The HandBasket

So, after the butter chicken / saag paneer / shrimp madras feast last night, Miriam and I swung by those two convenience stores on Gerrard that seem to be highly competitive regarding plants this time of year. When I drive by this corner, I hear Dueling Banjos in my head. Two Asian owners trying to out supply the neighbourhood in greenery.

They were the only places I could think of that might have a decent plant/flower at 8:30 p.m. on a Saturday. One of them was open and I was utterly charmed by a yellow flower in a pot.

Me to Store Owner: This is really lovely - what kind of plant is it?

Store Owner, smiling broadly and helpfully: I have no idea! (laughter)

OK. Even though I'm the worst indoor or outdoor gardener in the world, as evidenced by the fact that I killed two of Martina's plants since she moved to Chicago, I've changed my plans because I'm quite smitten with this little plant. At first, I thought, well, I'll plant it here on the grounds of the building, somewhere inconspicuous. I looked around and didn't see a spot where someone wouldn't come along and point and say, "Contravenes our rules!" and yank it out. Then I thought, ok, I'll put it here in my window box. Then I looked at the window box and realized it needs more maintenance than I have the time or patience for today. Then, finally, I have decided to put it in one of the pots recently vacated by one of Martina's sorry bits of greenery. She was reasonably forgiving of me last weekend, but I doubt she'll leave anything green in my care again.

Like a lover who has jumped in bed before a suitable introduction, I am now staring shyly at this thing and wondering if it has a name. Instructions for care and feeding? A temperament to be considered? (Danica? Help!)

I'm trying to remember what I did on Mother's Day, 10 years ago, but I just can't pull up the specifics. I know I did *something*, probably some combination of card / flowers / dinner / visit. I remember clearly that I spoke with Mom a  few weeks later, on Wednesday, June 3, 1998, in the evening.  We talked every Sunday and every Wednesday. On that particular Wednesday, she was excited about being almost ready to go back to bowling, having almost fully recovered from carpal tunnel surgery on her wrists. She had survived two rounds with cancer, both treated surgically, and a chronic lung issue, probably emphysema, that was never properly treated. But what she was most excited about was getting movement back in her wrists and being "allowed" to return to bowling. She'd been to her GP that day, in fact, and, in addition to getting some prescriptions renewed, she got the a-ok for bowling, starting the following week.

My brother Ben jumped in on that call for a few minutes, as per usual, just to check in.

I was excited myself as my partner at the time, J, and I were flying out the next day for a four day getaway to Halifax, a city I'd visited briefly and really liked but hadn't explored much. We also had an overnight booked in Lunenberg that I was really looking forward to. I'm sure I rushed through this call with some impatience as I wasn't entirely packed and ready for an early flight the next day.

We closed with loving words, I recall. Rushed, but loving - as per usual.

Our dog, Freddie, was about seven months old and was staying with Dennis the dogwalker and Dennis' dog, Hennessy. Dennis had our trip itinerary, contact info and so on. No one else did - it was only four days after all.

Our flight was delayed for at least two hours on the tarmac @ Pearson. When we finally arrived in Halifax, it was go go go to explore and check it all out. On the Saturday night, our last night in Halifax before heading to Lunenberg, we landed at a lovely seafood place on the water. I had lobster and wine. I think the meal started with a bisque. I had an objective of eating as much lobster as possible on this trip. :-) We then proceeded (waddled) from the restaurant to a dessert place, the one down on the waterfront or close to it, for something yummy. Then to a nearby Irish pub and indulged in beer and singing and, well, carousing. Lots of singing. I loved it.

It just occurred to me that I have no photos of that trip at all.

Got back to our hotel room at about 12:30 or 1:00 a.m. There was a light flashing on the hotel phone and I knew immediately that something was very wrong. There were two messages to call home and the voices, my sister-in-law Sue and my brother David, were very distressed. I called David and learned that Mom had died, suddenly, in her rhubarb patch around dinner time the night before, on Friday. She wasn't found until the next morning by a neighbour who was quite traumatized by this. She had gone out to fetch rhubarb make her grandson, Alex, a pie for the next day. She apparently was lying there quite peacefully, with some rhubarb stalks in one hand and a plastic bag and a knife in the other. There was clearly no attempt on her part to rise - she was dead when she hit the ground, apparently.

Died, June 5, 1998 in the evening. However, the coroner issued the death certificate for June 6, 1998 as that is when she was found.

Stunning news to receive in a hotel room in Halifax after a raucous pub night. I went immediately into a state of functional shock. What has to be done? (emergency airline tickets back ...)  Who has to be called? (the b & b in Lunenberg ...) Air Canada was actually quite gracious and granted us compassionate seating at a reduced fare.

