Owls' Court

Small Community = Lots Of Friends

The most incredible thing just happened to us.

Someone from the Pagan community showed up on our doorstep with over two hunded and fifty dollars worth of food and household supplies for our family, collected during a Harvest food drive.

We were completely and totally overwhelmed. Yes, things have been hard lately. Yes, HRH has been laid off yet again. Yes, things went a little haywire this summer with the baby pre-empting our carefully planned budget and schedule, and we've never gotten back on track. Yes, things have been especially challenging in the past two weeks, and life's been wearing us down.

We've never thought of ourselves as in need, though. In fact, when a recent announcement was made on a local Pagan e-list about a new permanent box for food donations in the community centre, I thought to myself, I must root something out to bring in next time I'm downtown. We always think of ourselves as being better off than most people. We have food (even if it hasn't been overly abundant lately), and we have shelter, and while money's been very tight, we usually think of ourselves as okay in that department as well.

This gesture, however, made it clear that those around us care about us, even if we're not as poorly off as many, many other folks. Times are hard, and we're under a lot of stress. These people heard about it, and decided to do something for us. "These things get around," said the lovely and generous lady who spearheaded the effort.

And their gesture has taken a load of stress off our shoulders. We have food for weeks. There's even formula for Liam, should it be necessary. They even bought cat food. Now we don't have to worry about when groceries will get done, and where the money will come from. It's such a relief. We never would have asked for this, but now that it's been done for us, we can see how much it's helped our situation.

(Note to aspiring authors: Writing books does not make you money. Just thought you should know.)

And what can we do in return, except to say thank you?

Actually, there's a lot we can do, and we do it already. We watch out for others. We feed them when they're hungry. We give people lifts. We sit down and listen when people need a friendly ear. We're there for them in crisis situations.

What you do comes back to you. And judging from what's come to us today, we are very caring people in our own right. And when we're on our feet once again, we'll be able to pass the gesture on to someone else in need.

So let this stand as proof that the Montreal Pagan community isn't as apathetic as it seems. There are people within it who when they see a need, quietly act to answer it.

To each and every person who was somehow connected with this, whether you read this journal or not: Whether you provided information, or donated a tin of food or fresh fruit or frozen meat, or added a few children's books and clothes to the pile, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. May the gods bless you tenfold in return for the thoughtfulness and kindness you have shown us today. You have touched us deeply, and we are profoundly grateful.

Desert

We had a coven meeting today, and had our first ritual here in the new house. The summer just isn't an ideal coven time; I think we may institute an official sabbatical during July and August, because vacations and weekend trips and such just end up getting in the way of any sort of scheduled activity. Of course, this summer has been unusual in that we moved and had a baby, which ate up May through July. One imagines all summers will not be like this.

One of our coveners wrote a self-celebration ritual designed to encourage personal pride when she was a dedicant, and it was such a success last year when we did it that the coven decided to make it an annual ritual around the full moon every August. Today was the second time we did this ritual. Part of the ritual entails making a list of ten things you're proud of -- achievements, talents, skills, anything goes. To my complete surprise, I found that list incredibly difficult to make, unlike last year.

But your first book was published this year! the other coven members said. You wrote two more in the last seven months! You had a baby! You're a great teacher! You're a fantastic author of both fiction and non-fiction!

But I don't feel any of that. None of those were accomplishments that I felt belonged on my list of things for which to pat myself on the back.

Working through this block during the ritual showed me a couple of things. First of all, it showed me that I've become so numb to my day to day life that I've forgotten how to appreciate my own talent. Second, it very bluntly illustrated to me that pulling off a miracle a day breeds familiarity and contempt for those miracles. I didn't feel that any of those things were special. I didn't feel that I was special.

Now I look at the list I finally created and think, heck, yeah! I should be proud of all that! But during the exercise itself I felt so listless and dull that nothing seemed to deserve celebration. Writing well? Not me. Not that I can remember. In fact, in my recent experience my writing ability has downright offended me with its poor product. And as for the other items the coven listed for me, it didn't make sense to celebrate things that were commonplace. One might as well put I got out of bed today on the list. (Although one of my coveners pointed out, and quite correctly, that on some days getting out of bed is indeed an accomplishment.) These things aren't remarkable to me any more. I just do them. And that's probably not healthy. If I'm taking myself and my accomplishments and talents for granted, what does that indicate about how everyone else should take them? Now, I know that it's been a really challenging year so far. I've risen to every occasion. I'm tired, and I'm burnt out. But to not be able to marvel at the fact that I have accomplished or can accomplish any of those things is kind of sad.

Overall, I feel kind of dry. Life should be dripping with sweet and flavourful juices. My joy in writing, my excitement at learning new things as I research, the pleasure I usually take in practicing my religion -- everything seems to be in the midst of a drought. HRH and I didn't get to go on our annual spiritual retreat this year like we usually do in August, and this year of all years it would have done us a heap of good. Both of us are feeling rather drained and in a spiritual dry patch. There's been some major changes in how our tradition is being structured, and while it doesn't really change much because we've kind of been running our coven in what's become the new official way all along, it's had a significant impact on how we consider ourselves in the greater scheme of things. Today's meeting and ritual reminded us of how much we enjoy energy work together. I'd like to see us do more ritual than we've been doing. Everyone's been having a slightly odd year. If we can regain momentum, I think we'll all be happier. We're meeting again next Sunday, instead of the Sunday afterwards as we usually do, so that will help.

Liam has developed this odd little quirk where he refuses to sleep during the day. He fights sleep with all his might, ends up overtiring himself with crying and screaming because he's tired, and if he finaly loses the fight and drowses, it's only for five or ten minutes before he jerks himself awake and starts to cry again. He's up from approximately six in the morning till about seven-thirty at night. It wouldn't be so bad if he was good company while he was awake, but he's cranky because -- of course -- he's tired.

So because he wasn't asleep, Liam joined us in ritual today. And he was good for most of it, too. We made a list of accomplishments for Liam, and congratulated him accordingly. I dated it, and it will go in his scrapbook as Liam's First Ritual. While in circle, he watched things that we couldn't see, like the cats do. And I'm incredibly proud of all my coveners for holding their grounding and handling energy smoothly even when he got worked up at the end and screamed through the dismissals.

I was scheduled to go to another ritual directly after our coven meeting was originally to end. However, because of the blocks we encountered in the ritual itself, and because of Liam's state, the coven meeting ran late, and the second ritual was scheduled to begin around the time our coveners left. There was simply no way I could fit it in with feeding the baby, comforting the baby, and the unscheduled nap I took along with Liam as he finally fell asleep after being fed. I tried to contact the ritual leader, but no luck. Ah well; I figure that by now people ought to know that a baby makes my life completely unpredictable.

It strikes me as ironic that the article I wrote focuses on moving past the "have-to" feeling of dealing with a mundane action like eating, and focusing on the spiritual enrichment one can derive from that action instead. It would appear that my entire daily life has turned into a "have-to" instead of something of beauty. I do all these apparently incredible things because I have to. It would seem that I've lost the trick of being nourished by them in any way, however: no joy, no comfort, no relaxation, no spiritual enrichment. And I'm not quite sure when it happened, or how to reverse the process.

According to my article, of course, one simply has to perform one's daily activities with awareness. It's what one does with what one learns through performing those actions with awareness that's the unique challenge for each and every person. And evidently how I process that information has changed. Now I have to figure out how to make it all flow smoothly again, and how to inject the life-blood back into my life. I have to learn how to learn again. And perhaps how to live with awareness again, instead of just doing it.

Dear Friends:

I love you all. I really, really do. I appreciate all the support and encouragement you've been throwing my way over the past eight weeks. I appreciate that you're all trying to make me feel better, and treat me to a night/day/afternoon off.

However.

Please, please, please stop calling/e-mailing/sending smoke signals to arrange a social event. I don't have the time. I'm booked up to my eyelashes in work and classes and appointments already. Once the manuscript is sent in next week, I'm going to need some serious down time, and for me down time means time spent utterly alone. Pure solitude. Not having to deal with people, however pleasant they may be, however enjoyable the outing they propose, however much I love them.

It's not personal. Well, yes it is: personal in the sense that this is how I work, this is how I've always worked, and it's not going to suddenly change. It has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with me, as the saying goes, and turning down your offers of going out or spending time together is no reflection of how I feel about you. It's a sheer sanity-preservation technique. Social events (and that can include a quiet one-on-one over tea in your living room) are and have always been a stress for me. (Yes, marvel yet again at the psyche that can handle being onstage singing solo in front of 500 people, but can find a cup of tea with a friend challenging.) And right now (especially right now, as I'm in the last few days before deadline) and over the next couple of weeks, I will need space and solitude and time to not think about where I have to be or what's next on the schedule.

If you want to book me or us for something, I ask a favour: please don't bring it up until the end of March. Even people tossing out the general "we'd love to get together with you soon" is a stress-inducer at the moment. It feels like you're all lining up at the gate to burst out waving cups of tea, movie tickets, home-cooked meals, and pints of cider at me as soon as it lifts. It's rather intimidating.

All I need is space, dear readers. I know you love me, and I appreciate it deeply. I love you, too. I simply need time off.

The Not-Resolution Post

I think New Year's resoultions are pointless. If you have to tie something to a new calendar, then chances are pretty good that it won't last long. I've never been a fan of them, mainly because if I find something in my life that needs improvement, I work on it then; I don't put it off. Observation has also yielded the conclusion that very few New Year's resolutions are kept by anyone, so why does anyone bother?

I re-evaluate my choices and decisions at least four times a year, but that's encoded into the spiritual path I follow. Seeds, growth, harvest, and reflection are natural parts of the life cycle, and each part of that cycle offers a unique view of how life's going for you. My time of introspection comes in the late fall, after harvest, when the earth wraps itself in a shroud and the light fades from the world.

Luanna gave me a tiny little gift book entitled Goddess Within along with the Tin of Evil Christmas Goodies, and in it I found a quote which sums up the conclusion I've come to during this time of introspection, rebirth, and new light.

I don't waste time thinking, "Am I doing it right?"
I ask, "Am I doing it?"

I second-guess myself so much and worry about how I'm doing things that I often forget that the point is to experience life, not to grade yourself on it. Did it get done? Did you enjoy it? If not, why? And why hit yourself over the head about it if you didn't? And especially, why beat yourself up if you did it, and did it well?

