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. 

Water Torture. Bring It!

Robbins Rest - swimsuits on the line, a photo by Ed Yourdon on Flickr.

Most of us are drawn towards things that give us a lift. For some it's electronics, others recreational pharmaceuticals. For me, it used to be a cup of tea. [Full disclosure: I drink two cups per day out of both desire and need but, mostly, because it does my body good. Tea addiction is generally classed as one of the least bothersome addictions because not having a cup is often accompanied by some less than attractive side effects: headaches, slightly discoloured teeth and dressing like your grandparents. Before that tea, briefly, it was cigarettes but a well placed advert of a set of teeth exposed to mouth cancer got me wondering: “What the hell?” Enter tea.] As I've progressed with age, however, I have come to the sad realization that what used to classify as "uplifting" usually doesn't meet the daily requirement. And while a cup of tea is still lovely, it simply doesn't cut it now that I'm over forty. What I need these days to rock my world is a paradigm shift.

For those unfamiliar, a paradigm shift is a change from one way of thinking to another. It's a revolution, a transformation, a sort of metamorphosis that, rather than just happen, is driven by agents of change. Creationist thinking to the theory of evolution, for instance. Geocentrism to Heliocentrism, in astronomy. Old Coke to New Coke. And back to Classic Coke. Searching these out can be next to impossible so when a paradigm shift falls into your lap, you need to seize the opportunity and not turn away.

Mine occurred few weeks ago while bathing suit shopping with my sister.

Stay with me.

For those of you who haven't read a Cathy comic strip and are unfamiliar with the humiliation and torture associated with the purchase of a bathing costume, I will say this: there is no better way to come face to face with what you want out of life than slipping into an over-lighted, under-heated room and seeing how you look in a piece of stretch fabric designed for a pre-pubescent girl with a figure chipped from marble. Good times, right? I used to despise this ritual as well until I found myself in a shopping mall in Gatineau desperate to find a flattering swimsuit in the an oasis of tastelessness. Proof once again, by the way, that you cannot choose where you have your epiphany. I was railing against the universe about how terrible this task was when it occurred to me that the whole exercise was horrendous because I had made the decision to make it so. It was a choice I'd made. Couldn't I decide not to hate it, I thought, to myself? Couldn't I find a way to make it better?

And that's when I decided to share my swimsuit-shopping wisdom to you all and, therefore, uplift us all. Noble, huh? So here's what I learned:

1. Stay away from the department store. The service sucks. The lighting is bad. The music is worse. Badness everywhere. Move on.

2. Stay away from any store with a salesperson who is under 50. The Youngs have no interest in how your butt looks. The Middle-Aged are in still in retail, resentful about it and will take their anger out on the looks they give your thighs. The Older set? They've seen it all. Your thighs are the least of their worries. Go with this group. They will not disappoint.

3. Two words: Lingerie store. Ignore the giant pile of 3 for $25 unders. Move towards the giant sling-shot bras. At the back. Further.Yes! Now turn right. See that little rack hidden by a giant display of lacy housecoats? Behind that rack is what you're looking for: Bathing suit Valhalla.

4. Why are there only 8 or 9 suits here, you will ask yourself? This isn't much choice, you will say, but you will be wrong. What lay before you are the only 8 or 9 bathing suits you will need. Boned, trussed and reinforced, these are the suits that have been sewn - nay, engineered!! - to hold back Nature's cruel joke (yes, this is what I call aging.). These few will uplift mind, body and spirit. And whatever saggy bits make you want to take to the freezer section of the nearest grocer and eat ice cream in your car with a set of car keys. And no, I haven't done this more than once. Pick three and get ye to a fitting room.

5. Be bold. Do not contemplate heading to the maternity department and trying on a floral skirt. And yes, heading away from the department store was a good idea. They may have more suits there but trying to make a sensible choice from what amounts to fluoro rubber bands is no choice at all.

6. Take off your clothes. Put on the costume and do not look at your reflection in the mirror until you've told yourself this: the world will still turn if I don't look good in this. Then look. If you have to go into the bargaining phase in order to contemplate the purchase ("Suck my stomach in for 5 hours won't be so bad, right?) it is not the right suit for you. Do this until your will has been broken down and you go with the one thing that is BF (Bulge Friendly).

7. Finally, when you get home, don't read the label that says 'Material may become
transparent in water". Instead, put your feet up, pour yourself some wine and reassure yourself that learning how to breatstroke in the sand will be nothing compared to what you just went through.

