Category Archives: Deep Thoughts

Introspective

There’s a whole bunch of stuff going on inside me and it’s hard to sort it all out. As many of my readers know, Emru has been in palliative care for several days now and things are coming to an end. The stem cell transplant was successful, but his cancer has not gone into remission. Most of the time I’m handling a classic set of grief-related responses: I’m angry; I’m scared; I’m reminded of my own mortality and of that of everyone around me; I’m reminded of how random death and disease really is; and perhaps most of all, I’m drowning in empathy for Emru, Emru’s sister, his parents, his wife and son, his extended family, and his closest friends.

HRH and I stayed at the dinner table after we ate the other night and did some serious drinking and talking about past experiences with death. HRH has mainly dealt with deaths of older family members, while I’ve dealt with the sudden death of a close friend at the beginning of university as well as relatives and parents of friends. We talked about what is worse, losing someone immediately and having to deal with the shock and pain of not being able to say goodbye, or watching someone die slowly over a long period of time and having to deal with that long-term pain but being able to tell them what they mean to you. There’s no correct answer, of course. Actually, there is, but it’s an implied answer: Tell the people you admire, honour, and/or love on a regular basis how much they mean to you, and then you won’t have to regret a lost chance.

That session with HRH at the dinner table did help me realize something important, though. All my friends are above-average people, so when they are taken from us of course it seems extra unfair. Of course it seems as if the best of the best are being taken away, and we feel even more pain for the best of the best who are left behind and those who have to deal with the immediate loss. Emru isn’t a close friend, but we work in related writing and editing fields and have interests in common, so we cross paths frequently enough. He’s pointed me in the direction of a couple of job posting lists that netted me a contract or two; he deftly touched up an article of mine and made it stronger. I’ve always respected his opinions and his work, enjoyed seeing him at movie premieres or when he visited us at the F/SF bookshop to discuss animation, and was honoured when he invited me on board the contributing staff of the revived fps magazine. Many of my friends are his close friends, however, and I count his sister among my own set of close friends.

Anyway, all the empathy and frustration at the injustice of it all has been playing havoc with my equanimity. Most of the time I feel frustrated at being useless in this situation. And there are other private things going on that are big-ish and messing with me, too. Plus it’s no-light/no-love/no-hope/November, eternally grey and inconstant in temperature. I have no energy, and food holds no attraction. I restored my higher dose of fibro meds last night to help me sleep. (Yes, my doctor okayed it.) The main goal is just getting through the day. The secondary goal is to keep writing, because if I stop at this time of year it’s very, very difficult to get going again. Associated with that secondary goal is the handing work in on deadline. Other things are constantly being shuffled to the next day’s to-do list, and I’m not beating myself up about it. People will understand. And if they don’t, well then, I refuse to beat myself up about that either.

The logical part of me (taste that irony!) is pointing out that the SAD season is beginning, and on top of that it’s the traditionally dead or absent part of the spiritual year when the energy slows almost to a standstill, turning in on itself in to lie fallow and rebuild strength. Come Yule I know things will pick up. But solstice is six weeks away, and the pain is happening now.

Lest We Forget

I honour the men and women who volunteer or whose job it is to go out and risk their lives in confrontations beyond what most of us can envision. I honour their commitment and courage. I honour our peacekeepers too, the people who go to other countries to help rebuild after times of turmoil. And support staff — doctors, drivers, cooks, all those people who are necessary to the machine of war and who rarely get recognition for being in danger as well. And those left at home, who carry the double burden of hope and dread for their loved ones.

There has to be a better way to solve problems than going to war. But even when someone figures it out, I’ll keep on saying thank you to all those individuals who gave lives, limbs, time, and innocence to the wars. I honour and respect their personal decisions, even if I disagree with the governmental decisions that created the need for them.

