I'm at work on a break and I have 7 minutes to write this post.
Names are important. At my new job, one of the physiotherapists calls me "Jamie." The harder she tries to focus on calling me "Suzy" the more she calls me "Jamie." It's cute, actually. We laugh and laugh about it every time she does it.
There's a new guy at Starbucks today who I hadn't met yet. I introduced myself to him and he told me his name is Mike! I gave him my order and upon walking away to get my drink I called out, "nice to meet you, Justin!" No idea where I got the name Justin from. Sometimes I wonder what's lurking around the the dark recesses of my brain. I seem to randomly pull things out of there like when I accidentally snag seaweed during fishing.
Our names are one of the first things that people take in when they meet us. There's eye contact, a handshake, and an introduction to names. They have meaning and significance. They pave the way for the next level of interaction. You get the name wrong, and all of a sudden it's a traffic jam and you've got smoke under the hood.
Anyway, back to work. I've got a pumpkin scone with "Jamie" written all over it.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Day Ten
Most people can't just go out and run a marathon. There are a select few that are able to do it without training hardly at all, but we all love to hate them for it, don't we? I preach that we need to "respect the distance" whether I'm referring to a marathon or some sort of huge life event. You can't just dive in and spin out like Superman in a telephone booth.
That's how I feel about writing in this blog. So badly, I want to write about what I learned TODAY from the people closest to me. I want to talk about what I'm going through RIGHT NOW. But I can't, because it wouldn't be fair to pillage the privacy of my life and hang it on a line to dry. Yet. I need to keep it safe for a while first. I need to respect the distance.
I can, however, tell all sorts of past stories. I remember when I first smoked a cigarette, I was with Hailey Stewart and I was 13. That same night I also stole lipstick from Shoppers Drug Mart (and, later when I was in my 20's I went back to that very store and upon confessing my crime, paid for the lipstick and then bawled my eyes out all the way home).
I remember when I first said "oh my God." It was at Denise's house and it felt so unnatural, as if I was trying to swallow a ruler sideways. I licked a frozen telephone pole in sixth grade, and my tongue stuck to the frost and I didn't feel the pain because I was too hopped up on all the attention I was getting from my classmates.
I hated my grade five teacher, "Mr. Wood." He once called me a bitch, and then when I kicked Wes deJager in the balls for calling my best friend Jacquie fat, Mr. Wood gave me a lecture on boys' private parts and I hated him for that. So I threw Wes's gym strip into a pile of sawdust-covered hallway vomit. I felt better.
When I was newly married (at the ripe age of 12, it seemed...), I tried to cook pumpkin soup for Jason and I by scooping out the pumpkin guts and seeds and boiling it all in a pot.
I don't like dogs because they're needy and pathetic and smothery. I like cats because they're nasty, and I sometimes quite like nasty things.
Our pasts help mold us into the people we are today, and sometimes our pasts are just moldy. I want to write about a few of each--maybe by day 29 I'll be brave enough!
That's how I feel about writing in this blog. So badly, I want to write about what I learned TODAY from the people closest to me. I want to talk about what I'm going through RIGHT NOW. But I can't, because it wouldn't be fair to pillage the privacy of my life and hang it on a line to dry. Yet. I need to keep it safe for a while first. I need to respect the distance.
I can, however, tell all sorts of past stories. I remember when I first smoked a cigarette, I was with Hailey Stewart and I was 13. That same night I also stole lipstick from Shoppers Drug Mart (and, later when I was in my 20's I went back to that very store and upon confessing my crime, paid for the lipstick and then bawled my eyes out all the way home).
I remember when I first said "oh my God." It was at Denise's house and it felt so unnatural, as if I was trying to swallow a ruler sideways. I licked a frozen telephone pole in sixth grade, and my tongue stuck to the frost and I didn't feel the pain because I was too hopped up on all the attention I was getting from my classmates.
I hated my grade five teacher, "Mr. Wood." He once called me a bitch, and then when I kicked Wes deJager in the balls for calling my best friend Jacquie fat, Mr. Wood gave me a lecture on boys' private parts and I hated him for that. So I threw Wes's gym strip into a pile of sawdust-covered hallway vomit. I felt better.
When I was newly married (at the ripe age of 12, it seemed...), I tried to cook pumpkin soup for Jason and I by scooping out the pumpkin guts and seeds and boiling it all in a pot.
I don't like dogs because they're needy and pathetic and smothery. I like cats because they're nasty, and I sometimes quite like nasty things.
Our pasts help mold us into the people we are today, and sometimes our pasts are just moldy. I want to write about a few of each--maybe by day 29 I'll be brave enough!
