Dad.

Life gets more and more complicated. Relationships get more and more complicated. Families – especially ours – get more and more complicated.

If you asked 12 year old me if there would ever be a time that I wouldn’t adore you without reservation she’d have said it was impossible. A time when I was ready to completely shut you out of my life? She would have laughed. And then built a time machine to go into the future to punch 31 year old me in the face.

But it happened. I was done with you, imagining my life without you. Before I’d even processed the change, tragedies brought you back into my life with a force so strong that I forgot why. But for a short period, I was dead to you. Those tragedies changed my views about family in a way that fiction and intellectualizing never could, I came around to loving the dysfunction and embracing the history of our family. I decided that Family was important to me and it became a priority like it had never been.

I’ve been thinking of you lately, and find myself talking about you almost daily. At work, and in my political world I’m reminded of you; your accomplishments with pay equity, walking with you in labour day parades, arguing politics with peers and parroting your words as though they were gospel – until of course my views diverged, of course. Playing video games, learning how to check the oil and keep score at baseball games.

It’s because you’re moving away. Right now we don’t live in the same city, but we’re only a couple hours apart. When you leave next week, you’ll be a 20 hour drive, 2 hour plane ride, away. And certainly more than a $30 bus ticket. I’m happy for you, finally in your dream home, the tiny island on our east coast that never has more than 2 hours traffic, the place that’s been calling to you for as long as I can remember. You’ve been happier than I can remember you being since I was a kid. Knowing that you’ll be happy fills me with a peace beyond words, because it’s been so long.

But I’ll miss you. I’ve known for months that the move was imminent but it wasn’t until this week that the reality started to sink in. I think that in this, we are similar. there’s no way to prepare for these changes so we just ignore their coming until we absolutely have to. Enough changes happen without warning in life, and the process of dealing is no different, so there’s no benefit in preparing for the emotional turmoil. Que sera, sera.

But now we’ve arrived at the moment when it’s real. A week before you leave, I’m on the go bus on the way to Toronto to see you. To go through the house to get any stuff I want to keep before you take the rest for donations. To say goodbye. There’s skype, yes, and video chat, but its not enough. You’re starting a new chapter, and you’re doing it alone. We’re all starting new chapters and we’re all apart. Que sera, sera.

being in a family

September 24, 2011

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the next move…

everything in my life became about the next move. there was no long term planning, no daydreams, no big picture. find a place to sleep, find a way to keep as much stuff as possible, find a place for my cat, survive, survive, survive. if you know me, you know that ‘things working out’ is something I take for granted. I would find a place to live when I needed to, even if every solution only lasted for a month or so; and I’d figure out the next move once I got the immediate one lined up. And it always did. Every month or two found me in a new place. The watchword was definitely not ‘sustainability,’ rather, the watchword was whatever the word for ‘don’t live on the street’ is. And I never did.

In the introduction, I mentioned the temp job that I was working at when the flood happened. It really was not a good job, I was bored out of my skull 99% of the time; frustrated, frantic and rushed the other 1%, on the rare occasion when The Sociopath decided he needed something from me. The other thing about the job was that the people, while lovely as individuals, as a team they were just… off. Other than the CEO, it was all women, who were very clique-y and none of them tried very hard to be friendly to me. The Monday after the flood when I went to work about 3 hours late, and wound up crying while I was supposed to be covering the reception desk, I’d been there about a month and never dreamed that I would find my first solution there. I had no friends, and nobody really spoke to me about anything but work, besides the other temps that revolved through the reception area.

My landlords had helped me move into the main floor apartment of the house the night before. After some harrying negotiations, it was decided that I could stay there for one month, and that I could have one month rent-free. The problem was that I was still one month behind, so I ended up having to pay them my rent on July first. That apartment was unbelievable; gorgeous, spacious, light-filled, attached to a front porch. I would have loved to stay there but of course the rent was way too high. So my first problem was that I had a month to find a place to live, but did not have enough money to pay first and last month’s rent. I decided that I should try to find a house-sitting job that would last a month or so, and ‘hopefully I’ll have enough saved up so I can get a new apartment after that.’ As I said, I only ever had the energy to work on the next move, and it was all grounded in ‘hopefully after that…’

And this is how I found myself in the lunchroom with a few people, including a Director and her daughter (who did some part-time work around the office). I thought, you know it can’t hurt to mention… so I piped up “if you hear of anyone who needs a house or cat sitter for the month of August, I’m in the market.” They looked at each other, then looked at me as though I’d offered them great riches. What synchronicity! The family of four would be away at respective music camps, retreats and cottages for most of the month and needed someone to look after their cats and other general housesitting duties. And that is how I came to stay in Mississauga with the Coopers’ last August.

