ADDing it Up

If you frequent TikTok, Instagram or Facebook you can't help but notice that a lot of adults are talking about being recently diagnosed as having ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) or ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). Social media apps have been instrumental in helping people to recognize both common and uncommon traits of these neurodivergences. Medical doctors like brain expert Dr. Amen, celebrities such as Trevor Noah, Diary of a CEO's Steven Bartlett, and Mel Robbins, as well as regular folk are making videos to share on the subject, and a whole new wave of self-knowledge (and sometimes self-diagnosis) is sweeping the world. I have members of my own family who have been officially diagnosed, some quite a bit after such a diagnosis could have helped them in school. Other members of my family, including my sister, Clare*, are simply aware they possess some or many of the traits of someone with ADHD and have decided they have lived this long without medication or professional support, so they are simply carrying on being the successful people  they are - just with more self-awareness. When I listen to Mel Robbins talk about her own ADHD, it's like I'm listening to Clare talk about herself. 

A couple of months ago, I was having coffee with two girlfriends. One of them was telling us she was sure she had ADHD. She pointedly asked me if I noticed traits in myself. What came out of my mouth at that moment surprised me. I had only just realized it. I said I had difficulty concentrating unless I was really interested, and when I forced myself to concentrate for extended periods of time I became really tired. My brain wanted to fly off in disparate directions whenever I had to listen to something that wasn't grabbing my attention, and that it had always been that way since junior high school. My friend with ADHD said she thought I swung the opposite way to her. She tended to hyperactivity. I tended towards lethargy, especially after periods of intense concentration. I said I couldn't remember being hyper a day in my life, in fact, and that I envied people like her and my sister. "You women get shit done!" We laughed.

In elementary school, I developed good study habits and became used to good marks, so I expected these to continue as I entered my teens. Honestly, I was surprised when my grade six math award did not translate into a good grasp of algebra when Math no longer related to the physical. They lost me with abstract concepts. Try as I might, I spaced out in class and my math marks continued their descent. I still did well in school, especially in English, French, and the Humanities, but the Sciences apart from Biology eluded me. While many of my friends were methodical in their approach to school work, I was a binge student - procrastinating like crazy and then cramming for tests and spending an entire weekend writing a paper due Monday. I had to feel pressure in order for my brain to focus intently. I started to feel like something might be wrong with me. 

College was fantastic. I had only to take courses I was genuinely interested in. I genuinely loved the whole experience, but my habits had not changed. I was still a binge student when it came to tests and papers. Fortunately, I loved to read, so I was always prepared for class in that way. I carried on to university, but after my first year there, which I enjoyed, I began to find my classes tedious. I remember the last paper I wrote was for Classics. It was excruciating to force myself to complete my paper. I typed while the tears rained down my face. I called my mom. I didn't know what was happening to me. I had always loved being a student. I had loved everything from the smell of a new HB pencil to that first crack when I opened a brand new textbook, but that enthusiasm had completely left my body. My mom didn't know what to say except, "Come home for a week. We'll sort it out." We did not. 

I don't want to diagnose myself with anything. I would rather trust a professional if I ever choose to go down that road. I did take part of an ADHD test a doctor gave to my niece, but very little of it applied to me. If I do have some traits of neurodivergence, they are manageable now. What are they besides the above I have described? I am messy. I am really sensitive to the energies of others. I am either incredibly creative and productive or I am paralyzed into inactivity. I run and practice yoga, not to expel excess energy, but to create it in my mind and body and to increase my ability to focus. I have learned many coping mechanisms to deal with my shortcomings, like making lists and setting reminders on my phone, but I will be the first to admit my traits have been hard on my self-confidence over the years. I wish I had had someone to guide me through the difficulties I encountered in university. I felt so alone. Someone close to me once asked me how I felt about the fact that all my friends had successful careers and I did not. I know I was hurt when they asked it, and I have asked myself the same question many times. Now, however, I have decided to give myself a break. I have honestly done my best so far, and that's all I have. I have loved being a mom. I provide a good balance for my husband, whose frontal cortex is firing on all cylinders most of the time. I like my humble job(s). I like being helpful. I care about the world. People say I'm funny. I guess I'm okay even if my brain likes to take regular vacations. 