It's not a resolution; it's a realisation. This has been a phenomenal year for me. The next calendar year looks like it's going to be an even bigger one for a variety of reasons. Understanding that I'm worth it all means so much. And allowing myself to just do things without criticism, without self-castigation, and without judgement is a beautiful part of it.

Stealing Words

You all know how I feel about plagiarism. But where do you draw the line? How can you steal words that millions of people use every day? What's the likelihood of someone else coming up with the exact same sentence in a similar context, or the same sequence of notes?

Malcolm Gladwell has written an interesting article called "Something Borrowed" now online at the New Yorker. It's about a playwright who read a feature article he wrote about a psychiatrist who had just published her memoirs, and used it as a basis for a character in a play that went on to make a splash on Broadway. The problems start when the psychiatrist goes to see the play, and nearly has a creative coronary because her words and her life are played out in front of her. She obtains a copy of the play for closer examination.

“The whole thing was right there,” Lewis went on. “I was sitting at home reading the play, and I realized that it was I. I felt robbed and violated in some peculiar way. It was as if someone had stolen—I don’t believe in the soul, but, if there was such a thing, it was as if someone had stolen my essence.”

When the author of the original article contacts the playwright, he discovers that she has indeed acknowledged the huge debt that she owes to other sources upon whom she based characters, but not the original article which introduced the inspiration for the character of the doctor.

So why didn’t she credit me and Lewis? How could she have been so meticulous about accuracy but not about attribution? Lavery didn’t have an answer. “I thought it was O.K. to use it,” she said with an embarrassed shrug. “It never occurred to me to ask you. I thought it was news.”

The issue of enforcing originality is a big one right now, and it's hardly new. The real issue isn't the fact that we feel the need to protect our creations, however;

[t]he arguments [...] with the hard-core proponents of intellectual property are almost all arguments about where and when the line should be drawn between the right to copy and the right to protection from copying, not whether a line should be drawn.

We all want to protect our work. How far can we go to ensure that no one ever uses the same combination of words? That no one can ever say "what if?" and write a story or a song about the same situation, examining the same themes? And is it morally acceptable? Is it right to tell those around us, both now and in the future, that they can never use those words or those notes in that sequence again?

Under copyright law, what matters is not that you copied someone else’s work. What matters is what you copied, and how much you copied. Intellectual-property doctrine isn’t a straightforward application of the ethical principle “Thou shalt not steal.” At its core is the notion that there are certain situations where you can steal.

Steal, or share? Can we copyright ideas, or thoughts?

It's a thought-provoking article. Read it, and see what you think.

In Flanders Fields

Perhaps I should have made clear that 25K is all I care about in the novel-writing part of my life. There's a bunch of other stuff I care about right now, like how much I have to practice the second movement of the Stamitz double clarinet concerto, and dinner out tonight with my mum and her two sisters (yea, verily, all in one city -- tremble, Montreal), and the fact that it's Remembrance Day (Veteran's Day, for all you people south of the border, or what once was known as Armistice Day).

While I have, in the past, gone out to stand in Place du Canada downtown for the city ceremony of remembrance, I've been having bad headaches lately which come out of nowhere, and I think it best if I stay home and do my own thing today. I usually do a ritual to commemorate those who gave their lives to defend the way of life which we still enjoy today, and to honour their dedication to a cause in which they believed. And I listen to the radio coverage of the ceremonies at the Tomb of the Unknown Solider in Ottawa, and do my minute of silence. I've been wearing my poppy since the day after Halloween, and not just because I love poppies. Every year I see fewer people wearing them; every year more people let it slide. Part of this, I understand, is that as those who sell the poppies to raise funds for the veterans -- the veterans themselves -- are dying. Each year, there are fewer and fewer people to stand in markets, malls, and on street corners, asking for a donation of a couple of coins in return for a small red velveteen flower to be pinned to your lapel to remind those around you of those who served. Next year, if you're looking for some volunteer civic work, why not call your local legion and ask if you can donate a day to selling poppies in your neighbourhood?

Why is it important to not let it slide?

Every November 11th, Canadians across the country pause in a silent moment of remembrance for the men and women who served our country during wartime. We honour those who fought for Canada - in the First World War (1914-1918), the Second World War (1939-1945) and the Korean War (1950-1953). More than 1,500,000 Canadians served overseas - more than 100,000 died. They gave their lives and their future so that we may live in peace. (Veteran Affairs, Canada)

It's not pro-war; it's simple courtesy. It's an acknowledgement of history. And it's a thank-you for believing in something so strongly that they chose to leave friends and family to go overseas, to fight for something they thought was right.

Anyone seen the new Heritage Canada commercial depicting John McCrae scribbling words in his tattered notebook, standing in the dark between the makeshift crosses, the muddy and bloody men on stretchers, and the medical tent? That's Colm Feore. I love Colm Feore. And he portrays John McCrae very well.

But the point here is the imagined setting, and the moment of inspiration, for the creation of this classic poem recited by every Canadian schoolchild on this day.

We strive to not "break faith" by wearing those small red flowers in early November. We remember them. We hold their sacrifice in highest honour. They, among others, made our country what it is.

White Night

Bad night last night. Bad, bad, bad. Every little error in the manuscript became magnified and I was convinced of my ineptitude, that I had no right to be writing at all, let alone teaching. Things are always worse when you're in that odd state somewhere between place between awake logical thought and blissful sleep, that state of not-quite-asleep-nightmare-place. There, you have no control over what you're thinking or feeling, and I sometimes feel like I've been strapped to a plane whose engines have been shot out and we're enacting the original crash and burn sequence, my eyes wide open watching the ground get closer and closer, smoke from the fire stinging my eyes, with absolutely no way of stopping the disaster.

It's worse when you're alone. Earlier this summer I learned the value of having HRH wake up and say, "What's wrong?" Often I can't articulate what's causing the night terrors, but having him awake with me helps simply because I don't feel so alone. Night terrors are irrational; that's the key. The logical mind can say things such as, "You are a perfectly balanced, intelligent human being with friends who enjoy your company, and with people who recognise and employ your considerable talents," but the irrational mind can't shake the tidal wave of emotion crowned by that feeling of utter worthlessness, the feeling that you've let everyone down somehow, the feeling that you've been lying to the world not just in the matter of whatever triggered the terrors, but in every aspect of your life.

Allow me to reiterate: None of this is true. I know that. The point of night terrors is that they're irrational. And night terrors always seem so lame in the daylight when I look back on them and feel slightly ashamed; at the time, however, you just have to ride them out. And it was good to have HRH there to hold me as I wept, and to have him say, "I wish you weren't so hard on yourself. I wish you didn't beat yourself up like this." Night terrors require a rock to serve as some sort of anchor for the battered and wave-swept soul, and HRH was a wonderfully sturdy chunk of Precambrian Shield. And once I was wrung out, he brought me water and aspirin, then cuddled me until I finally fell asleep around two-thirty.

The complete and total irrationality of the experience scares me, both when I'm in the midst of the situation and afterwards. The depth of emotion and terror at the time ruthlessly swamp rational thought. That in itself is terrifying. It's almost as if this is an inside-out version of how I felt when I was at the deepest part of my depression: instead of not caring, I care too much, and I start drowning in the anxiety and emotion.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm ready to be a grown-up. When I was a child, the feelings of self-doubt were centered around other tings, such as having friends at school; and while that's a proportionally large concern for someone of that age, it still seems blissfully minor. Now I know that I have friends, good friends, admirable people who wouldn't be hanging out with me if I wasn't worth it, and the issue connected to that which my night terrors feed on is the concept of disappointing them, my family, my students, the world.

Tonight I think I'll be dragging out the Evil Prescription Sleeping Pills that taste dreadful but knock me out in about five minutes. Too many nights lying awake thinking recently. Thinking scares sleep away.

Challenges

I've been faced with a couple of difficult choices recently.

The first concerns the fact that I've lately struggled with wanting desperately to take up dancing again. I've always wanted to go back, but over the past ten years I've come up with every reason in the book to avoid it: I haven't the money, I'm working too hard, I haven't the time, there's no studio near me, I'm shy, etcetera. The single sample class I took a decade ago ended in tears and a vow to never, ever show my face in a studio room again. Looking back, accepting the invitation of a sample class towards the end of a semester was really stupid, because I measured myself (having not danced at all for nine years) against women who had been training for fourteen solid weeks. Barre work was all right, but I stumbled badly in my floor work, and couldn't remember the moves to match the names the teacher called out in combination sequences as we performed them across the room one by one. It scarred me badly.

I'm taking sample classes at two different ballet studios at the beginning of September. In both, I'll be starting from the very basic beginner's classes once again, to preserve mental and emotional sanity as well as to be kind to my body. I've retained most of my flexibility and posture (training for six years as your body forms and grows will do that for you), but muscles evolve with you, and I'm not stupid enough to think that I can just jump into an advanced class right off the bat.

So, there; one of my difficult choices. I'll be dancing at one or both of them this fall.

The second difficult choice revolves around something very personal and emotional that occurred to me four and a half years ago (which scarred much deeper than the dancing issue). It took me quite some time to heal from the original experience, and I eventually dealt with it and moved on (without the other individual in my life, by my choice; I don't hold grudges, I just don't offer people the second chance to backstab me). On Sunday, this situation and the individual originally involved in it were resurrected in my memory by three different people, at three distinctly different and unrelated times.

I had a hard time working through what I was supposed to do about this, because I didn't know what lesson Spirit was trying to teach me: how to surrender and accommodate, or how to say no. I'm very good -- too good, some have said -- at accommodating. I am bad, very bad, at saying no. In this instance, choosing to accommodate means that other people receive a lower-quality service. After the summer I have had, and the experiences I went through at the spiritual retreat ten days ago, and after meditation and divination and discussion with a couple of people I trust, I have chosen to interpret this as a lesson in saying no. The quality of my teaching and facilitating other people's spiritual growth is very important to me, and I won't have that interfered with. I owe that to my students, who trust me.

Trying to puzzle out which lesson I was to be learning through this was not fun. Both outcomes had drawbacks. Whichever lesson I followed through, there was pain and disappointment. Another one of those no-win, choose-the-lesser-evil situations. I had a very emotional day as I evaluated who I was, who I had been, and who I wanted to be in the future. I've made my choice now, and it's the right one.

These are two very different challenges I have worked through. They both involve dealing with pride and spirituality: one expressed through movement and discipline; the other through a final emotional purging, a recognition that everything changes, and an acceptance of a teacher's full responsibility, which sometimes must include saying no.

