Atwood. She’s coming…
I have been a reader and writer since I was a little girl. They are the two things in my life that have just always come naturally to me. I don’t remember learning to read. As far as my mind is aware, I’ve just always been able to do it. I love books like some people love religion – they feed me. They are to be respected and treated with reverence. They have the power to change your entire way of viewing life. Over the years there have been four instances where a book has changed something fundamental in me – they’ve altered me so profoundly that they have left scars on my heart. I have a scar on my right thumb, right below the nail, from my best friend’s first car, where it scraped off my skin one afternoon while I was trying to get a very stiff hood release to pull up. Whenever I look at that scar I am flooded with happy memories of trips we took in that car – I remember singing to Sublime at the tops of our lungs, I feel the warmth of summer nights spent driving around aimlessly, I feel the icy January mornings waiting for heat to start coming through the vents. Those are the kind of scars these four books left on me – the kind that make you instantly remember how you felt in a particular moment. Two of those books were written by Margaret Atwood.
When I was 15 I read The Robber Bride – it was the first time I’d read one of her novels. It was also the first time I remember reading more than just the words on the page. I felt like I’d discovered a jewel she’d hidden between the lines for me to find. In short, the story is about a group of women who have little in common other than their love/loathing of the female antagonist, Zenia. At one point in each of their lives she has gained their trust and even their love, only to betray them by stealing their men. You want to hate her – it’s easy to hate her. But real relationships are never that simple and my revelation was this: the women who lost their men to her were in terrible relationships with men they shouldn’t have been with. The one relationship Zenia never succeeds in completly destroying, is the only one in which the man is likely right for his female partner. In removing these men from their lives (or in attempting to, in the one case) Zenia had not only forced them out of these negative relationships, but she’d also forged a bond between the other women that they would not have had otherwise. In essence she created a situation that allowed them to access the most important and valuable relationships of their lives. To this day this book reminds me that relationships are more complex than we can ever really know from the outside, and that when things go wrong the answers are never black and white. It’s easy to vilify the person who committed the most glaring wrong – but there is always more to the story.
A few years later, after I’d moved from Manitoba to Ontario, I read Margaret Laurence’s The Diviners. I felt a connection to this prairie born author, who had also move to Ontario – I felt as though her words were my Canadian birthright – telling the tale of the Scottish families (like mine) who had settled in the prairies. For the first time I felt like I’d stumbled across an author who not only inspired me, but made me believe that even a girl from the prairies could become one of Canada’s most celebrated authors. She described Canada, and Manitoba, in a way that I could only someday aspire to live up to. It may sound small, but in many ways this might be the most important gift any book could have given me.
In my early 20s, while I was living in Japan, my mom sent me a copy of Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible. The inscription she’d penned in the front cover said something along the lines of “A story about adventures far from home – may yours be just as growing, but not nearly as dangerous. Love, mom”. I’ve heard that it took Kingsolver something like 20 years to write this book – which wouldn’t surprise me given the depth of the plot and character development. Each chapter tells the story of one of the women of the Price family, dragged to the Congo on the verge of civil war, by their religious zealot, preacher father. Needless to say, things do no go well for them. To properly sum up how I feel about this book, and the lessons it taught me would be impossible. I will keep it to the two most important ideas I took away:
First - Our perspective of right and wrong is all relative to our experiences in life – or as it is so aptly put by Kingsolver herself: “Everything you know is right can be wrong in a different place.” Traveling in India really helped drive this home for me, because so many times I had to question my core beliefs about what was “right”.
Second - Pain, sorrow, suffering and fear are as necessary to human growth as fire is to a forest. Without being pushed to our outer limits we can never truly know the strength we hold inside – they carve out a sense of our own capability that we might never otherwise be aware of. So when life is joyful, not only can we truly appreciate it, but we can know in our hearts that we have the strength to battle through the inevitable pain that some new day will bring – and we will come out the other side a new incarnation of ourselves.
Atwood’s The Year of the Flood was the most recent book to have this kind of lasting impact on me. It is the second book in her recently completed Maddaddam trilogy. It was the first one I read in the series, and so far my favourite of the three (although I’m not quite half way through the final book, so I suppose I may feel differently by the time I am done) – the first two books happen more or less congruently and are different aspects of the same timeline, the third brings the two together, and hopefully provides us some closure on the story. Atwood has branded this genre of writing as “speculative fiction”, differing from “science fiction” in that it describes a future very much routed in a possible outcome of our current state. The genius of these books is the plausibility of the bone chilling future Atwood paints for us. The detail is stunning – down to the practices of the new religions that emerge, and the scientific meddling in all aspects of our lives to “improve” the way we live. Nothing is spared: food, cosmetics, clothing, sex – all engineered to deliver optimal results with minimal effort.
Food, and the many ways in which we’ve perverted it, is a recurring theme in the Maddaddam trilogy. From the prolific fast food chain “SecretBurger” (reminiscent of Soilent Green), to the 20% real fish, fish fingers served in the high school cafeteria, we are inundated with images of how distorted food has become. I was standing in line at Ikea for lunch one afternoon, when I was struck by the depth of the impact this story had on me. We were all herded into metal railed corrals, placidly staring around, while holding trays or pushing food carts meant to allow us to stack and carry many trays, waiting to be fed cheaply and quickly – and I watched in horror as person after person walked by carrying plates of brownish grey food, devoid of any colour save the lingon berry jelly for the spongy Swedish meatballs. It was so reminiscent of the way Atwood describes the food industry in her story, that I felt a wave of panic.
