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The Optimist

A few months ago, when the world descended into the pandemic realm, I believed I could be a beacon of light in the COVID-19 world.

Yes, among the fear and anxiety of shuttered businesses and deaths, I would persevere and remind others and myself that people had lived in dark times before and survived, and in later years, thrived, and at some point, they found joy in life again.  With my last post, which was meant to be part of a series of positive posts in a shadowy dark world, I wanted to be the person who remained optimistic and hopeful.

How quickly I was crushed. My fingers every morning would frantically swipe through news headlines that showed mounting cases that were then followed by rapidly accumulating deaths. Obsessively, every morning, I clicked on the world data and checked each country to see if the infection rate was slowing, hoping each morning, and multiple times in the day that the numbers would descend as quickly as they had accelerated. I wished for a quick death of COVID-19—either through social distancing and self-isolation—or praying that high temperatures might kill it. (Yes, I wanted to believe that theory too, which has since been, from what I’ve read, been debunked by science.)

Here we are months later, and we’ve slowed the spread of it. But nearly every day there are new cases in most countries and the death toll climbs. And the fear, the concern about what could happen, haunts me. So, I’ll wear a mask whenever I go out to the grocery store to protect others as I scramble down aisles to collect the items on my list.  

A simple grocery run, has turned into some epic battle with a mask and hand sanitizer odyssey. Something as simple as dropping an apple on the grocery store floor will allow me to come up with at least three different options on how to correct the problem. With each choice though, my mind will conduct a risk assessment for each decision. Some options include:

Option 1: Place the apple back with the rest of the apples. Then, I’ll realize, no, I can’t do that.  Because there’s a chance that someone may have had COVID-19 stuck to their shoe, stepped right in that exact spot, and now the little Macintosh that I’ll place back on the shelf, may get picked up and taken home by another shopper, and they will get COVID-19 because they missed a spot when they cleaned the apple. The unknown shopper in my horror movie will become sick. And I will be responsible.

Option 2: I can take the red apple with me. Except then there’s a risk of getting COVID-19 on my hands if the apple has the virus on it, and if I touch my steering wheel, and forget to clean my car…. Well, now I have a COVID-19 trail to clean that’s draped on my hands, on doorknobs, and oh god, if I touch my face, I can become an asymptomatic carrier that can kill my closest family members, not to mention, total strangers! Because now I might be the nose-dripping from the cold, one-time allergy sneezing COVID-19 girl who doesn’t know it, and I’ve left nose drips on the sidewalk that got glued to someone’s shoe and an unsuspecting neighbor will carry it into their home. 

Option 3: Leave Mr. Apple on the ground. Of course, that will make me look like a jerk to fellow shoppers and to the sleep-deprived, ten times more stressed out grocery clerks, who have had to deal with customer’s temper tantrums about not having bread flour in the store in eight weeks. (Okay, that was me. However, my poor husband, was the only person who had to deal with me snarling about hoarders. Recently, I found out at least in Canada, it’s not a hoarding problem. Oops, my bad.)

Those are my top three scenarios. If I think about it long enough, I’m sure my brain can come up with other ways how one small, free-spirited piece of fruit, can kill everyone in my neighborhood.     

I promise you, that’s how my mind plays things out.  When the virus came to Canada, I thought that if I did everything right, protected the people I loved, and everyone did the same, we could escape the virus (mostly). I thought it would be eight weeks, COVID-19 would be dead, and we would return to the life we had before.

What I didn’t expect, and didn’t anticipate, was the overwhelming grief I felt when I watched the news that showed the death toll mounting around the world. Every country was impacted, and every day, the number of cases climbed. When a Navy hospital ship arrived in New York to house the influx of patients and a convention center was converted for the same purpose, I was stunned, and my mind went blank. Numbness, consumed me.

In Canada, our long-term care facilities, that houses the most vulnerable in our population, were and continue to be the epicenter with the most casualties.  The absolute failure to protect seniors from COVID-19, and then the negligence in caring for them after they contracted the illness, highlights our systemic ineptness in caring for the elderly. 

It turns out I’m not the ray of sunshine I thought I would be for others. I’m more along the lines of:  If someone falls, I’m falling with them. It’s been a struggle. I have many days when I’m emotional and hopeless. Even as the cases diminish, I’m terrified of a second wave that might be more deadly than the first because everyone’s exhausted from the last three months of stress. And I worry about this, even as we wait to be released from the remaining restrictions that were ordered by the government in mid-March.