Ups And Downs

I’ve dropped the boy off, gone to the bank (as usual, misjudging the amount I needed to withdraw so I have to go back again), done groceries, picked up ribbon, picked up dark transfer paper for HRH’s t-shirt, had brunch, and have just returned from a drive to Ahuntsic. That was certainly an adventure. Why GoogleMaps didn’t just tell me to go up the 15 to Henri-Bourassa, the street I needed to be on, I do not know. Instead I went all over the place in crazy circles and turns to get to L’Acadie. (Turns out there’s an exit for L’Acadie on the 15 too. Good grief.) Also, the Met is one of my least favourite highways to travel.

Anyway, in Ahuntsic I viewed and purchased a lovely light hard cello case. It is brown! With a grey interior! And it has backpack straps and good handles and a huge pocket for sheet music! I’m thrilled. It’s only about eight pounds, and since other hard cases boast about being light at 12 or 13 lbs, I’m feeling pretty smug. Don’t know the maker; there’s no identifying tag. The one drawback is that it doesn’t fit in the trunk. But it does fit across the back seat if I raise the armrests on the boy’s booster seat, so huzzah!

Yes, I’m pretty set case-wise forever now. Unless something happens to this hard case like happened to my first one, namely something punching a hole in the bottom while it was being shipped by train to Toronto.

I received what could very well be in the top ten worst pieces of news to receive this morning while dropping the boy off at the caregiver’s: Emru’s not doing well at all. I didn’t know this because I hadn’t been on-line since yesterday afternoon, and the news hit me like a physical blow. I had to surreptitiously reach out to brace myself against the door because everything started to go wobbly. I held it together for about half an hour, then found myself dissolving into tears in the cereal aisle of the grocery store. About two weeks ago it was the eighteenth anniversary of the unexpected death of one of my best friends, so this isn’t a great time of year for me to begin with. And like that friend, Emru’s classified as one of the best among us, and while I wouldn’t wish leukaemia on anyone it seems beyond unfair that it should take threaten to take someone as all-round good a person as Emru is. I cannot begin to imagine how his family must feel.

So. On top of all the racing around and emotional stuff going on today, I’m having what I used to call a flopsy day, which I now understand is a bad fibro day: muscles lacking strength to handle fine motor stuff and even some of the mid-range motor stuff. I can’t speak French to save my life today; my tongue and my lips won’t form the proper shapes required. I can’t hold a pencil or write properly, either. I’m mildly concerned about my lesson, but I’ll let my teacher know the situation. Looking back I see that this began yesterday, which partially explains the awful, awful showing I made of a stupidly easy passage in a Brahms Hungarian dance last night (when, naturally, the celli were playing alone to work the passage). On the plus side, my bow hold was more like the new one and less like the old one, and evidently I was bowing in some sort of proper form because the large muscles on the right side of my back were sore when I got home (the soreness was not the good part, the good part was that to get them sore I had been using them, which I was supposed to be doing).

Food now, then packing for the lesson, then resting a bit, then to the lesson I go. I’m worried about getting from the lesson, which ends at five in Pointe-Claire, to the caregiver’s, which is in Montreal West. Traffic is going to be awful. If this doesn’t work I’ll need to find another time slot, and finding this one was hard enough what with having the car and no small person to care for only once a week.

Right. Let’s get on that, then.

A Call For Pledges

Gentle readers, my courageous friend Mousme is participating in this year’s Shave to Save campaign. I try to support my friends in whatever fundraising efforts they undertake when I can. Shave to Save is the annual fundraiser hosted by the local radio station Mix96, held to raise money for the Quebec Breast Cancer Foundation and awareness for National Breast Cancer Awareness month. If the participant raises $2000 or more, the studio travels to their workplace with a stylist who shaves the participant’s head. The audio of the event is recorded for broadcast on a subsequent show of the announcer who accompanies the stylist. Our equally courageous friend Robyn did this two years ago, live in the studio!

Mousme is aiming for the $2000, and has set up a PayPal donation account for that purpose. Please consider pledging any amount; every cent helps a cause like this.