Whew. Can I get off the growing-up treadmill for a bit now, please? Just for a rest?

The Good, the Bad

Due to severe rain, today's photo shoot has been postponed to the next sunny day. (It was an outdoor shoot, and we don't have the correct lighting for an indoor shoot today.)

Part of me is relieved; most of me is ticked off. I'd psyched myself up for this.

The good news -- HRH should be home later, because the rain is truly torrential.

Steal My Soul

I have a photo shoot scheduled for today, and I'm trying to work myself up to it.

I detest photo sessions. I feel self-conscious, angry, annoyed, I don't know what to do or how to sit, or what to wear, and I always hate the results. I'd like to blame it on a Bad Photo Experience as a child, but school pictures were never disastrous events. The only family portrait we ever had taken was the afternoon after I had dental work done, so one side of my mouth is swollen and I'm not smiling, but even that photo session wasn't bad.

My father is an excellent amateur photographer, and he used to bring back stunningly beautiful slides taken of the tundra environments up north, shots of caribou, tiny flowers on lichen on wind-scoured rock, clouds. I was given a camera when I was about seven, and I took pictures because my father and his father did as well. I don't precisely remember when I came to the realisation that pictures don't matter to me. It might have been after some sort of deeply moving experience where I later looked at the photos taken at the time and said, no, this isn't it; this isn't what happened; this is hollow.

There is a picture of me in my head that actual photographs never reflect. I've cried when I've seen some pictures of me that others seem to like. I've also stared at some pictures for ages, trying to suss out what it is about photographs that makes me hate them so. I hate approximately ninety-four percent of all pictures of me. Others seem to think they're fine, sometimes even great shots of me. No one I've ever spoken to about this understands how these photographs hurt me on some inexplicable, deeply felt level.

HRH has used several explanations for why I dislike pictures: cold light, flat image, lack of life to add the spirit to the physical representation. Blah blah blah. Artist talk.

The only photographs of me that I've ever loved immediately are our wedding pictures. Maybe it was the professional photographer with personality. Maybe the love and light of the day, and my spirit shining stronger than it does on an average day triumphs over the cold 2D images. Who knows?

All I know is that I hate photo sessions, I usually hate the results, and today at noon I have one. We're using a digital camera, so we can wipe the ones I hate out of existence right away. I'm working with an amateur photographer whose work I've seen and enjoyed, who has also worked as an actor and director, so he'll be able to direct my positions and expressions. I hope to all the gods he has patience with me, because I won't.

Cameras scare me. And that truth makes me angry, because I don't know how to deal with it.

Once Upon a Time

If you ask me what the most frustrating misunderstanding has been in my life, I'd have to say it's connected to my first engagement and the dissolution of the relationship.

Once upon a time I was engaged to a warm, funny, creative man, who was a big kid at heart. Everything seemed perfect; I'd known him since we were children, we'd lost touch, we met one another again, and things just happened. It was like a storybook.

Well, you know what happens in storybooks. There has to be conflict.

In our case, it came about gradually. In every relationship there has to be a realist, and in this one, I (alas) had to take the role. We had a few talks about the discomfort I was feeling about being the one in charge all the time, and they always ended with a mutual promise to try to do better.

There were two friends I talked to about the increasingly bad feelings I was getting about the whole thing, one a man, one a woman. The woman ended up being so catty about it that I stopped hanging out with her. The man, on the other hand, was an excellent sounding board, who listened without making the "this is what you should do" mistake. He was a member of the wedding party, so as he heard my worries he'd check in with my fiance to get his side of things. My fiance assured him that everything was dreamy and perfect, and our mutual friend had to walk a fine line between supporting me and delicately encouraging my fiance to examine the relationship.

Eventually I realised that the imbalance couldn't continue, and we had a final talk where I revealed that I couldn't do it, and he (to my utter, utter surprise) agreed, having finally understood that we were missing a certain je ne sais quoi that he'd seen in another couple whose wedding he'd only recently attended.

If life were truly a storybook, this is were the end would be, and we all would have lived happily ever after.

However, being human, suspicion and petty jealousies began to develop. I hang out with guys; I always have. My best friends have always been male. Well, as soon as the decision to cancel the wedding had been made public, people started to talk. No one could possibly leave such a terrific man, such a perfect relationship; I must have been lured away. And of course, it must have been that guy I was spending time with - our mutual friend.

I was furious. It's a terrific way to be absolved of any blame - don't squah the rumours that your girl was stolen by a good friend. The horrible thing is that the more people would sympathise with him about it, the more I think my ex-fiance started to really believe it. Things went downhill from there.

It didn't help the rumours that a year later, our mutual friend proposed to me, and we've now been happily married for four years. My ex is about to be united in blissful matrimony himself, to a girl who everyone says is an excellent match, and I'm thrilled for them both. She's getting a fantastic guy, and she'd darned well better treat him right.

Our circles started to grow apart, and I don't see him often now; mostly at parties once or twice a year. When we meet, we're affectionate, and I'm always interested to hear from others how he's doing. I regret the pain we both went through, pain which would have been a lot easier to bear and of a shorter duration if people hadn't been just plain nasty and created those rumours. I don't think either of us would alter the choices we made, though. I married the right guy. To my utter disgust, however, the girl-stealing story is still believed by people we meet who know my ex-fiance. We rise above it, though. We know the truth.

And the truth, quite simply, is that my husband is the most honourable man I've ever met, as well as being my best friend.

It's True: Anything Else is Icing

Found this at Subversive Harmony. I like the way this girl has decided to look at the world.

*You're not really as awkward as you think. Or if you are, other people are just as awkward, so it doesn't really matter.

* It's a pretty safe bet that you do/think/like things that other people don't do/think/like. This makes you interesting, possibly a little eccentric, but not a two-headed alien.

* It's not constructive to clam up in a corner. You're not rude if you talk. You're not even rude if you talk to someone first.

* Stubbornness is a gift. You were stubborn enough to walk to three grocery stores looking for your canned sweet potatoes, and you found them. Be too stubborn to think going to events is useless.

* Do things you enjoy because you enjoy them, and enjoy the things you do on their own terms. Anything else is icing.

* Remember how much better you did with finding a job and an apartment when you set aside the desperation, listened to your instincts, took your time, explored a number of options, and didn't take the first offer you came across? You think maybe that might apply to other situations?

* You know how you said you didn't need to try things to know if you'd like them, and then you let yourself be talked into trying them and had fun despite yourself, even if it still wasn't quite your bag? Remember that. You know how you didn't like all those different foods when you were a kid but for some reason tried them again recently and changed your mind? Remember that, too.

* On the other hand, if it's not fun, and honestly not fun, there are other events/groups/activities out there. Life's too short to waste time.

* Rumination is both your friend and your enemy. Probably more your enemy at this point.

* Que sera, sera.

Why didn't someone tell me these things a decade ago?

I particularly like "anything else is icing". Why do we insist on having such high standards for ourselves? What do we get out of it except a constant feeling of inadequacy? My husband occasionally reams me out for possessing higher standards against which I judge myself than those standards by which I judge other people.

The other important one is "life's too short to waste time". That means staying in that soul-crushing job, not-destructive-but-certainly-not-constructive relationship, that cruddy apartment may be gaining you a few cents here or there, but being miserable (or even neutral) hardly balances the gain. Be happy. It's better for you in the long run, and probably the short run too. Really.

Last Day of Teaching

This morning will be the last class to the current session of the eighteen-week intro course to alternative religions that I teach. (For those of you who are neo-Pagan and have a Thing About Payment For Anything Religion-Related, this is a survey course of info on various world religions, and does not teach craft itself. You have no idea how tired I am of explaining this.) This set of students is particularly special, and I'll miss them. We won't losing touch, of course; I'll just miss hearing their opinions and thoughts, and watching them make connections between various mythologies and modes of thought from different cultures at different points in history.

I think that's one of the most special parts of teaching: seeing the dots being connected, the illumination spreading across an individual's face as s/he fits a bit of information into his/her world view.

It's not for everyone, of course. There are hard parts too. Students come to you with problems, seeking guidance or the input of someone more experienced, and there are times where I freeze up and wonder how I got to this particular point, when I was assigned the position of mentor. What if the support I give is inadequate? What if I mistakenly point someone in the wrong direction? I know, I know; everyone has free will, and is responsible for their own choices. When someone places you in a position of trust, however, there's a lot of responsibility that goes with it. (I have a feeling that very statement indicates an unlikelihood of misleading anyone; I take this too seriously. And somewhere out there, I know that MLG is saying, "You see? And you claim that you're not a leader!") Teaching is rewarding as well. I learn things from my students too - new information, new ways of connecting A and C (who says you have to go via B?), new points of view and opinions that in turn connect into my own web of thought and belief.

So, today's the last class. I'm not quite sure how we got here so quickly, but there you are. I'm a little down about it.

Now I have to figure out how I'm to pick up groceries for tonight's dinner, a parcel at the post office, and a birthday present, and still carry all my teaching textbooks, since my husband has taken the car to work today. And of course, my tea has gone cold.

Good Opinions

Ever feel like you're racing to catch up with everyone else's opinion of you?

I do, all the time. Skippy got me thinking about it this morning. Some of it is, "Why do they like hanging around with me so much?", and some of it is, "I can't possibly charge that much for my time."

My husband sat me down last night, took my hands, and said, "Darling, I want to tell you something, and you have to promise to listen. You're an awesome, awesome person. Far more awesome than you believe yourself to be. You can perceive the awesome in others, so why can't you perceive it in yourself?"

Well, it's embarrassing. As kids, we were mostly taught that to accept a compliment was to be selfish. It's more modest to demur, to protest politely. We were also schooled to believe that pride was a bad thing. So if you were good at something, you weren't allowed to appreciate your skill, or to even really have fun at it in case you made other people feel bad.

Then, of course, there was the geek factor. If you enjoyed reading, liked to be alone, had any interest in music other than the mainstream, films other than action or comedy, or technology other than a phone and a vending machine, you were uncool, and you resorted to lurking and not calling attention to yourself.

What has all that socialisation produced? A generation of people who have difficulty understanding that they're cool people. What, me deserve something? (Praise, money, social interest, whatever?) No, no. Please, stop. It's not just that you're embarrassing me, you're actually making me uncomfortable and self-conscious because like so many others, I can't truly understand why you think I'm so great.

