Embracing Life in the Slower Lane

As readers of this blog are well aware I grew up in a mountain town, a sporty town, an artsy town, a hippie town. While I related well to my hometown's mountain, artsy, and hippie aspects, I found the sporty one eluded me. Not that I wasn't fit, I really was. With the lifestyle my active family promoted I had no chance not to be fit. We were a hiking, huckleberry-picking-in-the-hot-sun, everyone-takes-swimming-lessons, walk everywhere family. My mother despised camping, preferring to spend a day out of doors then return to her own bathtub and bed. Thanks to my friend's mom who organized a week long camp through their church, I was able to attend summer camp two years in a row. We learned how to paddle a canoe, did nature themed art projects, played orienteering games with a map and compass, and sang riotous songs around the campfire each night, and I absolutely thrived. None of the activities intimidated me as school sports tended to. Oh, I could run and still do, but team sports? Anything requiring skilled eye/ball coordination and strategy? Nope. I was trained by the 1970's and 80's school system to revere sports and the people who were talented at them, always making me feel less than. I believed you were either good at sports or you weren't, and was confused that I could learn to steer a canoe but fail at volleyball. PE class, while not entirely humiliating - I could fake it 'till I sort of made it - felt like a waste of time. 

As I got older I began to align myself with the outdoorsy community. I spent a winter gaining my ski legs. I climbed some serious peaks in my area. I attended the Banff Film Festival and worked at a local outdoor sports store selling backpacks and canoes, offered the job by the owner because I was 'active'. I dated a ski instructor/mountain biker from a nearby mountain town. I read Outside Magazine when the store was quiet, reading about major feats in the outdoors by women much stronger than I. I found that my troubled back was not happy carrying heavy packs. I skied beyond my ability and ended up injuring my neck. I tried tree-planting and left after one day - it killed my achilles tendons. I felt unsatisfied by my outdoor athleticism. If I couldn't be like those women I read about or sold equipment to, what was the point of taking part in that world? I suffered from 'all or nothing' thinking. 

When I started falling in love with a super-jock I was unimpressed. Would I spend my life feeling inadequate because I couldn't do things at his level? He windsurfed and played beach volleyball and tennis, and was quite competitive. In winter he skied and played indoor volleyball in a Vancouver league. When he talked to me about all the wonderful, outdoorsy, sporty things we could do together, I looked him straight in the eye and said "What if I don't want to do all of those things? What will happen to us?" He paused and said, "but you love nature, don't you?" I replied, "yes, I really do, but I am not into conquering it, so if you want this to work you are going to have to lay off pushing me to do things I am uncomfortable doing." He still wanted to be with me (it must have been my sparkling personality and clever wit). He did not give up trying to get me to expand out of my comfort zone, though. I had to learn to trust him and we have had a rather wonderful life so far, filled with adventures that made me love the outdoors even more. My years of pushing myself to learn to ski, both cross-country and downhill, all the hiking I did as a child and teenager, and the canoeing at summer camp, prepared me for a life where I could, if not excel at any of those things, own enough skill to have fun doing them and become better at them as we exposed our children to the wonders of spending time in nature in all seasons. 

Today, our kids are grown and independent. I spend much time at the resort my husband manages. It comprises a ski hill, several beautiful lakes, and a vast network of cross-country ski and hiking trails. I walk, cross-country and downhill ski in winter. In summer I thoroughly enjoy a five kilometer run or hike around the main lake often followed by a swim.  I sit on our deck and enjoy the wildlife that visits our yard: deer, ground squirrels, grey jays, snowshoe hares, and the very occasional bear or lynx. On rare occasions my husband and I take a canoe out in the evening. Mostly we just go for evening walks or short hikes in the wildflower meadows when he is finished his work day. Nothing I do up here is major or epic. I simply enjoy the exercise in such a beautiful setting, and I am now at peace with that. Meanwhile, my husband is training to run a 60 km trail race. I will be proudly cheering him on from the sidelines. 

30 Love Summer

One day last week I had to stay in all day to be around for the tradespeople working at my home. After an early start to the day, and a 7 a.m. power walk to beat what was to be 35 degree heat later on, I turned on the TV to see if any of the Wimbledon matches were being shown that morning. I lucked in to a great match between Jannick Sinner and Stan Wawrinka, and caught up on the other highlights. I've never been a Djokovic fan, although my husband is. He's moved on to the next round, surprise surprise, (Djokovic, not my husband). Our Canadians made a strong showing, but none made it past the second round this year.