'til next time!

Rebecca

*My beautiful sister Clare wanted me to use her name.

 

 

Dance Crazy

Last weekend, the 2010 film Black Swan was on TV. I had never seen it, but I knew it was a psychological thriller/horror film. I have never enjoyed horror as a genre, but I have always loved ballet, so decided to give it a try. The real world has plenty enough horrors for this sensitive gal, and up until quite recently in my life, I had trouble separating fiction from reality when it came to watching anything really frightening or gory on a screen. I can now say, "It's just a movie" (with varying levels of success). I lasted through an hour of Black Swan. (I did say 'varying'). I searched up the synopsis, found out there was a lot of dancing at the end, turned the channel to something else, and then tuned back into the film for the last fifteen minutes. You may say 'wimp'. I say 'self care'. That whole scene with the broken glass tipped the scales for me.

The incredibly competitive nature of ballet, the toll on the mind and body, the sometimes boundary-crossing nature of the student/teacher relationship, and the shortness of the career of a prima ballerina were all aspects of the professional world of dance covered in the film. The two stars, Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis said they had no idea how competitive ballet was, and how rigorous the life of a dancer, until they were making the film. Natalie had danced until the age of thirteen, and still had a fairy-tale dream of it all, while Mila had no experience. They both worked with professional teachers and lived on carrots and some kind of lean protein until they were down from their already svelte figures to those of  professional ballet dancers, a loss of twenty pounds each. They both also said the film changed them and their careers forever. Natalie Portman won her first Oscar for her role in Black Swan, and Mila Kunis was taken seriously as a multi-faceted actor from then on.

Black Swan is meant to highlight the perils of perfectionism, as Natalie Portman's character demands nothing less of herself and descends (further) into madness. I couldn't help but think of real-life dancers like Evelyn Hart, the great former prima ballerina of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. She battled anorexia nervosa throughout her career. She often reached perfection in her dancing, but at what cost I wonder. She also reportedly felt forced out of the RWB on account of her age. She is now teaching and encouraging young dancers. I hope she is a good mentor. 

My mom put me in ballet at age five or six for a year or two, then again at age ten until the fabulous new teacher who said I showed promise moved back to Winnipeg. I took it up again, along with jazz dance, at age sixteen and danced intensively for four years. If I had trained consistently, from age six, my skill would have been much higher, but I still enjoyed my time struggling and striving at the Question of Balance School of Dance. My teacher told us about how her career had been cut short after she was pressured to dance on an injured foot. She was determined not to ruin our bodies, too. We danced in a former schoolhouse with the old cloakroom acting as dressing room and a rural view of the river from the many windows of the main classroom. Our experience was a far cry from the set-in-New York City Black Swan. The other girls were kind and encouraging to me, and we had a lot of fun together. 

I used to lie in bed at night begging God to let me be a dancer. After four years I asked my dance teacher if she thought I had what it took to pursue a career in dance. She suggested a dance-adjacent career like arts journalism or administration. While discouraged, I auditioned for Simon Fraser University's dance program anyway. I remember the audition process being pretty standard if all the dance movies I had watched were anything to go on. I was fairly proud of myself for keeping up to the other dancers and giving it my best effort, even after overhearing a couple of boys backstage rating all of the girls' bodies - I was used to that, too, although it made me angry. I did not make it in to the main program. They sat a group of us down and said we should take a year of dance classes in the department, along with other general first year courses, and reapply the next year. I was crushed, and believed the writing was on the wall. I decided not to attend SFU and went to UBC instead to study English and Humanities with a view to becoming a teacher. All my life people had told me I would make a good teacher. Only my mother had really encouraged me to seek a life in the world of dance. If not for her I never would have tried.

I do think you have to be physically and mentally tough to embark on a career in dance. Black Swan is an extreme example of that world, but the competitiveness and the toll on the body are real. Young girls romanticize careers like ballet and modeling, but they can be brutal for women because they are such demanding and relentless ways of being. Something the current generations are good at is questioning and demanding answers for why the generations before them accepted certain attitudes. My generation grew up with hustle culture, 'no pain, no gain', diet culture, and body negativity, and I know the current generations are pushing back against these social norms. I hope that increasingly, dancers, models, and actors don't have to nearly kill themselves, or shove aside their ethics, for the sake of their craft.