We're Funny Because We're Flawed..Stupid!

It's the Thursday after the Oscars and I am only, just now, wiping the crust out of my eyes from staying up past ten on a school night. Why, Universe, does that telecast have to be broadcast on a Sunday? Saturday, please. Then I can sleep off my hangover without guilt. Thanks.

I normally don't participate in the Monday night quarterbacking that happens the days after the Oscar telecast because the focus is largely on the fashions and I, quite frankly, couldn't care less about who wore what. I did, however, catch a wrap-up show on a cable channel where they were discussing the merits of the film Bridesmaids and I stopped the clicker long enough to hear a critic I quite respect describe the film's two Oscar nominations as "undeserving" and referred to its critical reception as "overblown". The reason: women pooped in a sink and it was "unbecoming".

Now, I will agree, I find it tiresome that the popular focus for the movie is based, primarily, on the dress-fitting scene and the gross out that inevitably happens in the bathroom of that pristine-no-longer shop (and make no mistake, though the scene is not for everyone, there can be no dispute: it was hilarious). But, really? That was all the movie was about for you?

Hollywood has frequently felt that a woman's place in comedy was largely suppose to be in pursuit of a wedding ring which is why I almost didn't go and see this movie and why haven't watch a single Kate Hudson film since Almost Famous. I am simply not down with devoting two hours of my life to watching a starlet lasso Matthew McConaghey into marriage, all whilst balancing herself on 5-inch high heels. But, Bridesmaids isn't a movie about weddings, people. It's about the way women talk to each other. There just happens to be a wedding in it. And some women pooping in a sink. What Kristen Wiig and her co-writer, Annie Mumolo, have managed to traffic in here is a sort of social realism that outside of a Mike Leigh Film, very rarely gets mined in a film. They have tried to capture the strength that certain woman need to carry on in the face of common societal pressures. Friendship, love, courtship, marriage and the promise it holds of life-ever-after are all held up to scrutiny here and what they reveal is that they are not quite what they are cracked up to be.

Maid of Honor Annie and her motley crew of bridesmaids know this only too well. There is the gentle, almost childlike bridesmaid who confesses her discontent with never having sex. The bridesmaid mom who confesses her horror at sharing the house with three lively teenage sons ("There's semen everywhere. One blanket actually cracked") and at her husband's banal, insatiable conjugal needs: ("I just want to watch the Daily Show once, without him entering me"). Annie's own sense of failure is only amplified and accelerated by the intolerable social and financial humiliation of being a bridesmaid and it threatens to poison everything, including a promising new relationship with a nice cop. But it is Helen - sweet, sweet, passive-agressive Helen!- whose uber-competitiveness in taking over her role as Lillian BFF that lurches Annie into existential overload. It isn't enough that Annie continues to share an apartment with a sibling duo, works a menial job and is struggling to pay rent. Now she has to endure the indignity of attending a Helen-curated party for which she had been mastermind. And say nothing.

Genius.

And then throw on top of this Melissa McCarthy, whose character, early on, seems like a caricature. Overweight and unfiltered in the early scenes, by film's end, she has slowly subverted these impressions, and gains depth as the most selfless member of the bridesmaids, understanding that you don’t receive your own happiness as much as you make it. Find me another movie where a woman over 150 pounds was the moral center? Or who turns out to have the most self-actualized and fulfilling sex life ?

Good comedy should mine human foibles for comic effect and, sometimes, writers and actors need to exaggerate character flaws to make their point (and get the laughs). Sink-pooping aside, Bridesmaids worked as well as it did because the writing and the feelings behind it resonated and rang true. Sure, few of us have gone to a bridal shower and destroyed a cheesy decoration in a fit of frustration with the unreality of it all. But who among us hasn't wanted to? Am I surprised that a certain portion of the population has missed the point there? No. Am I thankful that someone had the audacity to write about it. Hell, yeah.

Loving

In 1958, Virginia residents Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving were married in Washington, DC and returned to the state to live together. Mrs. Jeter was black and Mr. Jeter was white. Shortly after their wedding day they were charged with violating Virginia's law against inter-racial marriage and were sentenced to one year in jail. The sentence was suspended provided they move out of the Virginia and not return for at least 25 years. From their new home in Washington, they struggled to appeal their case, which was eventually brought before the Supreme Court. The law was overturned in 1967.