I would like to point out that Mousme has lovely long silky hair. Apparently it can be donated to one of the several wig-making organizations if the hair hasn’t been chemically treated. That’s not the point, though: Mousme is sacrificing well over a foot of hair for this. Let’s make it worth her while by showering her with sponsorship.

ETA: Mousme has posted a most excellent and informative collection of stats and good reasons to pledge. Here’s the gist of it:

Dear friends, family, and colleagues,

Every year, thousands of people have their lives affected by breast cancer. It is one of the leading causes of death in women. Every one of us knows someone who has had breast cancer, or who has been directly affected by this disease that claims so many. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month in Canada, a time to raise awareness and work even harder to beat this disease.

According to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation:

– in 2008, an estimated 22,400 women in Canada will be diagnosed with breast cancer. On average, that is about 431 women diagnosed every week;
– in 2008, an estimated 170 men in Canada will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Men with breast cancer make up a little less than 1% of all cases.
– in 2008, an estimated 5,300 women and 50 men will die from breast cancer in Canada;
– one in nine (11%) Canadian women is expected to develop breast cancer during her lifetime (this means by age 90).
– only one in every 28 Canadian women will die from breast cancer. This means that about two-thirds of the women diagnosed with breast cancer in Canada will live through it.

This disease is curable, with the right tools. Early diagnosis is key to a good prognosis, and the only way for that to happen is for people to be aware and educated on the subject.

In spite of all the progress that has been made in treating breast cancer, there is still a lot of work to be done. With your help, we can make this disease a thing of the past.

This year, I will be participating in the Shave To Save Challenge that is run by a local Montreal radio station, Mix 96. I will be raising $2,000 for the Québec Breast Cancer Foundation, at which time I will have my head shaved as a gesture of solidarity for all the women who have no choice about what happens to their hair when they undergo treatments.

Please take the time either to donate to this cause, or to spread the word to your own colleagues, friends and family. The more people donate, the easier it will be for me to reach my goal of $2,000 by October 31st, 2008.

For more information on Breast Cancer, please visit the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation website.

Thank you for your support.

A meter indicating the current level of Mousme’s pledges plus a donation button for your own pledge can be found here.

(If you have no clue who I’m talking about, this might help: Mousme is Random Colour’s drummer!)

Heal

Today Emru Townsend is having the bone marrow transplant he desperately needs. Emru was diagnosed with leukemia and a condition called monosomy 7 about nine months ago. Since then he has received over 48 blood transfusions, has taken countless medications to control various aspects of the leukemia (and the side-effects of those medications), and has been in and out of the hospital with colds and other things we’d consider minor, but with his immune system compromised they become very dangerous to him.

There is NO GUARANTEE his body will accept this transplant. Like other transplants, there is the danger of the host rejecting the transplant, the transplant not taking, and the ever-present danger of infection.

From the very start Emru and his sister Tamu have turned this situation into a drive to raise awareness and teach people about bone marrow transplants and encourage people to list themselves on their country’s bone marrow registry. Cultural minorities in North America (and indeed, worldwide) are particularly under-represented on these registries, a fact that the Townsend siblings have targeted as their main focus.

Emru is only one of millions of people who needs bone marrow transplants to deal with a variety of illnesses and conditions. The most important issue at the moment is that we continue to educate, myth-bust, and spread information about the importance of adding your name to the bone marrow registry of your country. Emru is only one man; there are thousands and thousands of people out there who still need a bone marrow transplant to save their lives. Keep the HealEmru.com link circulating; keep mentioning it to everyone you meet. The majority of racial groups are still under-represented, and that’s not going to change overnight.

Emru’s been blogging his journey and treatment, and it makes for sober but enlightening reading. I am proud of all my friends for a variety of reasons, but Emru and Tamu Townsend are stars. They have tirelessly worked for this cause and given so much of themselves. The campaign may be called Heal Emru, but Emru’s name stands for every single individual who is struggling with an illness and needs a donor for stem cells, bone marrow, or peripheral cell transplant.