My worst fear is that someday we will view Atwood as a prophet, and not just a talented writer with a wild imagination. I wish I could send a copy of these three books to all the major world leaders with a note. The note would read “It’s not too late to change course!” But they’d probably see me in the same way the wealthy and powerful of Atwood’s world view environmentalists and those who believe in real food – a fringe lunatic.
The reason I’m telling you all this is because Margaret Atwood is coming to Winnipeg next month. The thought of meeting her both thrills and petrifies me. I’m going to meet the woman who penned two of the most impactful books I’ve ever read. I want to tell her all this, but somehow the words I say out loud never live up to the ones that run through my head – not to mention I’ll probably have no more than a minute or two as I hand her my books to sign to sum up the impact she has had on my heart. I want to tell her that part of the reason I love and respect her writing so much is because sometimes she writes books I love, and sometimes she writes books I hate (She has written 22 novels, 15 books of poetry, 11 works of nonfiction, and 7 children’s stories according to the information inside my copy of Maddaddam) – I have started Alias Grace no less than 5 times and have never been able to get more than about 50 pages in – because I think this shows how diverse her writing truly is. There’s probably someone out there who loves Alias Grace and hates The Year of the Flood.
When I was in University, I had a friend named John, who I worked with at Blockbuster video. John felt about the Tragically Hip the way I feel about Atwood. He’d grown up in Kingston, but they were famous and long gone by the time he was old enough to realize any of this. One day he was walking down the street, past the house where the guitar player’s parents still lived – and there he was, sitting on the porch playing “Grace Too”. John finally had his chance to express the impact their music had had on him. He took a breath, gathered his courage, walked up to the porch, looked his idol straight in the eye and said “Hey man. That’s Grace Too.” – “Yup” the guitar player responded as he continued to play. John turned and walked away, and as he went he thought to himself “That’s Grace Too???!!! – REALLY?? REALLY?? He knows it’s Grace Too – he wrote the fucking song!!!” I wonder if John ever really forgave himself for missing what might have been his one opportunity to tell this man what his art had meant to him.
Of course, in the grand scheme of life there are worse things than getting tongue tied in front of someone you deeply respect – but that doesn’t stop me from fearing the same fate. “Um, hello Ms. Atwood – you write good…”
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Thursday, September 12, 2013
The year's last, loveliest smile
Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall. - F. Scott Fitzgerald
What is it about September that feels so promising? I love September - everything about it. I love the crisp in the air, the pumpkin spice lates, fuzzy wool socks with boots, the deep rich jewel tones... there is nothing that is not great about September.
When you start to really think about it, September should be sad and depressing... another summer is over, cold weather is moving in, the trees and other greenery begin to die, summer holidays are at close and we are all returning to our school/work routines. Even those of us who do not get entire summers off know that nothing much gets done during the summer... or should I say, nothing new gets started during the summer. There are too many people away at any given time to consider new projects.
So again, I ask: Why is it that despite all this, September is so full of promise?
It could be that those years between 5 and 18 have so engrained us that we will always see September as the month the new year actually begins. Maybe we like our routines and the daily grind more than we care to admit? Maybe, if you are like me, you just love that “back to school” feeling that new adventures are around the corner.
I have to say that summer 2013 was really good to me. Sean and I spent 3 weeks traveling in Italy and France. My first real travel in Europe – I say “real” because I was in Germany when I was 15 for gymnastics, and didn’t actually see much more than the insides of gyms and stadiums; in 2002 I met up with some girlfriends in England and also spent time in Scotland – but they don’t really consider themselves part of continental Europe. What an unreal trip… I live a charmed life.
August brought my Nan’s 90th birthday – you wouldn’t believe she was 90. She’s got more love and more joy in a few strands of her white hair than most people are lucky enough to experience in a whole life time. My whole family came in from Ontario, the US, etc. It’s so rare that I get to see my whole family – we have our moments, but I was lucky enough to be raised side by side with my cousins at our family cabin in the summers, so I can say with complete honesty that I really, truly love spending time with them. I wonder what it must be like for my Nan to look around and see this enormous group of people (she has 14 grandkids, and there are a LOT of great-grandkids these days), and know that if it weren’t for her, none of them would be here.
Last, but certainly not least, my best friend got married. We’ve been friends since we were 10 years old and seeing her get married was one of the highlights of my adult life. She’s said for a long time now that she was happy in her long term partnership, and didn’t want to get married. So when she called me last spring and told me she was going to ask him to marry her, I was more than a little surprised. It was a whole month of wedding events, with the shower, bachelorette and then the wedding. They had a beautiful celebration at her family cabin, the last weekend of August.
So, like I said, this summer has been great – busy, full of fun and celebration. But the truth is that no matter how wonderful any summer may have been, I still feel a sense of excitement when the air starts to cool and I know fall is coming. I happily pull out my sweaters, tights, boots and scarves and I curse the days that are too warm to wear them. I secretly hope for highs of 15 degrees for the day. I start dreaming of baking apple pies and sipping cider.
Fall holds my heart... it snuggles me in fuzzy wool, and comforts me with delicious, spicy flavours and it wraps it all up in a stunning jewel toned bow.
What is it about September that feels so promising? I love September - everything about it. I love the crisp in the air, the pumpkin spice lates, fuzzy wool socks with boots, the deep rich jewel tones... there is nothing that is not great about September.