 I still enjoy ripping it up on the dance floor. Once in a while, someone will come up to me and say, "I love watching you dance!" and that's such a good feeling. Some things we can do simply for the joy of it.  

'til next time, 

Rebecca

Engines and Fuel

I just finished reading the short novel What Strange Paradise by Canadian journalist and author Omar El Akkad. In Chapter 20 the smuggler's apprentice Mohamed says something simply awful and cynical to the passengers on the ancient run-down fishing boat that carries them across the Mediterranean to a shore they hope will provide a better life than the war-torn places they left behind:

        "You sad, stupid people," he said. "Look what you've done to yourselves. The West you talk about doesn't exist. It's a fairy tale, a fantasy you sell yourself because the alternative is to admit that you're the least important character in your own story. You invent an entire world because your conscience demands it, you invent good people and bad people and you draw a neat line between them because your simplistic morality demands it. But the two kinds of people in this world aren't good and bad -- they're engines and fuel. Go ahead, change your country, change your name, change your accent, pull the skin right off your bones, but in their eyes they will always be engines and you will always, always be fuel."

The irony of the smuggler's apprentice spewing the above as he is facilitating the migrants' journey to the West, making money off it, no less, seems lost on him. I definitely do not pretend to know much about the Middle East's history of troubles, but the fact that the leaders of much of those lands promote a deep mistrust of the West is well-known (and in some cases well founded). Still, people flock by the thousands in leaky boats and rafts in uncertain waters, wearing poor quality pdf's, risking life and life-savings in search of what the West seems to stand for. 

I have always been interested in origin stories. I enjoy learning how people got to where they are now. If I meet someone from a foreign country I often ask what brought them to Canada. I remember one woman who is now a friend answered that question with "Amnesty International and the Catholic Church. My dad was a wanted man for speaking out against the dictator of our country". Having lived a comparatively sheltered and privileged life, I acknowledge how out of touch I can be with the true, lived struggles of people who leave everything behind, often including the graves of many loved ones killed in armed conflicts or raids, to come to a country like Canada. I have to read books like What Strange Paradise to try and internalize some of what these immigrants experience. Or, I ask my hairstylist who was a Vietnamese boat person. He, too, got on a boat with his brother and father not knowing if they would live or die on the crossing to a new land. He is proud of the life he and his family have built here, and he and his wife, like many immigrants, work very hard. He has told me more than once that Canadians don't know how good we've got it. 

When I was working at my friend's tulip festival this past April I was reminded of how much it resembles an international airport during holiday times, or perhaps the UN. Every possible skin colour, ethnicity, and accent is represented (okay, a slight exaggeration, but you get the picture) Languages flow around me like bubbling streams. I love it. This year I worked in the farm shop where we sell potted and cut flowers, souvenirs, treats and drinks. As I greeted each customer I took the opportunity to be as welcoming as possible. I made short conversation with each of them and found my smiles returned. Each customer has an origin story. Each customer has as much right to be on this earth as I do, no matter where they were born. Many of them have earned that right much more than I have by the risks they have taken and the sacrifices they have made to leave all that is familiar. I am grateful not to think like the smuggler's apprentice, dividing humans into engines and fuel, and I need to continue to work in my small way to make Canada a place that gives equal opportunity to all. 

We can all be engines and fuel for each other. 

Until next time, 

Rebecca

Recommended Reading

For the last couple of months I've been immersed in my own personal version of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's annual Can-lit contest Canada Reads. One of my goals for the New Year was to read more books from diverse cultural perspectives. I could read British murder mysteries by the likes of Ann Cleeves and P.D. James until the cows come home, and in fact I have. The cows are in the building as we speak, and it is time to let them rest awhile before putting them back out to pasture once again while I indulge my penchant for dead bodies found by hyper-intuitive sleuths (who have issues of their own to solve or merely live with) in ancient castles or on dreary, windswept Atlantic beaches. Additionally, mystery novels are glorified puzzles that are solved at the end. Very tidy. Not terribly realistic, but great and satisfying reading.

