wordless wednesday with words

January 25, 2017February 14, 2020 ~ carin ~ 11 Comments

Not encouraging anyone to be wordless today.

It’s #BellLetsTalk and every single form of online communication using that hashtag (until midnight) will generate five cents for mental health initiatives.

Am writing this not so much for a friend as because of them, someone who is an inspiration to me in ways he’ll never realize. Twenty something years ago his bipolar disorder and psychotic episodes got bad enough that it was recommended he move into a residence designed for people with mental health issues at every level. It’s become home and he says he’s lucky to be there and feels safe, but he also says that most other residents are very low functioning and it can be a depressing environment. So he keeps busy. He listens to the radio in his room. Local news stations, every kind of music, sports. TV is less interesting to him, too much an assault on the senses and, anyway, it’s in the common area, which he prefers to avoid.

Not that he’s anti social. Quite the opposite. He’s forever in search of a good conversation. It’s just that where he lives it’s impossible. So, every day, without fail, he does something to work around that.

He once told me he tried to speak to at least three people a day. Even if it was just to say hello in passing on the street.

He loves the phone. Computers are beyond his ability. He’ll spend weeks composing a letter he sends by mail. He doesn’t have a lot of money but he likes to go out, so he spends afternoons walking and drinking coffee or tea in various cafes where he always asks if there’s anything he can do to be helpful. One place said they’d be grateful to have him tidy up their bulletin board occasionally. He does this with extraordinary devotion to detail and all kinds of pride and tells me why he arranged things on the board as he did that day. This place has become his new favourite haunt and he’ll spend money he can’t really afford on too many muffins just to support them, so grateful is he to be able to tidy that board.

Sometimes at night he’ll go out to hear a local band and if likes them he’ll tell everyone he knows and several he doesn’t that they need to hear this band. Not pushy, just passionate.

He goes through phases of doing things left-handed, brushing his teeth, holding the phone, eating soup. Someone told him it’s good for your brain.

For awhile he took it upon himself to report street lights that had burned out. He would note the location and call the city works department. He gets involved with various local groups, folds envelopes, whatever needs doing. He discovers a second hand shop that’s struggling to make ends meet but the people are nice so he buys a belt he can’t afford, just to help them out.

What he doesn’t do is complain. Which is astonishing to me.

He knows how some people see him. He doesn’t fool himself, he knows what his limitations are, what he’s dealing with. He’s just somehow able to override all that and keep going.

Though he gets weary of it all sometimes.

Occasionally his disorder turns psychotic and he ends up at The Royal, the mental health centre in Ottawa, where he might spend months at a time.

There are aspects of his life that are so frightening I don’t know how he copes as casually as he does. He says he’s used to it. But surely becoming used to something awful can as easily destroy spirit as it can be the reason to work even harder. That his spirit is not only intact but shines as brightly as it does…. is extraordinary. I never take it for granted.

And so he is an inspiration like no one else I know.

I tell him all the time. But I’m not sure he believes me.

He called the other day to remind me of #BellLetsTalk. And he’ll be calling everyone he knows today, at least once. It’s what he can do, so he does it. So, yeah, not wordless today. Let’s talk up a storm.

This one’s for all of us, but especially for E.

Shine on, my friend.

Update as of 2019: E has moved to a much nicer residence, loves his room with a giant window and view of the sunset. He is the star of the facility, named Captain Purel for his job as greeter at a local hospital, (his job being not only to greet but to suggest using the sanitizer on entering and leaving the building) which he takes very seriously and excels at. He has also recently been given a new-to-him dark green LazyBoy chair with all kinds of buttons and a cup holder. He continues to find the joy in simple things, and life. He’s one of the lucky ones. And he is a star in my books.

i drove to barrie

November 28, 2016January 11, 2017 ~ carin ~ 5 Comments

I’ve never been to Barrie before.

I’d heard there was a nice waterfront.

It’s true.

But I didn’t go for the waterfront. That was simply a bonus, a nice way to spend the hour before sunset.

At 7 p.m. I was in the living room of people I’d never met, about to be entertained by one of my favourite musicians, Laura Smith.

And Paul Mills.

A house concert, my first.

And I really can’t even begin to describe how extraordinary it is to hear a concert quality performance in the comfort of a private home.

And Laura Smith’s voice… well, if you’ve ever heard it, you might understand the mind-boggling effect of hearing it up close. If you’ve never heard it, listen to this… And more, here.

It was Laura’s voice on a couple of CD’s that kept me company as I drove back, solo, from Prince Edward Island last year. For me, her voice and driving, travelling, looking and seeing and finding new things… are all connected.