When you start to really think about it, September should be sad and depressing... another summer is over, cold weather is moving in, the trees and other greenery begin to die, summer holidays are at close and we are all returning to our school/work routines. Even those of us who do not get entire summers off know that nothing much gets done during the summer... or should I say, nothing new gets started during the summer. There are too many people away at any given time to consider new projects.
So again, I ask: Why is it that despite all this, September is so full of promise?
It could be that those years between 5 and 18 have so engrained us that we will always see September as the month the new year actually begins. Maybe we like our routines and the daily grind more than we care to admit? Maybe, if you are like me, you just love that “back to school” feeling that new adventures are around the corner.
I have to say that summer 2013 was really good to me. Sean and I spent 3 weeks traveling in Italy and France. My first real travel in Europe – I say “real” because I was in Germany when I was 15 for gymnastics, and didn’t actually see much more than the insides of gyms and stadiums; in 2002 I met up with some girlfriends in England and also spent time in Scotland – but they don’t really consider themselves part of continental Europe. What an unreal trip… I live a charmed life.
August brought my Nan’s 90th birthday – you wouldn’t believe she was 90. She’s got more love and more joy in a few strands of her white hair than most people are lucky enough to experience in a whole life time. My whole family came in from Ontario, the US, etc. It’s so rare that I get to see my whole family – we have our moments, but I was lucky enough to be raised side by side with my cousins at our family cabin in the summers, so I can say with complete honesty that I really, truly love spending time with them. I wonder what it must be like for my Nan to look around and see this enormous group of people (she has 14 grandkids, and there are a LOT of great-grandkids these days), and know that if it weren’t for her, none of them would be here.
Last, but certainly not least, my best friend got married. We’ve been friends since we were 10 years old and seeing her get married was one of the highlights of my adult life. She’s said for a long time now that she was happy in her long term partnership, and didn’t want to get married. So when she called me last spring and told me she was going to ask him to marry her, I was more than a little surprised. It was a whole month of wedding events, with the shower, bachelorette and then the wedding. They had a beautiful celebration at her family cabin, the last weekend of August.
So, like I said, this summer has been great – busy, full of fun and celebration. But the truth is that no matter how wonderful any summer may have been, I still feel a sense of excitement when the air starts to cool and I know fall is coming. I happily pull out my sweaters, tights, boots and scarves and I curse the days that are too warm to wear them. I secretly hope for highs of 15 degrees for the day. I start dreaming of baking apple pies and sipping cider.
Fall holds my heart... it snuggles me in fuzzy wool, and comforts me with delicious, spicy flavours and it wraps it all up in a stunning jewel toned bow.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
India and Beyond
"Everything you are sure is right, can be wrong in another place." - Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
In my last post "Oh the Places You'll Go" I talked about all the reasons getting older, and embracing change, has been a great experience for me. The one thing I have struggled to hang onto, is the ability to travel. Travel, more than any other thing in my life, has shaped who I am today. There is something about having to squat over a hole in the ground to pee that makes you fee like you can do anything. But as I acquire more of the things that make up my life today (house, dog, two cats, etc), it gets harder and harder to do that kind of traveling. To tell the truth, my husband and I have been spoiled - for us traveling isn't a week on a beach somewhere (although that is awesome in its own way too), it's dedicating a chunk of time to immersing yourself in a foreign culture.
The year after I finished University I found myself floundering. The thought of trying to find a "career" scared the life out of me. So I found the perfect hiding place - I moved to Japan for a year to teach English. While I thought I was playing hide and seek with my future, it turned out I was actually being introduced to the first incarnation of my adult self. All by myself, on the other side of the world, I fell in love with being afraid. Does that sound strange? It's the kind of fear some people get bungee jumping or whitewater rafting - the kind of fear you feel when you are pushing yourself to your limits. Sometimes it is nice to settle in and feel comfortable, but if there is one thing I know for sure about myself it's that I will never be happy in a life that doesn't scare me a little bit.
At the end of a year I decided to come home to Winnipeg. People often asked me, if I loved Japan so much, why did I come home. There are so many reasons, and honestly I probably still don't understand all of them - I had a job I loved, my own apartment, a great boyfriend and some really good friends. In a way, I was running again - my boyfriend was talking about marriage, which I wasn't at all ready for. I was also starting to realize that I could spend my whole life in Japan, become fluent in the language, know the culture as well as the one I grew up in, and they would still always see me as a Canadian living in Japan. Or maybe, it was that I would always see myself as a Canadian living in Japan - either way, I wasn't ready to commit for life.
Ironically, within a six months of coming home I met the man I did eventually marry (Many years later). He had just spent 3 months traveling Europe by himself and also loved to travel. We shortly began planning, what will probably always be, the trip of my life. In the summer of 2007 we spent 4 months traveling India and South East Asia.