I remember lying awake staring at the ceiling all night. Still had alcohol from our night out in my body and the news was just too sudden to comprehend.

Things had been quite frantic back in Ontario as the family tried to track me down. Not only was Dennis the only one in Toronto who had our itinerary and contact info, he didn't live in the neighbourhood and only one other neighbour, @ #5, was connected to him in any way. In desperation, late on Saturday a.m., my friend Angela's brother, Greg, started knocking on doors at #1 to ask if anyone had our travel itinerary. Ed and Louise - neighbours who first introduced us to Dennis - knew how to reach him.

We know now that Mom had an aortic aneurysm. Ben has had one, and survived luckily, in 2005. Our maternal Grandma died suddenly too, at age 93, in front of her beloved 100 Huntley St. - we suspect aneurysm.  I'm having  some test done every few years to check the walls of the aorta but I don't have the stress of aging (not being 93 yet) or 40 years of smoking. I'm trying to remove the stress of extra weight.

I learned two things from this experience. Probably more, but two come to mind:

a) Leave contact information with more than one person. E-mail makes this easy. Create a distribution list of half a dozen people who might need to reach you for some reason. Fire off flight and hotel/accommodation info. Dates, etc. Be reachable.

b) Tell the people you love that you love them. I miss my Mom, no question. I must mention this, especially to the people who knew her, frequently. She'd be insanely excited at how my life has turned out, the things I've done and the kind of work I've been able to do. She was pretty proud of me and never let me forget it and, you know, sometimes a girl just needs her cheering section. :)

What I do not have are regrets. Mom and I went through quite a long process regarding my lesbianism. She wound up with a comfort level that impressed me - she sure didn't start that way. She got there on her own, it seems. She was always loving and welcoming to my partners - but we were never allowed to sleep in the same bed in her house. Ever. I think she would have got there, eventually. She was on her way.

About five years before she died, I wrote her a one page letter, three paragraphs only I recall, thanking her for being such a great Mom. I heard my friends complaining about varying kinds of abuse, about being tossed out of their families for various reasons, about being left out of wills ... and I looked back on my childhood, my relationship with my Mom and felt profoundly, deeply lucky. She did everything she could to give me a rich and complex life. Anything I indicated an interest in, or a passion for, she made it happen. Music, sports, theatre ... she would drive me anywhere to do anything. Swimming, hockey, fastball, rehearsals ... all pretty amazing given that we lived well away from town where most of this happened. I used to wonder if my Mom had a life. She did, she would say ... me. How great, and humbling, is that?

It was my job to go through her papers after she died and that letter was on top of everything, on her dresser. She had a filing thing for papers, bills, important stuff, and that letter sat on top of it all. I'm told she showed it to every one of her friends after she received it. I think she looked at it a lot.

Note: If you decide to do this, and you are writing to someone over 60, write it, print it, sign it, snail mail it. Give them something tangible they can take to the coffee shop and show around.

So, as much as I miss my bi-weekly calls with Mom, and occasional visits, and making mental note of "Oh, I must tell Mom about this ..." when interesting things happen ... I don't feel that she and I had tons of unfinished business or baggage. It feels ... clean. It's ok.

I'm going to mark Mother's Day this year by planting a flower in Freddie's favourite park, surreptitiously. :-) Perhaps over in a corner somewhere. We can go visit it when we walk there. 

I need to be reminded that when people are important to me, whether they carry the title of Mom or Mentor or Good Friend, I need to reach out and tell them that. It is important. They might not know if you don't tell them.

52 lbs. Gone. Whoosh ... :-) ... can I celebrate with a cheeseburger?

Smiling, well-meaning elderly lady at the park: Oh, look! You and your dog have the same colour hair!

Me, forcing a smile: Yes, yes we do!

Rahim and Nazifa Shahghasy  left Afghanistan 20 years ago to escape violence and unrest, and to give their kids a better life. It is a cruel irony that they were cut down in a Brampton parking lot in a random attack, leaving their nearly grown kids to cope with an enormous financial burden, and no resources to speak of.

I am reminded, strongly, of the students that I meet in my college classroom, and my heart goes out to them. Perhaps yours will, too. 

To: The Guy On The Elliptical Machine Next To Me

Date: Yesterday

I admire your determination and focus. You look very purposeful. Bravo!

Just for the record, I have a 20-30% hearing loss across certain frequency ranges. Can't hear conversation, which is annoying. Like you and many others, I like using my iPod as an exercise aid. It is possible that my iPod is slightly louder than other people's iPods, I'll grant you that.

However, I need to say that, given my hearing loss AND the noise from my own raucous iPod tunes ... I should NOT be able to hear the guitar rifts and lyrics from your iPod.