This, my friends, is what most of us now see as progress.

Almost 30 years to the day of that ruling, my husband and I got married in the same state, in a town a mere 45 miles from the one were Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving first met. We booked the wedding on Monday and were married the following Thursday, in a musty anti-chamber room of the Albermarle County Courthouse. No muss, no fuss, in a state where, 30 years previous, it was illegal for a black and white person to to play checkers together on the same porch.

Progress.

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, I was thinking of this room when I stumbled across an incident that happened just before Christmas in the City Council chamber for the City of Troy in Michigan. If you’re looking for light in the middle of February, this room would probably be the last place you’d look but for one day this past December, a ray shone in that chamber that gave a glimpse of hope to those who believe in - you, guessed it! - progress.

The week before, Mayor Janice Daniels of Troy, Michigan, was publicly admonished at a City Council meeting for her use of an anti-gay slur on her Facebook account. It was discovered that Mayor Daniels wrote a Facebook status update in June using the word “queers” when referring to lesbian and gay people, and saying that she would be throwing away her ‘I Love New York’ carrying bag now that marriage equality has passed in New York state. Widespread upset over Mayor Daniels’ comment ensued, with many residents calling for her resignation. Which is why, at a City Council meeting a few weeks ago, 80 people lined up during the public comment portion to address Mayor Daniels directly and highlight the issues with her inappropriate statement.

It was getting pretty ugly for the mayor, as you might imagine until a woman named Amy approached the Council with her wife, Tina, and their two children. Amy spoke about the love in her own family, and the values that she and Tina have instilled in their daughters. “We talk every day about different families, and different types of people, and teaching respect and kindness. And that is the heart that beats in our home – it’s about being kind, about choosing love over everything.” She then presented the mayor with a gift: two drawings that her daughters had made. The goal was for the mayor to carry the picture with her and to remember to keep thoughts of kindness and love in her heart whenever she looked at them. In her parting thoughts, Amy encouraged Mayor Daniels to see this situation as an opportunity to step up in support of all Michigan residents, including lesbian and gay people.

Stories like these are gifts. Not only do they remind us how damaging anti-gay messages send to individuals and families but, more importantly, they show us that true kindness is loving people despite the differences you might have for them. Loving them regardless of who they do, or don’t, like. Like Amy, I prefer to see challenges as opportunities to grow and change and I felt different after reading about what she did in that dingy council chamber in Troy. Hopeful, even, that there are people out there who have the courage to lead by example. Amy and her family, like Mildred and Richard Loving three decades before, performed a miracle of sorts: they turned a worn out city council chamber into a school room where I learned a lesson in, love, courage and - you guessed it! - progress.

But I know rooms like that. I got married in one.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Joy School

Joy.., a photo by Ayham Al-Hamwi on Flickr.

When my kids were small, I often used TV time as a way to catch some z's (Yes, it was D minus parenting, at best, but a girl had to get some sleep somehow, yeah?) Those few moments when I could close my eyes and quietly recharge my batteries were bliss and thanks to PBS Kids programming, I was able to do it with the possibly-misguided sense that even for this one half-hour, my kids were learning without my having to actively engage them with educational toys on our un-vacuumed carpet. Success!

One day, as I was drifting in and out of sleep, I heard the following exchange on a show my son was watching called BIG TRUCKS (the caps are NOT mine. Those last ones were but the one's from the title were not, so....oh, you know what I mean!):

Truck #1: I’m so big. While these men are up in my basket, two firefighters are working on me down below.

Truck #2: Wow! Lucky!

Unbelievable. And to think, if I had been asleep, I'd have missed that entirely. From that day forward, I made a vow to myself that I would always look for something ordinary to elevate my day. Some days it's the way the breeze blows life into a shirt on a clothesline. Or the feeling you get when you know your workout is over. Neil Pasricha touched on it in his great book, The Book Of Awesome, and it's a torch that everybody would do well to pick up. Searching out joy in the every day is a gift that has lent unprecedented pleasure to my life. And I have a dirty-talking truck to thank for it. Thank you, Universe!

Here are just a few things in which I've found joy over the past week.

This is the spoon I use to stir my morning tea. It's an original Gerber baby spoon that I got at the auction for $5. I had to buy all of these

in order to get it. It was worth it.

This made me laugh.

This was delicious. And perfectly green inside.

Find your joy now, dammit!