We landed in Delhi in early May and it was already 30 degrees at 6 in the morning. Just the heat was overwhelming, never mind the crowds, the smell, the cows, the stares. Even Indian people want to know, why India? I've said it many times, but India is a place of extreme contradictions. Yes, there are some extreme negatives that you will experience in India - but even those will push you to consider who you are when faced with the worst of life. On the other hand you will meet the most amazing people, eat the most amazing food, see the most amazing sites. I stood no more than 10 feet from the Dalai Lama, saw the Taj Mahal, and Mount Everest, went fishing in the Ganges, hiked in the foothills of the Himalayas, took a row boat at dawn down the Ganges in Varanasi - so I guess I would ask, why not India? Even the seemingly negative experiences, for the most part, I wouldn't trade for anything. We rode a bus with vinyl seats and no air conditioning for 12 hours, through the desert; my husband had to have minor surgery in a hospital that looked like something out of a World War One movie; and yes, I stepped in cow poo - many times. India was exhausting - because whether it's amazing or awful, it always takes all of your energy to truly experience life in India. The picture above, taken in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), tells the whole story - I am exhausted, but also happier than I can put into words.
After two months in India we were ready for some relaxation - so the whirlwind trip to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam that we had originally planned, turned into a month and a half in Thailand (most of which was spent reading in various hammocks by the ocean) and a couple weeks in Cambodia. Even that had it's ups and downs - we had to walk across the border into Cambodia, and in doing so were threatened by the Cambodian mafia (yup, that's right, Cambodian mafia). A bomb went off a block from our hotel in Phnom Penh - and one of the hotel staff members laughingly told us the crime had been perpetrated by Pol Pot, the former Cambodian leader who committed mass genocide against his own people. We saw Angkor Wat and the Killing Fields - so I guess you could say Cambodia is just as contradictory as India. Then we went back to Thailand, where we got engaged one night on a beach in Koh Lanta - and spent even more time reading in hammocks.
Traveling, more than anything else I've experienced in life, has taught me that sometimes you have to suck it up and take the good with the bad. Because if you let every frightening or upsetting experience get you down, you'd miss out on all the amazing things that are out there waiting for you.
It's been 6 years, and we are finally planning our next adventure - this July Sean and I will spend 3 weeks in Italy and France. I find the closer we get, the more I'm starting to get that feeling I fell in love with so long ago in Japan - that feeling of fear and excitement, at the possibilities that are opened up by the unknown. Aside from the food, the thing I am most looking forward to is the possibility that anything could happen, and whether it is ugly or beautiful it will be one more amazing travel story to add to the collection.
For more pictures from India, click here
In my last post "Oh the Places You'll Go" I talked about all the reasons getting older, and embracing change, has been a great experience for me. The one thing I have struggled to hang onto, is the ability to travel. Travel, more than any other thing in my life, has shaped who I am today. There is something about having to squat over a hole in the ground to pee that makes you fee like you can do anything. But as I acquire more of the things that make up my life today (house, dog, two cats, etc), it gets harder and harder to do that kind of traveling. To tell the truth, my husband and I have been spoiled - for us traveling isn't a week on a beach somewhere (although that is awesome in its own way too), it's dedicating a chunk of time to immersing yourself in a foreign culture.
The year after I finished University I found myself floundering. The thought of trying to find a "career" scared the life out of me. So I found the perfect hiding place - I moved to Japan for a year to teach English. While I thought I was playing hide and seek with my future, it turned out I was actually being introduced to the first incarnation of my adult self. All by myself, on the other side of the world, I fell in love with being afraid. Does that sound strange? It's the kind of fear some people get bungee jumping or whitewater rafting - the kind of fear you feel when you are pushing yourself to your limits. Sometimes it is nice to settle in and feel comfortable, but if there is one thing I know for sure about myself it's that I will never be happy in a life that doesn't scare me a little bit.
At the end of a year I decided to come home to Winnipeg. People often asked me, if I loved Japan so much, why did I come home. There are so many reasons, and honestly I probably still don't understand all of them - I had a job I loved, my own apartment, a great boyfriend and some really good friends. In a way, I was running again - my boyfriend was talking about marriage, which I wasn't at all ready for. I was also starting to realize that I could spend my whole life in Japan, become fluent in the language, know the culture as well as the one I grew up in, and they would still always see me as a Canadian living in Japan. Or maybe, it was that I would always see myself as a Canadian living in Japan - either way, I wasn't ready to commit for life.
Ironically, within a six months of coming home I met the man I did eventually marry (Many years later). He had just spent 3 months traveling Europe by himself and also loved to travel. We shortly began planning, what will probably always be, the trip of my life. In the summer of 2007 we spent 4 months traveling India and South East Asia.
We landed in Delhi in early May and it was already 30 degrees at 6 in the morning. Just the heat was overwhelming, never mind the crowds, the smell, the cows, the stares. Even Indian people want to know, why India? I've said it many times, but India is a place of extreme contradictions. Yes, there are some extreme negatives that you will experience in India - but even those will push you to consider who you are when faced with the worst of life. On the other hand you will meet the most amazing people, eat the most amazing food, see the most amazing sites. I stood no more than 10 feet from the Dalai Lama, saw the Taj Mahal, and Mount Everest, went fishing in the Ganges, hiked in the foothills of the Himalayas, took a row boat at dawn down the Ganges in Varanasi - so I guess I would ask, why not India? Even the seemingly negative experiences, for the most part, I wouldn't trade for anything. We rode a bus with vinyl seats and no air conditioning for 12 hours, through the desert; my husband had to have minor surgery in a hospital that looked like something out of a World War One movie; and yes, I stepped in cow poo - many times. India was exhausting - because whether it's amazing or awful, it always takes all of your energy to truly experience life in India. The picture above, taken in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), tells the whole story - I am exhausted, but also happier than I can put into words.
