Monday, June 27, 2011

Chicks Shouldn't BBQ

"A man can be short and dumpy and getting bald,
but if he has fire, women like him."
~Mae West~
Women love looking after their man. You can tell how great a man is to his partner by how well he's taken care of. When my friends and I are in relationship bliss with our significant others, we cook for them, buy them little gifties, let them have all the man-cave time they want and think it's cute, sexy even. When a man looks after his woman, she gives it back in multiples. Pun absolutely intended.

Cooking becomes more than making sure he eats, it's a pleasure watching him enjoy his food. His nodding off while lounging at home in the evening is so sweet. Watching him help your kiddo with their homework or going outside to play catch melts your heart. When a man is gentle with his woman, everything is bliss.

...and then there's reality...

I think that's why we have raw meat and flames.   When a man's manliness gets in the way of relating - he doesn't listen, he's insensitive or his head is generally hidden up his butt, there's always the BBQ. You know what I'm talking about when I say "man-dumb" don't you ladies? I mean MAN DUMB. As in, you could tell him in eight bazillion ways about how you feel and he still wouldn't get it and doesn't seem to care to get it- that's MAN DUMB. Not complimenting you in your new outfit that was clearly bought for a special night out with him - MAN DUMB. Pointing out how you could have done everything better - cut your hair, baked cookies, spoken to your boss - and then get defensive saying he's just trying to help - that's MAN DUMB.

We don't want you to fix things boys, we want you to wrap your big strapping arms around us and say it's ok. We want you, as well groomed and smelling pretty as you may be, to be our Manosaurusrex. Anything else at the pinnacle of girl-crisis is MAN-DUMB.  We have our girlfriends for strategy. That's who we commune with in the war-room of life. We need you for moral support and unconditional adoration.

I once had a man tell me that he adored me. Only now do I realize how very sweet that was. At the time I thought it was MAN DUMB for not saying I love you. I get it now. Very sweet.  I also had a man call me a bleeping c word. I think secretly he was really in love with me too. How could he not be, what with all of my feminine charm and grace?

So, meat and flames....what gives? Well, I think when the battle of the sexes has reached a long, cool, stalemate, the last bastion of hope is the grill. There's something very sexy, primitive even about a man feeding a woman. It's like he went out and slayed the beast and is protecting his woman.  Sorta. Maybe that's just when we're delusional post-period, or when we're absolutely desperate to justify spending time with someone who seems like an an alien from another planet? Someone who apparently either can't hear, read non-verbal cues, or appreciate that he's in a relationship with a woman, not his mother?

It doesn't matter how MAN DUMB your man has been.  If you see him out there, grilling, over a red-hot flame - you can't help but be turned on a little bit. I mean, can you?  Just think of it, Mr. Sexy-I've-worked-hard-all-day-but-I'm-still-takin'-care-of-my-baby.....give him a break ladies.

So, Chicks Shouldn't BBQ. We should meditate on the meat, er, I mean testosterone standing out there on the deck, and smile knowing what we get for dessert. After all ladies, we all know that summer is the best time for shakin' up the bacon that the Manosaurusrex brought home.

Have BBQ - auditioning for guest chefs...

Sunday, June 26, 2011

How I'm Going to Spend My Summer Vacation Dammit

"Vacation is what you take when you can't take
what you've been taking any longer."
~Unknown~
In a state of Yo. As in the definition used by the Smothers Brothers. In a state of  relaxed bliss, whether it be camping in the great Canadian outdoors, paddling, concert-going, putting up preserves, or, as I have been earnestly practicing; sitting on my patio chair reading smut.

Just so you know, smut is modular. You can pack it up and take it anywhere. Some of the smut I purchased this weekend includes; magazines - Woman's World (oh yah baby!!! In honor of great-granny who used to clip the Ziggy cartoons and pin them to her cork board as motivation), The Rolling Stone (because a girl has to keep up with what's going on), Self ('cause it motivates me to move myself in this state of Yo), Books - Driftwood Cottage (the essence of the quintessential summer chick-novel), The Lincoln Lawyer (because I'm too happy here on my patio to get to the discount theatre showing), News - The Globe and Mail (just 'cause that's what I do). I'm fully loaded with smut for a summer of Yo.

My fridge is stocked with my favourite beer, and a tiny variety of other bottled alcoholic beverages. I even have a vintage 2009 Bacardi Breezer floating around in there. Wine suits me fine, but once in a while I like a cold summery drink - if only to remind myself to stick to wine and beer, and the odd cocktail produced in the dead of winter by gracious hosts conjuring Caribbean shores. We have frozen fruit pops, frozen yogurt, and yes, we have ice cubes (something I'm told chicks are famous for not having)! Ahhh, summer time!

The past two summers have passed with a pathetic shortage of outdoor-enjoy-every-bit-of-sunshine-that-you-possibly-can due to an acquiescence of leadership in relationship on my part. In other words, I bowed to the social preferences of, shall I say, at least one acquaintance who desperately needs to become familiar with the colloquial, "shit or get off the pot"-ism.

I am astounded that adults of my generation think you are either a responsible parent/adult/housekeeper OR you get outside and have fun. Sometimes it's just about letting the outside in. Feeling the breeze blow through the windows, hearing the neighbour kids giggle and play. Enjoying an after dinner walk, taking in the waterbirds and flora that populate our little lake. There is a balance to this being responsible and enjoying life, and I think, at least when it comes to summertime, that I've perfected it.  I am determined his will be a grand summer in the land of Yo (dammit!).