Wimbledon always takes me back to the first months of my marriage when we watched a lot of the tournament. V and I were married in May and moved to Panorama Resort to work for the summer. V worked as a river rafting guide and I worked evenings as a seating host in the Lodge restaurant. I still laugh about the fact that we, a brand new married couple, shared a staff housing unit with two other male raft guides. Their names were Finn and Derek. The four of us shared a townhouse with three bedrooms and an open plan kitchen/living space. The townhouse was quite basic and extremely beige, but perfectly comfortable. Finn, who was an Aussie, was the eldest and a good cook, although something of an alcoholic. Derek was the more social of our two roommates, and we all managed to live together without too much strife. 

Panorama Resort is a ski resort but has many summer amenities to attract visitors, including an outdoor cold pool and tennis courts. My husband was an avid tennis player and batted the ball around with me a fair bit that summer, although I was pretty terrible. He is also a tennis fan, so when the time came around for the annual June event in London, he wanted to watch as much as he could. Naturally, I watched, too, fascinated by the grass courts and the regulation white tennis wardrobe. Wimbledon seemed to have a sort of upper class Oxbridge tone to it, and seemed quite romantic to me, not unlike the Merchant Ivory films so popular at the time (I was a shameless Anglophile). Romance aside, I got into the sport as a spectator. I can't remember who I cheered for in 1992, probably Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi who both won that year, but I do remember enjoying watching the matches with my husband and roommates, learning the scoring system and listening to the commentators who were past tennis greats themselves. 

I had a fun summer overall at Panorama. I spent many afternoons by the pool with a good book and enjoyed socializing with all the other evening workers. On our days off V and I explored the back roads of the East Kootenays in our Toyota 4x4 wagon (that car was a beast) and made trips into the beautiful town of Invermere for groceries and a treat at the Blue Dog Cafe. We relished these times alone and away from the resort. (Ethan Hawke was making a film in the area that summer, too, and one day when I was hanging out of our bedroom window he walked down the street. He looked up at me and smiled and waved. I smiled and waved back. The resort housekeepers had told me his room was a pigsty, but that didn't change the fact that he was special to me simply for the fact that he had starred in Dead Poets Society.)

Fast forward thirty years: V manages a ski/summer resort in the Cascade mountains. He lives his work week in staff accommodation but with no roommates this time, except me when I feel like joining him and my schedule permits. This resort has tennis courts, too, although they are a bit more rustic in appearance than Panorama's. This morning, when I got out of bed and went into the open plan kitchen/living room of V's trailer, the TV was on, the satellite dish now working properly after yesterday's rainstorm. Two tennis players were battling it out for a place in the fourth round of Wimbledon. V went to work and I kept watching. The rallies were long and well fought, and the person I thought would lose, won. A terrific match.  I missed the French Open this year, but when Wimbledon is over we will watch the U.S. Open, then the Rogers Cup I presume. To enjoy tennis you have to understand the scoring system, which makes it a wonderfully interesting and fair sport. It's also a simple game to watch, just two (and in doubles, four) players on opposite sides of a net hitting a ball back and forth. Whereas Football bores me completely with its crowded field and constant stopping at whistles, tennis seems to grab my attention and hold it. I'm not a superfan or anything. I simply enjoy the sport when I get a chance to watch it, especially with my husband, and especially if we are cheering for opposite sides. (You're going down, Djokovic. Go Sinner!) 

Until next time, 

Rebecca

Sleep Thoughts

I believe the cruelest and yet, kindest aspect of being human is the unavoidable need for sleep. We have to sleep a certain amount to survive and stay healthy mentally and physically. It's also good to be able to pull the blinds down on a day and start fresh in the morning, but I wish, sometimes, we didn't have to. There is so much pressure to get a good night's sleep.

I once read that Martha Stewart thrives on four hours of sleep per night. There was someone else - a news anchor, I believe - who also made that claim. I honestly do not know how they survive, let alone thrive. My own mother did not sleep a great deal if I remember correctly. She was one to read late into the night and pull all-nighters writing grant applications for the museum she directed. Even at my most intensely busy times as a student, I would go to bed by 11:00 the night before an exam, preferring to rise at 5:30 in the morning to cram. Sleep, to me, was as important as breathing. Sure, in my youth I could stay up really late on a Friday night, but I could catch up in the morning by sleeping until noon. Having children put an abrupt stop to that, and it is much harder to be a good parent when you're so sleep-deprived you can't see straight. I learned to go to bed an hour or two after the kids - boring but effective.