The last time I read a culturally diverse book, and that was just before the pandemic, was when I gasped my way through Life of Pi. I was traumatized by it, just as I was traumatized by Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance years ago. Both books were beautifully written and valuable to literature in general, but I had a hard time getting over them. I am the sort of person who travels alongside the characters in a book I am reading. The things that happen to the characters affect me in a way that is hard to describe. When I read an engaging book I also enter it for the duration. I witness the good, the bad, and the ugly and carry it around with me. When I was a teenager a book could affect my entire mood. I am better at separating real life and fiction now - perhaps my skull is just thicker, but my heart is still quite sensitive. If I have a deeply sad or disturbing book on the go I read it during the day, and read another, lighter book before I go to sleep at night, so with this strategy in mind I decided I needed to open myself up to some more challenging, educational reading once again. If I want to be a good citizen of the world, my country, and my community, I need to learn from the writers who wish to teach us how to be that through their stories.

So, what is on my cuturally diverse list this season, you ask?  The first book I read this year was Washington Black by Esi Edugyan. Wahington Black is a sweeping, transatlantic epic of a novel about a young Caribbean slave boy with a very special talent. The story is full of eccentric characters and the barbarism of slavery, and it was defended in this year's Canada Reads, so at least I had read one of the books on their list. The second book on my personal list was All the Quiet Places by Brian Thomas Isaac. Now, this book entered my soul and gave me heavy dreams. If you want to learn about the lasting impact of colonialism on Indigenous peoples and their communities on a personal level, I highly recommend All the Quiet Places. The author is so good at describing and setting a scene I felt I was right there with the characters, not viewing them from a platform far away. The third book I read was Diamond Grill by Fred Wah. Diamond Grill was published in the mid-nineties, but appeared on my radar a few months ago. The poetic prose of this book perfectly captures the nuances and complexities of growing up bi-racial in mid-century small-town Canada. Yet again, I was transported, this time to the Chinese-Canadian restaurant that closed in my hometown when I was seven years old. The fourth book on my list is Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden. I was hooked by this book immediately. Boyden is a legendary author. Three Day Road is expertly written from the perspective of two people, an elderly aunt recounting her past as a 'bush Indian' in northern Ontario and her nephew who has returned, haunted and maimed, from the battlefront of the First World War. As the elderly aunt paddles her nephew back home she tells him stories from her life, and he silently re-lives his horrifying experiences as a talented sniper in the trenches and bombed out landscape of France. I learned so much from this book and look forward to reading his other novels, when I recover from Three Day Road, that is. 

I have more books on my list, including a few currently on hold at my local public library. I am so grateful to the many authors who tell stories from their own unique perspective. My life is richer because of them, and I hope I can translate what I learn from these stories into action as a more sensitive and aware citizen and friend.  

A Touch of Spring Fever

Ah, Spring. The time of renewal. The time to realize you've put on a few pounds over the winter thanks to your forgiving clothes and all that comfort food in front of the TV. I saw a couple of pictures of myself recently, ones taken candidly and without me posing/sucking in my gut and standing tall. I thought I was a bit past caring how I look but no. I was up in the middle of that night with those images circulating technicolour-style in my brain. I passed a cringe-full night and woke up the next morning thinking about the best way to lose fifteen pounds. Food is my work these days, food is my hobby, food is almost my first love. As I slide down the hill towards 50 I know that something must be done. Either I break up with food or I fall in love with Cross-fit. Nah, not going to happen. What I probably need is a couple of running partners - for motivation more than anything. I've always wanted to run a half marathon. I could have in my thirties, no problem, but going out for a slogging 5 km jog once a week, which is all I'm managing these days, is not going to do it.

