To the Lighthouse

My dad was everything a girl could ever hope for: tall, dark, handsome and crazy about my sister and I. And he possessed a winning attribute on his dad scorecard: he mostly left us to our own devices which is pretty much what every kid wants, regardless of age. He was also well-read, a terrific golfer, said "musn't" instead of "must not", wore Clark desert boots regardless of the season and was, much to my surprise, a pretty good dancer. Never arrive early to a party or yawn audibly, he told us by way of advice. Never date a man you find boring or who can't make you laugh. Sandles are for beach-wear only.... and even then. Not bad for a guy didn't even start his parenting until well into his forties.


Though my sister and I have tried not to idolize him, it has proven very difficult. A task made more so by the fact that he left us so young, while we were in our twenties and still figuring out who we wanted to be. It's only now that I realize that my model for who to be was living in my house all along, sending me off to school each morning and handing me off my allowance on weekends. I wish everyone could be so lucky.


After my father left us, I found myself trolling the obituaries each morning before I started my day and discovered that I took great solace in reading about the lives of others. There is nothing more fortifying than basking in a life well lived. This spring, I read the obit of a gentleman in Nanaimo named Mike Matthews who seemed cut from the same cloth as my father. A "gentle man" who was also a gentleman, he died after a "brief confrontation" with cancer. It was clear from the beautiful tribute that was written about him that Mike left this life far before anyone would have wanted him to but who, nonetheless, lived and laughed a full life that inspired those who had the privilege of being around him. I loved the obit so much that I cut it out and pinned it to my wall in front of my computer and reached for it frequently throughout the season. I felt connected to this guy for some odd reason and when I was feeling low, it made me happy to know that someone like him had been around to make an impact on those around him.


I told his family as much in the Father's Day card that I sent them last Friday. Though, I may not have ever met Mike, I told them, his obit had made me happy every time I read it. As happy as I know he made them. I wanted them to know that on Father's Day. There are people like my dad and like Mike Matthew who are like lighthouses, big, stand-alone structures who spend all of their life shining their light and illuminating everything around them for miles. I feel happy to have stood in their glow, brief though it may have been.

MIKE MATTHEWS

Born in Aklavik June,1937, Mike Matthews died on February 25th, 2012 in Nanaimo, B.C. after a brief confrontation with cancer. His wife, daughter and beloved dog were at his side.

Mike was a vibrant and witty man, a larger-than-life presence, treasured by his friends and family for his irreverent exuberance. Growing up in Vancouver, he went to Magee High School, which he described as a peak period in his life. He celebrated his lengthy undergraduate career at UBC, where he hung out at the Players Club and the Ubyssey. In Montreal, he worked at the McGill Library, attended graduate studies at Sir George Williams University, and played baseball with the York Street Tigers where his nom-de-baseball was Magic Mitt. Back on the West Coast, he began his thirty-three year career teaching English at Malaspina College, now Vancouver Island University, and busied himself with theatrical activities, running (7 marathons), and writing book reviews and articles about food, wine.

Mike dearly loved his family, especially for his granddaughter Charlotte and his talented dog Victor. He took pleasure in chatting to checkout clerks, bank tellers, shopkeepers, colleagues, passengers on the Protection Island Ferry, and whomever else would respond to his skill-testing questions, word games, rants and puns, encounters which he believed brightened people's lives. The natural world delighted him, and he was a constant champion of the Protection Island Community Garden. He loved the music of Handel, Mozart, Blind Willie Johnson, and all the Protection Island musicians. An enthusiastic cook, his specialties were plantain frittatas and Saskatoon berry pies. He was keen on crossword puzzles, and his extensive collection of pens and reading glasses was renowned.

He detested cruelty to animals, orange safety vests, sentimentality, bragging, car alarms, plastic water bottles, and the use of the word "multiple" rather than "many", or any long word when a shorter one would do. 

Mike is survived by his wife Carol, daughter Alison (Alex Taylor), granddaughter Charlotte, brother Dick (Diane), in-laws Rod Dobell (Marnie), Ken Dobell (Pam), eleven beloved nieces and nephews, and sixteen great-nieces and great-nephews.

