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.

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. 

Day Four

I have some seriously huge song association sensory receptors. Same with smell. I'll talk about smell first.

I worked in a factory for 3 days when I was 19. My job was to pound dirt down into a box and staple the four corners with a foot pedal and then pass it along. On my third day of working there, I was sent on my coffee break (where I developed a nearly unshakeable addiction to powdered chemical coffee creamer) and then when I returned, I was sent to a new spot: along the rose bushes belt. My new job was to grab a branch of rose bushes and put it on a different belt behind me. I learned quite quickly that it was necessary to eyeball the branches as early as possible so as to grab the ones with the least amount of thorns.

I was doing quite well at grabbing all the barest of the bare thorn bushes until the lady beside me grabbed the same one as I did, at the same time, and didn't let go. I was like, "whoa lady, that's my branch." And she was like, "LET GO OF MY BUSH, BITCH." For real. But the thing is, is she smelled like this certain kind of perfume, and it's a super popular one and to this day I smell it everywhere.

I'll be walking through some totally random place, like a tire centre, and I'll smell the bush lady.

It sucks.

I quit the factory, and went back to work at Sport Mart. Dream big!

I was totally going to talk about song association sensory receptors, but I'll do that tomorrow because, oh wow, I just wrote a whole lot about nothing.

Day Three

I got an orange cat for my 16th birthday and I named him Harley. He was a purebred (inbred, quite honestly, and more obviously as one would notice given the chance to spend longer than 30 seconds with him) with a flat face and a penchant for acquiring dingleberries.

But we loved him. Oh, we loved him.

My parents, during a particularly trying time in their lives, found that Harley bridged the gap between them when the river of silence was too tumultuous to cross. I remember watching them standing in a room and when they were seemingly a football field apart, Harley would walk in the room and they'd suddenly be side by side.

"Look at him! Oh, Harley... silly cat. Oh dear, where's the brush? Ha ha ha... oh my. What a funny looking thing. Poor Harley." *pet pet pat pat purr purr*

And me? I'd be alone in my room crying my eyes out about some wretched beastly boy who had broken my heart into a million irreparable pieces and Harley would cruise in, jump up into my face and kiss me with his furry and wet little nosey and then all of a sudden I'd smile, or shudder with relief that no, I'm not alone. That yes, even when I think I can't possibly breathe in one more breath to keep me alive, I am suddenly able to sit up and reach out and love. *pet pet pat pat purr purr*

My dad loves to tell this story. A bird flew into our house one day and the usually docile Harley (a borderline medical problem of the lazy sort) became... well... an animal. He was on FIRE. His tail swooshed around, his ears pricked up and his eyes darted to and fro. His mouth, barely seen for the surrounding face wrinkles, twitched with adrenalin. It was time for a feast.

He stood at the foot of our fridge staring up into the corner of the kitchen where he had first detected the scared bird.

Except the bird had flown away, and out the door.

And yet Harley still stood at the foot of the fridge, waiting, tail swooshing, ready to pounce. On nothing. For hours.

Don't we all do that sometimes? I do. I get so pissed off, so caught up in my own indignant anger, justifying it all simply by the intensity of my emotions (SURELY I have been wronged, for how could I feel so angry if I wasn't?!) that I get stuck there. I get that glazed over look in my eyes where all I can see is The Problem and nothing else. Meanwhile, The Problem takes off into the background and perches itself on its fellow meaningless Problems (in the grand scheme of life) while I sit there and stare at the empty space, angrier than ever, and I'm probably drooling. And let's just hope I don't have dingleberries stuck to my fur.

I miss Harley.

Day Two

The total cost of my University degree was approximately $32,000. When I was 18, my first priority was to have as much fun as possible. I played for the varsity soccer team (we sucked) while I took dumbass "gym" classes with my friends (who I don't even see anymore). I had no career goals in mind; I saw only the bright lights of a future filled with possibilities, and I was convinced that my degree would catapult me straight into the pools of opportunity like a leggy 40-something walking into a seedy suburban pub.

All I got was a minimum wage job and a hangover.

I have to say though, that I believe that everyone should spend some time in the service industry because it helps us treat our fellow humanity with respect; if we know what it's like to work on the other side of the counter than we will be quicker to respond with grace and mercy. Not just when we get our coffees extra sweet when we asked for extra hot, but when we walk through our child's seemingly un-chewed Kraft Dinner vomit in the middle of the night, or when our nephew is born with a brain injury. Life-alteringly huge or embarrassingly small, we need the tools to deal with life when it (and the people in it) hand us adversity because we all know it's going to happen.

People teach me things all the time, and it almost always happens when I least expect it. I started my job at Starbucks in June and one summer night I worked with a girl named Trish. Quite honestly, I didn't like her straight off the get-go and in fact, I came home and told Andrew that I hated her. I thought she was bossy and rude and condescending. But the second time I worked with her I learned that she also went to the same University that I attended and she too, has a degree. I asked her over my nerdy drive-through headset how she felt about working at Starbucks when she has a degree, for goodnesssake, and she replied with, "I'm using my degree. I don't get paid much, but that's not what is important to me. I got my degree in "people" and this is where I belong."