My body is not the only thing morphing into shapelessness. My psyche could also use a tune-up. Like I said. I'm approaching 50 and I think I need to bring my life into focus. My kids are virtually independent, and my last one at home is going to gain it quickly. At the moment I have no idea what I am going to do when she leaves home. At the moment I am savouring all our time together. We are two peas in a pod, and The Three Musketeers when we get to be with her dad. Her presence in our home gives me a title, a focus, a plan. The time will come, all too quickly, when I will need to fill her absence. My husband thinks I need to do more things I enjoy doing. It's all too easy for me to be that mom/servant role and give all my energy to other people. I don't really mind being a supporter, and I'm fairly good at it (my husband got a promotion recently) but there is a growing dissatisfaction in the pit of my stomach. I can't define it exactly, but I believe it has something to do with formlessness, or blurred lines around my sense of self. Am I having a mid-life crisis? Maybe, but crisis implies a great deal of energy directed at finding out the meaning of one's own life. I'm not about to start out on some kind of massive quest or anything. Although a trip to Europe would be nice.

I wish I knew what I was supposed to do. I'm sure it will come to me eventually. In general I'm a cheerful sort, but I can't help thinking I lack the essential quality I value most - discipline. I know darn well I won't get anywhere without discipline. Leo Baubata, the author of the famous blog Zen Habits, says this: Much of the stress that people feel doesn't come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they've started. That's the great thing about cooking. I always finish what I started, with a little help from the oven. As the Little Mermaid sang, however, I want more. Yesterday, while talking with my sister, I heard myself say that I lacked intellectual stimulation - I'm not using my brain much. I'm using my heart and hands an awful lot, and that's fine and good for the most part, but my brain is getting a little mushy. My sister thinks I should go back to school and finish my degree, teach ESL or adult education. Maybe. There's no point thinking about this until my daughter leaves home. In the meantime, what to do? Like I said, it will come to me eventually. Maybe it will come to me while running. Good ideas usually do. Yes, let's start with that.

Happy Spring!

A Library Tale

I was on Facebook the other day when I came across yet another news post about the high cost of living in my province of British Columbia. Ever interested in the topic I began to read some of the comments below the article, something I don't often do because some people say such ignorant things on social media platforms. Reading those comments is one sure way to lower my hope for humanity. Anyway, a woman had posted about her family's struggles to make ends meet even with both she and her husband working. In fact, with the overwhelming costs of daycare, food and rent the family was going into debt. She asked for any suggestions on how to make do with less. I attempted to help her by sharing some of my own experiences from my days as a stay-at-home mom of four. Among other cost-saving measures I mentioned how I used the local library a lot, as a place to borrow videos, books and as an outing that did not cost a dime (unless our books were late, of course). I ended the comment by commiserating about the cost of groceries and wished her the very best of luck.

That night I slept poorly. The forest fire smoke hung over our city trapping in humidity and heat, and my back was bothering me. As I lay awake I thought about my comment on Facebook and hoped my suggestions had been friendly and helpful ones. One thought led to another and I began to think gratefully about all the times spent at libraries with my children. When my boys were very little we lived in a lovely little mountain town called Kimberley. I have always been a walker, and I went out with the boys every single day, no matter the weather. If the weather was decent I pushed them in the double stroller to the park down the road. We would play there to run off any potentially cranky energy (pushing the stroller down the hill had already eliminated mine) and then walk/ride back up the hill to the town center to make our usual rounds. The town of Kimberley is incredibly charming. The businesses border a central European-style plaza where a large cuckoo clock yodels the hours - at least it still did on our last visit there several years ago.  One of our stops, at least once a week, was the library. After choosing carefully and reading several, we could check out a large stack of books, which I would put in the undercarriage of the stroller along with everything else I had gathered on our travels that day - groceries for dinner, thrift store finds, interesting pine cones or rocks the boys found, etc. I believe I counted my lucky stars each time I left the library - I walked out of there with over a hundred dollars worth of books and I could keep them all for weeks, provided no one else had requested them. We were usually done with the books after a week and would take our stack back to the library along with any Mighty Machines or Little Bear videos we had borrowed in order to get an entirely new selection - for free! Oh, I know full well we all pay for libraries through our city taxes and such, but for a young family such as ours, I cannot thank The System enough.