Those who share his passionate love of animals may wish to make a donation in his name to the SPCA. In recognition of his love of teaching, donations may be made to the Vancouver Island University Mike Matthews Scholarship Fund. In appreciation of the wonderful care he received in his last few weeks, donations could be made to the Palliative Care Unit at the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital.

Embrace the Boredom

Summer's here...[Explored], a photo by pianogram (mostly away) on Flickr.

Summer is coming soon. I can feel it in the softening of the air but I can see it, too, in the state of my kid's backpacks -filthy!- and in their homework agendas, the binder plastic ripped and frayed at the edges. An old remembered glee rises up in me because I know what lays ahead. Open windows. Fresh stone fruit. Day trips to the beach. Boredom. Especially the boredom.

Summer is the season that was the making of me as a human being because it was when I was bored for the longest period of time. Boredom breeds downtime and downtime is when we most become ourselves: looking into the middle distance, kicking at the curb, taking bike rides to nowhere, sitting in the backyard staring at the tedious blue of the summer sky. I believe that you can't become who you want to be - writer, actor, neuroscientist - without plenty of nothing to do. Boredom is nothing more than the quiet moving of the wheels inside your head. In my world, this is the sound of progress.

Apparently, in the last twenty years or so, Canadian kids have lost about four hours of unstructured play time per week. Recesses are getting shorter so that kids can get home faster for structured after-school activities or jobs. How did this happen?

Adults did it.

There is a culture of adult mistrust that suggests that a bored child who is not attending science-enrichment programs or cooking classes is out boosting cars or knocking off liquor stores. This is utter nonsense. I'm not saying these classes aren't for the good. I'm simply suggesting that if kids aren't left alone every once in a while, when are they ever gonna contemplate whether Wolverine could kick Green Lantern's ass? And then draw a cartoon of that exact thing. In the sand, with a stick.

That type of summer doesn't have to be gone for good. I've got two kids: one spends a good portion of her early summer at summer camp in Algonquin park, her days filled with new activities and almost constant social interaction. She loves it and I wouldn't change that for her because it's where she lives. But, she has a brother who thinks that scenario is like being stuck in the seventh ring of Hell. He spends his summer days sleeping in, playing with his Lego and swimming in the lake. He lives for the summer because that's when he lolly-gags, as my father once called it, busy exploring the inside of his own head. It's a wonderful place to be.

This year when you're rooting through the backpacks on the last day of school and chucking out the snacks left to mold in baggies at bottom's end, can I make a suggestion? Take a respite from the clock and throw out the schedule, too. Drop the organized day for a week or two. Embrace the boredom. Get outside and don't come inside again unless it rains or I call you, my mother would yell at me every day of my childhood summer. I intend for this sentence define my kids' fate this summer. Their characters depend on it.

One for the Aged

Éclat de rire / Burst of laughter, a photo by Clément Racineux on Flickr.

My mother-in-law shared an interesting story with me once about aging that I never forgot. She was playing Scrabble with her sister one warm summer afternoon when she noticed a shadow appear on the board below. The shadow menaced her from the corner of her eye for much of the game until the final move when she stretched out her arm to slide her the piece on the board and realized, to her horror, that the shadow that was casting an ominous half-moon on the table below was not a shadow at all but the skin underneath her arm that had begun to sag and swing beneath her every time she moved it. So self-concious was she afterwards that, for the rest of the day, she kept her arms by her sides where she could keep a close eye on them and secretly wondered why - WHY! - nobody had bothered to point it out to her that they had gone "lunch lady" on her. We both laughed like hyena's when she told it. She, because it is genuinely a funny/horrible observation, and me, because, well, I was clueless. That was never gonna happen to me, right? Ah, youth.