After two months in India we were ready for some relaxation - so the whirlwind trip to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam that we had originally planned, turned into a month and a half in Thailand (most of which was spent reading in various hammocks by the ocean) and a couple weeks in Cambodia. Even that had it's ups and downs - we had to walk across the border into Cambodia, and in doing so were threatened by the Cambodian mafia (yup, that's right, Cambodian mafia). A bomb went off a block from our hotel in Phnom Penh - and one of the hotel staff members laughingly told us the crime had been perpetrated by Pol Pot, the former Cambodian leader who committed mass genocide against his own people. We saw Angkor Wat and the Killing Fields - so I guess you could say Cambodia is just as contradictory as India. Then we went back to Thailand, where we got engaged one night on a beach in Koh Lanta - and spent even more time reading in hammocks.
Traveling, more than anything else I've experienced in life, has taught me that sometimes you have to suck it up and take the good with the bad. Because if you let every frightening or upsetting experience get you down, you'd miss out on all the amazing things that are out there waiting for you.
It's been 6 years, and we are finally planning our next adventure - this July Sean and I will spend 3 weeks in Italy and France. I find the closer we get, the more I'm starting to get that feeling I fell in love with so long ago in Japan - that feeling of fear and excitement, at the possibilities that are opened up by the unknown. Aside from the food, the thing I am most looking forward to is the possibility that anything could happen, and whether it is ugly or beautiful it will be one more amazing travel story to add to the collection.
For more pictures from India, click here
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Oh, the places you'll go
"Take a single step, followed by another. Don't look too far out into the future, and don't look too far back either. Stay centered in the present moment as best you can." - Anonymous
I've been having a lot of moments lately. I don't know how to describe them exactly. When I was in my 20s, every so often I'd have a brief moment where I felt myself growing into someone different, someone more adult. In those moments I felt as though a window had appeared and I could see the future, coming nearer, on the other side. Sometimes those moments were scary, but mostly they were reassuring. They told me that even though I didn't quite know where I was heading, that I was on a path - or sometimes bushwhacking, but I was heading in the "right" direction.
These days my “windows” look more like giant, wide open, patio doors. I am straddling the threshold - I can feel myself transitioning into a new era, and I can see my friends going there alongside me. Ten years ago, I was only ready to peer fleetingly through those windows. Looking back, I can see that they all opened in their own time, as I was ready.
This morning, when an old friend posted on Facebook that she was in her last year of her nursing degree, I had a moment - but this one was a little more retrospective. I paused to think about the kids we all were 10 years ago and I felt awed at all we had accomplished. I think about that ragtag group of kids, who were all exploring the depths of our newfound freedom - who were more interested in a fun friday night, than a solid plan for the future (as every 23 year old should be)... it seems amazing to me that we've all come so far. My 20s were an incredibly fun, sorrowful, exciting and growing decade - I have sometimes feared the loss of this. I have the most incredible memories from that time. Now we are young professionals, husbands, wives, parents, homeowners and a million other things I knew we'd become - and yet never understood how that might come to be. And the most interesting part? All those adult things, like office jobs, marriages, divorces, children, houses - I always thought that as I acquired them I would become less myself, more tied down by them. I always thought that I had to get my living in while I still could. But the incredible truth I have discovered is that if you choose your life, on your own terms, then you will define those choices, the good and the bad. They will make you more "you" than I could ever have imagined back then.
I've been having a lot of moments lately. I don't know how to describe them exactly. When I was in my 20s, every so often I'd have a brief moment where I felt myself growing into someone different, someone more adult. In those moments I felt as though a window had appeared and I could see the future, coming nearer, on the other side. Sometimes those moments were scary, but mostly they were reassuring. They told me that even though I didn't quite know where I was heading, that I was on a path - or sometimes bushwhacking, but I was heading in the "right" direction.
These days my “windows” look more like giant, wide open, patio doors. I am straddling the threshold - I can feel myself transitioning into a new era, and I can see my friends going there alongside me. Ten years ago, I was only ready to peer fleetingly through those windows. Looking back, I can see that they all opened in their own time, as I was ready.
This morning, when an old friend posted on Facebook that she was in her last year of her nursing degree, I had a moment - but this one was a little more retrospective. I paused to think about the kids we all were 10 years ago and I felt awed at all we had accomplished. I think about that ragtag group of kids, who were all exploring the depths of our newfound freedom - who were more interested in a fun friday night, than a solid plan for the future (as every 23 year old should be)... it seems amazing to me that we've all come so far. My 20s were an incredibly fun, sorrowful, exciting and growing decade - I have sometimes feared the loss of this. I have the most incredible memories from that time. Now we are young professionals, husbands, wives, parents, homeowners and a million other things I knew we'd become - and yet never understood how that might come to be. And the most interesting part? All those adult things, like office jobs, marriages, divorces, children, houses - I always thought that as I acquired them I would become less myself, more tied down by them. I always thought that I had to get my living in while I still could. But the incredible truth I have discovered is that if you choose your life, on your own terms, then you will define those choices, the good and the bad. They will make you more "you" than I could ever have imagined back then.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
I Heart Winnipeg
I had to leave Winnipeg for a fairly long time, and go literally to the other side of the globe, to figure out that I loved it. Honestly, I don’t think I could have ever figured this out without having left. I would have spent my whole life wishing I’d gone somewhere more metropolitan or more exotic. There are people like my best friend, who have lived here their whole lives and know that they will live and die Winnipegers – and they wouldn’t want it any other way. I would never have been one of those people. So I'm glad I left - and I'm really glad that I eventually had the sense to come home.