I accept I’m weaker than I once believed. At the same time, I’m still hopeful of a future that doesn’t include forbidden hugs, unauthorized shared drinks and meals with family and friends, and a time where I can say, “Hello,” to my neighbor, Jennifer, where I don’t have to stand six feet away from her.

As for those uplifting posts? Sorry, I just can’t do it right now. That’s okay, though. I’ll wait. Someday, maybe even sometime soon, I can write something more uplifting—perhaps, what it was like to take my mother out for dinner again.

The Gift of Empathy

Listen.

Nod.

Listen.

Agree.

Listen.

Make someone a cup of tea.

Listen.

If someone starts crying, it’s okay if you cry, too. It means you care.

Listen.

Put aside everything that’s ever happened to you.

Listen.

Make suggestions. But accept that your suggestions might not be right for them.

Listen.

But whatever you do, please don’t compare.

Listen.

This Is Not Me = Go Pug, Polar Plunging & Paintball Welts (Repost)

Repost from my first blog Pushing Boundaries (slightly edited) that ran from 2016-2017. At the time when I worked on completing the “challenges”, it was stressful and exhausting. Now that several years have passed, I look back at that time fondly. This blog post was written, I believe in July/August 2017, best encapsulates what I learned about myself while I completed Pushing Boundaries.

Good times.

***

This Is Not Me = Go Pug, Polar Plunging & Paintball Welts

If you look to a well-manicured lawn and garden, you will see the calmness of emerald-green grass while appreciating the beauty of flowers that burst with color. Flowers that may include any number of red roses, purple chrysanthemums, pink and red peonies, white or orange lilies, to the far off and most of the time separated—blue hydrangea.

Underneath the grass and around the flowers, you will find the odd weed that grows. To those that are merely passing by, they may not notice. But for the conscious gardener who tirelessly works to keep it flawless, it’s all they see.

I began a blog called Pushing Boundaries in October 2016 with a commitment of spending half the year completing a change. This worked out to roughly four changes per week, and by the end of the blog, I expected to reach 186 changes.

At first, it was invigorating when I woke each day and considered what the next “change” or “challenge” would be. Should I swap my daily earl grey tea for coffee? (Yes, I did it a few times. And overall, I seldom enjoyed the experience.) When Halloween crept up on me in October, I forfeited the old reliable witch/ghost ensemble that I donned throughout my grade-school years and did something completely different: enter the PUG. Did I try the limited-time offered Tuxedo drinks that Starbucks featured at the beginning of this year? Yes. Eat seaweed salad?  (Yes—and NEVER again.) In February when the wind howled, and snow and ice crunched beneath my feet, did I spend one evening painting my nails red in Kingston, ON and the next morning curling my hair to best impersonate a flapper girl from the 1920’s so I could dive into Lake Ontario for the Polar Plunge? (Yes! It was fun. TBD if I will do it again.) Did I climb all 1,776 stairs of the CN Tower? (Yes, and more importantly, I did not die!)  Wear purple nail polish? (Yes.) For me, the list was endless….

I am vanilla: Otherwise, known as Routine Girl. But I don’t enjoy the routine most of the time. I like to believe that I have imagination and inclination to do different things—to live on the wilder side. (Although, perhaps, not that far on the wilder side.) The problem with me is that I become complacent with life; opportunities that are at my fingertips waste away as I fail to commit the time, money, and energy to make them happen even when they cross my mind, sometimes, repeatedly.

Life is challenging with new jobs, financial concerns, and most catastrophically—facing either your own health concerns or the health concerns of those you love. In the past, when I’ve lost someone I loved, I felt as if I were standing alone in a desert waiting for someone to arrive; or, for something magical to happen that would transport me away from it all. In front of me, there was nothing but a sea of endless yellow sand that when it was carried on the wind, it would whip against my face stinging my skin. To me, it felt that impossibly lonely, that empty.

But what I didn’t realize is that if I turned around and looked in any direction, there were cities that surrounded me that bustled with life; friends and family that I could chat with or hang out with, new foods to try, people to meet, and new adventures that awaited me.  All that I needed to do was to turn my head and start moving again in one of those directions.

I lost two people I loved very much in less than three years. Both of them were 42 years old when they passed. In September 2016, I turned 42 years old. I started Pushing Boundaries in October of that same year.

