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

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 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.

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?

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?

The Things We Carry With Us

With the holidays just behind us I've been thinking a lot about family traditions, how many of ours have disappeared over the years. I've been missing things like family Sunday night dinner and church on Christmas eve. As time has passed and I've gotten decidedly more agnostic, a divorce, two remarriages (my parents', not mine) a cross country move, an international relocation and an eventual return to the city where I grew up, all compounded by family spread out across the continent have resulted in a firm wall of time having been erected between me and the family traditions of my youth. These days we don't even spend Christmas in the same city two years in a row, so Christmas traditions are hard to establish.

Lately I find myself searching for those few, slim connections to my youth. Aside from my family, there are only a few people who've known me since I was young. It takes a lot of effort to carry things and people with us through the years, and I've moved around so much that I have shed a lot of things along the way. So many people have come and gone, some for the best and some I miss dearly. The people who are still there are the ones I've loved enough to carry through the years, but who have also loved me enough to pick me up and carry me when necessary. I feel lucky to have them.

All this has gotten me thinking about the other things that have been important enough to heap into suitcases and bring with me through the years. There is a copy of the Velveteen Rabbit my Great Aunt gave me years ago, with gorgeous illustrations. There is an ice cream cone shaped whistle from Dairy Queen, from the night we went in after hours with a friend who worked there, and made our own sundaes. There are a lot of old pictures, and a few old letters. There is a tulip pressed between the pages of my University Year Book, that reminds me of my last day as a student and how wide open life felt that day. Perhaps the lightest thing, the one that has gone with me absolutely every place I've ever traveled, is music. I don't remember when I first realized that a great song could make my heart swell just like falling in love does, but for years now it has been my comfort, my warm blanket, my sunny summer day, my cruel lover, my compassionate friend.

When I was around fifteen my mom and her then boyfriend, now husband, took my brother and I on a trip to Toronto. We saw a lot of amazing things on that trip, and I decided that someday I was going to live there. The thing that stands out most from that week was a concert they took us to at the Molson Amphitheater. This is one of my all time favorite summer music venues. It is an outdoor stage, set in a bowl of seats, which you can pay top dollar to have, or you can pay less to sit in the grassy area above the seats. You can bring a blanket and a picnic and lie on the grass watching the stars while listening to one of your favorite bands. That week we saw Blue Rodeo, who are in my opinion one of the quintessential Canadian bands of the last 25 years. I was in love. I can remember sitting in our family room playing "Dark Angel" on repeat on the stereo. Not their best song, but what can I say, I was something of a melancholy/romantic teenager. At least I grew out of it... what's Greg Keelor's excuse? Just kidding Greg, I love you.

I had some guy friends who were in a band - one of whom I was totally head over heals for - and we used to go watch them play at a local coffee house (hey, it was the 90s, that's what we did). Listening to them play "Side of the Road" is still one of my favorite memories from that time.

Two years later we moved to a small Ontario town just 45 minutes from Toronto (the closest I ever came to living there, which is ok). My parents built a beautiful house in the middle of the forest at the end of a dirt road. I can remember pulling up to the house after night out with friends, on many occasions, the house glowing and warm, and Blue Rodeo playing on the stereo so loudly I could hear it from the driveway. It was the sound track of our lives back then. I knew my family was inside waiting for me.

Fast forward nearly two decades, a million miles, and more changes than I could possibly put down on paper - and one of the few bands my husband and I both love equally is Blue Rodeo. Our first dance at our wedding was "Rebel" (it's more romantic than it sounds). Last night we went to see them for the third time (together). I realized while we were sitting there, holding hands like two kids in puppy love, that they are the one big tradition I have carried with me all these years. Someday my kids will pull up to the house, late at night, hear Blue Rodeo blaring on the stereo, and know that their parents are inside dancing.

You are not required to complete this task...

“You are not required to complete this task, but you are not free to withdraw from it.” – The Talmud

When I was a teenager I loved filling notebooks with quotes I came across. I don’t quite remember what qualified a quote to make it into one of my compilations, but it likely just had to strike me as interesting or thoughtful in some way. Many of these little quips are long forgotten – I still have most of the notebooks (Because I have some minor hording tendencies, according to hubs. I contend that one wooden trunk full of nostalgia does not a hoarder make – but that’s another post for another time), but this one has stuck in my head over the years. At the time when I jotted it down, I attributed its source to the Talmud. I have never read the Talmud, so I’m not sure how it crossed my path, but a quick search of the internet confirms that at the very least the words are associated with Judaism. I remember reading this quote to my mother, who asked “What does it mean?” and at the time I assumed that was because she didn’t get it. Looking back she likely just wanted to know what I thought it meant.

I don’t know the context of the quote in the larger body in which is resides (if you do, I’d love to hear about it). To me, this quote has always been the most basic and beautiful description of everything we go through in this life. On a small scale it is about all those tasks that we deal with on a daily basis – you don’t have to write that report, finish that project or improve that nagging thing in your life, but chances are that not taking care of those things means they will just hang around and haunt you. On a larger scale it speaks to me about living life – you can withdraw from your life in a variety of ways: drugs, alcohol, depression, isolating yourself, or even killing yourself – and in these ways you can refuse to complete the task of living your life, and yet you cannot avoid the fact that certain tasks have been laid out before you and they will never go away until you choose to tackle them.

Seven years ago my friend Peter took his own life. Just typing the words is more difficult than I can put into words. He was kind, smart, quiet in his words, and yet forceful and present in his music. He was also sad, and struggled with the tasks laid out before him. We all knew he was going through an incredibly tough time. By the time that January rolled around our group had begun to drift. I hadn’t seen him in a while. I can still remember that phone call… the choked sound of your voice when you told me. I can remember being surprised by an old friend’s angry shouting, cursing him – but of course he was angry. Now it seems like the most rational response.

It’s been seven years – so when I came home last night and saw your post of Facebook, that you were going to our old place to raise a glass, I guess I shouldn’t have been so surprised that it had slipped my mind. We’ve gone together every year, until yesterday. I felt guilty… not because I’ve moved on, Peter and I were never as good of friends, but because I’d left you to go by yourself.

So how is it that I can believe that Peter did not withdraw from the task at hand? Well, for one thing, his departure didn’t make his painful situation disappear – it sent his pain like shrapnel to wound his friends and family. We still carry the pieces that tore into us - and we are assigned our own part in his tasks to work through. I also don’t believe that death is the end. I do believe we are reincarnated and that we carry our unfinished business with us, and are given the opportunity to continue working on unraveling the knots that belong to us. I hope with all my heart that this time around you are happier, and feel more equipped to take on the task that is living. But more than that I hope my friends who did not attempt to withdraw are able to heal the holes you left behind.