Argh. Scores of us are out there. Scads. Bushels.

It's probably all connected to how incredibly bad some of us are at selling ourselves. Almost everyone I know hates writing a cover letter for a CV, because it feels like exactly that: selling yourself.

A healthy dose of pride in the self is a good thing. Now, if I could just cultivate it...

Memory and Betrayal

I woke up this morning with an uncomfortable memory, and I can’t shake it, so I’m going to try “writing it out”.

When I was in grade three, a boy on our bus came up to me and asked me if I wanted a piece of gum. I was surprised and shyly pleased, and went to take one.

Now, this pack of gum was one of those trick rigged things you can order from the back of comic books: it had a spring and a trap set in it to snap your finger when you reached in. The wire caught me on the sensitive skin just below the fingernail, and as a child I had an extremely low pain threshold. As I withdrew my hand, bewildered, hurt, with tears in my eyes and my finger already bright red and stinging, he laughed and laughed and said that he was going to play the same trick on our teacher when we arrived at school.

I sat on the bus and wrestled with my thoughts, cradling my finger to my chest. The hurt was beginning to be seasoned with a bit of anger as well. I wouldn’t wish the pain (physical and emotional) on anyone, especially not a teacher. I loved school; yes, gentle readers, I was a Hermione at school, down to the waving hand to answer questions. I loved all my teachers for opening new doors and presenting vistas of exciting information, and I didn’t want a single one of them betrayed, tricked, hurt as I had been hurt on multiple levels. Morally, I couldn’t stand by with the knowledge that someone might be hurt, and not act to prevent it.

So when we arrived in class, I went up to the teacher and warned her.

I don’t know what happened afterwards, but later that morning while we were working at our desks in calm silence, the boy slammed down his pencil and said, “Big mouth – big mouth – big mouth!”, each louder than before, punctuating his words with a fist on the desk. The students dropped their work. The teacher sat watching me, her arms crossed across her chest, and informed me that it was unjust to ruin other people’s pranks. You didn’t snitch on other kids.

I burst into tears. I hadn’t wanted her to be hurt. I had been protecting her. I remember glancing at my finger, already developing a tiny bruise across my finger, just under the nail. And then, I realised that she was smirking at me. She had planned this. She had directed this little performance. She was enjoying my state of shock, my humiliation, this further betrayal - betrayal by a grown-up.

At the time, all I knew was that I was being punished for doing something that I thought was right for someone I loved. Twenty-three years later, looking back, I am absolutely horrified at her behaviour. She humiliated students frequently, had favourites (of which I was certainly not one), taught unevenly, and made herself feel powerful by regularly manipulating her students against one another, passing on overheard comments and weakening defences by inferring meaning to them. Compared to the other teachers in the school she was young; she must have been about twenty-six at the time. I think we were the first class of her own, for she had been on the supply list the year before. This was behaviour I would have expected from a fellow student, but never, never from a teacher. Almost any other teacher would have thanked me for my concern and the information, and then later pretended to be surprised by the joke when presented with it by the other party, and no one would have been the wiser. Instead, she chose to humiliate.

Now, of course, I understand that she illustrates a type of personality that I have since encountered and dealt with, having learned a hard lesson and developed the beginnings of the requisite scar tissue at the age of eight. It taught me that you can’t automatically trust people in authority, which, along with the humiliation, was the hardest aspect of lesson to grasp. I had been raised to understand that I could go to almost any adult for help at any time, be it a Block Parent, a teacher, or family. This woman shattered that trust. Fortunately, she was in the minority among my teachers. There were some forgettable ones, only one or two bad ones, but overall, I had wonderful professors who encouraged and led by example as I was growing up.

Writing it out does help. I can look at it objectively, now, and see why it hurt so much on so many different levels. The episode is one of those crystal-clear childhood snapshots that you carry with you, one of those incidents that stays with you no matter how much else you forget, no matter how much you try to shake it.

Speaking of forgetting, I know that the boy had forgotten about it a few days later. For the teacher, it was just another little success, knocking a student’s self-esteem down, and she had probably forgotten about it by the end of the day. I have never forgotten it.

But then, I’ve always been too trusting, and I’ve always been hyper-sensitive. Silly me, expecting people to treat each other with care and respect, no matter what their age.

Antique Thoughts

Antiques markets fascinate me.

There are several levels to this fascination. One has to do with the simple experience of walking through a collection of stuff, some of which is really nifty. It’s the other levels that interest me even more, though.

As I walk through an antiques shop I constantly wonder about who owned these items before they ended up here, on a shelf with a clutter of other (mostly) dissimilar objects. If it’s a piece of china or glass, obviously from a set, I wonder where the rest of the set might be – broken? Parcelled out among children, some of whom thrust their share to the back of a dark china cupboard and never think about them again; some of whom pass them lovingly down to grandchildren; some of whom die alone and friendless and whose possessions are sold via estate sale to a variety of dealers? The silent stories lying tucked in among the odd cups and saucers and gloves are legion.

Then there are the items that I recognise. We had a jug like that; isn’t that china pattern the same as so-and-so’s; who had flatware like this? Old tools; old cameras; strap-on ice skates.

And then, there are the people. They flow silently through the little dens created by shelves and walls, hands in pockets, or fingers flitting over bowls and umbrellas and memorabilia. They murmur to themselves, sigh almost soundlessly when they find something that arrests their attention, whisper to one another as they stalk sherry glasses. The face of an eleven-year-old as he rounds the corner and sees a well-kept Victrola with his own eyes for the very first time; the arch glance of the man who spies a butter mold and does not wish to betray his interest as he casually examines a wooden churn nearby; the woman who exclaims aloud with happiness at finding a piece of Depression glass that she had been searching for; all these are, to me, as interesting as the objects themselves. People hunch over collections of objects, shielding them from your eyes until they’ve had the opportunity to scan them ruthlessly first – you never know what might be there, after all, and if a bargain is to be found, they’re to be the ones to find it, by God. Unlike other shops, no one strikes up conversation with strangers; antiques hunting is a very defensive, solitary pursuit.

I saw a first edition of L.M.Montgomery’s Kilmeny of the Orchard priced at ninety-five dollars today. I saw a pewter inkwell desk set for one hundred and thirty five. I saw vintage wedding bands, slimmer than a penny’s width, their gold a warm coppery tone from age, incised with delicate elongated diamonds almost impossible to see. I saw cases of war medals, carefully labelled as to regiment, which saddened me; heirlooms like that should be preserved by family in pride, honour and love. Were they – and the full sets of silverware, and the vintage marquis emerald rings – sold by families reluctant to part with history, but bowing to the need for money and the knowledge that they will never in their lives use these things in a practical fashion?

It’s saddening. Yet, in amongst all the odd jars and empty milk bottles and brass mortars and pestles, does there wait the single cup to complete a tea set, a knife to complete a setting of flatware so that it can once again be used for a dinner party?

Antiques aren’t just to look at. They’re meant to be used, or at the least honoured and kept alive. History isn’t mean to be put on a shelf. It’s to be re-lived.

Beauty and Anger

Strange how the world can juxtapose beauty and anger.

I spent Sunday night and Monday with a close friend whose life self-destructed when her significant other walked out on her, out of the blue. And yesterday, I couldn’t help but appreciate the beauty of the world around me, and in other people. I drove my husband to work for seven-thirty in the morning and I took the river road all the way home from the West Island, and it was glorious. I really don’t think it was relief that my problems paled in comparison to hers. Something was alight in my heart, though, and I loved everything and everyone I saw. Even spending time in traffic was enjoyable, somehow. It was good to be alive.

I love my circle of friends for their united support, their immediate defence of the wronged soul. You can almost see the ranks closing around her, bristling with righteous anger, keeping the world at bay until she has recovered her equilibrium. We may find it difficult to get together to kick back and relax, but in a crisis, see how priorities are rescheduled, how friends rise to the top. We drop everything to help one another. It’s been a while since something like this has happened (which is a good thing, I suppose), and I’ve almost forgotten how fierce we can be.

I’ve touched base today with a couple of people, including our wounded comrade, who is shaky but slowly rooting herself in reality once again. We’re all going out on limbs, taking leaps of faith, knowing that we’re a support group, a web of encouragement and love and laughter and shoulders to cry on. I woke up this morning and thought about how much I was looking forward to writing again. I played with my kitten. I’ve curled up in the sun and read half a book.

Today, too, it is good to be alive.

Funereal

Even in death, Andrès continues to educate me musically. I sang three hymns in Latvian this afternoon. Interesting language; sort of a cross between Swedish and Ukranian.

No, don’t ask me what I sang. I have an odd linguistic talent that enables me to read a foreign language and make it sound like I know how to speak it. I don’t know how I do it; it involves accents somehow, though. I’m just good with words. It’s all in how it sounds to the ear.

Funerals are strange. If you want a seat, you have to arrive early, but no one wants to talk, so you sit in silence for ages until the family arrives. There are never enough seats (except at Eric’s funeral this spring; there was plenty of room in the synagogue, but that was the only funeral I’ve been to that had adequate seating), so people stand in the side aisles and at the back of the church. I’ve been paranoid about being late for funerals ever since the funeral of one of my best friends in my first year of university, where I arrived right on time and had to stand in a crowd at the back of the church, so today we arrived forty minutes early.

This service was one of the nicest I’ve been to. Even though Andrès was taken from us so suddenly, the congregation was there to honour him, not for consolation. I wish more funerals could be as this one was: a commemoration instead of grieving. Yes, death is always a shock; yes, we are left, bereft and confused; but in the end, it is ourselves we weep for. If we gather, it should be to celebrate the deceased’s life and accomplishments. Mourning our loss always seems so selfish, somehow, when set against the brilliance and joy of the days and years lived by someone we all loved and respected.

Life Goes On

I heard today that my parents lost the last pet I’d grown up with. That makes all three within one year.

You have to wonder about the skewed idea of justice that the world has. Last year, it was our female cat Bo’sun, of lung cancer. Last month it was our dog Megan, also of cancer. Yesterday, they put down our cat Grey, of Cushing’s disease. These were animals who were deeply loved, and well-cared for in every sense of the word, who still developed fatal diseases. And everywhere, there are strays and feral dogs and cats, scraping out a living on the streets and in the wild, living to an astonishingly old age.