I was reminded of this anecdote several times over the past few months as I have begun to experience the tell-tale signs of physical aging. (Insert eye-roll here.) I always aspired to be that person who grows old gracefully, who can see the arc of their life as a slowly winding river and not a head-first dive into Niagara Falls, but I am finding the process it to be both insult and assault. And my kvetching has been unending: Why can't I stay up long enough to watch Mad Men, dammit?! Was running always this hard?! My back hurts. My feet ache. How can I be drunk? I've only had one glass! It all came to a head after consulting with a beauty expert about why my once flawless skin was not bouncing back from this incredibly harsh winter weather. She haughtily informed me that, One needs to double the moisturizing at your age, dear. And, by the way, do you want to take a look at our new anti-aging line? Rather than waiting for the playful wink that surely accompanies such statements (which I'm sure would have come back as quickly as the elasticity in my skin), I chose instead to confer with a more reliable expert: my husband. Does my skin feel like sandpaper to you, I asked him, desperation on the edge of my voice? He thrust his arm at me by way of an answer. You should feel mine, he said. Go ahead, feel it. And so I did. Soft and smooth as a newborn's behind. What are you talking about? I screeched. It feels like silk! But it's thinner, he replied as he shook his head slowly back and forth with disappointment. Sooo much thinner.


There's no question: aging thins our skin, both literally and figuratively. But what I've found is that once you can get past the crepey neck and plantar fasciitis, mostly people find themselves admitting that they are remarkably happier now than they were when they were younger. Apparently, a Gallup poll of 340, 000 people showed unequivocally that we grow more contented age, that we become more comfortable in our skin regardless of its thin or sandpapery state and even report a marked decline in stress, anger and sadness.


Bring. It. ON.


In her remarkable new memoir, Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake, writer Anna Quindlen makes the perfect case for her body having broken down and I'm gonna use it as my mantra. She, in her infinite wisdom, has decided to recognize her body for what is: a personality delivery system, "designed expressly to carry my character from place to place, now and in years to come. It's like a car, and while I like a red convertible, even a Bentley as well as the next person, what I really need are four tires and an engine." You can be sure that my personality delivery system will be easily recognizable. It will be the one dripping in moisturizer.

Downward Dog

French Bulldog in Yoga pose, a photo by jackpotfbd on Flickr.

Friend: Would you like to attend a Bikram yoga class with me this week?
Me: Remind me what Bikram yoga is again?
Friend: It's 90 minute yoga class performed in an overheated room.
My brain: “Uhhhhhhhh. I pass out pretty easily in the heat and doesn’t being in a carpeted room that hot breed, like, a billion kinds of bacteria that will kill you if you breathe it in plus I have tight hip joints this week so it sometimes hurts to stand too long in certain positions and what if I don’t know the hot yoga etiquette and I smack someone while I'm executing a difficult pose and a yoga practitioner from the wrong side of the mat defends me and I’m accidentally the catalyst for bloodshed?
My mouth: “Sure.”
My brain: Why can't I quit you?

And that's the story of how I ended up in my first hot yoga class.

For those of you unfamiliar with Birkram Yoga and its practices, let me give you a quick tutorial of what it is because it really is NOT just yoga (Trust me, I've done yoga. This is not that.): Bikram yoga is 90 minutes of the same 26 postures in every class across the world. It's roughly 110 Degrees in a carpeted room with about 60 nearly naked sweaty souls crammed in looking at their own eyes in the mirror. You listen actively the entire class to verbal instructions only. No demonstration. No music. You do the same postures in the same order whether you're in NYC, Portland or India. Sweat will pour off your body like you are in a shower, your mat and towels will be soaked and the room will stink.

Where can I sign up, you must be asking yourself? To which I would answer, Try Hell because I'm certain Satan himself came up with this particular branch of yoga.

Friend: Bikram is like a cross between running a marathon and great sex.
Me: I've run a marathon, remember? I broke my foot at the 21 mile mark.
Friend: Oh. (pause) But the sex metaphor has got your interest piqued, right?
Me: I get the comparison. Am I gonna hurt afterwards?
Friend: I don't think so. It sorta feels like being hit by a semi-truck, followed by a great spa massage.
Me: Well, why didn't you say so? Let's get in there!