This year I plan to make up for my two summers of hibernating.  My legs, if you were unlucky enough to glimpse them are still long and shapely, but an ungodly shade of white that I've only seen in the morgue and at very special June-church-strawberry socials between the hem of walking shorts and the tops of knee socks. Not sexy. Although one gentleman caller that I knew in a previous life liked to refer to that shade as "China Doll" white. Hey, whatever works.

This is the summer of McDishy and Monkey Lips in land the Yo.  My neighbours have been subjected to the awe inspiring sight of me in tunics and stretchy capris, beer and wasabi peas at hand as I write you these blogs, or pen my not-so-tongue-in-cheek poetry.  I think I have gained a reputation in the neighbourhood as the very intelligent crazy lady who loves kids and trots off some evenings in tottery heels, not to be seen for days. I'm a bit of an enigma, but I'm fun.

You might be wondering about summer romance. Well, I've never given up on my dream of a great man, a loving home, and kids driving us clinically mad on a daily basis. As you do know, I have given up men who have briefly starred in the dream. In other words, I'm just going to hang out and see what happens.  There is an article in my new Elle magazine that argues the benefits of summer flings. I'm pretty sure a fling is not on the map of Yo this year. I think I'm pretty content with my stretchy pants, tunics, wasabi-peas, beer and smut. I'm pretty sure Mr. Romance-Renaissance-Hot-Pants is not going to hunt me down in the backyard, campground or writing class. Yep, like I said, I'm just going to hang out and see what happens.

Even though summer just officially started, I feel like I've actually had a summer.  I've enjoyed my new-used BBQ, my little planters, my new muskoka chairs and patio lanterns. I've already had one weekend packed full of outdoor baseball games (courtesy of my kiddo), and dragon boat racing. Friday night we took our blankets and met friends for the Aretha Franklin concert downtown. Boy can that girl sing!!! It was packed, and somewhere in the crowd we lost our friend Karen, sacrificed to the I'm-going-in-search-of-something-to-drink-gods.

I'm looking forward to our planned visit up north with Carrie, Sandy, Evan, little Mr. X, and Andrea's brood, followed by two days of mom-son-white-water-rafting bonding time.  I'm wondering how my son  will feel bonding with my A5-35'ed bones in a tent? I have time booked off  I'm hoping to use for spur of the moment camping trips and gourmet smore and banana boat making expeditions. Every parent owes it to their children to teach them how to make smores, pitch a tent, and pee in the woods. You know, just in case you get lost with a bag of marshmallows.

Jimmy Buffett is coming to town which means Toronto Parrotheads will host  pre-concert and tailgate parties.  Jimmy is summer. Of course, it wouldn't be summer in the city if you weren't booked into something Mirvish-ish, and we are.

August will come and I'll be happy to get to the farm to buy tomatoes and beets and veggies so I can make preserves. This year I may even make my red pepper jelly, which is yummy during the winter time, snugged up with a bottle or two of wine. Glass, I meant glass or two of wine.

Just this afternoon I made kinda-sorta plans with a friend to get-up-and-out-early-walking before work. He's a good sport, lives close enough to motivate me to move, and isn't afraid to see me un-make-uped or un-hair-did. Besides if we start this little routine together, I can tell everyone I'm "seeing a younger man"! I'm hoping he forgets our conversation and I can lay my aching bones in bed with the snooze alarm until 6:30am tomorrow morning.

My evening walking routine has been salvaged and is in full swing. I'm registered for yogalates and writing classes. I write this eating marshmallow bananas and sighing that there is actually no latte involved in the yogalates. Besides that, summer looks pretty darn good from this angle. But what about rainy Sundays? Well, I still have a date with the summer fling at the AGO, and need to absolutely find myself in the audience at Stratford for Camelot.

Even now, I have chicken on the BBQ, and homemade potato salad cooling in the fridge.  My summery-island-tunes are playing and Leonard the cat is stretched out by the screen door listening to the birds. Kitty Wells is perched in her cage on the grass having a bird bath. I have my ever-ready bottle of bubbly chilling ready to add some yummy blueberry bliss. Come on over, sit down, relax. Do a little summer time dreaming with me.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Ai Weiwei all the way home



Say to yourself, ‘I’m here on purpose,
I can accomplish anything I desire,
and I do it by being in harmony
with the all-pervading creative force in the universe.

~Wayne Dyer~



“I’m okay, I’m out, I’m fine now,” he said quietly."  Was the crux of the report in the Globe and Mail this week following news of the release of Ai Weiwei.  What more could he say besides that?

After all, he has been released on bail after 10 weeks of being detained at an undisclosed location on the condition that he not speak of the who's, what's, where's, when's, why's and how's of his kidnapping. There was some talk of unpaid taxes, but we all know how easy it is for any  government to doctor tax records -or anything else for that matter- when looking for justification to silence dissidents.

In Our Creative Nests, I use Ai Weiwei as an example of how the human spirit often flourishes under pressure. What shall I say of him now? Described as, "only a distant echo of his usually bombastic self", can we assume that his creative spirit has succumbed to his oppressors during the mystery of his abduction? We can assume that he's damn glad to be home, and whatever the heck the giant "THEY" did to him, or threatened or tortured him with has been a great tonic for subduing the creative spirit. But I rather like to think of it as a sleeping pill for the creative animal that is curled up and healing now. May we see that animal stretch and rise again with care, and give great love and support for Ai Weiwei as he becomes comfortable with his recently silenced voice again.

So why am I writing to you about this? Why bother reporting the release of a silenced creative powerhouse?  I'm writing to ask who you think is responsible for speaking out against oppression? Is it the job of  courageous artists like Ai Weiwei? Or is it the sole task of  women like Rumana Monzur who was just viciously attacked and blinded by her husband? He gouged her eyes out and bit off half of her nose because she dared to be successful. Or maybe speaking up about oppression and violations of human rights and freedoms is the job of marginalized gay teens or movie stars confessing their addictions?