Stay tuned for more on the month in Mississauga, and the next move…

The Flood Series

August 12, 2011

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The Year of The Flood

Part 1 – Standard Introduction

Everything was rolling along just fine. Not perfect, but okay. I was your average girl, a fun-loving, moderate screw-up with a dysfunctional family and decent friends. I had a little bit of credit card debt, and a little bit of student loan debt; and while it wasn’t quite sustainable, it was getting better.I wasn’t adding to it, anyway. Then I made the unwise decision to leave my job, that I was miserably unhappy and unfulfilled at; couldn’t find a new job and had to borrow money from a friend, got behind on my rent, and found my situation decidedly unsustainable. It was a fight to not sink into depression, and I managed to claw back a bit after a couple of months – found a temp job that had a long commute, no intellectual spark, unwelcoming colleagues and a sociopath for a boss but that paid more money per hour than I’d ever made in my life. Managed to mostly catch up on my rent and the rest of my bills. And that’s when it happened. My apartment flooded after a rainstorm, three times in one week I came home to find water flooding into my basement apartment at the baseboards. On the Sunday, I arrived home from a memorial for my high school principal to find the entire apartment sitting in three inches of water.

I’m not the most lazy person you’ll ever meet, but in my home I wasn’t the most diligent tidy person you’d find either. I was just typical, you know,  you let things go until it piles up and drives you crazy, but I’ve never lived in filth or anything like that. But that tendency to let things go disappears when you’re watching water rush in on your shoes, your bookcases, your magazine basket, under your bed… You just get on that. Tears of frustration and fear streaming down my face, I packed all of my stuff, moved everything I possibly could get out of the water, and waited until my landlords arrived to help me move my stuff into the vacant main floor apartment temporarily.

And so begins my adventure. The best, the worst, the scariest, the most interesting and educational year (or so) of my life so far.

The Flood Series

August 10, 2011

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Why 2010 Didn’t Completely Suck

Part 1 of any number of posts wherein I process all the blessings and cursings – and lessons - of the previous year

I don’t plan. At all. Not long term, short term, day by day. Why bother, I decided, not too long ago. I used to plan right down to the minute and up to 5 years out.  I belong to a church which espouses the virtues of discipline in such things as planning, budgeting, and organization. And for a long time, I worked really hard to be good at all of it; to be disciplined at such things as planning, budgeting, and organization. But slowly, it waned more and more, perhaps because I sensed it didn’t really make my life better. I felt pride when things went as planned and I made all my appointments, when my budget balanced, when things were where I  thought they should be. But on a macro level, nothing was really better.  And then in the last few years, life just kept throwing me these curve balls that made such things as planning, budgeting and organization seem silly and presumptuous. People get hit by cars and almost die and suffer long-term consequences; others fall down stairs and die before I get to visit with them and play the gin rummy tournament I had planed and was looking forward to; apartments flood and jobs are lost and I end up homeless for six months; loved ones suffer tragic and catastrophic loss at the same time they are bringing a new life into the world. It seems silly to worry about coordinating my schedule or paying off my credit cards or alphabetizing my DVDs (as if I would alphabetize my DVDs. they should be arranged by genre, actor, era or director). As if by controlling the stupid details, I can keep at bay the tragedies that turn it all into chaos anyway.

However this year I noticed, that had I been doing such things as planning, budgeting and organizing; the flood and job loss may not have been so catastrophic. If I’d been saving a little bit of money (or paying off more of my debt), and planning ahead, I may not have ended up having to couch surf for six months. Heck, if I’d been thinking clearer and gone to social services right away, they would have been able to help me and I might not have needed to deal with major upheaval every month to two months.

So lesson learned. Will I go back to planning every minute and up to five years out? probably not. But not just because tragedy may strike, but because life is easier when you can be flexible. Life is more fun when you’re not slave to your schedule or your budget. For me the lesson is balance. A good 5 year goal, 1 year goal, and running to-do-list are basic ingredients to a life where you accomplish stuff. You add the flavour with colourful post-it-notes reminding yourself that you can reach your goals, exceed expectations, make the world a better place just by being you; wall calendars that show you the next few months at a glance, with big goals and events highlighted; and whatever else you do that helps you remember to keep your dreams alive because they can be achieved but only if we’re still aiming.