I don’t know if the blog was tied to the number 42. I’ve always had a sense that time was ephemeral: that whatever you planned to do, do it now because there are no guarantees of what tomorrow will bring. For me, Pushing Boundaries may have been my answer to ensure that I didn’t stop living. It forced me to continue to move in some direction.

Living life to the fullest is a cliché. But we keep clichés around and use them sometimes ad nauseam because they are true. Pushing Boundaries has helped me to continue to enjoy all that life has to offer, sometimes reluctantly. It forced me to get outside and try new things: restaurants, food, or to attempt a physical challenge that I’ve never done before such as the Polar Plunge or the CN Tower Climb. The blog forced me to revaluate things that I decided a long time ago I disliked (e.g., coffee), and make an attempt to try them again to see if my taste buds evolved. (Answer: Overall, I still hate coffee. Mostly.)

I open the blog with this:

“Change happens. It can be chaotic, but it helps you expand your mind and shapes the person you will become.”

I stand behind that statement to this day. But the other thing change does: it gives you heart palpitations in both the literal and physical sense.  After a few months, I found myself waking up at 3:00 AM, worrying about what four changes I would be tackling that week. Blonde hair? Wear make-up for 30 days in a row?  Streaking 21 days straight? (Ahem, that’s running 2 KM for 21 days; NOT running naked through the streets for 21 days.)

The stress of coming up with four changes per week was exhausting. Also, I found that some challenges required me to do them longer than one day. Cumulatively, this meant I could already be participating in several changes before adding new ones. For example, at one point, I had blonde hair, was wearing make-up every day, and I was also eating and drinking things that I didn’t want to consume. The blog, Pushing Boundaries, I started to help me become less bound by routine—started to constrain me more tightly.

And I missed my routine. I missed having time to sit and read a book without worrying about how long it would take me; to inhale the aroma of that first cup of tea and enjoy each sip without feeling guilty that I wasn’t trying some other beverage; I missed running when I wanted to run and exercise in general. I missed the routine and the calmness of knowing what was coming next.

A few months ago, I decided to scale back the blog posts. I no longer held to the requirement that I had to complete four changes in one week. In truth, I decided that to try to reach 186 changes in one year was too many.  I needed time to breathe, to savor, do chores, to go to work, and to visit with family and friends without worrying about what my next blog post would be, or when I would write it.

I made another change on Pushing Boundaries. Did I feel bad? Yes. Did I feel like a failure at not meeting the challenge, I built? Absolutely. But I knew I needed to take a step backward, to regroup, and make time to do the more significant challenges that I wanted to do. To be more selective about what I was changing.

At the time I write this, the last “change” I did was paintball. It was a steamy, July 22nd  day when that finally happened a few weeks ago. I went with my hubby and friends, and we received our instructions, pulled the paintball suit up, and yanked down the mask that suffocated us in the scorching heat and sun.

I never played paintball before and was warned that when I got hit by a paintball, bruising might occur.  The very first ball that hit me exploded in a shooting pain through my upper thigh. It was excruciating. So much so that a few days after the event, new bruises appeared where I hadn’t even noticed I got hit. That first direct hit was the one that stayed with me. Despite the pain, I loved paintball. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

I learned some things about myself that day. More importantly, I’ve learned a lot about myself over the last 9 months while writing Pushing Boundaries. I’m not a gardener, never have been, never will be. (I used Google to look up each one of the names of those flowers at the beginning of this post and selected images, so I knew what the flower looked like.)   With my garden, I do what needs to be done so I can step back and say, that’s ok now.  But even I know the grass needs to be cut, flowers need to be planted, and weeds need to be pulled.

I need to tend to relationships, savor meals and drinks, enjoy conversations with family and friends; while also making time for adventure. After all, there are only two months left for Pushing Boundaries—bowling, laser tag, and indoor skydiving still awaits me. My life is this messed up bit of craziness—and I love every piece of it.

Old Hands

Age spots, lines, and scars scattered here and there are etched into my frail nearly one-hundred-year-old hands. What do you see when you look at them? Are they only the fingers you remember from your childhood when I scrapped peanut butter and jam on to bread for your lunch and then shoved you out the door onto rainy or snow-covered sidewalks to shuffle your way to school?

Do you know these hands served other purposes?