Do you remember that seen in the third Mad Max film when Mel Gibson stepped into the Thunderdome and was greeted by mutants with metal masks fused to their craniums and chainsaws as limb replacements? Well, picture that but, in this environment, everyone is under 30, wearing next to no clothing and their bodies are beyond flawless. Meanwhile, the outfit you thought was cute going in will feel like the equivalent of a Hefty bag and your limbs will feel like they are filled jelly donuts. It is the kind of place where nothing else matters but living through the next 90 minutes so you could get the hell out. Like San Quentin but 110 degrees. And filled with models.

The class starts out simply enough. The poses are killer but I'm living through them. We hold the poses for waaaaay longer than we should but I can live with it. Mind over matter, right? Wrong! Ten minutes in and I'm sucking wind and soaked like someone has thrown my fully-clothed ass into a swimming pool. But I'm supposed to be focusing on "nothing", or so our fearless, boyshorts-clad instructor keeps telling us. A clean mind. Blank. Have you ever tried to have a blank mind for 2 seconds, let alone 60? The instructor suggests we pick a spot on the ceiling to focus on and think only of that spot. I pick a bolt in the ceiling beam. These are my thoughts in no particular order...

Bolt. Bolt. Bolt.
I want to bolt.
I wonder if I bolted now if it would distract anyone, probably not they are all deep in "blank mind."
OK then, screw.
Screw. Screw. Screw.
Hmmmm....screw.... it's been a minute since...
Focus! Focus!
The screw is holding the beam that is holding this building, I am the screw. I'm strong. I'm holding the building.
God, can't I just bolt!?


How can I even begin to describe how wrong this Bikram stuff was for me? There were 75 people in a room that should hold 40. It was the second class in a row of 2 so the room was extra hot. My skin literally burned. The nail polish of the woman on the mat next to me melted. Melted!! I was in HELL. No amount of self-motivating mantra's could help me. The instructor reminded us at least 20 times that Bikram himself (of course, he's a tiny, silly man!) refers to this yoga as a "torture chamber" and it was nothing shy of that. I sat out a good 1/4 of the postures and contemplated rolling up my now-drenched mat and peace-outing. But if there's one thing you NEVER do in this yoga, it's leave the room. The second thing you NEVER do is make a sound, apparently, so my sweaty ass was staying put and  finishing what I'd started. Even if it was a big bowl of wrong.

Friend: So what did you think?
Me: I think that your yoga is a bit of a dick.

Dance Bench

.., a photo by jpnuwat on Flickr.

We buy their first ballet shoes and the dozens thereafter. We buy their leotards, their tutus, their warm-up’s, their bags and their gear. We take them to classes. Some of us lots and lots of classes. We do their hair. We volunteer at their performances, doing makeup, folding programs, ushering patrons, sewing costumes. We are the drivers, the cheerleaders, the shoulder to cry on. We get nervous before performances and auditions. We’re there for the triumphs, the heartbreaks and the drama.

And then the music starts and we start to ask questions. Where is my place now? Is it waiting in the wings? Watching from the audience? At home clearing away the dishes from dinner? Sitting at Tim Horton’s until the class is over? Sometimes we get it right . Sometimes, we miss the mark completely because, like most things in childrearing, there are no operating instructions. We are, once again, clueless.

Then we see the bench. This place is as good as any, we think to ourselves, and so we sit down and watch. And watch. And wait. Soon, we are joined by others. Some bring books. Some bring conversation. Everyone, though, brings a child and, before we know it, a community is formed. A community of watchers.

And watch we do! We marvel at what their bodies can achieve and secretly wonder where they go when the music transports them to another place. We watch as they grasp at opportunities to learn. About setting and achieving goals. Missing out on the audition. Or, not getting a mark or a role or an outcome they had hoped for. For some watchers, these last few lessons are the hardest ones and they find themselves fighting some difficult urges. They worry over every disappointment while they are watching on the other side of the glass. They wish for magical cloaks that might protect their precious charges from heartbreak. They want to slip off the bench and fix their problems. These are the moments of pure opportunities for them. And for us.