Does this all sound a bit absurd? Does it seem like perhaps, just maybe, just an eensy weensy teensy bit,  that we sit back in our Adirondack chairs and kinda take for granted that the rest of the world is just able to hang out on the weekends and relax?  Perhaps all of those people in Syria and Libya and Tunisia get a break from the hell they've been enduring on the weekends and get together for pool parties and community yard sales? You know, just to "get away from it all".
We owe it to ourselves and the rest of the world to get a little more involved with what's going on. We owe it to ourselves and the rest of the world to be more discerning in our consumerism and politics.  Even if it simply starts at home. Not just watching the news, but questioning it.  What do you mean the Canadian government, when asked for documentation about whether our soldiers knowingly handed over Afghan prisoners to torture, blacked out much of the information? How come? Why? If this happened, how did it affect our soldiers who were ordered to carry out these actions?

We are blessed to live where we do. Blessed with our freedom and cursed with complacent apathy. We have come to expect our freedom, soothed by the hand of "THEY", and guided without our knowing into a sugared silence. It's time to sit up and pay attention.

As I was hinting at in Our Creative Nests, we owe it to ourselves to let our creative self out of the stall and run for it's life.  Write a letter, paint like it's your last chance, sing, dance, sculpt, let your humanity be exalted so the rest of the world might be freed.


Thursday, June 23, 2011

Toddlers and Other Annoying People

"When the toddler does something
 and there are consequences for his action
 civilization begins."
~Alicia Lieberman~ 
Every day I look forward to correspondence from my incredibly wise, hilarious and gorgeous cousin. We check in with one another, reflect on experiences, current events, spirituality and creativity. It's cool if we laugh or if we cry. I think we're kindred spirits. You might think we're a little bit nuts. That's ok. I think we're cool with that, right cousin?

My cousin, a few years younger than I am  is single with no children. He has yet to enter into the secret brotherhood of fathers club.  Today, while my head was wrapped in foils at the salon, I received the very best email of my week thus far.

Today my cousin, (let's give him a false name here, just for the sake of not over-using the phrase, "my cousin"-let's call him Daniel), told me about his afternoon at a coffee shop.  He was enjoying his time out, but somewhat overwhelmed by the people around him. No, he's not anti-social, quite the opposite.

Saturday or Sunday mornings I enjoy my own special time at my own special coffee spot with my very own special copy of the Globe and Mail. I totally get what Daniel was saying about being ambivalent in the presence of the activity and noise of other people. During my weekend newspaper reading and coffee drinking session, I enjoy being surrounded by other people. I enjoy being surrounded by other people that is, if they behave in a way that I find unobtrusive. This means no talking too loudly, sitting too closely, and absolutely no requests to move a chair or heaven-forbid-I-have-to-get-out-the-touch-my-newspaper-and-die-look, ask to read a section of my paper.  I like my newspaper in order. I like to think that no one else's  grubby paws have oiled up the places my hands will touch. Ooga booga.

I like to eavesdrop on conversations if I choose, but not be forced to hear one because the volume is inappropriate. I like to nod or say a quick, "good morning" to whomever I sit next to.  I don't like feeling obligated to hear about what someone is reading, being asked what I'm reading, or if I'm enjoying the weather. I like the idea that we can gather in a public space without being obnoxious or be forced to interact. Interaction optional. Coffee, news, intellectual thought without interruption welcome. Ahhh....life ain't easy being an idealist.

Relating completely to to the conundrum of being around people but not having to engage with them, I was happy to be sitting in the salon with my tinfoil baking blond streaks broiling on my head, blissfully alone.  I laughed when I read his question; why on earth would people bring their toddlers to a Starbucks?!

Instantly my memory took me back to my own experience of "mom with toddler" at Starbucks. I remembered my son at that age, being dragged along Saturday morning for my morning coffee.  One of my friends from a previous life came to mind - a very sweet man who very generously offered an afternoon of babysitting when I was in a pinch for child care. He picked my wide-eyed kindergarten aged son up at school, and promptly took him to Starbucks.  My son, thinking the attention combined with a public outing was fabulous, took advantage of a then-not-yet-father, and ordered an orange flavoured soda just before lunch time.

Guess what happened next? Yep. You got it. My little angel spilled his orange soda.  My friend bought him another one, and decided against the toddler-in-public adventure and brought him home (hopped up on sugar). This same friend was kind enough to keep us company on a walk one evening.  Again we ended up at Starbucks. That was about a year before the soda incident, diapers and a spilled hot chocolate may have been involved, but I'm a bit foggy on the details. It could be the ammonia residue from my visit to the salon. I do know that my son's behaviour was akin to that of a baby raccoon, hiding under tables and swinging on the chair legs.

The short answer to why people take their children to Starbucks Daniel, is that being stuck at home with miniature, intellectually impaired people with no control over their id or ego can drive an adult insane. Also, parents of toddlers rise for the day at almost the same time university students come in for the evening. By the time we see these little people at the cafe, they've had breakfast, messed up the house, been grocery shopping, had snacks and a nap. Oh yah, another reason; taking them out in public is how you train toddlers to behave in a socially acceptable manner.

I do not abide parents who use the excuse, "He/She's only 5", in response to their child picking at common dishes on a table with their fingers or not being able to use utensils.  This is lazy parenting. All parents must go through the humiliation of publicly socializing their toddlers, so they're not socially obtuse children, just (as I'm now finding out) as all parents must go through the humiliation of publicly re-socializing their teens so they don't become socially obtuse adults.