When my husband was transferred to Vancouver Island we again sought out the local library. There we discovered more new books and authors to add to our growing list of favourites. I greatly appreciated the way in which the library staff would place a selection of books and videos on display. I have often found a new book or author for myself in these displays as well. With the kids in tow, I did not often have time to search for items for myself but if a cover called to me from the display racks I would throw it (gently) on the pile and take it home. On our annual trips to my hometown to visit family we would visit a favourite bookstore. Our kids would get to pick one book each as a present. The book would often be a shiny new copy of one they had come to love at the library.

When we moved to the Fraser Valley we lucked out completely. The small town, almost village in size, where we were to make our home for the next thirteen and a half years, was the proud owner of a brand new library. Not only was the library beautiful, open and brightly lit with natural light, it was, despite it being on the small side, part of a wonderful regional library system like our Island libraries. Any item in the vast and seemingly endless system was available to we small-towners at the touch of a keyboard. Our three older children were all school age, and our youngest was eighteen months when we moved to the Valley. Within three months of moving I found myself doing daycare for a couple of teachers from our elementary school. My method of child care involved much walking and playing at the park, but it also involved frequent visits to the library for outings, especially for Friday morning Storytime. Storytime at the library was looked forward to by many parents and caregivers in our town. The fifteen minute walk from our house was a good way to work out the ya-yas in my charges before they were to sit and listen to the head librarian entertain them with puppetry, fun stories, and activities. I personally loved our librarian because she spoke my language, so to speak. We both revelled in nonsense and word play, and mildly politically incorrect humour. She and her dry-witted Scottish workmate would also make delicious coffee for the adults and serve cookies for the kids. Those Friday morning cups of coffee, company and stories forever endeared me to those two amazing women.

I have not visited my new library branch much since moving to the city where we now make our home. I am too occupied by trying to make use of all the trading credit I amassed at a local second-hand bookstore when downsizing this past autumn. When I do make another visit to the library here I know I will smile at all the young families making use of the wonderful services there. I also know I will enjoy the immediate sense of community a library offers to all who enter its doors. A library is a rare place of equality. A wealthy person is treated the same as a low-income person, for they can each borrow the same amount regardless of income. Access to computers and internet, newspapers, magazines, audio-books, CD's and DVD's, reference books, not to mention author readings, seminars and workshops allow an extension to everyone's education. We only have to take advantage of them.

Long live the local library, truly one of the very best institutions in the world. I know full well my life as a young mother, and the lives of my children, would have suffered greatly without it.

Art Projects

I never considered myself an artist. I had dabbled all my life in drawing and painting because, rather than an Easy Bake Oven and Barbie's Dream House, the children in my family were often given art supplies as gifts and my mother supplied an endless stack of drawing paper, even if it was just the backs of photocopied documents from her work. At school I favoured band and jazz choir over art class - somehow one had always to choose between the two - but by Grade 12 I had decided that I would make room in my schedule for art class. That class became an oasis for me and stands out as a memorable time full of colour and the meditative, expansive work of making art.

I did not go on to become a visual artist, but I did learn a great deal from my teacher, Ms. Konkin. She was a pretty, round-faced blonde woman with striking blue eyes. She was calm and honest about our work. I only remember being enthusiastically congratulated on one piece, which was a drawing of a glass of water with a spoon in it. I suppose I had captured the visual effect fairly well. I no longer have that drawing, but I do have a painting I did as my major project. I was studying dance at the time and was completely in love with that particular art form. I had a poster on my bedroom wall of a female dancer in a black dress leaning back and kicking one leg out. Her strong pose created a beautiful line. I decided to paint her balancing on the moon with a backdrop of a city scape, while kicking her foot into a blazing sun. The end result of the painting was certainly not technically brilliant. Against Ms. Konkin's advice I chose it from all my work to enter into a district student show down at the mall. The work was being judged by a famous local watercolour painter, Les Weisbrech. He didn't think very much of my painting, and when I looked at my painting through his eyes its faults glared painfully at me. Some time later I brought my painting home and showed it to my mom. She happened to love it, which took me by surprise, so I gave it to her. It hung in her bedroom for at least twenty years. She gave it to me and it now hangs in my bedroom. For all its faults I love it now. It seems to contain all the wonderful naive optimism that youth holds about the future. I truly thought the world was my oyster back then, and I was ready to take it on like my 'Stepping Out' dancer. Now, she reminds me of the beauty of innocence and to embrace life.