But if you sit on the bench long enough, a revelation will occur. The bench will reveal itself. But here’s the catch: you have to be prepared to stay seated, to quiet your mind and let those who are being watched truly be watched. Only then can you know the secret. And it’s this: This is the place where you end and your child begins. You made those wings their flying with. Let them soar.

Awkwardness 101

Once, while staying for an extended period on the 20th floor of a high-rise building, I rode the elevator with a middle-aged man who seemed to be particularly intimidated by my presence. As I stepped in to the enclosed space, he smiled nervously and then, for the entire length of our ride, spoke non-stop. He shared his entire medical history, complete with symptoms, diagnoses and treatments, all before we reached the ground floor. Now, I doubt very highly that this dude expected to receive medical advice from me. I wasn't wearing a white coat and stethescope, was I? But I understood his impulse of going off at the mouth like a house on fire: he was nervous. Had he not stepped off the elevator and run away like a little girl being chased by the Big Bad Wolf I would have yelled out, I know why you're doing this, bro, but fear me not! I, too, am a member of the verbal diarrhea-when--nervous set! But I didn't get the chance because I was too busy trying to figure out whether the gout he'd been diagnosed with was contagious. (FYI. Contagious. Nope. Painful and gross? Definitely.)


For the most part, being socially awkward is a stigma. The media stereotype depicts it as someone who lacks self-confidence, reads a lot of manga, lives in a basement and takes yearly trips to Comic Con. But is being awkward necessarily a bad thing? According to today's media, I would say absolutely not. In fact, awkward comedies are this past decade's fundamental source of humor. Think of the title characters in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin", "Zoolander"... basically any character on The Office.


While we've all found ourselves in horrifying social situations in which something occurs unexpectedly, I have always personally felt the feelings that result from not being able to recover from the awkwardness that ensues can have their benefits. Lucky for you, I have spent a good portion of my life staring moments like those square in the eye, and know that, in my soul of souls, this is what makes me who I am and - Goddammit!- I'm good with it.


Here are a few choice examples of awkward moments that I played out personally. Some effed me up for days afterwards. Several have made me want to quit the earth immediately afterwards experiencing them. And, sadly, a few may be familiar to you. If so? Welcome to the tribe!

• My daughter corrected me recently whilst helping with her math homework. She is in the 3rd grade.
• After a hearing a great track in a film we were watching, I spontaneously predicted that the song was "gonna be huge". My husband turned to me and revealed that the song I was hearing was Goodbye Stranger by Supertramp.
• I fell up the stairs at Massey Hall after a concert. I had drunk water all night.
• I laughed at a joke about oral sex while watching a film with my 65 year old mother.
• I realized too late that I had been imitating the accent of an English friend. Poorly. Yes, she was in the room with me at the time.
• I frequently have to hold up the index and thumb of both of my hands in order to determine right and left.
• I had a conversation with a woman at a barbeque who was breastfeeding her 6 year old.
• I sat on a friends leather couch during a heat wave and then had to explain that I wasn't farting every time I moved.
• I referred to a woman who I have worked out with for going on 4 years now, "Erin" when her name was actually "Emily. 
• I referred to a hockey player as an "Arse Wipe" to someone who was wearing his signed jersey.
• In order to get out of sidewalk conversation with someone I didn't want to talk to in the first damned place, I concocted a story about meeting a friend. I ran into them 5 minutes later in the butcher shop.
• The hygienist asked me a question while I her hand was in my mouth. I drooled on it by way of reply.
• My daughter asked me once why I always whispered for people to "Slow the puck down!" while we were driving. I told her it was playoff season and I was thinking about hockey.
• I checked myself out in the window of a parked car only to realize that there was someone inside.

I could go on for days here. I'm gonna stop now.

Sleep Damn You. Sleep!