One would think that when the kids grow up the parents would finally get to have those long, luxurious sleeps without interruption. Ha! Our own minds wake us up in the night. Even if we have pretty much stopped drinking caffeinated beverages, get plenty of exercise, refrain from eating more than a small snack in the evenings, practice a calming pre-bedtime routine involving lavender and low lighting, and a calming/breathing/praying routine when we wake in the night, we still struggle, especially when we hit middle age. Menopause can be a sleep-wrecker for women, but men often have problems with sleep, too. My husband is often up at 4 or 5 a.m. making notes for work - not by choice I might add. I wonder, as we age, if we merely need less sleep, but the idea of getting up at 3:30 in the morning, which is when I often wake up, is not all that attractive to me. And is five hours of sleep really enough? Maybe that is why I see so many seniors up and about outside my windows when I am just opening the curtains on the day.

Most people seem to need at least six hours to function properly. Most professionals say eight is better. Ads for sleep medication and sleep enhancing products point to our society's struggle to get enough sleep. I have read about the effects of taking regular sleep meds and they aren't great. Apparently, long term use of prescription sleep medication can contribute to Alzheimer's and dementia later in life, but then, so can not getting enough sleep. Although I did have to take sleep meds after my head injury I have trained myself to do without them most of the time. Different people rave about the efficacy of CBD oil and melatonin, but neither work for me. Obsessing about getting enough sleep doesn't work either. Trust me on that one. I merely try to tick all the boxes each and every day to allow me the decent night's sleep I need to get me through the next day: enough exercise, a healthy diet, a good bedtime routine, etc., etc.. See what I mean about pressure? 

Maybe I should become a dairy farmer or work the early shift at Starbucks. At least there would be a reason to get up at 3:30 in the morning. 

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

What Next? A Mother's Day Post

This morning, poet Mary Oliver's wonderful, yet challenging question came into my mind: 

"Tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" I'm not sure I have answered the challenge so far, but I do know the 28 years I spent bringing up children were propelled by a deep love for them, so that's got to count for something. Not that I didn't make mistakes. I made plenty.

When our kids were growing up my husband went to work every day and I stayed home and looked after the kids. Over the years, to supplement our income I undertook various forms of paid work like daycare and event planning, as well as a great deal of volunteering, that allowed me the flexibility we needed me to have, as well as supplying me with the sense that I wasn't 'just a mother'. My husband's work demanded long hours and I needed to be the one who kept everything running for our family. In all honesty, those crazy busy years were the best of my life so far. I felt needed, fulfilled, and appreciated...and as time went on, exhausted. I miss those days a lot, but I am adjusting to a slower, less demanding pace of life fairly well..

I have been fortunate in that, until this week, my four grown-up kids have all stayed on the West Coast, allowing us frequent meet-ups in the city and visits here. This week, my two middle children made big changes in their lives, taking them further away from their dad and me. During Covid19's worst two years I spent a lot of time with these two thanks to them both taking jobs at the resort their dad manages, and I am grateful. I am incredibly proud of them for taking these next steps in their lives, but I'll admit some ugly crying on my part happened last weekend, the end result being that I realized I need to figure out who I am without my children. Perhaps other people also identify me with my children because the first thing most people ask when they see me is, "how are the kids?" "Do you have twenty minutes?" is how I last responded before launching into a comprehensive answer involving a power point presentation with full orchestra.

One of my chief regrets in life was I never trained as anything in particular. My father was determined that I would write the Great Canadian Novel and I half believed him. My mother encouraged me to be a teacher, but when it came down to it, I lacked the confidence and the calling. Ironically, when I was thinking of going into teaching later on, my mom talked me out of it. The published novel never materialized either, not for lack of trying. I have never felt a call to any particular career in my life, and I found in motherhood my main purpose on earth.  That was all very well until I suddenly found myself an empty-nester and in need of redefinition. Not for anyone else - I don't care about other people's opinions enough anymore - but for my own sense of self. The last two years have been all about working toward a goal of regaining my health after a debilitating injury, not to mention surviving mentally and physically through a global pandemic, and now that that's basically achieved (with some limitations) I am waiting for inspiration to strike. In the meantime, I have rejoined the strata council of our condo building and even did some paid work during April. Baby steps, I guess. 