I’ve also been known to dance in my own living room to her tunes.

I did not dance in the living room of strangers, though I suspect they might not have minded.

I must have had the feeling I wouldn’t be able to describe anything and so I scribbled down lines throughout the evening… some from stories Laura told about the origins of the songs, why and how she wrote them; others from the songs themselves. This is a sliver of things, my concert mash up…

I Drove to Barrie to Hear Laura Smith

I was never safer
because of my smart dog
—the hardest part was starting.
Only an echo will answer my name;
I look into your eyes and see stories
that will never get told, like a father
and a daughter—love to have you here
havin’ a beer, right about now, steamin’
with toil, with the seagulls around me
and crows on the plough; you are loved
and you are loved always, you’re home.
I hear voices in the salt spray, the last
light of the sun going down; I sit in the
same chair every night, Jordy—
a bad hair day in a cheap motel—I’m a
beauty. I’m a beauty.

♦

Nothing else to say.

Except, thanks. It was the best…

fave pictures taken this weekend, with not a care in the world (nor a chip in my camera)

September 6, 2016September 20, 2016 ~ carin ~ 3 Comments

Me on George the tawny horse with a butterscotch mane at the trail ride stables. I say to the trail guide, “Take one of just me and George… I want to put it in my office to look at every day.” George is magnificent and uninspired to moving too quickly. His whole raison d’etre being to follow the lead horse at a reasonable pace and sneak the occasional bit of greenery, which is often as I have no ability to use the reins and George knows this. We are happy together.

Kayla the trail guide. All blonde hair and freckles, a country lass unaware of her sweetness and the charm of her stories about being home-schooled and how she lives for horses, has five part-time jobs to keep one horse and how a horse will tell you what’s wrong with you, emotionally or physically, because if you spend enough time with it the horse takes on your problems and you can see yourself in them like a mirror.

Children in my house eating watermelon and jumping on a mini trampoline. Occasionally at the same time. To which I say: “No choking please… because
I am not in the mood today for children choking in my house.”

Tiny hands shoveling spoonfuls of peaches and ice cream.

Tiny hands picking fat blackberries. Also argument over how there isn’t an equal number of ripe ones for all three sets of hands.

Three orders of poutine at the beach. Most of which is eaten. None of which is mine. Mine is an order of fries.

Seagulls awaiting poutine.

Flip-flops flopping in the water. Until they’re nearly stolen by the lake and the better idea by the wearer of the flip-flops is that I carry them.

Skinny legged beach cartwheels. Dozens it seems, one sweeter than the next. Not mine, by the way. I have neither skinny legs nor ever been able to master the sweet cartwheel… only the kind that goes by a different description. After that, some other gymnastic moves that need only ribbons to make them an Olympic event. (Now there we have something I’m good at: ribbon dancing.)

Lad skipping stones. Correction. Lad trying to skip stones. Lads, I discover, aren’t especially amused when aunties come along and say Want me to show you how it’s done? And then do.

And other stones. Especially those as described in the wonderful Pinny in Summer, which is read aloud to the soundtrack of Lake Ontario waves. (Smiles all around when we find JUST THE PERFECT ONE.)

Cloud shaped like the skeleton of a rabbit. Sad but true.

A radiant palm holding five colours of beach glass: white, green, dark blue, brown and possibly yellow, or just pale pale brown. Either way, ridiculously exciting haul.

♦

thoughts from the sand whereupon i sat

July 9, 2016July 10, 2016 ~ carin ~ 4 Comments

multicultural beach today

where stones

absorb laughter

in many languages

and hot pink sari struts sandy terrain

in search of…

…self?

welcome, we say

welcome to this sandy strand

of laughing stones

and now,

hot pink sari.

♦

The beach was busy today and so many families of various cultures and dress and reasons for being here. Family picnics on the grassy bits, and BBQs fired up, all kinds of games and happy shouts and wet dogs and I sat there taking it all in as I’ve done two million times before because there is nothing especially unusual about various cultures and dress and reasons for being here but something about everyone today made me think that some of these people were new, that some of them had not long been in this country, this town. And the vibe, if that’s what it was, was especially good. It’s extraordinary really, people leaving their own countries for bad reasons and hoping for something good at the other end though they don’t know exactly what that will be and then on a sunny summer day maybe it turns out to be something as simple as a swim or grilled chicken or a pocket full of beach glass.

And I’m so glad to be a part of this day, to extend a smile to the wet dog and the laughing children.