Three weeks ago, my husband and I watched a creepy little psychological thriller entitled, Martha Marcy May Marlene. Or is it Mary Martha Macy Marlene? Did I make the Macy part up?All I know is that there was one girl, four names and me left without sleep. For a three weeks. To the director of this opus, I have this to say: thanks for parking the horrible idea of having me, or someone I love, getting sucked into a murdering back-to-nature sex cult into my brainstem and not letting go. Oh, and also: go jump off a bridge. So, now, despite the fact that the film was excellent and very well-acted, I can't sleep and no amount of wine-drinking or watching Tootsie on a continuous loop 'til the sun comes up seems to be solving the problem.


While waking up 11 times per night for three straight weeks may not sound ideal, I have used the time wisely. I have discovered that when I’m under stress of any kind, my body prefers to be conscious so that it can fret, fret, and fret some more. Good to know, right? So to counter that, I've done my level best to come up with some strategies to get my brain to turn off with the hope that normal sleeping habits will return in enough time for me become the normal, endearing and self-deprecating chica that my family has come to know and love and not the twitchy, "spazing out" Martha-Marcy-Mary-Marlene wanna-be with which she's been replaced.

 These are the top ten tricks that have worked for me so far:

1. Stop watching movies that scare the living poop out of you. Fairly self-explanatory. This leaves out early Darren Aronofsky films, anything by Michael Hanaeke or David Fincher, anything with the word "silent" or "dare" in the title and Jennifer Aniston vehicles of any kind. My eyes are drooping just thinking about it. I better write this down. Speaking of which…

2. Keep a pen by the bed. There will always be something you forget to write down. Something so pressing that it jolts you from sleep at 3 a.m. Don’t regain consciousness while you worry about remembering the important thing. Write it down and roll over.

3. Get off the couch. Exercise, mofo!. Harder than you usually do if you’re athletic. One of the less-touted benefits of strenuous exercise is that it exhausts you. Perfect.

4. Stop the nightly grind. Not coffee or tea (that's No. 7) I'm talking teeth. The last one isn't an issue for everyone of course, but I grind my teeth in my sleep. I did it before MMMM and I didn’t realize how much it was waking me until I was fit for a mouth guard, and so I mention it here. Consider it, my stress-ball friend.

5. Clear out electronics. They say you need to remove even the tiniest lights if you don’t want to mess with your circadian rhythms, and maybe that’s true. Illuminated clocks are so accusatory they might as well have an exclamation point after the time. But the little charging lights on my computer, phone, iPad, camera? Those are more of a problem if I’m already awake in the dark. Each one is a tiny siren song, coaxing me to conquer another Scrabble opponent. Not to mention how often my phone wakes me with a late-night text or call from one of the many inconsiderate louts who I have come to love. So when I’m having trouble sleeping, all the gadgets go in the living room.

6. Don’t play dead. When I’m up, I just get up. I won’t stay in bed awake for more than fifteen minutes because I don’t want my bed to become a place where I worry about not sleeping. I’ll take a bath or go read on the couch, any activity I can do supine. And if you fall asleep in the bathtub? Success.

7. Stop taking uppers. No more caffeine. If I can’t sleep, I stop ingesting stimulants because they are chemically designed to keep me awake. (I’m wacky that way.) I’ll take a two-day withdrawl headache over a month-long stint as a zombie.

8. Shower before bed. The warmth is supposed to sleepify you, and maybe it does, but I find it relaxing just to climb into bed clean. Sleeping with freshly shaved legs is also a nice bonus.

9. Get stuck. I get acupuncture once a month, and I almost never have trouble sleeping on days when I have a session. The effect is similar to a good massage.

10. Powder your nose. When you finally do get to sleep, the last thing you want is to be woken by your bladder. Use the bathroom right before bed, and limit liquid intake an hour or so before you (hope to) go to sleep.


Also, think twice before you watch a film that explores the mental and emotional anguish that befalls any person who gets sucked into a cult. Cult films? Fine. Films about cults? Only if you're looking not to sleep for a few weeks.