Come February it starts getting harder and harder to remember why I love this city. The snow is no longer fluffy, white and romantic, but rather grey-brown and salt stains have begun ruining all your shoes; the wind chill has made what could almost be a tolerable temperature intolerable for more days than we should be able to count – but we do count. Talk to most Winnipegers in February or March and at some point in the conversation they will almost inevitably say something along the lines of “Can you believe it, 30 straight days below -30 degrees with the wind chill?” There is inevitably at least one day every winter where you get out of your car/off the bus, with a toque pulled down just below your eyebrows, a scarf pulled up to the tops of your cheeks, while your eyelashes freeze together and you think “What the fuck? Why did my ancestors travel half way around the world and stop here???”
The truth is that the misery we go through every winter is part of what binds us together – we all have it in common. We go through it together. We come out the other side, each spring, like soldiers home from battle – bonded together through a shared experience. And we feel that much stronger for it. Let’s face it, we look down on people that complain about minus 15. We’ve earned that right.
Winnipeg suffers from short man syndrome – forever jumping up and down yelling “Look at me! I’m a real city too!” It’s endearing – though unnecessary. We are what we are. We don’t have freeways, and we drive like maniacs. We have only just acquired some of the major US retailers that other Canadian cities have had for years. We are renowned (at least in Winnipeg) for our love of a good bargain. We have Transcona – and where would we be if we didn’t have Transcona to make fun of? Every small man needs a little brother to pick on.
So what do we have? We have incredibly short commutes by comparison with most other cities in the world. We have some of the best and most varied food cultures of any city of been in. We have the Weakerthans, who have written some of my favourite words about this city )“My city's still breathing (but barely it's true) through buildings gone missing like teeth.”) We have the West End Cultural Centre, where you can see burgeoning artists and long established ones at a reasonable price. We have a very real art scene, although you might have to dig a little to find it – it’s there, I promise. We have cottage country, usually at a pretty reasonable drive from the city for a weekend getaway. And speaking of cottage country – we have some pretty incredible summers. And we make the most of them – there’s a festival of some sort at almost any point from the time the weather gets warm (not to mention Festival du Voyageur right in the middle of the winter, when we need it most).
The longer I type this list of things I love about Winnipeg, the longer it gets. This post could go on and on.
I read this article “Nine ways to experience Winnipeg” this morning and it reminded me that some of the things we do have are pretty unique. I don’t agree with everything the author has to say – but it made me laugh, made me feel proud of this city – and usually come February I need something like this to remind me about the lengthy list of things that make me proud to be a Winnipeger. Best of all, it reminded me that there are things about Winnipeg I still haven’t experienced. It made me want to do all of the things he listed – so I’m going to. It might take me a year, because some are very decidedly winter or summer activities, but I’m going to try them all. I may even redo some of the ones I’ve already tried. As with any relationship, no matter how loving, it is always important to keep trying, learning about new things to love and revisiting the tried and true classics that made you fall in love in the first place.
If you are from Winnipeg, what is your one “must do” or “must see”? Maybe I’ll give it a try. And if anything interesting comes of these little journeys I’ll let you know.
Come February it starts getting harder and harder to remember why I love this city. The snow is no longer fluffy, white and romantic, but rather grey-brown and salt stains have begun ruining all your shoes; the wind chill has made what could almost be a tolerable temperature intolerable for more days than we should be able to count – but we do count. Talk to most Winnipegers in February or March and at some point in the conversation they will almost inevitably say something along the lines of “Can you believe it, 30 straight days below -30 degrees with the wind chill?” There is inevitably at least one day every winter where you get out of your car/off the bus, with a toque pulled down just below your eyebrows, a scarf pulled up to the tops of your cheeks, while your eyelashes freeze together and you think “What the fuck? Why did my ancestors travel half way around the world and stop here???”
The truth is that the misery we go through every winter is part of what binds us together – we all have it in common. We go through it together. We come out the other side, each spring, like soldiers home from battle – bonded together through a shared experience. And we feel that much stronger for it. Let’s face it, we look down on people that complain about minus 15. We’ve earned that right.
Winnipeg suffers from short man syndrome – forever jumping up and down yelling “Look at me! I’m a real city too!” It’s endearing – though unnecessary. We are what we are. We don’t have freeways, and we drive like maniacs. We have only just acquired some of the major US retailers that other Canadian cities have had for years. We are renowned (at least in Winnipeg) for our love of a good bargain. We have Transcona – and where would we be if we didn’t have Transcona to make fun of? Every small man needs a little brother to pick on.
So what do we have? We have incredibly short commutes by comparison with most other cities in the world. We have some of the best and most varied food cultures of any city of been in. We have the Weakerthans, who have written some of my favourite words about this city )“My city's still breathing (but barely it's true) through buildings gone missing like teeth.”) We have the West End Cultural Centre, where you can see burgeoning artists and long established ones at a reasonable price. We have a very real art scene, although you might have to dig a little to find it – it’s there, I promise. We have cottage country, usually at a pretty reasonable drive from the city for a weekend getaway. And speaking of cottage country – we have some pretty incredible summers. And we make the most of them – there’s a festival of some sort at almost any point from the time the weather gets warm (not to mention Festival du Voyageur right in the middle of the winter, when we need it most).
The longer I type this list of things I love about Winnipeg, the longer it gets. This post could go on and on.