The HEal Emru FAQs answer some of the common questions people have about bone marrow donation.
The Heal Emru site lists contact information for registries around the world.

Prayer and good thoughts while Emru has his surgery today are good things (likewise during the recovery period while the transplant settles). Apart from this, the easiest thing you can do is walk up to someone and say, “Hey, have you heard about your country’s bone marrow registry?”

Are you a match? Find out how you can help save Emru’s life: http://www.healemru.com

Got Facebook? Please join Help Emru Find a Bone Marrow Donor and if you learn something new, invite your friends.
Got Livejournal, WordPress or Blogger? Blog it!
Got Youtube? Subscribe to www.youtube.com/healemru
Just find someone you care about and tell them.

Contact info:

Hema Quebec http://www.hema-quebec.qc.ca
Canada Blood Services (Canada, except Quebec) http://onematch.ca/registry
National Marrow Donor Program (US) http://www.marrow.org

A Farewell

Well, this is it; the last day of a somewhat sane CBC Radio 2.

This past spring, CBC announced a major overhaul of Radio 2 in an effort to find more listeners. They’re broadening their musical scope to include, well, pretty much everything. Radio 2 was developed as a classical music station. Over the past few years they’ve slowly been whittling away at that, adding jazz, fusion shows, a little bit of this, a little bit of that… essentially music in which I have zero interest. Each time I’ve dropped another show I once enjoyed. Gone was Danielle Charbonneau’s lovely, relaxing program Music for Awhile between dinner and eight; gone were the live classical concert recordings of Symphony Hall at eight o’clock that I’d listen to at home before bed or on the way to orchestra. I turn the radio off at six now, because I find Tonic harsh and discordant and it drives me up the wall (although I like Katie Malloch, go figure). I find that I often flip the dial to the CJPX 99.5, the local French all-classical station, although I miss a host’s presence identifying the music and it doesn’t keep a reference list of what played when on its web site. (Although having just visited the site to start an Internet stream, I see that they now have a date/time search function. That’s good.)

I’m grieving for the loss of Tom Allen’s weekday morning show, Music & Company, in particular. Of all the daily hosts, I find he’s the most in tune with my sense of humour, my musical tastes, and my mood at the time. He’s going to be the new morning show host, although the content is going to be very different, and I’m trying to find solace in his continued presence. I’m going to give it the good old college try, but I suspect it’s not going to be what I need in the morning.

I’ve written of my displeasure to CBC and groused about it here and to people in person, but I’m feeling frustrated and useless at a move I sense will lose more listeners than gain new ones. It’s unfocused, a patchwork of scattered musical style, and although they claim they’re maintaining a commitment to classical music the only show with classical as its base is scheduled between 10 and 3, when many people are at work or school and can’t access a radio. I’ll be the first person to stand up and say that the definition of ‘culture’ is not limited to classical music, but in many places across Canada there isn’t an alternative to the classical content found on CBC R2 up till today. I’m not the only frustrated listener, either. Stand On Guard is a website devoted to proving to the CBC that there is a substantial percentage of listeners who do want classical music to remain as the focus of CBC R2. They’re also fighting to restore the CBC Radio Orchestra, the last surviving radio orchestra in North America, which was axed this past spring as well.

I’m listening to Tom Allen’s final minutes as host of Music & Company, and I feel as if saying goodbye to it is like a microcosm of my commitment to Radio 2. Goodbye Studio Sparks; goodbye Disc Drive. Thanks for being the soundtrack to my life for thirty years, Radio 2. I’ve discovered many new artists and composers through you. You’ve been with me through two university degrees, my marriage, my retail and freelance careers, the writing of five books for publication and countless not yet published novels and short stories, and motherhood. You inspired me as a musician. I’m going to miss you very, very much. I will be open-minded and give the new programming a try next week, but I sense I won’t be tuning for long; it’s just not the kind of music I want to be listening to. I’ve sent personal farewells to some of the hosts, and left notes on CBC blogs as well. These people deserve to know what they’ve added to my life.