What we often don’t want to think about is how our financial behaviour effects our ability to reach goals. This year, I’d like to just have a more realistic relationship with planning and budgeting, and treat them as one and the same. Financial goals and life goals need to plotted on the same graph, need to be functions of one another, and need to be grounded in reality. For that to work, you have to look at them fairly regularly and make adjustments to spending and income, and you also need to be a little disciplined and follow the guidelines you set for yourself in how to spend in order to be able to save. You’re reading this and thinking, “duh, Kristin!!” and I’m saying, “yes, I know… but…” One thing I learned this year, is that I’m not always realistic about things I can’t quite picture. Like long term goals, or even relatively short term goals that represent a major shift in my situation. I have a difficult time making the details make sense relative to the destination. So that’s what I’m going to work on. Because I’m not getting younger, here, people! And I have dreams, big dreams (as I always have) and I’d like to start figuring out how to make them happen!!

being awesome, being clever, being curious, being self-aware

December 30, 2010

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Day 5 (of Seven Days of Hot Yoga)

I have been behind on my blogging of the 7 days of Hot Yoga experience! What follows is what I wrote on day 5 which was about 5 days ago. After the line of asterisk below is me today.

Image by imago via Flickr

Day 4:

If you follow me on twitter or we’re friends on facebook, you know that I didn’t make it to yoga yesterday either, thanks to a stupid GO train delayed 20 minutes.

Also, you may know that I found the solution to my living arrangements for me and my cat. And as great as it is to have it all sorted, I’m totally bummed that for atleast a month I’m going to be separated from my little baby.  I actually had a hard time not crying on the train after I talked to the guy who is going to be looking after her.

Day 5:

Today’s class was Power Flow Yoga, significantly more intense than the two classes I attended earlier this week. I was feeling really tired and a bit depressed, and had a hard time keeping up. The room seemed hotter than usual.  But I kept at it, and as always missed out on one round of sun salutations. Those things kill me!

***************

And then for some reason, I stopped writing and never came back to it.

I figured out what the readings were, they were from a The Secret Daily Teachings Calendar. Some of them were pretty good, some of them were your typical The Secret positive psychology stuff. Some of which is great, but I  do have mixed feelings about it. But that’s not the point of these posts, silly!

I can just tell you that I was sore after yoga on day 5. Sore, tired and depressed. I don’t believe that was related, I’ve been going through transitions almost constantly lately and its taking it’s toll. Today, I’m sitting in the backyard of my fourth home in as many months. It’s hard to feel at home anywhere when you’re homeless but if I don’t try to make myself feel at home I feel like I can’t breathe or relax or be myself. When I move into my new home, hopefully in a month or a month and an half but no more than two months, I’m going to have to compose a bit of a treatise on this concept of Home, capital “H”.  But you know I have had yoga teachers tell me that doing yoga can get you in touch with emotions that have been simmering under the surface. It’s completely possible.

Why do I like yoga? Because I don’t really do it for the spiritual stuff. You may know that the term Yoga is sanskrit, roughly translating to union; basically the union of body, mind and spirit. But let’s face it, most of us do yoga because it’s a mildly challenging workout that shapes our body the way we want, and it’s not running. Okay, that’s why I like it. and I do enjoy the Shivasana, the relaxation at the end, even though like I mentioned before, I am terrible at it.  What I do believe about yoga is that it does more than shape the body in a way that’s aesthetically desirable. I believe that it encourages internal health, and that is in part because of how deliberate, focussed and intense it is.

After yoga I always feel better, even when I’m sore, in a way that other types of exercise don’t really do for me.

being clever, being self-aware

August 31, 2010

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day 3

So I must confess that yesterday I did not wake up for the 8am yoga class -and would have simply gone to a later class were I not super-booked up with work and events. When I did wake up at 7 I was so sore and stiff I wondered if I’d be able to get out of bed… So I didn’t try.

In other words, day 3 was a bust. But I did want to share a dream I had before I did finally drag my butt out of bed. It was the most random dream of non-events you could ever imagine. In it, I was wandering around the beach neighbourhood of Toronto and decided to drop in on an old friend. When I got to his place he was in the middle of wrapping up final scenes for his film. He was arguing with the ingenue about how to interpret the scene, when they saw me through the screen door trying to leave without being seen. Well, the fuss he made about me staying for a visit! Within 15 minutes they were wrapped, and my friend and I were sitting on either ends of a couch, curled up with coffees. And the remainder of the dream is us just talking, him rapt with attention as though I were preaching a gospel he was desperate to hear.