My parents aren’t completely alone; they brought their new Maine Coon kitten home last week, of course. When I go down at Thanksgiving, though, there won’t be a dog bouncing at the front door when I come in, or a familiar thin hyper-purring cat climbing into my lap when I sit at the kitchen table.

Why do things move so fast? Do you ever get the sense that the world is moving inexorably on, and you’re just standing there, bewildered, not knowing how to keep up? That things are changing, and you don’t know how to make them stop, even just for a little while?

I’m upset about Grey, of course; I’m upset for my parents, too. More than anything else, though, I feel like there’s been a link disrupted to my life as a teenager, when I still lived with my parents. I’ve lived on my own for ten and a half years, but only now do I really feel like I can’t go back in quite the same way. Our family pets have always played huge roles in our lives, and this particular set of three was around for about twelve years. Every time I went to visit my parents, there they were, waiting for me along with my mum and dad. And now, it’s just not going to be the same. At all.

Life goes on, of course, the way it does when anyone you love dies. You adjust. Sometimes, though, when I get really upset about the death of a pet, I wonder why we do it to ourselves; why we bring these little fuzzy things into our homes for a decade and integrate them into our hearts and lives to such an extent if we know they’re only going to go away some day, leaving us lonely and in pain. Of course, you can say the same thing about friends, or lovers, and some people do. They don’t let anyone close, brood over the past betrayals, and end up bitter, lonely individuals. I think, though, that we seek animal companionship for the same reason we reach out over and over to men and women: for love, for warmth, for interaction with another intelligence. To provide care and support; to receive those same things in return, to a varied degree. There have been times I have cried, and my cats have actively sought to comfort me; times I have been very ill, and they have stayed with me. When I am happy, they share that with me as well.

So we do it repeatedly; we open our hearts to these creatures who cannot share our seven to nine decades of life, because even those ten or fifteen precious years count for something. The pain is worth it.

At least, so it seems while you still have the comfort of their warmth and love, and that pain is still only a vague future. When tomorrow becomes today, and you cry, and protest the injustice, the story reads quite differently. And, as always, I wish I could rewrite the ending, so that everyone could live happily ever after.

Chrysalis

Yesterday was a very odd day.

Friends came over on Saturday, which was fine, and enjoyable. I started a slow simmering anger when I woke up, however, when I realised that not a jot of the housework had been done before my husband had left for work that morning. I dislike being taken advantage of (haven't we had this post already?), but worse than that, I hate people who just don't think. So on top of all the things I had to do on my own personal list, I single-handedly cleaned up the entire apartment, did three loads of dishes, scrubbed, swept, and pressed the first man who arrived for the afternoon into vacuuming, since I'm not tall enough to use the appliance (let's just not go there, okay?), let alone control the mad thing.

I think things would have been all right again if my husband had come home later. Instead, he walked in half an hour after all the cleaning had been finished - an easy day at work, and they'd ended early. He showered and sat down with the rest of us, nice and relaxed.

So long as I ignored him, I was fine. I thought things were all right by the time the last people left and I went to bed. I woke up the next morning, though, just as angry, and in no mood to be in company with anyone at all. This was a great pity, since I had agreed to sit down with a couple of other people to do a bit of writing exercise. I had a choice: I could try to force myself into the right frame of mind to do it, or I could graciously bow out and make it easier for everyone else.

I bowed out. I wrote a short apology to the co-ordinator of the exercise and left it for her, then practically ran out the front door before anyone could ask me questions.

I fled, basically, and didn't tell anyone where I was going or how long I'd be. For some reason I absolutely couldn't stand the thought of being around people I knew, or in my own house, or certainly being polite and civil. I ended up wandering through secondhand bookstores, the new Les Ailes complex, and reading in a cafe for a while. It was good for me to get out.

No doubt practical people are thinking, "Well, if there was a problem with your husband, why didn't you just tell him?" Because, o sage and pearl-dispensing readers, it wasn't just him. Certainly I had an issue with him, but what would it end up being phrased as? "Why can't you wash the dishes while you're waiting for your coffee in the mornings"? It was more than the dishes; the dishes and the clutter were symbols of other stuff, and things that have been building for a while. Until I figured out what the real problem was, I wasn't engaging in any kind of mutual conversation about the situation.

Since being in my own house was grating, I left it. And it felt rather good just walking out without a backward glance, without leaving an estimated time of return, without an indication of where I might be. I didn't turn my cell phone on, either. I had no clear destination in my mind; I certainly didn't want to drop by anywhere where I'd run into someone I knew, so other than that, it was driven purely by whim. I didn't return until four and a half hours later.

Something I noticed while I was out was other people's conversations. When you're out with someone, you're usually talking with them, focusing on their conversation to the exclusion of everyone elses' words. If other conversations make it through to your ears, it's because they're being loud and obnoxious, and hence you become irritated. Being alone, however, means you don't have someone else's words to fill up the space, and you hear what everyone else has to say.

Everyone is unhappy. With themselves, with their lives, with others. And it made me wonder - if no one is happy... why do we even bother?

Other than that, the other major discovery I made was that I am, for some unknown reason, interested in clothes again.

My clothes rarely wear out, and my shape doesn't change, so I usually get about a decade's worth of wear out of an article of clothing. This means I buy things that I fall in love with, or t-shirts because I need them. I tend to hate trendy things, so wearing out-of-date styles isn't a danger. Yesterday, however, I walked into a couple of boutiques, and realised that I hadn't been clothes shopping seriously for over six years. And, for some odd, unfathomable reason... I wanted to.

My wardrobe can stand with a good, severe cleaning out. And I figure with about six hundred dollars, I can replace it with a decent, sturdy, timeless set of clothing that will see me through for another six years or so, and through whatever career I end up in. I love the tailored stuff that's out there now, and the cream/chocolate colours that are showing up with all the fall clothes, too, and the long charcoal grey cardigan sweaters with the belts...

As I realised this, I had an odd sort of shock. Clothes shopping is a girl-type thing. I dislike shopping intensely as a rule; I dislike the clothes in stores as a rule as well. Where this urge arose from, I cannot tell, but it is disconcerting in the extreme.

I have a suspicion that I am going through some sort of chrysalis stage. Who I'll be on the other side is a mystery, though. I wonder if I'll like myself.

Thirty

So, Wil Wheaton is thirty.

So is Midori.

When people you knew as child prodigies hit their third decade, you get an odd sort of ripply time warp feeling. As if they have been children forever, and suddenly, bang, they're adults.

Midori's been performing for twenty years. Twenty. Made her debut at eleven. At fifteen, she calmly went through three violins while playing with Leonard Bernstein and the Boston Symphony. A string broke; she was handed another instrument and kept playing. A string broke on the replacement violin; she was handed a third instrument and finished the piece. Didn't lose her cool. Didn't make a mistake.

There are people who think that for a fifteen-year-old to display such sang-froide is proof of something unnatural. From what I can tell, however, Midori has always been polite and level-headed. I have nothing against child prodigies; I do, however, have something against the people who force children into being child prodigies if the child doesn't want to be there. I also have something against people who convince a child prodigy that they're something special and encourage them to be arrogant, or who don't have the sense to keep the child rooted in the real world. This behaviour is hardly limited to child prodigies, of course; there are plenty of adult performers who are nowhere near prodigal who develop arrogance and run wild.

I've been trying to figure out why people get so hostile about successful young people. Is it guilt? Is it a sense of failure on their own part? Is it sour grapes? And on the other hand, why do people flock to see an eleven-year-old play the violin? Is an example of the human desire to gawk at something freakish? Or is it a genuine appreciation of the talent that shines?

There are generally two camps that end up emerging: those who disparage child prodigies as being unnatural, saying that while they may display technical brilliance they do not have the life experience necessary to interpret most pieces of music emotionally. My respnse to this particular belief is that there are plenty of adults who have the technical brilliance and the life experience who still can't play a piece of music that sounds like it has any emotion whatsoever, and so what's their excuse? The other camp views child prodigies as gifts, inspired by whatever deity you care to assign it to.

Unfortunately for any talented child, if a marketing department gets hold of them, woe betide their reputation. No matter what, people will get sick and tired of "child prodigy this" and "child prodigy that". Inevitably, we strike out against anything we are overexposed to, and a touchy thing like a talented child, who is not only more skilled than we are but famous and making money at it as well, is all too easy a target.

Yo-Yo Ma began memorising two bars of the Bach Solo Suites for Cello daily when he was four years old. He knew them all by heart in a few years. I take that as an inspiration, not a criticism.

So long as a talented child pursues what s/he is skilled at becauses/he enjoys it, I think they're on the right track. If someone else is forcing them to do it simply because they're good at it, that's where things start to break down.

Speaking of breaking down, I'm dizzy and my stomach appears to be upset, so I think I'm going to go lie down. I slept horribly last night and woke up much too early.

Did you remember to say "white rabbits, white rabbits, white rabbits"?

Meltdown: Rant on Literacy, Education, and Art

My poor book club witnessed a wide range of my emotions last night, from despair through righteous fury in our discussion of Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 last night. We talked for quite a while about a society that is losing its ability to read (one theory that arose was connected to scientific tests being done which are suggesting that the physical act of reading text is an increasing effort for the evolving human brain, as opposed to pictograms or other forms of communication, which was quite interesting). Naturally, that led to talking about the educational system repeatedly dropping its standards. Education is expensive; failing a student means you have to pay for a year of that student's education twice; and heaven forbid we discourage their efforts by negative reinforcement. No, no, we must empower them instead by passing them despite their lack of skills necessary to acquiring the next set of skills, which in turn undermines the next level, and so forth. Why is it a crime to do this with faulty screws on an assembly line of, say, airplane engines, but not with the human mind in an educational system?

Today I discovered an article in the Times Online (that's the UK times, not the NY Times) that addresses the same problem. The author of the piece had agreed to teach a journalism course, and began by asking the students which news programmes they watched. They couldn't answer. Nor could they name newspapers that they read regularly. These were journalism students, who should be studying the medium to which they aspire. Or, if not studying, then at least aware of, exposed to. One assumes that they must have heard about journalism somewhere!

Was it not reasonable to expect undergraduates who had signed up for a three-year media degree (encompassing subjects ranging from print journalism and website design to video production and broadcast news) to have more than a passing interest in the news agenda?

Apparently, yes.

“Many of the students I teach have basic language and writing problems which have not been addressed at school or by the university,” says a lecturer in broadcast journalism at another university.