As a chubby toddler, I used these same hands to wipe my face when my father came in with red eyes and no tears, to tell my brothers and sisters and I, that mother had died. Tuberculosis had killed her. I was young, too young, to know what that meant. My brothers didn’t cry because that’s the way it was back then. My sisters, on the other hand, howled and sobbed. Father did his best to comfort them as he wrapped his arms around us girls. This moment of grieving was short-lived for my family though; my sisters and I were expected to do Momma’s chores now; Daddy still had to put food on the table, and my brothers had to help with the farm. In that way, our family was a team.

These same fingers were intertwined in John’s hands when we walked along storefront sidewalks in the early moonlit evening. John was my first love. And, he was not your father. John’s hands slid along my clothes and I used my fingers to stroke his arms as we kissed and caressed each other by a small river not far from my house before he took me home. This was away from the prying eyes of father and my brothers because this form of affection was frowned upon back then. As well, my father who was always gentle would not be, if he found out.

When John was killed in the war, my fingers were wrapped tightly around my white handkerchief as I quietly cried in the back pew of St. Anthony’s Catholic Church. I was not considered acceptable by John’s parents; a non-Catholic, poor farmer’s daughter and for that reason, I was not welcome at his service. I went and hid in the back row with a couple of my girlfriends. I needed to say good-bye to the first man I had ever loved.

These hands were my instruments when I was young too and made love for the first time. Sure, you shift uncomfortably in your seat when you hear these words because all you see is an old woman who would never have had such desires. However, I was more than just a mother. You, my son, have never seen that. Or, you’ve always kept your blinders on to it.

But I am not resentful for my role as your mother. I love you. I hope it showed when I placed the back of my hand to your forehead to make sure you didn’t have a fever; or, if you had a fever, the way I gently placed cold cloths to your forehead and read to you until you fell asleep.  Indeed, terrible fear washed over me every time you were sick or injured because I didn’t want to lose another son. When I lost your three-year-old brother, Michael, because of measles it was by far the worst day of my life. (John’s death years earlier, was nothing in comparison.)

There are other things I could tell you about: the time I worked as a nurse at the end of the War and comforted and tended to injured soldiers beside doctors; or the one time I pulled your delinquent childhood classmate James (who skipped school that day and yes, I also knew he bullied you) from the river after he fell in and was almost swept away by the current. But I did not tell you that, or your father. I kept the secret. Terrified, James confessed to me that day he was frequently beaten by his parents and worried about what they would do to him if they found out he had walked too close to the embankment. After that day, you and James became friends, and our house became his refuge.

Did James tell you that before he died in a car accident in his fifties?

You do not know me, my son. But I suspect no one knows another person completely. We are complex and emotional, with things we want to share with others, and other things we don’t. But I wish you would ask me more questions, instead of believing you already know the woman I am.   

Affordable Housing: Why It Matters

I’ve been living in a bubble, and I know it. I’m lucky to have a roof over my head and have not given it a second thought in over a decade. Last year though, my eyes were rudely awakened to the fact that Ottawa is facing an affordable housing crisis when I searched for several months to find my mother an apartment. I was astounded to see that a one-bedroom apartment was expensive at over one thousand dollars per month and only increased from there. To my horror, a bachelor apartment began at nearly nine hundred dollars.

I found my mother an apartment after several months of searching.  Nicely settled, this is where I should no longer care.  Something continued to bother me though about the affordable housing crisis in Ottawa because I already knew both Vancouver and Toronto struggled with the same issue over the last several years. I pondered if the issue wasn’t only in a few cities, or if it had ballooned to a national epidemic. A few months ago, my worries were confirmed, when I read multiple articles in the CBC, The National Post, and in The Toronto Star that outlined multiple Canadian cities grappled to contain the housing shortage and included the small maritime town of Charlottetown, PEI. (https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/charlottetowns-housing-crisis).

I grew up in a family where my parents struggled financially. I know what happens when you live from paycheque to paycheque and “get by”.  A time comes, when you no longer have a paycheque, and there’s nothing in savings.

Then what? 

Then you borrow as much as you can and hope things will get better before you reach your borrowing limit.  Lucky for my family, I never experienced what comes after that. We managed (barely) to keep the roof over our heads, the heat and lights on, and some food in the fridge.

My father told me, you can always find work. I believed it. I also naively, believed, I could never be homeless.

Canada is not the only country attempting to address the affordable housing crisis.  Both the United States and the United Kingdom are attempting to tackle and correct the same issue. (I know about London, because I saw a Tube station sign there last year, stating the Mayor was working to address the issue.)