I read this article “Nine ways to experience Winnipeg” this morning and it reminded me that some of the things we do have are pretty unique. I don’t agree with everything the author has to say – but it made me laugh, made me feel proud of this city – and usually come February I need something like this to remind me about the lengthy list of things that make me proud to be a Winnipeger. Best of all, it reminded me that there are things about Winnipeg I still haven’t experienced. It made me want to do all of the things he listed – so I’m going to. It might take me a year, because some are very decidedly winter or summer activities, but I’m going to try them all. I may even redo some of the ones I’ve already tried. As with any relationship, no matter how loving, it is always important to keep trying, learning about new things to love and revisiting the tried and true classics that made you fall in love in the first place.
If you are from Winnipeg, what is your one “must do” or “must see”? Maybe I’ll give it a try. And if anything interesting comes of these little journeys I’ll let you know.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
What's in a Name?
What’s in a name? – Frankly, everything.
If you’ve ever read my blog before, you’ve probably noticed that it’s been renamed – oh, and it looks pretty different. Why have I gone to the drastic lengths of completely reinventing the look and feel of my blog? Well, a few reasons.
For the first one I’m going to refer you back to my last blog post “My Resignation” – it seems a bit repetitive to rewrite what’s already there.
The bottom line is that I just didn't think "Junk Food Junkie" spoke at all to where I want to go with this blog.
So why “Acquiring the Words”? One of my favourite books of all time is the Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. If you haven’t read it, don’t walk – run, to your nearest book seller or library and get yourself a copy. It is brilliant. The new name of my blog comes from a quote I have added as the sub header (scroll up – or just keep reading) “Listen. To live is to be marked. To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know. In perfect stillness, frankly, I've only found sorrow.” You may have noticed that my blog is no longer about my food reformation. One of my co-workers pointed out that these days it’s more about revelation than reformation. So true. I want this blog to be somewhere I come to spill my guts. I want it to be the place where I put down the words I acquire while celebrating my story.
As for the format, I really just wanted something a little cleaner looking.
So, what do you think? Good choice? Bad Choice?
If you’ve ever read my blog before, you’ve probably noticed that it’s been renamed – oh, and it looks pretty different. Why have I gone to the drastic lengths of completely reinventing the look and feel of my blog? Well, a few reasons.
For the first one I’m going to refer you back to my last blog post “My Resignation” – it seems a bit repetitive to rewrite what’s already there.
The bottom line is that I just didn't think "Junk Food Junkie" spoke at all to where I want to go with this blog.
So why “Acquiring the Words”? One of my favourite books of all time is the Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. If you haven’t read it, don’t walk – run, to your nearest book seller or library and get yourself a copy. It is brilliant. The new name of my blog comes from a quote I have added as the sub header (scroll up – or just keep reading) “Listen. To live is to be marked. To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know. In perfect stillness, frankly, I've only found sorrow.” You may have noticed that my blog is no longer about my food reformation. One of my co-workers pointed out that these days it’s more about revelation than reformation. So true. I want this blog to be somewhere I come to spill my guts. I want it to be the place where I put down the words I acquire while celebrating my story.
As for the format, I really just wanted something a little cleaner looking.
So, what do you think? Good choice? Bad Choice?
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
My Resignation
I quit.
That’s right, I quit. I am done participating in the culture of body shaming that has engulfed us. A while back I started feeling disgusted with magazine covers that scream things like “This year’s best and worst beach bodies” – There’s no winning in these types of magazines. Leeann Rimes and Tara Reid are dangerously thin, while Snooki and Christina Aguilera are ballooning out of control. We should all aspire to have Scarlett Johansson’s perfect ass. Anything more, or less, is simply unacceptable.
I’ve caught myself thinking things like “She’s really pretty even though she’s big.” Or “She’d be really pretty if she lost some weight.” – um, if you can tell she “would be” really pretty, why is that you think she isn’t now??? Oh, and how about that’s kind of the pot calling the kettle black Shawn? But I wasn’t exempt from my own hateful thoughts. In fact, I was their most frequent victim.
It’s even tempting as a size 12 – that’s right, I’m putting it on the internet, I’m a size 12 – to participate in the abundance of skinny girl hate that is out there. After all, real women have curves, right? NO – real women come in all shapes and sizes. It’s not your place to tell someone else that they should have a different body type in order to be “real”.
Let’s not forget the men here either – I can’t say whether or not the pressure on men is as great, worse, or less than it is for women. Does it really matter? Men are also victims of fat shaming in our culture – I’ve seen it firsthand. In my experience, people seem to have less issue with telling a man he is overweight or just commenting on his weight in general.
It’s been coming together in my head over the last while, that this type of thinking is just so fucked up. Then yesterday my friend Jen Selk posted this blog (Secrets and Lies)I debated whether or not writing this post was piggy backing, or copying her in some way. But I think she’d agree with me that it’s time that we all take a stand, and say that we banish fat shaming, skinny shaming or any other kind of body judgment from our way of thinking. To do that we need to talk about the fact that it is happening.
You can argue that it’s not healthy to be overweight, although according to some of my more recent reading this is not a hard and fast fact (I haven’t done enough research in this area that I’m willing to argue this point right now) – but when did we decide that our physical health was so much more important than our emotional health? Almost every woman I know (and some of the men) has spent an overwhelming amount of time beating herself up because she didn’t fit into some ideal body shape she has pre-set in her mind. We spend unbelievable amounts of time talking about our latest plans to eat healthier, lose weight, be the picture we see in our heads of what we should look like. How is that healthy??? I’ve spent a huge amount of my life being unhappy and stressed about my weight. How has that made my life better in any way? It hasn’t. I could weigh the ideal 110 lbs and still beat the shit out of myself emotionally – but people would tell me how great I looked, and then I’d be happy right? Right?