Foreign students paying to attend media courses are being misled by universities, says the departmental head, who is obliged to take a significant percentage of them each year. “In my view, universities that take students who don’t speak English to a good standard are taking money under false pretences,” he says.

Foreign students? At least they have the excuse of a language barrier. How about the local students who can't write an essay, because they've never been taught how, in all their years of schooling?

An interesting point came up in the discussion last night. Once education became compulsory, it began communicating ideas and analytical methods to more people than ever before. Suddenly there were more educated people, bending class boundaries, flooding professional career positions. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, educational standards have been lowered alarmingly, perhaps in response to that flood of educated persons. Is society top-heavy with thinkers, who can so easily become agitators? The paranoid side of me which reads too much science fiction and dystopic novels wonders if the lowest common denominator has become the measuring stick for us all in order to keep better control over society. The point was made last night that time and again in various societies, the intelligensia has become the ruling class, and anyone of promise is usually plucked out of the masses to either be locked away, terminated, or to become part of the system of government. Which means, as soon as a government educates its citizens, they are in immediate danger. (And you may choose who I mean by “they” – the government, or the people it has educated. Or both.)

Bleak.

It returns to the question which crops up every once in a while: what purpose do artists serve? The philosophers, the writers, the painters - what function do they serve in society? Granted, yes, entertainment is one of their functions, but by no means their primary one. Artists are the conscience of a culture; they question, they compare, they cast issues in a different light, they challenge and they overturn... so long as they are free to do so.

Creative writers enjoyed great prestige in both the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union because of literature's unique role as a sounding board for deeper political and social issues. Vladimir Lenin believed that literature and art could be exploited for ideological and political as well as educational purposes. As a result, the party rapidly established control over print and electronic media, book publishing and distribution, bookstores and libraries, and it created or abolished newspapers and periodicals at will. - from the Library of Congress' Russian Archives: Attacks on Intelligensia: Censorship

With the intelligensia on your side, your regime will be quickly accepted. Having artists on staff (or the patrons who fund that art on your side) to uphold the current status quo is a clever move. It leaves the artist open to accusations of not producing "real" art, however - art produced freely and without allegiance. Defining that state is problematic, as artists throughout the ages are usually at the mercy of some sort of patron, or at least those clients for whom s/he produces work. Ideally, however, freed of the capitalist imperative (ha ha ha), an artist has the right – perhaps even the duty – to respond to the ideas of the day, to discuss, to question, and to push the envelope ever further. Building a better mousetrap may have gotten us to where we are today technologically, but it has been the philosophers who have made us, morally and ethically, the thinking and feeling human beings we are presently. (Interestingly enough, they used to be one and the same. Leonardo da Vinci, anyone?)

So where are today's artists? The one who are to serve as our moral compasses? Probably at the bottom of a slush pile in a publisher's office. Turned away from a film production company because their idea "just wouldn't sell". Check out this rant on the current state of art prostituting for the state entitled No Baudelaires in Babylon: Tom Bradley's Comments at the Paris Sorbonne International Conference on Electronic Literature. Wicked and grating and not for the faint of heart.

Perhaps my frustration stems from the apparent devaluing of the intellectual aspect of our culture in favour of speed and efficiency. There must be some way the two can co-exist instead of one triumphing at the expense of the other. Maybe I’m too idealistic (as I was accused of being by one of my thesis examiners), but I believe that the solution lies in an equal attention to mind, body and soul. Capitalism doesn’t have to exist in an intellectual and aesthetic vacuum. I freely admit that new methods of communication and entertainment can have value; I just don’t think they should be replacing the older methods. Such a replacement limits access to the valuable older works (be they film, text, or musical), thereby cutting off generations from their heritage. Everyone should have access to the works of the world, modern and ancient, whether they want it or not. The option should exist.

See what happens? Give me free time and I get restless and start rabble-rousing, exhorting people to think. Next thing you know, I’ll vanish – for my own good, of course, and to keep the rest of you nice and safe…

Family

This is one of those mornings where I looked around at my life and started to panic again.

Marriage can be a wonderful thing, but it also means you have double the problems to deal with since it's sharing the not-so-good as well as the good. It's all very well to say "Chin up!" and "Think positive and things will unfold that way," but every once in a while when you've gradually convinced yourself that yeah, things aren't so bad, and we can handle life, and we're pretty on top of things, something creeps up and hamstrings you.

On top of that I woke up with a stiff neck again, and no osteo appointment for another two weeks. I didn't do anything, I swear!

To cheer myself up, I keep trying to remember that two very dear friends have asked us formally to become their new daughter's guardians should anything happen. I get a rush of warmth and dewy eyes every time I think about it. The trust implied in the request touched us deeply, and I believe that it's among the highest compliments anyone be paid. The term "guardian" suits us just fine as well - an older term might have been "godparents", but in our lifestyles the concept of a guardian is much more appropriate. She's not our daughter, but both of us would do pretty much anything to keep her happy and safe, whether her parents are around or not - and that was before we were asked to officially be named guardians. The idea that her parents have invited us to play that important a role in her life is awe-inspiring - almost as awe-inspiring a miracle that is a baby itself.

Of course the request led to my husband and I discussing our own plans for a family, which actually got pretty bleak. Since we got married we've been saying, "We'll see where we are in another two years," and there we are, circling right back to the problems we're having staying afloat, never mind on an even keel. My yardstick for starting a family is simple: Can we take care of ourselves properly? If no, then thanks for playing, please ask again in another few months. If yes, then go on to question #2, which is, Could we take care of a third party? It doesn't help that the knowledge that I'm not working this summer keeps worming its way into my Protestant-work-ethic-staurated moral makeup: something somewhere in my brain is screaming because I'm taking a sabbatical. I know it's necessary for both my back and my brain, since burnout was sapping what productivity I was managing to display, but in the end, deep inside, I keep saying, Yes, but you're not working. It seems a waste of time, but I think it's going to take me all summer to come to terms with the fact that not holding an official job is not going to make or break our financial life, so peanut-like was the pay in my retail position.

Listening to the final movement of Bach's sixth Brandenburg Concerto makes things seem brighter, somehow. And it's all the more soothing because it's on the radio, and came as a surprise. It's difficult to be negative when you're listening to Bach. It's even more difficult to be negative when you've just brewed a fresh pot of tea and you've taken two muscle relaxants, which means I should be delightfully drowsy in about fifteen minutes...

Blogger Insider

Kate sent me her Blogger Insider questions, and I actually answered them the day I got them. All but the last one, that is, which I've been mulling over. In true Autumn fashion, I've not directly answered it, but sort of answered beside it. Here you are:

1. What's the most bizarre instrument you can play (e.g. musical saw, noseflute, etc.)?

Caveat Number One: I’m boring. Caveat Number Two: I rarely have the urge to try something unconventional. Hence, I think the most exotic instrument I play is the harp. And I certainly don’t play it often or well. It’s big, heavy, and hurts my back.

I bought a tambourine recently; that’s a bit odd. Isn’t it?

2. What's your favorite spot in Canada?

Sigh. Prince Edward Island. It’s so tiny I thought I might be able to get away with saying the whole province, but if I have to be more specific, Cavendish Beach. But it has to be deserted. Just me, sun, red sand, waves, and a good book. Sigh once more.

3. What's your favorite comic book and why?

Argh. Tell me to pick a favourite child, why don’t you. Currently: Promethea. Overall? Dunno. Depends on my mood.

4. Who's your favorite fiction author and comic book author?

Why are you making me do this? Fiction. Hmm. Who do I buy instantly in hardcover? Connie Willis, Neil Gaiman, Timothy Findley. Dead people who don’t have anything new coming out but I’d buy in hardcover if they were still publishing: Robertson Davies, Charlotte Bronte.

Comic books? A tie between Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore. (According to my shelf of graphic novels.)

5. What's your favorite song in "Once More With Feeling," the "Buffy" musical episode?

“R.I.P” stuck in my head the first time I saw it, but upon listening to it over and over, I find Xander and Anya’s song “I’ll Never Tell” is really quite well-written and performed, and is the one that keeps popping up in my brain when I’m distracted.

6. What's your favorite opera?

Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Followed by a three-way-tie between Donizetti’s La Fille du Regiment, Rossini’s La Cenerentola, and Il Barbiere di Siviglia. (The latter for its delicious mezzo-soprano role, and for the act one finale, if nothing else!)

7. If you could move anywhere in the world, where would it be?

The Borderlands, Scotland.

8. Who's the one character you can't stand to see when watching a "Star Wars" movie?

Old series or new series?

New series: Threepio is rapidly rising up the list in the new series. Jar-Jar, of course.
Old series: Boba Fett. Honestly. He’s so overrated. Ep2 sort of redeemed him for me, though. His dad was at least cool. (His action figure is certainly the best one. Is it just me or are the SW:Ep2 figures below standard?)

9. What are your top three totally irrational pet peeves?

Firstly, someone who shall remain nameless putting a margarine container, with the barest sheen of margarine along the bottom of it, back into the fridge. (“I didn’t finish it!”) Actually, that nameless someone putting anything back in the fridge or cupboard with only crumbs or drops left in it.

Secondly, not writing something down on the shopping list if you’ve finished it (or, all right, almost finished it). I don’t eat often, but when I do, I like to have all the fixings there. This will drive me directly to Axe-Murderer status, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

Thirdly, people standing behind me. In a related vein, people reading over my shoulder. Or, people standing in front of me and conversing with sunglasses on. I hate not being able to see people, and if I can see them, I have to be able to see their eyes.

I have more, if you'd like them. Such as bad editing in a published book. Stupid spelling mistakes. (Especially in my own work, when I've proof-read and run a spell-check.) People adopting American short-cut spelling such as lite and donut, and believing that it's the right way to spell something. Shall I go on?

10. If you could perform any piece of music to a large audience by yourself, what piece would it be?

Ha! Assuming I could perform it with any sort of technical capability and emotional interpretation, pretty much anything by Bach. I remind you all of Caveat Number One (I’m boring), and add the following footnote: as much as I adore performing, I prefer chamber work with a few others. Solo is so... alone. You have nothing to interact with. So actually, my dream would be playing cello in a string quartet program of Beethoven's String Quartet opus 132 in A minor, followed by Ravel's String Quartet in F. Rather than performing solo, I enjoy hearing how my line intertwines with a few others. I also enjoy singing quartets or trios more than I enjoy singing alone.

There you have it.