I'm jus sayin' ...

It occurred to me this morning that my life has undergone the equivalent of a massive chiropractic adjustment in the past year. I've gone from teaching full-time (steady, consistent, no need to wander around with a spear hoping to snag the next meal ...) to self-employment (exciting, challenging, and lots of need to wander around with a spear).

I've also gone from being quite heavy to being not so heavy. There are other components here about eating better, aside from the weight loss. A general upswing in health. An increase in activity. More energy (except for at this exact moment). A greater body awareness.

It is as if someone has grabbed me by the shoulders, yanked hard, and re-aligned some essential components.

The re-alignment is good and I love the direction this is all heading. However, I need to acknowledge that it all feels a bit strange sometimes, and a bit tiring. I'm not used to it yet, really. The "new normal" hasn't settled in yet.

I had a bit of a meltdown last Tuesday / Wednesday. Self-employment has its challenges. Mid-week last week, I faced the spectre of:

• desperately needing to "fire" my primary, long-time client due to lack of creative cooperation, or really, any other kind of cooperation ("read my mind, please, and produce what I need without me having to actually describe what that is, oh, and if you get it wrong, you're an a$$")
  
• having almost, but not quite, landed two very "meaty" clients

I know the concept of "firing a client" might seem counter-intuitive, and rather cheeky, but it can be necessary. Sometimes clients start to cost you either hard dollars or severe emotional baggage. It was the latter for me. Ta ta. Have a nice life.

The thing is, for me, baggage of this kind clamps down on me creatively. Can't do my job if I can't be freed up to creatively identify problems, and find solutions. One of the key learnings from this client experience, and there are many, is that my essential working style is collaborative. This is not true for other people who have a more structured, hierarchical approach to things. It is critical that I recognize and understand this AHEAD of time, not afterwards.  More on this later ...

So, as of Wednesday, it was possible that I could end the week with no clients at all. Gulp.

Speaking of Wednesday, my emotional nadir, I had two things booked that day, weeks in advance. Could not be canceled or changed.

• photo shoot for a documentary
• speed-dating event (good lord)

To make matters worse even still, I had asked my next door neighbour, one of Toronto's top make-up artists for film and TV, to "do me up" prior to the photo shoot. I haven't worn make-up since, oh, my brother's wedding in 1985. Prior to that, my main experience had been with stage make-up. However, something compelled me to get "done" for this.

So, there I sat, mid-afternoon, as my neighbour gleefully applied mascara and air-brushed my pores or whatever the hell that was he was doing. He's been waiting for YEARS to do this. I tried to get into the playfulness of the moment but really, I mostly just wanted to cry from the sheer stress of it all. So, I can't imagine how the photos will turn out given my complete state of discomfort.  Haven't seen them yet. The shoot itself went as well as could be expected. (Thanks, Sister Crisp, for getting me involved.)

Yeah, then speed-dating. No stress there at all, nope. The concept is at once brilliant and terrifying. Five minutes to decide, and be decided upon. Me with gobs of mascara irritating my eyes, some unknown substance plastered on my skin, and still mostly needing a darn good cry. I'm sure I was suitably impressive.

When I signed up for this, I did so really as an experiment. Just a ginger testing of the waters. Of the eleven women I met, I'd happily chat with 9 of them again. I checked off six as potential "dates".

Thursday brought excellent news as the two "meaty" clients firmed up and I was able to wrap up my last few items for the client-that-shall-not-be-named and put paid to that account. Clouds lifted, angels sang ... and, as it turns out, three of the speed-dating six saw past the mascara and checked me off on their scorecards as well. Interesting.

Thus, after this roller coaster ride, it is understandable that I had rather a lot of adrenalin to burn off on the weekend ... four hockey games and one awesome hey-this-is-like-undergrad-again-pass-the-tequila party later ... the thing is my body is no longer even close to undergrad status and it took me most of Sunday to shake off the cobwebs. Which was really tricky as I had hours of prep to do before launching into my new client engagements. I'm usually a pretty fast typist, but there I was almost using the hunt and peck method, trying to finish a four page proposal ... blinking rather a lot ...

A few bumps since then, but I think I'm back on track now. I really (REALLY) appreciate my friends - comments, chats, e-mails, phone calls - these few difficult days. Thank you. You know who you are.

Work wise, I'm about to start three days a week with a large, high-profile organization, reporting to a highly non-collaborative person, or at least he presents as such at the moment. We'll see. The thing is that I can see it and adjust for that kind of culture. I'm adaptable. Just don't say "we're all a team here" and then proceed to take a top down, slice and dice approach after sucking me in with your safe environment team crap.