Who are we to ever tell someone else that who they are, how they look, or anything else about themselves is not up to our standards? Know a fat person? Get off their back – because if there is one thing I can guarantee you, it’s that your “caring” comments about their physical wellbeing have never done them even a little bit of good. What they have done is tell your loved one that you would love them that much more if they could just look the way you would like them to – now that may not be what you’ve intended– but I promise that this is what they are hearing. I’ve been guilty of doing this with hubby. I’ve had moments where I think, what would I do if at 50 he had a heart attack and left me alone, or with a couple of kids? (and again – hello pot, the kettle is calling and he would like his black coat back) – the thought of being without him for any reason breaks my heart. So what if he has a heart attack because he lives a life of stress, trying to live up to the expectations of his harpy of a wife? Or leaves me because I’ve been subtly telling him for years that I don’t love him unconditionally? What your loved one needs to know is that you love them. Period. There is no weight clause in your relationship (any relationship, parent/child, husband/wife, friends, relatives, whoever).
Finally, I’m renaming my blog – because even though I still agree with the heart of why I set it up (yes, I still think that over processing food is a plague), I don’t think the title is reflective of where I am now, and who I want to be – or what I want this blog to be about. I’m not sure what to call it though – thoughts?
That’s right, I quit. I am done participating in the culture of body shaming that has engulfed us. A while back I started feeling disgusted with magazine covers that scream things like “This year’s best and worst beach bodies” – There’s no winning in these types of magazines. Leeann Rimes and Tara Reid are dangerously thin, while Snooki and Christina Aguilera are ballooning out of control. We should all aspire to have Scarlett Johansson’s perfect ass. Anything more, or less, is simply unacceptable.
I’ve caught myself thinking things like “She’s really pretty even though she’s big.” Or “She’d be really pretty if she lost some weight.” – um, if you can tell she “would be” really pretty, why is that you think she isn’t now??? Oh, and how about that’s kind of the pot calling the kettle black Shawn? But I wasn’t exempt from my own hateful thoughts. In fact, I was their most frequent victim.
It’s even tempting as a size 12 – that’s right, I’m putting it on the internet, I’m a size 12 – to participate in the abundance of skinny girl hate that is out there. After all, real women have curves, right? NO – real women come in all shapes and sizes. It’s not your place to tell someone else that they should have a different body type in order to be “real”.
Let’s not forget the men here either – I can’t say whether or not the pressure on men is as great, worse, or less than it is for women. Does it really matter? Men are also victims of fat shaming in our culture – I’ve seen it firsthand. In my experience, people seem to have less issue with telling a man he is overweight or just commenting on his weight in general.
It’s been coming together in my head over the last while, that this type of thinking is just so fucked up. Then yesterday my friend Jen Selk posted this blog (Secrets and Lies)I debated whether or not writing this post was piggy backing, or copying her in some way. But I think she’d agree with me that it’s time that we all take a stand, and say that we banish fat shaming, skinny shaming or any other kind of body judgment from our way of thinking. To do that we need to talk about the fact that it is happening.
You can argue that it’s not healthy to be overweight, although according to some of my more recent reading this is not a hard and fast fact (I haven’t done enough research in this area that I’m willing to argue this point right now) – but when did we decide that our physical health was so much more important than our emotional health? Almost every woman I know (and some of the men) has spent an overwhelming amount of time beating herself up because she didn’t fit into some ideal body shape she has pre-set in her mind. We spend unbelievable amounts of time talking about our latest plans to eat healthier, lose weight, be the picture we see in our heads of what we should look like. How is that healthy??? I’ve spent a huge amount of my life being unhappy and stressed about my weight. How has that made my life better in any way? It hasn’t. I could weigh the ideal 110 lbs and still beat the shit out of myself emotionally – but people would tell me how great I looked, and then I’d be happy right? Right?
Who are we to ever tell someone else that who they are, how they look, or anything else about themselves is not up to our standards? Know a fat person? Get off their back – because if there is one thing I can guarantee you, it’s that your “caring” comments about their physical wellbeing have never done them even a little bit of good. What they have done is tell your loved one that you would love them that much more if they could just look the way you would like them to – now that may not be what you’ve intended– but I promise that this is what they are hearing. I’ve been guilty of doing this with hubby. I’ve had moments where I think, what would I do if at 50 he had a heart attack and left me alone, or with a couple of kids? (and again – hello pot, the kettle is calling and he would like his black coat back) – the thought of being without him for any reason breaks my heart. So what if he has a heart attack because he lives a life of stress, trying to live up to the expectations of his harpy of a wife? Or leaves me because I’ve been subtly telling him for years that I don’t love him unconditionally? What your loved one needs to know is that you love them. Period. There is no weight clause in your relationship (any relationship, parent/child, husband/wife, friends, relatives, whoever).
Finally, I’m renaming my blog – because even though I still agree with the heart of why I set it up (yes, I still think that over processing food is a plague), I don’t think the title is reflective of where I am now, and who I want to be – or what I want this blog to be about. I’m not sure what to call it though – thoughts?
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