Jean, darling that she is, brought me a whole new bottle of my Secret Weapon from her trip to Plattsburg last weekend. Now I have a bottle for home, and a bottle with a few left to keep at work. No Vanilla Coke, though. She says she'll try again next trip. Curses! Foiled!

What Do You Mean This Degree Is Useless in the Real World?

MLG rescued me from a day of pain yesterday and we lunched. It's good to do this every once in a while, because you get to talk to someone who's been there, done that, got the same piece of paper you did, looked around and saw that society no longer worked the way all the adults said it would when they told you that of course university was the only way to go because you'd get a job and be set for life.

They lied.

We also talked about getting stuck in a rut, the convincing zombie-like seduction of the status-quo, selling yourself, having tons of knowledge and ability and nowhere obvious to direct it, and taking risks. MLG is one of those people who makes things clear when I talk to him; he's one of the best sounding boards I know, and he never tells me what to do. (What, never? Well, hardly ever... ;)

He's also one of the few people I can stand to hear praise from, probably because he never makes it sound like he's just being nice. When he talks about my accomplishments and talents I can see them for what they are. I need that every once in a while, otherwise I sink into a morass of "I'm useless". We discussed the need for accomplishment, the drive to produce positive tangible results to assure ourselves that we're doing something of value, the dread of standing still and not evolving past who we are today. When I've spent time talking with MLG, I feel like a human being who should care about herself again. So stand back, world; I have a few things in my life which require rearranging....

Dysthymia

Someone told me there was a name for this last summer. It's taken me this long to look it up.

Dysthymia (aka Dysthemia (sp)): Chronic low-level (of lesser intensity) depressive episodes.

American Description:

A) Depressed mood for most of the day, for more days than not, as indicated either by subjective account or observation by others, for at least 2 years. Note: In children and adolescents, mood can be irritable and duration must be at least 1 year.

B) Presence, while depressed, of two (or more) of the following: poor appetite or overeating; insomnia or hypersomnia; low energy or fatigue; low self-esteem: poor concentration or difficulty making decisions; feelings of hopelessness.

C) During the 2-year period (1 year for children or adolescents) of the disturbance, the person has never been without the symptoms in Criteria A and B for more than 2 months at a time.

European Description:

A chronic depression of mood which does not currently fulfil the criteria for recurrent depressive disorder, mild or moderate severity, in terms of either severity or duration of individual episodes, although the criteria for mild depressive episode may have been fulfilled in the past, particularly at the onset of the disorder. (Ed. note: Well, gosh, that makes me feel better already!)

The balance between individual phases of mild depression and intervening periods of comparative normality is very variable. Sufferers usually have periods of days or weeks when they describe themselves as well, but most of the time (often for months at a time) they feel tired and depressed; everything is an effort and nothing is enjoyed. They brood and complain, sleep badly and feel inadequate, but are usually able to cope with the basic demands of everyday life. Dysthymia therefore has much in common with the concepts of depressive neurosis and neurotic depression. If required, age of onset may be specified as early (in late teenage or the twenties) or late.

Me again. Now, I'm not the kind to dash off and self-diagnose. My osteopath has already told me that there are plenty of nice people out there who can help me with my mental and emotional balance just like she's helping me with my back. (Speaking of which, I'm spending most of today lying on the living room floor working on the laptop because sitting at the desktop is too painful. Back pain is not helping general moodliness.) I've just been brushed off by my GP so often now that I don't know where to go next, really. A close friend worked with an excellent therapist a couple of years ago and has her name and contact info, but as usual, their time requires money.

Or maybe I don't need to go that route at all. Maybe all I need is a month or so off, and see if that lets my mind unkink a bit. Perhaps life's tossing me about in an effort to get me to stop for a while and re-evaluate things. I need to rediscover what's important. What I like, what I dislike. What's fun, what's not fun. Having no opinion for so long, just doing things because it's on my list of things to do, means I really have nothing to compare my current life with any more.

From Oakville

Well, here I am in variably cloudy Oakville, laptop connected to the Net by roaming function. I'm so impressed with myself. For those of you who know the horrible weather record we've racked up in our drives to Toronto, know ye this: it actually didn't rain. Plus we got a spectacular sunset, sandwiched between the lowering evil clouds and the trees. And I saw the crescent moon, behind a veiling of cloud, attended by three stars.

One of my biggest pet peeves: people who say they'll do something or address a problem, and don't. Or who take forever to do it. In my books, if you can't do it, don't offer, or don't agree to it in the first place, no matter how cool it is, or how much you need the money, or how much someone needs your help. If it's not going to get done, don't say you're going to do it. It means that (a) you have to be honest with yourself about your time and your abilities, and (b) be honest with others, maybe let them down, but better that then let them down in the long run after a promise they've been counting on.

I hate being lied to. I hate being let down. It means that my trust in someone gets eroded bit every time. I know how hard it is to say no to someone (oh yes, I know), but I'd rather be told no and do it myself then be told "sure!" and think that it's being taken care of, only to find out that I have to stop the rest of my life and address it anyway when someone else has dropped the ball. It's even worse when it involves someone you trusted deeply. The more it happens, the less you trust. The rust begins to spider its way through the rest of your life, your walls and flying buttresses weaken, and eventually you trust no one and become very bitter.

I'm trying very, very hard to not be bitter.

On Funerals

I have not felt this drained in a long time. I've given up trying to work; I'm pretty useless tonight.

Eric's memorial service was funny, touching, and in general a celebration of a happy man who lived life to its utmost. By far the most enjoyable funeral-type service I've ever experienced, it was a chance to share with others how much one individual can have touched your life, while mourning the fact that you'll not have the opportunity to share time with him again. My husband said that he wants his service to be much the same - but with much alcohol, and dancing too. I've never been a fan of the weepy, heart-wringing kind of funeral - what good does that do? - nor of the startling "repent ye sinners and turn to GOD!" genre, so I must say that I'm right with him on this one. Celebration of life is the key, even while we recognise that our lives will never be the same.

All through the afternoon, I looked at each of my friends, and saw individuals with whom I enjoy spending time, with whom I share interests, in-jokes, hobbies. When I said hello or good-bye, I held them all a little tighter, a little longer. Life's precious, damn it. Why don't we see that more often?

What is it that prevents us from understanding that at a deeper level? Or, perhaps more importantly, at a superficial, always-on-my-mind level? Why do we let ourselves become burdened, stressed, concerned with what's wrong in our lives? What does it - any of it - matter in the end? What it all comes down to is you, your friends, your family; your level of peace, the love you feel: what's right on your life. This afternoon, someone said that one of Eric's philosophies was, "You can never be too kind". It's true. That means reaching out and telling people that you care. It means hugging those close to you. More, it means accepting the hugs from others, their kind words. It means touching others, and making that connection.

After a tough time in my own life, I'd begun looking at my friends and family again and realising how much they mean to me, every one of them. The loss of Eric just highlights that importance. Death points out to us all that we are still living, as difficult as it may be in the wake of such a blow. Not living life to its fullest is turning your back on the simplest, yet most elegantly profound, message the gods have sent to us.

Death

What is it about hearing about someone's death?

I think it’s the finality. It's done; it's over.

I've lived through two sudden deaths of people I knew - one a very close friend, one a gaming acquaintance - and both times it was the shock of hearing that undid me. It's the sudden reversal of reality, the unreality of the statement “he is dead” when you saw him just a couple of days ago, that sounds a sour note.

Now there’s another. One of my best (and definitely my oldest) friends – my maid of honour at my wedding- lost her dad to a sudden heart attack last night. Completely out of the blue. I've known this man since I was thirteen. He's jovial, educated, a musician. My parents’ age. Nowhere near the age you start preparing for maybe, just possibly, expecting to lose someone.

Or, he was.

Maybe that's it. Maybe it's the is/was problem. It's all so fresh, so new, that in your mind a person simultaneously exists and does not exist. You crumble little by little as you try to impose the new reality of the death upon the X years of life you've experienced with this person. On top of it all, the news about the death throws that person's reality into sharp relief, making it harder to wrap your mind around the fact that they've died.

I heard someone say once that no parent should outlive a child. At the same time, though, I think that the most traumatic thing most children live through is losing their parents. How do you accept the loss of someone who birthed you, guided you, supported you, from day one?

When it’s someone else, you’re all at sea in a different way. Death hits us all pretty hard. Apart from coping yourself, and looking at your own family in a different light, there's dealing with the bereaved. (Bereaved. What a word. Where does it come from? Riven? Be-riven? Bereft?) You love them desperately, and you want to express your own sorrow, but words just don't cut it. Especially when someone is torn from you like that. When was the last time they spoke? Was it quick, superficial, both assuming they'd see one another again, that there would be a next time?

Death is part of the whole life experience, not a sudden stop, or an intrusion. It's an essential part of the cycle. So many people fear it. I don’t think I do; it's the loss of everyone else that I worry about. The change of pace, as it were. It's the change that I'm uncertain of. Fear of the unknown, I suppose, which is understandable. We're creatures of habit. Being Pagan means I accept that cycles continue and that existence transforms into another dimension, maybe this one over again if there's more to learn, maybe another, maybe back to the beginning to grow young again in the underworld until my essence is prepared for a rebirth to do more good. None of that means I'll go joyfully to my death - or accept anyone else's death, family, husband, friends - easily. We all have to deal with loss. We grieve for ourselves, for others. Our freshly riven minds must heal. Our hearts must mend. Our tears must dry. I do still cry for my maternal grandfather each Easter, a gentle man who I knew for all of eleven or twelve years. However, I grieve for not knowing him better. Perhaps we grieve for lost chances, opportunities we'll never have. So often we don't rejoice in the good times, laugh at the joy the deceased brought. Death encompasses us all. It brings us freedom. However, at the same time, it cuts us off. Another dichotomy we can't hold concurrently in our bruised minds.

Death means holding two truth simultaneously: the truth of the shining soul we knew, alive forever, in our hearts and elsewhere; and our crushing loss for which there are no words.

Go gently, Eric.

Beautiful Homes and Ambushing My Hair

It’s one of those mornings where I have so much tumbling through my mind that I can’t fix on any single emotion, so I feel vaguely like an emotion-o-scope and a bit panicky.

We have a beautiful home. I’m not boasting, I’m just observing. I was walking through the hall to get socks and it hit me: we have a truly relaxing and comforting home environment. Part of that beauty comes from the collective soul that has grown from the mishmash of stuff we own – the books, the plants, the candlesticks, the musical instruments, the art – that somehow works together without any advance planning on our part. It’s just simply beautiful

Then I was hit with a wave of guilt. How can I be so unhappy sometimes when I have such a beautiful shell to cocoon in?