Believe it or not, I now feel nostalgic for the days when my son's head was just at the right height for patting when we bellied up to the barista bar.

When I see little ones tagging along with mom or dad on Saturday morning, or any other time for that matter, I'm filled with nostalgia.  I remember how the soft pudgy hand felt in my own, how my own son loved being able to choose his very own drink, and most of all, how his wide-eyed wonder at the world had the power to change my own perception.

I didn't have the luxury of reading my much cherished Saturday Globe and Mail in those days, but I'd give up my paper if I could have just one more day with my son, pudgy little legs dangling from the chair he struggled to climb up on, calling me mommy, and asking "why" about everything.

Instead of dreading the company of small children in social spaces now, (after all, toddlers are messy, noisy and unpredictable) I am completely entertained by them. As a matter of fact, that's one of the only things that can tear my attention away from Russell Smith's tongue-in-cheek men's fashion column. Toddlers package up the gift of  of young-mommy-memories now. Who knew that such annoying people could come bearing such priceless gifts? Maybe this weekend I'll talk to the guy who's always eyeing "my business" section. Just sayin'.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Row,Row, Row Your Boat Down the BLEEPING Stream....


"If a June night could talk, it would probably boast it invented romance."
~Bern Williams~
I love the water.

I grew up on the beach, and feel calm and at home whenever I'm near the water, whether it's a lake, ocean or stream.  Sometimes I'm just grateful for a bathtub full of water!

This year, in an effort to regain my sanity and get away from the four, sweat-sticky walls of the gym I had been avoiding for months, I decided to take up a water sport. What better way to shake off the winter blahs and celebrate our great Canadian summer?

I thought I would start out easy, you know, a beginner team of lady paddlers. We all come out to socialize, but we also all enjoy it because our cute little 20-something coach pushes us just enough to make it feel like we've worked our matronly buns. I give him credit. He's a serious paddler, and I believe we were sent to teach him patience.

Tonight, as in every paddling night, we were called to do our drills; up and down the boat, hard strokes, pausing, technique, boat positions.  Paddles clashed, swells flooded the boat, water was tossed up by faltering strokes, and arms and backs were banged in the process. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Each week, we get together and paddle our little hearts out for an hour.  As the weather has morphed  from a cold, wet, windy April  to full bloom June, we have witnessed nature dress in her summer finery.  Even though we were having a good workout, I couldn't help but wonder at the willows and maples on the river bank. The word pastoral comes to mind.

I felt like I was in a classic painting somewhere. There were ducks and ducklings puttering along the bank. Canadian geese and goslings formed an orderly line headed north up the river while gulls flew overheard.  There were paddlers and rowers sharing the waterway, and as the sun came to rest further on the horizon, the scene was absolutely breathtaking.

As I set up over the water to "hit!", the beauty of it all fell in line with my technique, and all of the stress of the day was washed away with each stroke.  Boy was I happy to be there. 

And then it happened. Behind me I heard, "Have an eye!"

silence

"HAVE AN EYE!"

and then the more panicked and less proper, "WATCH OUT!"

The sound of scraping and low screeching preceded my view of the small collision, as the lone rower careened into the side of our boat,  his oar striking my teammates at the front of the boat, and finally, under some semblance of control, scraping down the length.

"What the f@(k are you doing?!" the foul-mouthed rower yelled to our cute little coach,"Get out of the f@(k^g  way! You're supposed to be on the f@(k!^g right! " This from the man who had taken up centre stage in the river weaving a suture-like baseball stitch in the water.

"I'm sorry. We were stopped, and I wasn't sure whether you were going left or right." our coach said, rather politely under such f-bombing rapid fire.

"F@(k YOU!" our neighbour from the rowing club expleted emphatically as he buried both oars in the water and carried on up the center of the river.

Dude. Not cool. Dropping the f-bomski on a group of 20 women is NOT proper river etiquette.

"It gets like this," our coach said, as we "took it away" for one last five minute ladder of paddling.

It gets like this.

Yes, yes it does. It gets like this, and then it passes. Isn't it nice to get back to the rhythm of the water and wondering at the beauty that we are blessed with?

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Expounding on Being a Weirdo #1 - Why Dr. Hook Rocks


"We keep gettin' richer but we can't get our picture
on the cover of  The Rolling Stone"
~Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show~

 With lyrics like, "Smear my body up with butter and take me to the Freaker's Ball," and introductions like, "George is going to sing a song from it [Penicillin Penny] just in case you have V.D. ", it's not surprising that there hasn't been a mass demand for a sunset return of Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show. I hope this blog changes things. I hope I can do justice to the tacky, yet touching music that I love. This misunderstood band with a bad-ass reputation deserves some thoughtful analysis.

Music provides the soundtrack for our lives. I remember hymns sung at my grandparent's funerals, the song that was playing when I was in a car accident, and the first lullaby I sang to my own child. Music is a powerful human interpretation of creation, complete with warts and all.

In my life, Leonard Cohen is the great musical poet, Rod Stewart the great musical sex pot, and Jimmy Buffett the great musical partying pirate. I love Rachmaninoff, Elton, Aerosmith, Alison Krauss, Willie Nelson, Ella Fitzgerald, The Beach Boys and I could go on and on. What all of these artists have in common is that their art - music - stirs our emotions. The music and lyrics bring us back to the essence of who we are.

More often than not, I use music to pick me up when I feel cut down. When I'm brought to my knees, a good laugh and a bit of silliness helps remind me of the impermanence of all things, and the happiness that comes with being in the moment. And what kind of life do we have if we're not silly during at least a few of those moments every day?