The reason I am sharing this is related to the reading about relationships I mentioned in the last post. This was someone I had strong feelings for, and a big reason was how he made me feel about myself. He was the first person who made me feel as awesome as I thought he was, precisely because he thought I was as awesome as I thought he was.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who undervalues themselves. But this dream really provoked me to think about how to stop doing that; and I think I had this dream because of the meditation in yoga class!

being clever, being self-aware

August 26, 2010

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Day 2: 7 days of hot yoga

Day 2

I was sore when I woke up this morning. But decided to push through and go for the first class at 10am because I didn’t want to break the 7 day commitment on day 2.

Today’s class was taught by a different teacher, a tall blonde who looked like she stepped off the cover of a chick-lit novel. You know, the cartoony ones with the jewelry, bags and accessories hanging in the air around her, her hair was in a casual up-sweep. The class was great. A different sequence, with new poses I’d never tried before, like the goddess pose. Think of a squat with Cleopatra arms. And lots of triangles, of which I’m a fan; but way too many reverse triangles, of which I am decidedly not. Her sun salutations were way faster than the class yesterday. I missed one again. Had some trouble with the more stretchy stuff because I’m not used to doing two days of hot yoga in a row, and had to remind myself not to push too hard because I need to make it seven days.

My neck is so sore right now. This might be because of being hunched over a computer for 8 hours, or it might be this one thing in yoga that I’ve always had a hard time with – transitioning from upward dog to standing. They always tell you to step forward with one foot then the other but for some reason I can never reach my foot all the way up gracefully and it jars my neck. Every time!

Relaxation at the end was near impossible today. I couldn’t get comfortable and couldn’t quiet my brain. She made a statement, like “let all your muscles relax.” I almost laughed and thought, “ha. You haven’t met my muscles!” The reading was about relationships, endings, letting go to make room for new ones. Interesting stuff about clearing about old, and I thought mostly about old ways of thinking of myself. Later today, at Starbucks, designing a business card for myself for an event tomorrow, I realized that apart from certain small details (like not having a home) I’m pretty much living the life I used to envy in others. I need to give myself credit for what I have accomplished and for dreaming big and not giving up.

My back, butt and legs are all stiff too. I gotta rest up and go to bed early tonight because tomorrows class is at 8!! Its called lightly heated yoga in the schedule, so I wonder if that’ll be good or bad!

Check back tomorrow and I’ll let you know!

being clever, being self-aware

August 25, 2010

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7 days of Hot Yoga

Day 1 was yesterday and I thought today that I should blog about the experience.

First of all: I’m doing this as an experiment to see if I can clean my body of some of the toxins and sluggishness that I’ve been carrying around with me. Mostly physical troubles are inspiring this, because that’s where my issues are manifesting most readily. I mainly just feel that I want to reboot the system. So hot yoga every day, no booze, no cigarettes, no junk food. As much as possible, simple unprocessed and raw foods. Healthful choices at every turn.

I don’t want to list a litany of complaints; aches, pains, all that jazz. Nor will I discuss bodily functions because, that’s just gross! It would just give away my age and I’m not down with that. Suffice it to say, that way too often I find myself saying things like “I’m a wreck” or “uh! I’m falling apart!” So basically this is a “something’s gotta give” situation.

Day 1:
The room is not as hot as I’m used to, and its a bit smaller than the big chain studios, but its enough. The teacher is a short asian girl, she gives good instructions and likes to hold poses. Lots of sun salutations and quick transitions from up to down dog but everything else is more about deepening the pose. I still can’t do a shoulder stand, I think because my core is not strong enough and a smidge too big. I wonder if I’ll ever get there. The class is intense but not exhausting, I think I only missed one turn of sun salutations. The relaxation at the end is always my favourite part, even though I’m so bad at it. I mostly sink in all the way tonight though. At this studio they read a meditation or devotional at the end, this one sounds like it was written by the Dalai Lama or translated from the scriptures.

I feel refreshed but tired after. I feel as though my insides have had a sauna treatment. Muscle aches start to set in and I realize I may have trouble at the next class and doing this every day may not be so easy!!