To in some small way, say welcome

Welcome.

when it all becomes too much…

June 25, 2016June 25, 2016 ~ carin ~ 6 Comments

Make art.

It’s a good day when you find a door on the sidewalk.

And the door has feelings.This actually reads: “chalk art is meant…”

“to be destroyed.”

An artist statement that makes the artist all the more remarkable in my view. A couple of lads walked by as I was taking these shots and they were swaggering in that way that suggests they’re just too sexy for their shoes. Or something. Attitude. But the chalk art got to them. They looked, slowed down, forgot the swagger for a moment, almost cracked a smile. I caught their eye, said nifty noodles, eh? Or along those lines, small talk. Unable to speak in sentences perhaps, they made a sound, nodded, and kept going, with a bit less swagger in their step I thought.

Art has this effect.

red and black leggings

March 19, 2016March 21, 2016 ~ carin ~ Leave a comment

A girl of maybe eight, dark blonde hair, almost wavy, almost thick, in a loose pony tail with strands unbound around her face. Red and black leggings in geometric pattern and a grey tee shirt that reads: LOVE. She twirls in the hallway, in the basement of the gallery, outside the room where I sit reading and writing, outside the room where her art class is going on. For just a few moments she dances oblivious and alone in the hallway between these two rooms, dances and twirls and twirls, to music that doesn’t play…

And then just like that, she’s gone.

rainy day people

March 15, 2016March 15, 2016 ~ carin ~ 5 Comments

I was writing with a group of women at the shelter recently.

I do this once a month; they call it a workshop, but really we’re just writing together.

I’m always amazed by what gets said on paper by people who aren’t always used to holding a pen.

Amazed also that in the middle of the madness that is currently their life, in the middle of everything they’re going through, have gone through for god knows how long, that they can write with such clarity, such honesty.

They’re surprised when I tell them their words are beautiful.

At first they don’t believe me and then, something happens, the magic of unlocking, of tapping into a part of themselves that so rarely gets out, the magic of being heard… and I can see something change and I know that it’s a tiny thing, but even that is big, because, even for just a while…

…they believe, they know, that something about them is beautiful still.

“I hate the rain, but I love puddles.” ~ (shelter resident)

simon says

November 23, 2015February 11, 2019 ~ carin ~ 6 Comments

A boy in his driveway the other day shouts hello as I pass. He says his name is Simon, what’s mine? I say Carin and he tells me he has a Batman tee shirt. He opens his coat. I say that’s some great tee shirt and he says yeah, then tells me he’s seven. Not that I asked. He continues talking, about being seven maybe, or the tee shirt, just chattering away… all of this in only seconds; I’ve barely slowed my stride. His mum is raking leaves, smiling. And in all the chattering somewhere the boy asks… in a way he might ask a chum at school, or anyone… “How old are you?” His mother’s smile immediately turns into a nervous laugh, she puts down her rake, edges Simon toward the house and tells him that isn’t the sort of question he’s supposed to ask. Meanwhile I’ve answered by saying “Well, I’m not seven!”, as I continue on my way. Also laughing nervously.

And for the rest of my walk all I can think about is why.

Why is that not the sort of question Simon should ask? And is it only not the sort of question Simon should not ask people of certain ages? And how should Simon know which ages those are? And who decides that anyway? And doesn’t the whole way his mother reacted give off a vibe that suggests to Simon, if only subliminally, that there’s something *wrong* about certain ages and THAT’S why we don’t ask.

And if there’s something wrong with certain ages… what, exactly is that wrongness? I mean if Simon were to ask his mother Why can’t I ask? what would she say? Something about politeness probably. But why is it polite NOT to ask someone their age when you are seven and you ask everyone ? (And everyone asks you.)

Of course I was taught the same lesson as a kid. (But we’re back to the why… Is it to spare people the embarrassment of admitting they aren’t seven, or twenty-seven or thirty-seven or whatever decade + seven it suddenly becomes an embarrassment to *be*?)

North America’s twisted version of age aside, what really bothered me was my own response, that weird bit of laughter I threw out in order to make Simon’s mother feel okay about the whole thing. By laughing it off, by saying “Well, I’m not seven,” I condoned her discomfort and was party to the stupid lesson Simon was being taught.

Why didn’t I just answer the question?

Conditioning, that’s why. (And, mostly, conditioning almost always sucks.)

The thing is I happen to be a non-ageist kind of person. Even as a kid (just like Simon) I barely noticed someone’s vintage. I still can’t see how it matters. It’s their energy that registers with me. One of my favourite people to hang out with lived to be 101 and it never struck me as an unusual match.