This is musical genius at it's silliest;




In my best concert going form, you might find me shaking it next to the dude with the eye patch, and going home with the lead guitarist, if only in my rocked out imagination of course (seriously though, dig him as the lead singer in this video and tell me he's not just an oozing sexy little piece of man-pie). But I digress....

Dr. Hook and the Medicine show makes me laugh. One of my favourite 'isms goes like this, "Anything that makes you smile, giggle or laugh; Marry it or Buy it."  I'm not married and I'm not a shopper, so I have to settle for what's at hand. A lot of the lines in their lyrics make me laugh out loud. Good solid belly laughs;

"When your body's had enough of me and I'm layin' flat out on the floor. When you think I've loved you all I can, I'm gonna love you a little bit more." What the hell?! If my body has had enough of you pal, just keep layin' flat out on the floor unless you're getting up to order pizza or get me a glass of water!

OR

"Night falls on the city. Baby feels the beat. Slick and sexy angel of the street. The queen of all the night birds, watch her when she walks. She don't say nothin' but baby makes her blue jeans talk." The queen of all the night birds? Really??? Seventies slang all sounds so porn, and porn is just silly.

OR

"Who's gonna water my plants? Who's gonna patch my pants and who's gonna give me the chance to feel brand new? Who's gonna iron my shirts?" HAHAHA!!! I luvvvvvv 70's dumb-man-isms. 70's men are crowned the kings of all things man-dumb. Ironically, they are still alive and well today. You've heard the one about the man who asks his wife to do all of his laundry, and his wife's reply is that the next person to dress him is going to be the funeral director. Unfortunately, I am the funeral director, so it's not so funny at my house.

OR

"Grease your lips and swing your hips, don't forget to bring your whips..." Ok, just funny 'cause who doesn't like to be greased and whipped once in a while?

OR

"I could get myself a nose job. I could diet for a year, but I'll never be Robert Redford 'cause I'm much to fond of beer." If the John Mellancamp fan is out there reading this, you'll also get a buzz from these blue collar lyrics.

OR the classic,

"Now it took seven months of urgin' just to get that local virgin with the sweet face up to my place to fool around a bit. Next day she woke up rosy and she snuggled up so cozy and when she asked me if I liked it, it hurt me to admit; I was stoned and I missed it." I need not comment on this little lyrical gem. The words paint a thousand pictures do they not?

In the style of Ray Stevens, Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show tells a story with many of their songs. Roland the Roadie and Gertrude the Groupie is a classic example.

Besides having wonderfully silly lyrics and funkadelic beats like we hear in, "Sexy Eyes", or "Walk Right In", the band cuts to the heart of things with songs we can all relate to in our broken-heartedness like, "The Things I Didn't Say".  With lines like, "Instead of saying sorry babe, we'll work it out, I said, if that's the way you want it I won't stand in your way. I said good-bye, good-luck, god bless you and then she walked away. She's gone and now I'm hearing all the things I didn't say." 

And then there are songs like, " I don't want to be alone tonight";




We've all felt like this. We can all relate to songs like, " I Don't Feel Much Like Smiling Today", and, "Life Ain't Easy". Life ain't easy sista, I can testify to that!!!  I love the lyrics, " Here I am in the wind again, blowing wherever it takes me. Laughing and splashing in the summer sun, until the alarm clock wakes me.....Life ain't easy and nothin' comes free."


In their 1969-1985 heyday, Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show was touted as a Rock, Soft Rock and Country band from New Jersey.  Most famous for their song, ``The Cover of the Rolling Stone``, and their subsequent success as the cover photo, Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show came into their own after their tape was demoed for the obscure 1971 film, "Who is Harry Kellerman and Why is he Saying Those Terrible Things about Me?".  Shel Silverstein, the popular children's poet wrote the music for the screenplay, and thought that Dr.Hook and the Medicine Show had the right sound to sing songs like, "I Never Got to Know Her", and "The Last Morning".

Believe it or not, Shel Silverstein, author of one of my favourite children's books, "The Giving Tree", also penned, "Penicillin Penny" and "Sylvia's Mother". When I was in public school, we were treated to a viewing of "The Giving Tree", once every year. Little did I know that Silverstein was the writer of such genius lyrics that I sang my heart out to on the pier with my high school friends.  With the trademark soul-rasping voice, Dr. Hook sang our adolescent heart songs.

The band produced over a dozen albums between 1970 and 2007.  If you happen to eye one somewhere, be a good lad and pick it up for me will ya? Dr. Hook and the Medicine  Show has given generations simple beats, great lyrics and endless entertainment.  Buy my ticket, sign me up, and get me a front row seat next to Gertrude the Groupie. I'm in for a road trip!

One last piece of tacky kitsch for all the sentimental (aka hormonal) romantic chicks out there like me;




Friday, June 17, 2011

Joy Makes you Excellent


"Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls"
~Mother Teresa of Calcutta~
 Life becomes monotonous.

We fall into our daily, weekly, monthly and annual patterns like robots. We work, we exercise, we celebrate birthdays and Hallmark holidays (which in my opinion are highly underrated).  Days bleed into weeks and weeks into months. Before you know it, we're saying to our best friends and colleagues, "Can you believe it? It's been five years already!" Life slips by, greased to lightening speed by our work/life routine.


We know from year to year who we will spend our time with. But when that changes, when our relationships are in flux, whether it's due to changing life stages, death, marriage or other major events, our routine is held hostage. We must step back and consider the relationships in our life and re-prioritize. I don't know about you, but I'm not so good at this, and as I age, I'm not getting a whole lot better. It's often during these times when we're in flux, unstable, and redefining ourselves that we mine our joy.
 