Then that wave overflowed into the rest of my life. How can I be so unhappy when people would kill to have my job? When women tell me that they wish they’d met my husband first and does he have a brother or would I object to cloning? When I’ve had the opportunity to complete not one but two university degrees? When people repeatedly offer me help, love and support, and keep trying to make lunch dates, coffee dates, pub dates?

Why do I (inexplicably, insanely) try to push all of that away? Why do I still feel that guilt? Why can’t I just be happy?

In other news, I cut my hair yesterday and that was traumatic too. I have a love/hate relationship with my crowning glory. It’s naturally curly, which can be good (as you straight-haired persons know) and evil (as all of you ringlet-cursed persons know). I hate spending time on how I look, so I usually just stick my head under the tap, comb it out, run a tiny bit of conditioner through it with my fingers and go to work. Going to the hairdresser is awful. I hate it because they always condescend to me. They pick up a lock of my hair with the tips of their fingers, give me that artificial hairdresser smile in the mirror and ask when the last time I had my hair trimmed. Well, months ago, because every hairdresser I go to in the city makes me feel like a worm for not devoting at least half an hour a day to styling. Besides, in my opinion, paying someone to cut your hair every six weeks is like buying new socks – for some reason I always feel that they should last longer than they do, and that there are other more pressing things that my money needs to address.

I adore long hair. My goal is to have flowing Pre-Raphaelite locks cascading down my back. I constantly struggle to hold that goal in balance with the “if you trim your hair it will grow faster” concept. On top of that, I have on a couple of occasions been so angry at someone or something that I have gone to a salon and told them to cut it all off, only to go home, look in the mirror and burst into tears. It’s never the same again. I carry all that with me every time I walk into a salon, that anger, that anguish, that inferior I-am-a-worm feeling, the inevitable mute stubbornness that rises in response to the worm thing. I dislike hair appointments immensely. On top of it all, I have to rub salt into the wound by paying someone for the experience.

Which is why I have to sort of sneak up on myself and just do it. There’s a salon in Oakville that I love, but I only visit my parents about four times a year and usually during holiday weekends, so they’re either closed or booked. I try a different salon here every time, in an attempt to discover a place or at least a hairdresser I get along with. Last year I finally one who just cuts my hair, no pomp, no fuss, no guilt: the little shop attached to the Zellers near my old apartment. I love them. I get no lectures, no fluff about how if my hair was cut in layers it would curl more (no, it just frizzes more because there’s no more weight to keep it down), no false friendliness. You can’t even get an appointment – you just show up, they write your name down, and you wait. I’ve known that my hair needed a trim for about a month, but we just happened to be in the mall yesterday and I said, well, I’ll just get my hair cut, then. So I did. In, out within ten minutes, no one got hurt. A straightforward pageboy kind of cut. Not that you can tell, with all these infernal curls.

When I was little, my mother used to wash my hair for me, then sit me up on a stool in our kitchen with my dressing gown on and a blanket wrapped around me to keep me warm, spray No More Tears on my thick wavy (read tangly) hair, comb it through, then trim the ends for me. I loved it (except for the tangly part) for the I’m-taken-care-of feeling it gave me. I didn’t like the washing of the hair so much, so Mum came up with this pretend hair-washing creature called Beavie who used to hide in the suds and play in my hair, to make me laugh.

I don’t know why I’m so teary. I warned you – I’m all over the place emotionally today. I miss my parents. I want to know why I’m not happy with such a wonderful life.

On Self-Effacement

No, I really do hate being the centre of attention. I hate being put on the spot; I’m uncomfortable being lauded and pointed out. I like being honoured and told one-on-one that I’m a wonderful human being with things to be proud of, but throw a surprise party for me or tell a bunch of people in my hearing how terrific I am, and I cringe and want to die. I have this weird thing about birthdays – surprise parties are such a bad idea, but at the same time I’d like to have someone else organise a quiet and casual get-together for me without me knowing. Even better would be a surprise casual get-together for me not around my birthday! (This year Tara and I have agreed to organise parties for each other. That kind of deal I can live with.) I’m quietly upset if no one cares, but if everyone goes all out and makes a huge fuss I’m horribly embarrassed. (Reported back to me last year: Taras: “Hey, it’s her thirtieth birthday! Let’s organise a huge surprise party!” Marc: “Wow, my Bad Idea light just came on.”)

I’m certain that part of this arises from the self-effacing guilt that wells up from the tiny “I’m not worthy” gene buried deep inside me. Intellectually I know that I have a lot to be proud of and that I’m a decent human being with a few really good points. However, my heart can’t understand why so many people like me this much. I’ve been shy ever since I started school, and I’ve always been the sort who prefers books to baseball, and opera to club-hopping. I have problems with large crowds and I’m very sensitive to large, aggressive personalities too. I work on intuition a lot, and if someone walks in whom I instinctively draw away from, I’ll find it very difficult to be around them. Even worse, if I do get to know someone enough to relax, open my heart and be close friends with them, if they do something to abuse that loyalty and trust, I’m scarred for life and I’ll never be able to talk to them again. (Fortunately this has only happened three times in my entire life.) I don’t hold grudges; I just moderate future behaviour in order to avoid being hurt again. I wish those three people well, but they’re no longer a part of my life. It’s not by choice; it’s simply the way I work. Trust me, I wish I weren’t like this; I wish I were gregarious, and not this sensitive. My husband has pointed out to me on several occasions that if I were as I wished to be, I wouldn’t be myself, and people wouldn’t like me as much as they do. It’s an annoying point. I hate it when he’s right like that.

One of the things I thought would be difficult about being married (and I was right) was the drastic challenge to my solitary tendencies. I warned my husband before we married that I require huge amounts of time on my own, and he told me that he didn’t have a problem with that; in fact, he needed a lot of time by himself too. Well, I think he got more than he bargained for: a little while ago he admitted to me that he’d underestimated my extensive need for solitude. Now, before you get all riled up about how marriage is about being a couple, let me explain our concept of marriage. Marriage is two individuals coming together to pull evenly in the traces, and not a complete submersion of your identity in someone else’s personality. We’re two different people with different likes and dislikes, need and wants. A lot of those likes and wants coincide, and we happen to like each other as people a lot. We’ve taught one another lots of new things, introduced one another to new ideas, and exposed one another to experiences we wouldn’t have had on our own. He now likes wine, pumpkin pie and light opera; I now drink Scotch, watch television, and eat turkey stuffing. We each have traits and habits that drive the other up the wall, and preferences and friends that the other will never share, but all in all, we’re good friends who love one another and enjoy life together. However, one of those things that we don’t share is a love of people. He loves crowds and going out, meeting new people and finding out what makes them tick. I’d rather stay home with a book and a cat. A little of that comes from the fear of the unknown, and the overly sensitive streak in me.

The best party I’ve ever had was our wedding; everyone was there to celebrate us, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly with no embarrassment whatsoever. Everyone else enjoyed themselves too; we received several reports that ours was the best wedding many people had attended. At the other end of the spectrum, however, two or three years ago I organised a pub night for my birthday and only three people showed up; I felt resentful and stupid at the same time. I’m so shy that I didn’t tell people it was for my birthday, and no one remembered. I hate being put on the spot so much that I didn’t want to make people feel like they had to go because it was my birthday celebration, and as a result I had a horrible night. I’m fairly certain that when people found out they felt awful too. I just can’t seem to hit that comfortable point between saying “Yay me!” and being self-effacing. It’s why I can’t stand taking off my make-up after a show and going out to meet friends and family who have been there and receive their praise and hugs and kisses, and why I flee the stage as soon as the curtain closes so I don’t have to receive those two-cheek kisses and congratulations from fellow cast members either. I can’t wrap my brain around it, and neither can other people. Including my husband. He just makes sure he has my coat ready and gets me out of there, which I appreciate more than he’ll ever know.

It’s something that’s bothering me more and more, and I’m really wrestling with it (as I’m sure you can tell). Maybe it’s the beginning of my mid-life crisis, along with trying to figure out what to do career-wise with the rest of my life…

Query #3: Who are you?

Query #3: Who are you?

Goodness, you’re all just so thirsty for knowledge, aren’t you. Ten points to you all.

“Who” is just so subjective, don’t you think? Who I am changes daily, what with cells replacing themselves, ideas evolving, new skills acquired, old skills falling by the wayside…

So instead, I’ll toss out a semi-random spray of info; little packets that you can assemble into whatever order you like and construct your own mental version of Autumn ™.

I’m a Savoyard, and a mezzo-soprano; at the moment I sing with Lakeshore Light Opera. I love foxes, and barn owls. My home is decorated with blades and Pre-Raphaelite prints. I’ve played the cello since 1994, and I currently play with the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra. I sell books. I possess a Magisteriate in English Literature. I love fountain pens, and dip pens are my newest experiment. I dislike being rushed, and being told I should or shouldn’t do something is the most direct route to making sure I will not/will do it (or at least consider doing it). I like being outside, but bugs diminish the enjoyment. Rowan trees are nifty. So is mythology, and spirituality, and metaphysics. Rain is fun. Floods are not. Good friends are invaluable, and I have a bunch of them, some who are new, some who have been around for over a decade. Ravenclaw, not Gryffindor. Sometimes I can be in a crowded room and be quite alone. Then again, sometimes I can be in an empty room and be overcome by companionship. Star Wars, not Star Trek (but Trek’s okay too). Not enough people are taught Shakespeare properly. Jane Austen rules. The Bard is the most under-appreciated character in any AD&D campaign.

Oh, and be ye warned – books will show up a lot as a topic. We’ll focus on them some other time, or else my work of the day will lie untouched and management will gently ask why the heck they’re paying me. But for now…

CURRENT READING:
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. Run, don’t walk. Gems range from:
“Commemorating the Holocaust is not, not not not not not, the same thing as fighting to prevent future holocausts. Most of the commemorators are just whiners. They think that if everyone feels bad about past holocausts, human nature will magically transform, and no one will want to commit genocide in the future.” (pp.401)
... to...
“But now, Shaftoe, you are in the Army, and in the Army we actually have certain wonderful innovations, such as strategy and tactics, which certain admirals would be well-advised to acquaint themselves with.” (pp.619)