As part of our study that year in Art 12 we worked with clay. I particularly enjoyed working with the delicate porcelain clay, making pieces of jewelery and a teacup, if I remember correctly. We learned to throw pottery on the wheel and to my surprise all the skills I had learned making bowls with our old family friend Carol when I was little had vanished. One assignment was to make a free form sculpture with clay. We could not use the wheel, but we could use as much or as little clay as we liked. As I played with the lump of clay in front of me and listened to Ms. Konkin's guiding words about the options before us, a figure seemed to speak to me out of the clay in my hands. I had worked hard in high school to defy labels. If one day I spiked my hair and wore a man's suit and tie, the next day I wore a trendy Benetton rugby shirt and jeans, but by Grade 12 I had given up the fight. I was starting to mature and to relax into myself. If people wanted to label me I no longer cared so much. I took one lump of clay and formed it into a cross about eight inches tall and four inches across. I took another lump of clay and formed it into the figure of Jesus with his arms extended and his head falling slightly to one side. I placed him on the cross and added a crown of thorns and tiny nail heads in his hands and feet. Ms. Konkin came around to check on our progress. I believe she was stumped when she arrived at my place at the secular high school table, and out of the corner of my eye I saw one of her eyebrows rise. But, to her credit she said nothing critical at all about my choice of subject, and I offered no explanation. All our pieces were fired in the kiln and mine survived the oven despite its delicacy. I carefully wrapped it in paper and put it on the top shelf of my locker.

A few weeks later It was the end of the school year and I was cleaning out my locker. Somehow the clay crucifix fell to the floor and broke into six pieces. I gathered them up and was looking at them sadly when my friend Rachel with whom I had gone to school since we were in Grade One at St. Joseph's offered to fix it if she could keep it. I said yes. Years later I went to visit her, and there was my little mended sculpture hanging on her kitchen wall. "I love it," she said.

Yesterday I found out from a friend that Ms. Konkin who had also been my Home Economics teacher in, I think, Grades 10 and 11 is retiring. My friend posted the news on Facebook and as I read through the thread of comments my year with Luba Konkin as my art teacher came flooding back. Like so many rooms where the arts are taught in schools, Ms. Konkin had provided a space where creative and often sensitive souls could relax and feel appreciated and encouraged to do what came naturally to them. Teachers around the world who do the same are worth their weight in gold.

Fumbling Toward Independence

In some of the older books I have read like Little Women and Anne of Green Gables, young characters of talent who did not come from a family of means would have to go without a formal education once they reached a certain age, unless some wealthy aunt chose to take them abroad to study art or died and left them a bequest, which usually happened in a moment of crisis for the main character. Before the days of student loans, the future of young people was basically determined by their situation in life and whether their parents needed them to help provide for the family by going out into the world and finding suitable work. Now, whatever our social demographic our children generally live with us until they are finished high school, and in some cases, a local college course, and university is open to anyone with decent grades and the ability to apply for a loan.

When the student loan program was introduced in Canada in 1964 it provided thousands of young people from families of modest means, like myself, the opportunity to pursue their educational dreams. Most students lived as frugally as possible in sparse accommodations using milk crates as furniture and eating tuna and peanut butter to get by until their next care package from home arrived. They found jobs in summer, which rarely paid enough to fund another complete year of education, but they saved as much as possible and supplemented their savings with another loan. When the four years or more were over, they found work in their field and began their careers, paying off their loans month by month and gradually saving up for that first car that wasn't a rusty Datsun 210 or first home which was often their last home until they retired. Student life was simple and a bit of a struggle, but it was also fun and didn't seem to carry quite the financial weight that it seems to now. Paying for one's education provided an excellent transition into adult life and its inherent responsibilities.

If the television commercials of the past decade or so are to be believed, the onus is now on parents to save for their children's post-secondary education. One such ad depicts a man running and jumping over financial obstacles. A narrator says, "At fifty I didn't think I could ever retire. I had a mortgage, a struggling business to keep afloat and kids to put through university. But with the help of (insert financial institution here) I finally did it."  Apparently, it is no longer perceived to be enough to house, clothe and feed one's children until they reach the age of majority, we are expected to provide for them beyond that in order to save them from accruing massive debts of their own. Here is where I hold up my hand and say, 'Wait a minute,' because unless I win the lottery, my kids are paying their own way through life, and I should not have to feel guilty about that.