At hospice, I am repeatedly called to witness life changing circumstance. When people ask me about my work, I'm never quite sure what to say. Whether to say I'm always surprised or never surprised. I suppose this is the conundrum of witnessing life transition to death. And what do we really know about those last breaths but that it is part of the mystery of being human? As with birth, there is beauty in this stage of life that cannot be found anywhere else, and I will argue, for anyone experiencing loss it is a significant time of creation .
 
Recently, I read a Toronto Star  review about Stephen Garrett, a speaker and hospice worker. He is quoted as saying, "You’re going to die. That should give you some juice to live", I couldn't agree more.
 
So while we're here, what is it that gives us that juice?  Some people may ask, "What is your passion ?". Quite frankly I'm tired of the over-use and watering down of "passion". Everyone says that their passion is their project du jour, or uses it as an excuse to be the expert-ruin-everyone-else's-experience-jack-ass in social situations. Passion means a strong emotion, love or adoration, and I believe that when we ask what someone's passion is, we're trying to get at something that has developed over a lifetime. Passion is the wrong word. What we want to know is about something or someone that you adore. It is something that you've learned about through experience - making mistakes, attesting to the experience of  others, and being humbled by the very vast expanse of everything which that "passion" encompasses. Being passionate about something goes beyond enjoyment. It goes beyond self.
 
Since the word "passion" is so overused in our society of over-grown-self-indulgent-adults, let's find another word to work with here shall we?   How about joy - what brings you great happiness and pleasure? What is your joy? 
 
Joy is exuberant. Joy, by it's very nature wants to reach out and embrace everyone and everything in it's midst. Joy cannot be caged or contained. The essence of joy is to be jubilant, euphoric and triumphant. It may have been years since you - the average Joe/Josephine out there  has felt anything close to "euphoric" or "triumphant". Then again, I feel euphoric when I wake up well rested, and manage to read the newspaper during the day. Triumph comes when I have remembered to put underwear on and am on time for work. Ahhh...it's the simple things.
 
So instead of that overworked, kinda spoiled-I-have-everything-I-could-ever-ask-for-and-more-adult-whiner-word passion, let's start feeling the joy that comes from being good at something. We're all good at something. Sometimes it's just hard to separate what we're good at from what we do; What we do for a living to pay the bills, what we do to keep food on the table, our cars on the road, and have a holiday once in a while.
 
For instance, I'm notoriously durable, which is a nice way of saying strong and determined, which often comes across as hard. Just ask the love of my life.  So, in relationships, this isn't always a great thing, but it makes me really good at being able to help people die in a way they feel is dignified. I am not brought to my knees by the pain and suffering of others. Instead, it is my "durable" nature which makes me good at remaining steadfast and able to function under circumstances where the individuals and their loved ones experiencing the end of life feel too weak or fatigued.  I am able to fearlessly go into the mystery of last words, wishes, confessions and breaths. 
 
Do not mistake this for me getting joy out of someone's dying. Do understand this as me getting joy out of the moments where my strengths allow others courage to say and do things they didn't think were possible. Sometimes that looks like simply saying, " I love you," or " I forgive you," or "I'm going to be ok." These moments may not make daily headline news, but they are life altering.
 
Because I'm able to glimpse the light of joy amidst the suffering of grief, I believe I am a valuable resource for anyone who has experienced, or will experience loss. That's a whole heck of a lot of people.  To be able to provide some comfort to the dying and their loved ones brings me joy, and so, I will continue to do this, whether it's by the bedside, or speaking to large groups and businesses to promote end-of-life care. This is my juice.
 
My good friend and mumster finds joy in being helpful, connecting people, and helping them reach their potential and achieve their dreams. Her CV does not include the titles; motivational speaker, teacher or public relations expert, yet she fulfills all of these rolls from the job description that she has and lives by. This is joy. This is leadership. This is the juice that makes us really go about the business of living.

Both my friend and I have a way of knowing beyond the logical.  Margaret Sommerville discusses ways of knowing in her book, The Ethical Imagination.  She speaks of knowing through logic, and intuition and experientially. All of these ways of knowing are as valid and valuable as the other. So, more often than not, we do not have a PhD in what gives us joy, but we are excellent at it.
 
When you are joyful, you cannot help but create joy for others. Whether your joy is inherent in your nine-to-five, put-food-on-the-table work, or not, there is a way to nurture it in yourself and others. Observe yourself, listen to your friends and colleagues. When mining your joy, you won't have to dig too deep because it will be close to the surface. Your joy has not wandered off and gotten lost forever. It is tethered to you and you to it. You will find it. When you do rediscover your joy, you won't be able to help but share it.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

You're a Weirdo

"Life isn't weird, it's just the people in it"
~Author Unkown~
We’re all so cool aren’t we? We wear the right clothes, have jobs, equip ourselves with holiday experiences to be envied in our day to day conversations. We’re current. We read the news. We're just far enough left to be considered kind, and far enough to the right to maintain the status quo. We buy organic and complain about the lack of environmental legislation to keep us healthy, all the while popping manufactured vitamins and drinking from plastic containers while talking on our wireless headsets.

We’re so cool.

You know what’s really cool though. Well, what I think is really cool. I think our weirdness is cool. We’re all a little bit weird. Come on, you know who I’m talking about. No, no, not the woman at the office who wears the hippy skirts and yoga tops. Nope, not the dude with the weird haircut and bad breath in the cubicle next to yours. And no. I’m not talking about your kids’ school bus driver with the teddy bear strapped to the front grill (what the heck is that freakish phenomena about anyway, besides scaring the hell out of 4 year olds who still believe in the tooth fairy and tuck their teddies in before they leave for their half day of free daycare-aka-education?).