Day 2 – next post! Stay tuned…

being curious, being self-aware

August 24, 2010

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Tom

Tom, his school, my time there, my time with him; was one of the biggest formative influences in my life. The person I am, the person I am yet to be, exists in great part thanks to Tom and my education at ASE 1.  And not just because he taught us On The Road by Jack Kerouac in Modern Western Civilizations. But partly. Because that book is near the top of my ‘most influential books’ list.

Now Tom is gone. He died yesterday after spending years incommunicado from all of us. I’m not too clear on the reasons, but I know its got a lot to do with his illness; the mental and emotional ramifications thereof. But that was just so like Tom. He made decisions based on his gut, he bucked tradition and convention and never let them trump his conscience and what was right for him. I remember him telling a story about how he was asked to stand up at a friend’s wedding. He believed that the marriage would be a great disservice to his friend and his paramour, and refused to be ‘the best man.’ He knew it could likely spell the end of the friendship; but the right thing was the right thing. For you, that might not be the right thing. For most, even. Or maybe it would be the right thing for most of us; we just lack courage to carry out such a conviction. Tom never lacked courage of his convictions; and he inspired me to want to be that kind of person.

Tom always wanted to learn and explore. I learned a lot from the many walking tours and excursions that he led as part of the curriculum. And he made them cross-curriculum so that even if you weren’t in his class you could attend. The excursions were on Wednesdays, when there were no classes. We explored Art Deco architecture in the downtown core, gothic graveyards, cabbagetown; in philosophy class we took excursions to Indian restaurants to celebrate Eastern Philosophy and Greek restaurants to celebrate Western Philosophy – but those were just for us, the OAC Philosophy students. To this day – quite literally, today - I love to explore new parts of my city, and look forward to more travel. Today my office closed at noon so, quite on a whim, I decided to check out a new area that I’m considering moving to. And it occurs to me - since I was thinking of him anyway - that I’m brave to move to a new area far away from everyone I know just because I love it, because I want to have the water in my backyard; and I think he would dig that.

At ASE the curriculum was taught in a framework of independent learning. Everyone there had completed at least up until the end of Grade 10 in a normal high school.  (My friend ‘Zoe’ and I were refugees from one of the biggest schools in Scarborough, both of us felt like we were wasting away there so we went to the entrance interview at ASE 1 together. We knew from meeting Tom that we just had to be there. We couldn’t believe it when he admitted us both on the spot, and how enthusiastic he was to have us there.) Classes met once a week or sometimes twice. Class lectures, in Tom’s classes especially, were informative, thought provoking and usually had a great discussion component. We were encouraged to use critical thinking, a muscle that we all had but hadn’t stretched much in our previous high schools. And because of how independent we were, completing the work for a course or the independent study project, we experienced feelings of accomplishment that we’d not known before. “I did this.” I was an Ontario Scholar, won awards and participated in clubs; where in previous schools I’d skated by with just barely above average; I’d faded into the background except when I most wanted to. But at ASE I flourished, and even broke out of the social sciences wheelhouse and tried maths and science for which I am still thankful and proud.

There’s another thing about me that reminds me of him; some might not understand, or might even feel sorry for me because I’m still single and that I didn’t just settle down, get married and squeeze out a few babies like people seem to do. But I was never convinced that it was right for me. When I would dream about my wedding day, I woke up in a cold sweat, and sometimes with a scream. It was at ASE where I realized that I just didn’t want that regular kind of life. It’s right for lots of people. It’s wrong for lots of people who do it anyway. Tom helped me to realize that a girl from Scarborough who came from that regular kind of life didn’t have to repeat it. I could be my own person!  And maybe I haven’t yet done everything I wanted to. Haven’t fulfilled my potential. But I know that doesn’t mean I won’t. I’m only now starting to feel like I’m coming into my own. Many of the things I care about today, the things I still want to accomplish; the decisions about the person I want to be, have their roots in my time at ASE and in the ways that Tom and the teachers there inspired me.

I haven’t seen Tom in more years than I can believe. So its a bit disconcerting to be grieving him as intensely as I am. But then I think of how much of me is linked to him and its not that strange, maybe. I know I’m not the only one. I can’t believe how many people have said that they were just thinking of him recently, and I myself was talking about him two weeks ago with another friend. He will be missed by many. When people talk about that one teacher who really believed in them and changed their life, I think about Tom. And I know I’m not the only one.

being a citizen

May 21, 2010

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haiku

watching the raindrops
fall in a dirty puddle
circles all dancing

being self-aware

being poetic

April 6, 2010

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