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Day Nine
As a daily runner, I see a lot of things that most people don't see:
On weekend mornings, more often than not there is a pile of puke at one of the bus stops along the main road. One time last winter there was a macaroni barf that sat for weeks--it just kept freezing and thawing and re-freezing.
I know that every evening at 7pm for the past 5 years, Pat walks her little dog Penny and every evening at 7pm prior to those 5 years, she walked her little dog Mikey.
Ninety-nine percent of drivers don't even glance to their right before turning right onto a main road--they just look left at the oncoming traffic, narrowly missing pedestrians coming from their right. I do it too, and I feel terrible about it.
This morning I saw an older man kick some leaves over top of his dog's pile of fresh steaming poo in a lazy attempt to make it all just "go away."
Other runners blow snot rockets onto the sidewalk. They fart. I blow my nose into my sleeve, especially if it's raining. We talk about diarrhea and sometimes we even throw up (Mark is notorious for stopping mid-stride at the top of a difficult climb and yacking into the bushes).
You know what else I notice? I notice that the more people learn about me and my life story, the more they open up to me about their own. They see my messes and what I've done to clean house, and I think (I hope!) it gives them hope. But what I do know is it gives them validity and then they feel comfortable opening up and talking about their own struggles. I think, anyway. That's what they tell me. Or maybe they just know enough about me to know that I won't judge, because I too blow my nose into my sleeve sometimes.
I think it's important for us to know that we all make mistakes but more importantly, that it's possible to move forward and grow from them. We can read self-help books or pray mightily and fast until our stomachs eat our spines, but there's just something powerful about seeing real people mess up and grow from their mistakes who then live to tell about it and sometimes, if appropriate, who can also have enough grace to laugh about it.
Seeing things that most people don't see isn't always a stomach-turning adventure--it can be a gift! Especially when I happen to know exactly where NOT to step when we're walking through that huge pile of leaves.
On weekend mornings, more often than not there is a pile of puke at one of the bus stops along the main road. One time last winter there was a macaroni barf that sat for weeks--it just kept freezing and thawing and re-freezing.
I know that every evening at 7pm for the past 5 years, Pat walks her little dog Penny and every evening at 7pm prior to those 5 years, she walked her little dog Mikey.
Ninety-nine percent of drivers don't even glance to their right before turning right onto a main road--they just look left at the oncoming traffic, narrowly missing pedestrians coming from their right. I do it too, and I feel terrible about it.
This morning I saw an older man kick some leaves over top of his dog's pile of fresh steaming poo in a lazy attempt to make it all just "go away."
Other runners blow snot rockets onto the sidewalk. They fart. I blow my nose into my sleeve, especially if it's raining. We talk about diarrhea and sometimes we even throw up (Mark is notorious for stopping mid-stride at the top of a difficult climb and yacking into the bushes).
You know what else I notice? I notice that the more people learn about me and my life story, the more they open up to me about their own. They see my messes and what I've done to clean house, and I think (I hope!) it gives them hope. But what I do know is it gives them validity and then they feel comfortable opening up and talking about their own struggles. I think, anyway. That's what they tell me. Or maybe they just know enough about me to know that I won't judge, because I too blow my nose into my sleeve sometimes.
I think it's important for us to know that we all make mistakes but more importantly, that it's possible to move forward and grow from them. We can read self-help books or pray mightily and fast until our stomachs eat our spines, but there's just something powerful about seeing real people mess up and grow from their mistakes who then live to tell about it and sometimes, if appropriate, who can also have enough grace to laugh about it.
Seeing things that most people don't see isn't always a stomach-turning adventure--it can be a gift! Especially when I happen to know exactly where NOT to step when we're walking through that huge pile of leaves.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Day Seven
I feel a little overwhelmed right now. I've been super busy, running around from job to job, school to grocery store to gas station. I don't feel fully plugged into any one particular thing. I feel fragmented, frazzled and frail. Frick.
I feel emotionally overwhelmed as well. I had several friends and family text me today and I just couldn't absorb it all for some reason and no matter how much I wanted to process their words and reply with my heart, my fingers just wouldn't move on the screen.
Like I'm in my spacesuit on the moon and I'm trying so hard to plant my feet firmly down onto the moon's surface but gravity keeps pushing me off. Or like when I try and press the two like-sided ends of the batteries together. Or when I'm playing dodge-ball in sixth grade and I'm on the losing team. Nothing is getting absorbed. It's all bouncing off of me, and it's leaving a bit of a mark.
And that's what I wrote back to Tracey tonight: "my brain is full." And she got it right away.
There's nothing in particular on my mind and yet there's everything all at once. I'm feeling around the bottom of the pool of water and it's dark and quiet, but it's also all-consuming.