I exhaled and humbly looked down at my vanilla syrup-splattered shoes and realized that Trish had it right all along.

A few months later she was outside in the drive-through changing garbages and I, at the drive through window, poked my head out and whistled at her. While I watched her, I noticed a lady drive through and, because Trish was in the middle of changing the trash bags, the woman impatiently threw her garbage at Trish. It bounced off her shoulder and fell to the ground.

What did Trish do? Get angry? Resent the amount of money she spent on her degree? No. She laughed. Because she knew that SHE had it going on, and that lady didn't have a fucking clue.

Life isn't about degrees, or education, or salaries. It's about people. Community. Kids throwing up macaroni, and nephews in wheelchairs and high school and Lego and letting mistakes go, giving and receiving grace. It's about not being alone. It's about togetherness.

And although now that I have a new job related to my degree, I'm not just walking away from minimum wage; I am walking away from some of the coolest people I've ever known. Because they know how to stand strong in who they are, strong enough to take the garbage in the face from a person who has far greater debt than they do. And that's a life lesson that I never want to forget.

30 Days

When I am 90 years old with saggy tattooed skin and missing teeth and I'm hunched over in my bright green pleather armchair, I want to be able to look back onto my life and have peace.

There are a lot of elements that play together to create peace in my life, but there is one specific thing that birthed this post today: I would be filled with regret if I got to the age of ninety and hadn't even attempted to write and publish something. Maybe I'm dreaming, and really?...this is what makes this quest all the more urgent. A "to do" list is watered-down with practicality while a dream has fertile potency. Let's get knocked up, shall we?

I decided that I would spend the next 30 days writing something every single day. I've had lofty plans of doing this before but without the accountability of others, my writing slips down the ladder of priorities, doing the backstroke in the puddle of practical to-do lists.

I'm also afraid of being transparent on here. I'm scared of offending people with my language and ideas. I worry about judgement. I fuss about saying too much, of hurting people. But I know that when I question my motives for my writing, I always conclude that I want to do it to create community, not discord.

I want, in my fantasmical Land of Nauseatingly Optimistic Suzy, to be able to share my heart and help people in some form, in some capacity. That by sharing my stories, my life, my heart, that I could bring people together. That our bellies would be full, our cheeks would be warm, and that at the end of the day we would remember that we aren't alone.

If 30 days is the gestational period of something bigger, then bring it on. And if all this quest produces is a small form of entertainment layered in shy transparency and topped off with a sprinkle of foul language, then at least I know that I stepped out. Because there's nothing comfier than sinking into a bright green pleather armchair, free from the nagging discomfort of regret.

Faith

 I stood motionless in the kitchen, barely breathing, one foot in front of the other the way we were taught to stand at the start of the 1500 metre run at the track meet. And then I heard it: my mom’s car disappearing down the driveway, punctuated by the soft whirring and finally the clomp of the garage door to its down position. She was gone. And my sister Tracey’s new George Michael cassette tape was waiting for me upstairs. I tore up our spiral staircase, grabbed the corner of the banister for propulsion and burst into Tracey’s room breathless with excitement. As if on sacred ground, I tippy-toed over to her ghetto-blaster and pressed the play button. At first I put it on such a low volume that I had to press my ear up to the speaker just to hear it. But as time passed and my bravery grew, I turned it up louder and louder and eventually joined Micheal in all of his sexy splendor.

I grew up in a pretty strict family as far as music and movies were concerned. If I ever wanted to go to a dance at school, I had to sneak into it somehow. I made it to a dance in grade eight and I danced with a guy named Nathan who smelled like beer. I went home that night and with pink cheeks and a nervous tummy, I lay awake for hours staring at the ceiling above my bed and imagined what sort of torturous eternal death that was waiting for me after such an act.

But alas, despite my extremely convincing conscience, I didn’t wake up in burning hellfire but in my cozy bed in North Delta.

I like pushing limits. I love the adrenalin rush of seeing how close I can get to something dangerous, feeling the heat from the fire on my face but being just far enough away from the flame that I don’t get burned. To a point. As I get older and more mature (sigh…) I notice that I’m starting to slow down and be much more deliberate and intentional in my actions. It’s boring sometimes, but much more peaceful.

About a week ago, I took a running jump into a pool and, unbeknownst to me, the deep end of the pool was only 5 feet deep and I ended up messing up my knee. I can’t run. I can barely even walk. I’m not sure what this means for me as far as running is concerned but I’ll find out more on Tuesday when I see my physiotherapist. All I know is that this will be an opportunity for me to learn something new about myself. Running taught me a lot about who I am. It brought things out of the depths of my soul that I didn’t even know existed. But this? Being injured will inevitably bring me to a whole new level of strength, I have no doubt.

I will run again. My stupidity may have singed my eyebrows a bit this time, but I won’t let my running shoes get burned.