My other gig is profoundly collaborative and challenging within a much smaller organization. Mental gymnastics, all of it. Something to match my physical work-outs, perhaps. Oh, I forgot to mention ... current weight loss @ 50 lbs, speaking of angels singing ...

Apparently, the Greeks want their island back. (Props to Cate for posting this on Facebook.)

Will the Dutch be next, wanting the term "dyke" back?

An ex of mine's grandfather was a doctor. Or at least, that is how I remember it. When at a loss addressing some problem, my ex's mother was taught to "put it in the sun". Thus, this was also my ex's counsel. Some wound not healing? Put it in the sun. Stains not coming out of clothes? Put 'em in the sun. Ear ache? Put it in the sun. Can't get the lid off a jar? Put it in the sun ...

I have often wondered about this, especially since we are in the era of UVA/UVB rays and associated melanomas. Being as we are in Canada, and sun is at a premium, this bit of advice also must have a seasonal aspect to it. Nonetheless, I think there is a subtextural wisdom here that I will get to momentarily.

It is funny what we remember from our exes. I know that there are little bits from every person I've been close to that travel with me, either literally or figuratively, and this bit is one of my favs from this particular ex. I happen to know that, from me, she carries with her the folk "wisdom", or myth, that if cows are lying down in the field, then it is going to rain. I don't think this is as useful as "put it in the sun".

I awoke this morning a bit out of sorts. It was non-specific, one of those moods in which one cannot say "because of x, I now feel y". But I felt vaguely disappointed and dissatisfied ... things not moving fast enough, feeling like I haven't done enough, situations not unfolding with either the speed or outcomes that I'd hoped for, or planned for.

Following both my Sunday morning proclivities, and my ex's advice, I put it in the sun for a while. Made coffee, bought a newspaper, took my dog to our favourite park, and sat in the sun, sipping excellent java while poking through the paper. My dog snuffled through leaves, greeted her friends, and also sat blinking in the sun. Maybe she needed re-charging, too. The sun feels so good on the skin after a long winter. I felt 100% better after putting it (me) in the sun.

Here is what I think "put it in the sun" really means:

There isn't a magic pill, or a perfect solution, or an exact linear path that each person can follow to find their Nirvana. Life is about finding the unique process that leads to the outcomes you desire. Sure, sometimes there are windfalls and lucky breaks, but mostly there is continuous hard work or, one hopes, smart work. Lots of it. It is more important to do the right things repeatedly, to incorporate the most beneficial behaviours, to find a routine that works, than to look for instant gratification, or instant success, or that one magic "thing" that will make one's dreams come true.  Sometimes you have to just do the right things and then measure one's progress in small steps. Look for small ways to improve. Keep one's eye on the long term. "Putting it in the sun" means giving it time and space to happen. Remember that patience and hard work wins out over instant gratification.

There are are many elements in my life that are pointing me towards this particular lesson right now. Weight loss, for example, isn't something that comes easily, but it is coming steadily over time. As I've noted before, it isn't linear and, in some cases, it isn't even logical. With attention and the right adaptations in behaviours, a few additions to the routine ... it is happening. Similarly, a few runs at circuit training isn't going to give me that killer bod that I have in mind, but it will get me a little bit closer. 

One of the most important "needs" that I was seeking to meet when I moved back to Toronto was to find a sense of community. A sense of belonging, being part of something. I felt pretty depressed, to be honest, for several years after the break-up that led me back here. Disappointed that this sense of belonging that I so very much wanted to have fulfilled was eluding me. Well, guess what? I have it now, sometimes in spades. It took so long to evolve, but it was a matter of joining the right groups, following my instincts, making the right friends, choosing the right "family". I made mistakes along the way, some of them quite dramatic. But now, I'm feeling like I've found "my people" within this chaotic urban environment. I think this sense of having landed really started to be present for me about two years ago. Meaning that it took five years to happen. Not overnight, by any means.

Put it in the sun. Leave it there a while.

By some measures, my business is growing every week. I'm trying to do this organically, to allow myself enough leeway to try things and find out what I enjoy, what energizes me, and what I can leave behind. This takes time and will not happen overnight. I'm doing the right things and getting good responses ... I need to remember to put it in the sun, too.  (Note to self: I've only been truly "self-employed" for 11-12 weeks. Get a grip. Put it in the sun. Leave it there a while.)

I'm taking a similar approach to dating / relationships. Stay open, stay busy, meet people. Have a good time. Don't push it. Put it in the sun. Leave it there a while.

Speaking of which, the sun has just broken through some clouds ... looks like my dog and I need to get back out there in it.

Maybe you should, too. :-)