Just let me be grumpy today.
I feel emotionally overwhelmed as well. I had several friends and family text me today and I just couldn't absorb it all for some reason and no matter how much I wanted to process their words and reply with my heart, my fingers just wouldn't move on the screen.
Like I'm in my spacesuit on the moon and I'm trying so hard to plant my feet firmly down onto the moon's surface but gravity keeps pushing me off. Or like when I try and press the two like-sided ends of the batteries together. Or when I'm playing dodge-ball in sixth grade and I'm on the losing team. Nothing is getting absorbed. It's all bouncing off of me, and it's leaving a bit of a mark.
And that's what I wrote back to Tracey tonight: "my brain is full." And she got it right away.
There's nothing in particular on my mind and yet there's everything all at once. I'm feeling around the bottom of the pool of water and it's dark and quiet, but it's also all-consuming.
Just let me be grumpy today.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Day Six
Fear.
As a kid, I remember running up the stairs from time to time and getting that holy-shit-something-big-and-hairy-is-chasing me feeling and although I knew on an intellectual level that there really was nothing chasing me, that terrified feeling felt so real! Why did it feel real? Because the feeling WAS real. But just because the feeling was real doesn't mean that there really was something big and hairy chasing me.
Feelings are feelings. Truth is truth. Feelings are real and truth is real, but they're not one and the same.
It seems to me that fear is a powerful one, though. Ghandi wrote: "The enemy is fear. We think it is hate. But, it is fear." That's a pretty ballsy statement seeing as the subject of hate can conjure up some pretty vivid images.
However, I entertained the idea of fear being worse than hate and I came up with a few thoughts. Fear causes that "flight or fight" response which releases epinephrine and nor-epinephrine (adrenalin hormones) into the bloodstream. I remember when Katie had a severe croup attack and when we got to the ER, they injected her with these hormones so that her body would dig deep and fight harder to take in more oxygen. I held her between my legs and with my arms wrapped around her tiny body I felt her heart rate increase seemingly tenfold, and felt her chest heaving while her little blue lips gasped for breath inside of the teensie tiny oxygen mask. She was scared. I was terrified.
The treatment worked and after being admitted for monitoring, she was okay.
That "fight or flight" response is meaningful. We either get stuck (flight), or we react hastily with arms swinging (fight).
When I learned First Aid and CPR I was taught that the initial reaction of someone drowning is to fight the rescuer. As someone jumping into the water to save the struggling swimmer, we need to keep this in mind. It doesn't make sense, does it? But it happens all. the. time. So much that they teach it when they teach us lifesaving skills.
We're human, and so we fear.
I know someone who is afraid of driving over the Fraser River into Greater Vancouver for fear that the bridge will collapse on him. He doesn't cross the bridge.
I know someone who is so afraid of dogs so much that she doesn't run anymore.
I know someone who is so afraid to love again that he'd rather be alone forever.
I know someone who is so afraid of leaving her abusive husband because she doesn't know what life would be like without him.
Hate might be what we breathe out, but fear limits the oxygen we need to breathe in before we can even think about hating.
It kills us before we even get the chance to live.
As a kid, I remember running up the stairs from time to time and getting that holy-shit-something-big-and-hairy-is-chasing me feeling and although I knew on an intellectual level that there really was nothing chasing me, that terrified feeling felt so real! Why did it feel real? Because the feeling WAS real. But just because the feeling was real doesn't mean that there really was something big and hairy chasing me.
Feelings are feelings. Truth is truth. Feelings are real and truth is real, but they're not one and the same.
It seems to me that fear is a powerful one, though. Ghandi wrote: "The enemy is fear. We think it is hate. But, it is fear." That's a pretty ballsy statement seeing as the subject of hate can conjure up some pretty vivid images.
However, I entertained the idea of fear being worse than hate and I came up with a few thoughts. Fear causes that "flight or fight" response which releases epinephrine and nor-epinephrine (adrenalin hormones) into the bloodstream. I remember when Katie had a severe croup attack and when we got to the ER, they injected her with these hormones so that her body would dig deep and fight harder to take in more oxygen. I held her between my legs and with my arms wrapped around her tiny body I felt her heart rate increase seemingly tenfold, and felt her chest heaving while her little blue lips gasped for breath inside of the teensie tiny oxygen mask. She was scared. I was terrified.
The treatment worked and after being admitted for monitoring, she was okay.
That "fight or flight" response is meaningful. We either get stuck (flight), or we react hastily with arms swinging (fight).
When I learned First Aid and CPR I was taught that the initial reaction of someone drowning is to fight the rescuer. As someone jumping into the water to save the struggling swimmer, we need to keep this in mind. It doesn't make sense, does it? But it happens all. the. time. So much that they teach it when they teach us lifesaving skills.