I am gloriously weird sometimes. Despite what may be on the seasonal menu of “normal”, we all tend to tip the scale sometimes. Our tastes vary. Our opinions come from unique experience, and although the majority of us who don’t call prison home, manage to walk our lives on the balance beam of the accepted norm, with only the occasional toe dip into the realm of weird.

This morning, as I drove up the airstrip-wide streets of suburbia, I rocked out to one of my favourite albums. As I was singing along, reminiscing, I thought to myself, “I would never listen to this with anyone who didn’t know me really, really well.” The kind of really well that knows under which circumstances they may be called upon to, “Hold my hair up!!!!”, or has been with me on my wedding day, or me with her, standing terrified in our crinolines bawling our eyes out. Yep, you’d have to know me pretty darn well to get a glimpse of my secret weirdness.

But, today is your luky day. As I was driving along I thought, "Why not?" Why not share some of my secret indulgences? The PG rated version of course.


Number One on my list of weird crap that I like (which inspired this little piece in the first place), is Dr. Hook’s Greatest Hits album. Who can’t relate to Sylvia’s Mother, or The Cover of the Rolling Stone, or A Couple More Years? A Little Bit More conjures hilarious images of  classic 70’s ‘stache lovin’ and I roll my eyes and giggle whenever I hear it. When I listen to this album, I can’t help but be in a good mood. Ditto for Bat out of Hell, which I have dubbed, "The Greatest Album Ever".

Number Two; canned mushrooms. Deadly good, and every once in a while I crack open a can and eat the entire thing – sodium and carcinogens from can lining and all. Mmmmm.

Number Three; stretchy pants. Yep, we all have those fat days. If I have a day when I can get up, not do my make-up, hair or bother getting dressed properly (these days have only happened a few times in my life), I want to be in something fabulously comfortable. If I ever wore these pants in public other than at a gym or paddling, I would condone the sniping of myself by the fashion police. Still, I love them ( and you do too, but you’re just too darn cool to admit it, you go-green-or-go-home-organic-cotton-wearing sissy!). You know you also love granny panties and tightie-whities too.


Number Four; curlers. What could be more girly than walking around with curlers in your hair, those pedicure thingy-ma-bobs between your pretty painted toes (do those things have a name?), and singing Peggy Lee’s, “ I Enjoy Being a Girl”. None of that is possible without the curlers. I think listening to Peggy Lee should get it's own number here on the weird list, but let's just refer to that as Four B.

Number Five; Cheese Whiz and oysters on Ritz crackers. ‘nuf said.

Number Six; Tacky art. I have a tacky art collection much to the chagrin of some of my nearest and dearest. I have my Cuba Lady, My Whatever Happened to the Girl from Iponema, and a handful of feminist art. I almost snagged a photo of the Queen. You know the one I'm talking about -like the ones that hung at the front of every classroom within the "dominion" in the 70’s and 80’s. It was going to be mine until the “seller” caught on that I was buying it because it was gloriously tacky. He got insulted and refused to let me buy it. Jerk.

Number Seven; I will gut a fish but not kill it. Gut a fish but can’t bait a hook. Gut a fish but can’t clean a fish tank because taking a fish out of water freaks me out. I’m sure there must be some whatever-o-phobic name for that.

Number Eight; Caftans. On a man. On a man wearing slip on slippers who also sports a ponytail. Very dude.
Cotton Caftans
Number Nine; 80's love ballads.

Number Ten; quoting sacred text in arguments infuriates me to the point that when anyone does this I immediately write them off as a nitwit and disengage. Sheesh! Get off your soapbox and give the world a big hug you ding-dongs. If you think you know what scholars and mystics were saying a bazillion (that’s slightly more than a billion) years ago, get a Ph.D and teach me about it. Otherwise, shut your pie hole, breathe deeply and be nice.

Number 11; I think wearing underwear to bed may be unhygienic, but I think we all need to do it anyway. Except of course if you’re crashing at my place. Under those circumstances, please do not introduce your nether-flesh to the fabric on my furniture.

Number 12; I hate cleaning the bathtub, but I find cleaning the toilet cathartic.
Number 13; Wearing costumes. I love Hallowe’en, Buffett concerts, theme parties, and being a little quirky. People, it’s not about fashion, it’s body art. It's play time for adults.

Number 14; I can’t sleep if there’s an animal in the room. Don’t be smart, you know what I mean. If a man in my room is being an "animal" I definitely will sacrifice my sleep for that.

Number 15;  When I'm really sad I go to Hallmark and read the cards.

Number 16; I will not end a conversation with a loved one without saying " I love you." It's just bad mojo. I refuse to celebrate birthdays until the day of or after the specific date. It's the same idea as saying I love you. You can't just assume someone knows this always, especially in a heated argument or under less than ideal circumstances. Without saying it you're taking them for granted. Just like celebrating birthdays too early - you're assuming you're going to make it to that date, thereby taking your life for granted.  Pretty arrogant.

I could have written an entire blog on my tasteless taste in music and art. I could have went on about how I love Boxcar Willie, my own watercolour paintings, and how I despise eating tuna sandwiches without a thick layer of sour cream and onion chips beneath the top slice of bread. Instead, I painted a little rainbow of weirdness for you,  so you might feel better about your own dirty little uncool secrets.

I've shown you mine. Are you brave enough to show me yours?