My husband still works long hours and will continue to do so until his retirement - whenever that is going to be. I have to find a new purpose to fill the void left by my kids' absence, but my husband insists that whatever I fill the void with must be what I really want to be doing, not what I think I should do. He has always just wanted me to be happy, bless his heart. One thing I detest is a sense that I have wasted time - 'this one wild and precious life' deserves more, doesn't it? I don't want to get old having more regrets, but I have yet to experience any of Oprah's 'aha' moments when it comes to my future.. In the meantime I am trying to be propelled by love in all the little things I fill my days with, in my encounters with my family, friends and neighbours, in my communications with my grown up kids, in my volunteer and paid work, and in my very nearly 30 year marriage with my husband. I suppose that will have to be enough for now. 

I wish all the mothers out there who are at the stage of life where they are also asking 'what's next in this wild and precious life?' a Happy Mother's Day. 

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.  

Where Have all the Bungalows Gone?

For the past year I have been watching an Australian cop show. I discovered it while looking up an actor from another favourite Aussie show, and gave it a try. I was hooked from the start. It is one of those shows that takes me to another place, another time, and gives me a needed escape from the current reality of pandemics, wars and invasions, and the general uncertainty of our times. The fact that this show gives me forty-five minutes of entertainment nearly every day, and that justice is almost always served with a side of humour, is not the reason I bring up the show. I'm not telling anyone they should watch it. In fact, I am sure many of my friends would find it far too quaint. I bring it up for a different reason: its architecture and set design. 

The cop show which ran from 1994 to 2006, and is comprised of a whopping five-hundred and ten episodes, is called Blue Heelers. In watching the show, which takes place in a fictional small town called Mt. Thomas situated a couple of hours from Melbourne, I noticed how modest the houses were. Most of the characters live in older, one-storey ranch style homes often with peeling paint, rusty door hinges, and the very basics in modern conveniences and decoration. Sure, there are fancier homes featured now and again in the show, but those are rare and provide contrast to help illustrate a character. Everything in the show is much more aesthetically humble than what we have become accustomed to nowadays, both in mainstream film and television and in real life, and I find that thought-provoking. 

Blue Heelers reminds me of what my hometown was like in the 1970's and 80's before people came from the cities and restored it to the mini San Francisco it was originally built to be before time, weather, changing fashions (imagine beautifully carved stone buildings modernized with a face of tin siding) and economic ups and downs had their way. The characters in the show are wary of  'yuppies from Melbourne' buying up small farms and changing the vibe, and the property values, of their community, so perhaps Mt. Thomas has since gone the way of many other charming small towns and become a haven for city folks looking for that je ne sais quoi. I don't know yet - I am only on season four of twelve. Anyway, my point is, in this age of Instagram and renovation shows we in North America have come to expect a rather heightened standard of what our houses and communities should look like, (and I believe this standard is, in some small part, to blame for the ridiculous property values in British Columbia, but that is a topic for another time). 

Don't get me wrong. I am as guilty of aesthetic snobbery as the next person, and sometimes renovations and rebuilds are necessary, but to be completely honest, I like a little dingy alleyway, slanting shed or crooked fence mixed in with all this perfection. I like a hole-in-the-wall second hand bookshop that smells of old books, the occasional grandma's house that hasn't been updated in thirty-five years, or a bar that serves good beer but mediocre food on scratched tables perched on faded carpet. There can be an undeniable honesty to places that have not yet been smoothed over and made presentable with the latest in decorative touches and architectural features. I believe it's called character, and my favourite cop show has it in spades.

Perhaps I am merely a sad romantic, but I don't care about that. I care that we are slowly but surely gentrifying the heck out of our communities and that our kids may never know the fun of dancing to a great live band in a dive bar, of drying their underwear on an old radiator in their first apartment above a pizza place, or the struggle of saving for a first home that is somehow attainable for them even without Mom and Dad giving them a 300,000 dollar down payment (true story). Humble beginnings can be good beginnings and lead to true appreciation of all we have through life.

Until next time, 

Rebecca