I advised my boys to begin saving for college in Grade eleven, putting half of their income from their jobs in a savings account. After his high school graduation, my eldest son, Ian had the wonderful opportunity to spend five weeks in Europe. The invitation came quite suddenly from a friend and he decided to spend his savings to go on the trip of a lifetime. We contributed what we could afford, which wasn't much, but he appreciated us helping him with the cost of his food. The trip was a life-changing experience for him and he came home not quite sure what to do next. He very much wanted to move to the city before too long, so, taking my advice he decided to take a year off, stay home and work to save again for college. He managed to find work in a local coffee place and by the following September he only had to take out a small loan to help fund his first term. He found a part time job at a music store in the city to help with his living expenses, but then was unfortunately laid off from his job in the low season. Through friends, we found him a good temporary job, and on a trip to visit him, we treated him to supper at a favourite Italian pizza place. He informed us that he had decided not to return to the college after Christmas. He resented the idea of borrowing more money for another term of college courses he felt he was just taking for the experience of it. He told us that unless he knew exactly why he was taking courses he didn't see the point in going into more debt. The news was a bit tough for me to swallow, but his dad and I understood his reasons for his decision. He wanted to work and be free to pursue his musical ambitions in the city. He knew what college was like, believed it had provided him with a good introduction to life on his own, and could go back at some point if he knew it would benefit him in a real way. When he came home for Christmas he received a call from his former workplace, the music store. He was offered a full time job. He took the job and has since been very active and happy doing what he is doing at this stage of his life.

Our second son will be off with his prized violin to study orchestral performance at a university in Vancouver this fall. Between the scholarships and bursaries he earned in high school and all the savings he has accrued working at a local cafe during his year off, he will be able to fund his first year. After that, he will most likely have to rely on student loans. Each year it will cost him many thousands of dollars and I know he will apply for whatever scholarships become available. He will also work in the summers and save as much as possible. It will certainly not be easy. The average summer job earns a student ten to twelve dollars per hour, and they are lucky to save enough over the summers to cover their tuition and books. Living expenses in Vancouver are high and I certainly feel the pressure to help our son in any way I can.

Admittedly, sometimes I wish my husband and I could afford to put our kids through school, to give them a financial headstart, but I know such a plan is unrealistic for us and the way we have chosen to live and support each other. Furthermore, and at the risk of appearing callous, I ask why we parents keep extending the rights of our children to claim us as their source of funding when they are adults?  If we truly have the means to fund their educations, pay for their fancy weddings and give them a down payment on their first home, then perhaps we should, but if we do not, then I would argue against the belief that we should feel obligated to sacrifice our own happiness to do so. My husband I have done and are doing our best to live good quality lives with our children - putting them in sports, music and drama lessons, feeding them nutritious homemade food, spending time with them and supporting them emotionally - while putting away a little for our own retirement. I had to make my way through school and make decisions in my young adult life based on the reality of my own financial situation, so why should not my children? My husband agrees. He started working in high school to pay room and board to his single mother, worked his way up into a successful retail career and then finally went to college at the age of twenty-seven.

As parents of moderate means we will support our children in the following ways as they enter the realm of adulthood: we will deliver the occasional care package to our sons, and if they run short of money for reasons other than they have spent too much on unnecessary things, we will do our best to help them. We will attend as many of their concerts and events as we can and cheer them on unobtrusively from our seats. We will let them know it is lovely to have them home for the Christmas holidays and will cook their favourite things. We will let them live at home rent-free in the summer if they choose to come home to work and save for the next year of college or university. We will be here for them if they need to call home and talk out a problem or give us some good news. In other words, we will continue to be their mom and dad who love them.

Yes, life is hard for kids in these days of pricey educations and an uncertain job market, but it was a lot harder before social programs, student loans, and flexible course schedules came along. My kids, like many others out there, are smart, creative and full of energy. They can do this! And I'm going to let them.