Monday, June 13, 2011

Our Creative Nests

"Great indeed is the sublimity of the Creative,
 to which all beings owe their beginning
and which permeates all heaven. "
~Lao Tzu~



Given the right conditions our creative selves can explode, burning energy like a matchstick jungle. The more oppressive the atmosphere, the more powerful the art.

It was during a holiday in Camaguey, Cuba that I had that omniscient sense of knowing art was an unstoppable expression of the human spirit.  Martha Jimenez's sculptures grace a tiny parkette in Camaguey which has been protected as a World Heritage Site because of her art.

In the small space of Martha Jimenez's studio, the expression of the universal creative spirit was screaming .Within a small area, no greater than 800 square feet, I entered Jimenez's home and studio. No matter how oppressed, abused, marginalized or exploited, the creative spirit cannot be extinguished completely. It exists only in fullness, and bursts the boundaries of any physical space.

In the front room, pieces of sculpture were humbly displayed, but beyond that, past a drawn curtain that separated public space from private, like many of the store-front/homes, I had the privilege of entering Jimenez's courtyard. Drenched in the heavy July sweat of the tropics , the courtyard was wild, the centre piece,a pint-sized sculpted fountain of a woman. Local myth held that any man who rinsed with the water that flowed between this woman's legs would be lucky in love. All of the men left with wet hands that afternoon.

I left with four original oil paintings. Strung up with clothespins on a wooden drying rack, they were gems tucked away in a city hidden behind the teeth of the forced communist smile.

Ironically, not too far, far away in our global history, Jimenez was honoured by the Chinese government in Shanghai. Her work, two clay pots with rough outer exteriors mimicking Cuba's royal palm ironically comes from a series called, "What I Carry Inside". What Jimenez carries inside represents what we all, as creative beings, carry within us. The seeds to create, inspire and connect from a place within ourselves of universal knowledge.

Enter Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. A closet architect-wanna-be, I was captivated by a recent article in the Globe and Mail about the lasting effect of Wei's collaboration with Herzog and de Meuron. Their masterpiece is the Bird's Nest Stadium which was built in Beijing for the 2008 winter Olympics.

To be quite honest, it was the photo of countless sunflower seeds above the headline, " Ai Weiwei: Planting Originality, reaping Beijing's Fury", that caught my attention. The sunflower exhibit includes countless individual porcelain sunflowers made and painted by Chinese artists. The sheer brilliance of engaging hundreds of artists in a traditional craft ( porcelain ) which would receive global recognition is inspiring to say the least. Wei managed to water the seed of the creative human spirit, deep in the underbelly of a nation of famous for silencing it's artists.

Part of the exhibit, as displayed at the Tate Museum was the ability of patrons to walk over the sunflower seeds, breaking the seeds as they walked. Rather symbolic, no? Just ten days after the exhibit opened at the Tate Museum, Asthma UK kicked up a fuss about the kicked up dust caused by the interactive exhibit. The exhibit was changed so it could be viewed, but not interacted with, effectively disconnecting spectators from the art.

This must have been Director of Research at Asthma UK's 30 seconds of fame; "Leanne Metcalf, Director of Research at Asthma UK, said the Tate had made the right decision. "This new installation at Tate Modern has understandably attracted a great deal of interest and Asthma UK is relieved to hear that concern over the potentially damaging effects that the exhibit can cause to those interacting with it, especially people affected by asthma, is taking priority," she said. " I have to wonder, when the political wagging of the dog settles on this one, in what form the made-in-China political bone will be tossed to the UK.

I hope that the irony of breathing in silica dust was not lost on anyone. Ironic that a Chinese artist should inadvertantly create and exhibit art which reflects the reality of life in China? The very dollar-store-infatuation that the world has with goods made-in-China is rather poetic. The silica dust was gagging spectators. Kind of like gagging artistic expression, political freedom, and the human spirit...hmmm....?

So, despite his unkown whereabouts, Wei is still making headlines, as powerful and influential (if not moreso) than before. Unlike his demolished studio in Shanghai, the Bird’s Nest Stadium is a mark on the political landscape of China, and a globally recognized symbol for Beijing. I have been told that the symbolism of a bird’s nest in China is in it’s careful construction, one piece at a time,  creating a protective, insular environment. Standing as two independent structures, and weighing in at 42,000 tonnes of steel, The Bird's Nest stadium has one inner ring for seating, surrounded by another protective ring, it is indeed a symbol for the insular social and political make up of modern China.

Despite various degrees of man-made oppression, the creative spirit of “artist” remains alive and well within each individual. Wei found pleny of artists willing to help create his exhibit. It must have been like watching lava flow from an erupting volcano, watching the creative process ripple across the rural landscape.

The creative spirit is something that is hard to express in language. It goes beyond the physical. The closest I have come to understanding it is reading Rudolph Otto’s, Idea of the Holy. It is best described in a paragraph from Amazon’s description; "Otto, following the tradition of mystics, gave careful consideration to an oft-neglected aspect of theology: the non-rational aspects of God. In doing so, he coined the word "numinous" to depict that which transcends or eludes comprehension in rational terms. It suggests that which is holy, awesome, and 'wholly other.' He also applies the expression "mysterium tremendum overpoweringness of an ineffable transcendent Reality. "

Artists like Wei and Jimenez work dilligently at their art. I write. You may paint or sing, or create in other ways.  Why?  I believe we make art to communicate in a universal language. We are here sharing this experience together. We are all connected.

It is the very dust of life that we stir in our living that is the creative energy flow between us. This is where we draw our inspiration. It  keeps us connected and thriving. It is beyond the skin and blood and bones of our bodies, wrapped up in the wonder and mystery of life.