We're human, and so we fear.
I know someone who is afraid of driving over the Fraser River into Greater Vancouver for fear that the bridge will collapse on him. He doesn't cross the bridge.
I know someone who is so afraid of dogs so much that she doesn't run anymore.
I know someone who is so afraid to love again that he'd rather be alone forever.
I know someone who is so afraid of leaving her abusive husband because she doesn't know what life would be like without him.
Hate might be what we breathe out, but fear limits the oxygen we need to breathe in before we can even think about hating.
It kills us before we even get the chance to live.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Day Five
It's easy to pretend something isn't there if we simply look away.
You know the saying, "the elephant in the room?" It's nothing short of
miraculous how we are able to see past a giant elephant's ass when we are
determined enough to ignore it.
Humans have ignored problems since the beginning of time. Why? Because sometimes we just don't like what we see.
Lawrence Hill wrote in The Book of Negroes: "To gaze into another person's face is to do two things: to recognize their humanity and to assert your own." It's way easier to detach from people when we look away, or by way of technology (through texts, Facebook messages and emails), than if we were standing there with them, face to face, heart to heart. We can unleash the devil in lightening speed if we are merely one step removed.
I heard a story about an obese lady who went to the ER for something and when the doctor walked into the room he could barely breathe for the stench coming from the woman's body. Upon examination he found that maggots had settled in between her moist fat folds. He asked her if she knew about them and she said no, and when he asked her how she could not notice, she replied blankly, "I just had no idea."
She didn't want to know, so she didn't look.
I know of a more recent story involving someone close to my heart. This time the maggots came in the form of legal papers carrying with them the diseases of hate and selfish gain. Handed over to him in a blow so personal, at the very essence of his person as a man, as a daddy, he sunk to his knees with the force.
I can't talk about it because of the nature of the situation, but I know from being open with others in similar circumstances that the legal system has no mercy, for fathers in particular. Why? There's probably a myriad of reasons. But I highly doubt that this shit would go down if each person stood together, face to face. Instead we are served with legal papers, shipped from one vulturous lawyer to another where they finally land in our hands, merciless eating away our minds and hearts. Maggots. Scarring blows.
Why do we have to hurt each other so much? And shouldn't the "justice" system be able to step into an otherwise emotionally-charged situation and intervene with objective and fair solutions? Or are we still on that boat getting beaten with batons and starving to death while everyone simply looks away?
There will always be a lot of pain in this world because that's really what we do best. But I guarantee we'd do less of it if we lifted our eyes up high enough to get our fat faces out of the trough of selfishness and instead looked into the eyes of the people we are directly affecting with our actions.
And give that elephant's ass a spanking.
Humans have ignored problems since the beginning of time. Why? Because sometimes we just don't like what we see.
Lawrence Hill wrote in The Book of Negroes: "To gaze into another person's face is to do two things: to recognize their humanity and to assert your own." It's way easier to detach from people when we look away, or by way of technology (through texts, Facebook messages and emails), than if we were standing there with them, face to face, heart to heart. We can unleash the devil in lightening speed if we are merely one step removed.
I heard a story about an obese lady who went to the ER for something and when the doctor walked into the room he could barely breathe for the stench coming from the woman's body. Upon examination he found that maggots had settled in between her moist fat folds. He asked her if she knew about them and she said no, and when he asked her how she could not notice, she replied blankly, "I just had no idea."
She didn't want to know, so she didn't look.
I know of a more recent story involving someone close to my heart. This time the maggots came in the form of legal papers carrying with them the diseases of hate and selfish gain. Handed over to him in a blow so personal, at the very essence of his person as a man, as a daddy, he sunk to his knees with the force.
I can't talk about it because of the nature of the situation, but I know from being open with others in similar circumstances that the legal system has no mercy, for fathers in particular. Why? There's probably a myriad of reasons. But I highly doubt that this shit would go down if each person stood together, face to face. Instead we are served with legal papers, shipped from one vulturous lawyer to another where they finally land in our hands, merciless eating away our minds and hearts. Maggots. Scarring blows.
Why do we have to hurt each other so much? And shouldn't the "justice" system be able to step into an otherwise emotionally-charged situation and intervene with objective and fair solutions? Or are we still on that boat getting beaten with batons and starving to death while everyone simply looks away?
There will always be a lot of pain in this world because that's really what we do best. But I guarantee we'd do less of it if we lifted our eyes up high enough to get our fat faces out of the trough of selfishness and instead looked into the eyes of the people we are directly affecting with our actions.
And give that elephant's ass a spanking.
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