Now I’m thoroughly depressed. This probably calls for some Invisible. ‘Holiday in Cambodia’, perhaps, or the PPK medley.

Not Dead…

… just completely and totally exhausted. HRH is fighting a bad cold, the boy is taking up every bit of energy I’ve got, and I have that restless-but-hermity thing going on. I’ve lost all interest in food and eating.

The rest of the birthday weekend was lovely. The picnic was enjoyable (despite the somewhat uncomfortable experience of the sad attention-starved little girl who insinuated herself into our group because her very-not-sober father was passed out under a tree) and it was good to see people just sitting flaking out in the shade, listening to the kids playing on the playground equipment, munching fruit and bread and cheese and such. Dinner with HRH’s parents on Sunday was also lovely. Thanks go out to everyone who came by or sent their regrets and best wishes, and for all the thoughtful gifts I received (organic nibblies! gift card for the bookstore! a very generous contribution to the 7/8 fund!).

My office feels much bigger with only one cello in it. I tried playing my 4/4 the other day and, as I was afraid, it feels clunky to me now. I so didn’t want this to happen.

I’m currently slogging through a freelance MS evaluation. I know what’s wrong with it, but I’m having a hard time putting it into words (saying ‘overwritten’ isn’t precise enough, alas). Also, what’s wrong with it is making it very difficult to read and get past the wrong to the story, which is, as far as I can tell, a good one.

The boy and I went to a bookstore today (gift certificate, yay!) and I picked up a book thinking it was one kind of thing, and started reading it to discover that it’s something very different. I wish I hadn’t bought it. I’m considering taking it back and exchanging it, except providing the reason of ‘I thought it was something else’ when I’ve read the cover copy thoroughly and flipped through it in the store is really, really lame. Still, a thirty dollar book I’m not going to read is a thirty dollar object taking up room on my shelf that’s needed for other books. This is what comes of (a) having a lousy mental focus (thank you and no love, fibro fog) and (b) shopping with a three year old who is clamoring to get to the train table. I am, however, really looking forward to the other book I picked up (A Romance on Three Legs by Katie Hafner).

Because we went to the Big Bookstore (With The Trains), as the boy calls it, we were obliged to visit the Big Animal Store in the same strip. I was partially looking forward to seeing the little Senegal parrot who stole my heart two weeks ago and partially dreading it, because I didn’t know if I could stand to have my heart broken again. I was both disappointed and relieved to see that it was gone. I hope it went to a good home.

We also stopped at the library to pick up a book I’d put a hold on which had come in: Wit’s End by Karen Fowler. I am very set for reading material. For the next two days, at the very least; I seem to be inhaling books these days. I suspect it has something to do with my need to turn off my brain to some extent, and the need to absorb someone else’s words. I also feel like I’m accomplishing something when I finish a book, which is something I sorely need when I’m down to functioning on inadequate energy.

So I’m muddling around, trying to keep up with the basic things that need doing, and feeling very flat about it all. And when I feel flat and inadequate I get irritated, and I’m very afraid I’ll fall back into the ‘going to bed mad because I didn’t do anything of worth during the day and waking up irritated the next morning’ thing, a rather destructive cycle in which I was mired five or sixish years ago. I think I need to get writing and creating again, which is a challenge because when the boy’s with the caregiver I’m working on freelance stuff for more immediate (and concrete) money (as opposed to working on something uncontracted which may or may not ever sell for theoretical money in the future).

I missed the boy’s thirty-seven month post on the 11th and I can’t see it being written any time soon, if at all. I also missed marking the three-years-at-home-as-a-family anniversary on the 13th as well. I’m so damn tired.

But I do have a shiny red and white bike on the back porch. Someday I may even put air in the tires and ride it. When the next chunk of money comes in we’ll buy the trailer so the boy and I can go for rides together.

There you have it. I’m exhausted and uncommunicative. The end.