recognized that things had crossed the line into this state of angst when I caught myself last weekend having a rather cold-hearted response to a fellow passenger.who may have been dead.
Here's what happened. The ferry was pulling into the dock and I noticed a man sleeping in his car, but he looked more dead than asleep. My first thought was instant and clear. The thought was: OK, well if he is dead, he's parked in a different lane than me and I should be able to disembark without delay. He wasn't dead. He was sleeping, but that's not the point. The point is, in my head at least, I put my getting off the ferry in a timely fashion over that person's well being. Last week I'm against gnomes and this week it's dead ferry passengers. What gives Liz? Island-itis? High priced ferry fatigue? A dismal and jaded approach to life? I don't know, but whatever it is leans more to the dark than the light. Also, Sleeping Guy's lane drove off the ferry first so that was annoying, but I breathed through it. Clearly I need to get off the island more often. I live on an island. A big island with cities, but an island nonetheless. Sometimes when you're living on an island you become so accustomed to local idiosyncrasies that you forget that in other parts of the world, these things may be seem odd or even bananas.
Today, someone close to me, I won't say who, spoke to someone on the phone for more than ten minutes about sourcing building supplies for "hobbitshires". At first I took this information in with a warm and open heart. Who am I to judge the building of shelter for hairy-toed fictional beings? But as the conversation progressed, my cynical Mainland brain kicked in and I said, "Stop right there, did you say this person is looking for wood to build housing for hobbits?" This happened today. I'm not going to go into hobbitshire detail here, you can Google it yourself. It's a thing here on the island apparently and I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It's probably a wonderful thing. I bet I know some of the people involved and I'd have a delightful time if I were ever invited over for dinner at a hobbit house. But, what is the etiquette when you're talking to people building hobbit dwellings? This is not Iceland, Elves aren't formally part of the culture here, but somehow because we're on an island everything goes and so if someone says over dinner, "Do you know where I could ethically source some wood for the shelter I'm building on the side of my house for a gnome I know who is down on his luck," I'm expected, as an Islander, to blink only once or twice, hold the gaze of the builder and reply in a calm and supportive voice "That is noble of you, how can I be of assistance?" I thought the suspension of disbelief only applied to the realm of theatre and novels. Don't get me wrong, I want to live in a world where hobbit housing is possible, so maybe I can't have it both ways. I can't be cynical and appreciative at the same time. I'm lucky to live in a place where the whimsical is embraced, so I should just shut up. But I didn't did I? I couldn't leave it alone. I went the other way. I'm on the record now as being derisive when it comes to hobbitshires, event though I would quite happily visit them somewhere else, I just don't want them in my own backyard. I'm the worst kind. I'm a NIMBY Hobbitshire Critic. This is not what I expected to be saying about myself at this stage in my life. I thought I'd be further along and for that I'm sorry. But this is who I am. I don't understand myself either. Goodnight to all the little hobbits. I will try to be a bigger person tomorrow. Dear Reader,
I am drinking out of my Stanfest mug this morning and thinking about one of the funniest things that ever happened to me at a music festival. Like many funny stories, it is only funny in hindsight. It happened at the first ever Stan Rogers Folk Festival. The festival was epic on several levels, but familial and weather-wise especially. The year was 1997. I just happened to be living on the east coast at the time. This was fortuitous because the festival is in Canso, Nova Scotia, one of the most easterly points in North America. You kind of have to be going to Canso to get there. It's not on the way really to anything else. Except a good long drive. On the way into Canso town, you can see why Stan Rogers loved it and how the place inspired so many of his songs. My familial connections that weekend were twofold and deep. I drove there with my grandmother. Her people as she liked to say, were from Canso. My dad had been raised there until he was 15. I would meet people all weekend long at the festival that my dad grew up with. Stan Roger's family was from there too. "Those Bushells men were all tall" my Nan said about Stan's family. That and they played music. My cousin Deanna and some friends were there too. And from my mom's side of the family was my cousin Kristen. Kristen and I were camping at the festival together, while Nan would be staying at her brother's place. Kristen and I met at the gates, set up our tent and headed down to the MainStage. Not long after the weather hit. There was an electrical storm and Dan Bern one of the performers had to leave the stage or risk electrocution. Up on the hill the wind seemed to be blowing some tents around. Not ours though right? In the pelting rain Kristen and I hurried back to the campsite to check on our shelter. Indeed our tent was one of the tents rolling around at the top of a hill. (Note: a hilltop is not an excellent place to be in a windy electrical storm.). Bravely, we ran after our tent and struggled with it back to our designated spot. We hammered the spikes back in. The lightening passed, the wind died down. The MainStage had shut down but the campground was alive with festival revellers well into the early hours of the morning. Later someone made a documentary film about that first Stanfest. In the film, they talk about the storm on the first night. There is a scene of tents blowing on the hill. If you look closely you can see Kristen's and my feet, Fred Flintstone-like, beneath our tent as we shuffled it back to it's place. At the time, terrifying. In hindsight, funny. |
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