Recently, we planned a vacation to visit Portland, Oregon. We were aware affordable housing was a problem there too, and they now also tackled a homeless issue. (https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2019/08/38000-in-portland-area-were-homeless-at-some-point-in-2017-study-finds.html )

I wasn’t prepared for what I saw there though. Along the interstate and under bridges, tents were pitched. Garbage littered the side of the highway and included a crumpled umbrella. In the city, we saw discarded socks on the paved sidewalks. In the city of Portland, during the day, homeless people sat on the curbs and stretched out and slept on the streets.

One day when we were on the train, I noticed a woman standing on the side of the road with a sign around her neck that read, “Houseless”. Below the word, was a simple request for a little money, whatever could be spared. The woman never looked up but focused her eyes on the sidewalk. She only raised her head, when a woman in a truck called to her and gave her some money.  The woman smiled at her gratefully and looked a little relieved.

I was mistakenly under the impression, homelessness occurred under particular circumstances such as drug addiction and youth fleeing an abusive home.  These were not excuses to ignore the problem but provided some context in order to explain how a person ended up on the streets. However, the reasons also conveniently and falsely reassured me, I might never be homeless.

If affordable housing continues to be a problem, I now know I could be. Examples of circumstances that may reduce my ability to earn an income include: if I’m unable to find work; if I suffer a serious health illness where I’m unable to work, or not able to work for a long period of time; or, when I’m a senior and need to find a rental apartment on a fixed income. As well, even if it doesn’t affect me directly, there’s a greater possibility it could affect family and friends.

Homelessness isn’t a risk for a small minority of the population if it ever was. There’s a risk it could or already is a national problem.  I know the time has passed where I can protectively fold my arms and say: It can’t happen to me. The point is passed too where I can shrug my shoulders and mumble: Someone else will take care of it. It’s not my problem.

Truth is I know affordable and low-income housing are problems in this city and in this country. Based on a December 2018 article in the CBC, it stated that homelessness in Ottawa had “risen by 21 percent.” (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/shepherds-good-hope-ottawa-homelessness-1.4946896) Somehow, I failed to notice it.

I have lots of reasons to step back on this topic: the politicians are addressing the issue; Canada has a large social system that might be able to manage and take care of those who are close to becoming homeless; and finally, who am I to make suggestions and try to help? I don’t have the experience and should leave it to the experts.

Portland’s changed me though. Now, I know I need to absolutely help if I can. Assuming, it’s not already too late.

Stop. Start. Try Again.

It’s a weaving road, this writing journey.  There are no markers, or signs, that I’m getting close to the end. Instead, I feel like I’m trapped in a forest, I’ve lost my compass (which is double fun for me because I don’t know how to use one!) and I keep passing the same dead tree, over and over again. It’s the only sign, that I’m going nowhere.

I’ve heard of various ways, writers have become successful. There are writers who have had a blog or Twitter feed go viral and from there, they secured a literary agent; some have written an article that got them noticed by those in the publishing word; finally, there are those who wrote a book and it became a Best Seller, either through traditional, or self-publishing.

I’m at a point now, where I’m not certain the method I’ve used in the past, is still working for me. It might be time to find out if there’s a better way to do things. Shall I take a course? Apply for an MFA? (Will they accept me?) Work on building a platform? Attend Writing Conferences? (Full-disclosure, I attended one recently, and it was wonderful just to be around other writers! That alone, might be worth it.) Or, dare I, self-publish my book?

I’m currently, still in a holding pattern, at least for the next few months. But while I’m waiting, I think I’ll learn how to read that compass. At least then, I’ll have a better chance of finding my way out of the forest.

If that doesn’t work for me, I’ll find another way. After all, I know there’s more than one path to success.

Love Rules

It’s not a promise, nor a command.

It’s a feeling that rises within you, that asks you, to take a chance on others.

There’s no scoreboard where I win, you lose.

A “bill me later” card, with a high interest rate, doesn’t exist.

I’m not a banker, where I take far more than I’ve ever been given.

My only wish for you my friend: Be happy, be healthy.

For I know that if you’re alright, it was definitely, worth the fight.

Chains

Knotted chains clink against the freezer that stores leftover meatloaf from last Thursday’s dinner.

Maria’s eyes are wide. She flicks them from right to left, then left to right.

Tugging at the sheets she pulls them up to her chin.

Pressure pinches against her temples.

Sweat gathers on her back.

Heart palpitations begin.

One second later.

She falls….

over.