I also have friendships where *I’m* the 101 year old.

And a few in between.

The thing is this: dullness and negativity, ego and bullshit appear at every mile marker. So do joie de vivre, curiosity, kindness, engagement with life, humour, a creative spark and the balls to be yourself. A tedious schmuck at sixty was probably a tedious schmuck at thirty.

Only with better abs.

My walk takes me on a loop and eventually I’m heading back toward Simon’s house. I resolve to tell him my age as I pass. I’ll throw it out, casually, maybe mention that I have a fondness for the colours green and orange and yellow and that I do not know how to tap dance. Not that anyone asked.

But the leaves in front of Simon’s house are raked and no one’s there.

Too bad. Because I think Simon would have found that particular line of chat quite normal. And that would have been so much better a lesson than the last.

tiny parcels of pleasantness

October 24, 2015October 26, 2015 ~ carin ~ 4 Comments

Walking through the neighbourhood I pass a house where a young child runs out the front door and, as if thrilled by the sight of me, points to her mouth and says “I’ve got a loose tooth!” I tell her that’s exciting news. And that, apparently, is about the size of it. We’re done. She waves and goes back inside. A sort of unusual town crier.

Around a corner, a voice. I think it says hello. I’m not sure who it is or to whom it’s speaking. I feel a little like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, like when she’s walking through the forest, or passing the scarecrow or the tin man or one of those things that isn’t supposed to talk… but it does. I look around at parked cars, there’s no one. Then to my left I notice a boy, maybe nine, ten years old, half way up a tree. I laugh, tell him that he surprised me. I don’t think he meant to, he’s a lovely, earnest little boy. There’s a large wasp’s nest very close to where he’s standing and I ask him if he knows it’s there. He does. “I’m going to knock it down,” he says. He doesn’t think there’s any wasps in it. I say to be careful anyway and I continue on my way. He says he’ll be careful. “Thank you,” he says. “Goodbye.”

Arborial Ambassador?

And then a wee tot on the other side of the street, not yet two years old, still a bit wobbly on her legs and holding on to her mum’s hand. She’s dressed in mint green and as I pass I turn my head, catch her eye and in that moment, just a second really, I see her bright face, mouth, eyes, cheeks, all of it so wide open and smiling as if to say isn’t this just such a wonderful thing to be not yet two and dressed in mint green and walking with your mum in the sunshine… I mean isn’t it just???

A pastel shot of B12, a tonic, that lingers.

every party needs a pooper, that’s why you invited me…

October 16, 2015October 17, 2015 ~ carin ~ 8 Comments

Here’s the thing.

The Blue Jays.

Winning.

How great. I mean, it’s really great. I get that. Even though, in the spirit of full disclosure, I don’t give much of a rat’s back-end about sports.

I do, however, like happy people, I like the excitement, the joie de vivre all over the place (on game days), the way revellers make room for traffic. I love us. We deserve this, the winning, the mad happiness. Who wouldn’t love it?

They say this kind of thing brings people together. On game days. And the economy gets a boost. Liquor and beer stores, junk food purveyors. Hotels, TV networks, airlines. You know, the people who need a boost.

Oh, and Rogers Communications. Owners of the Blue Jays dynasty. Apparently their shares have gone up rather noticeably during this period of frenzied winning/not winning/winning. The TSX, on the other hand, went down during the same period. But let us not concern ourselves with negatives.

The Jays are winning!

And we are being brought together as a community.

On game days.

However, in between and especially after the game days are over … it is, sadly, business as usual. That’s to say the homeless (‘boosted’ too by all the Blue Jay excitement) will still be homeless. Children will go to school hungry. If they go at all. Women will be beaten by spouses, some of them sports *stars* high-on-winning adrenaline, some just assholes, others on welfare, most somewhere in the middle. Old people will still die alone and prisons will continue to fill and the rest of us will still hate and judge and hate some more. No matter how big, how grand or how much money is thrown at sporting events, no matter how exciting or how often we are told these things bring people together… there are no games that have brought the world, or even a city, or even a community, together in a way that sticks beyond the game days. As far as I know, no Olympics or World Series has erased persecution, corruption or any manner of ‘isms’. After the winning, a handful of men will wander off into the horizon with truckloads of gold while the rest of us are scraping cold pizza off our couches. Nothing will be any different. Aboriginal communities will still have undrinkable water and mould on their paper thin walls and the oceans will still be clogged with the debris of our need to turn away, to be distracted by something more pleasant than reality, like the easy god of sports and winning. (Remind me…winning for the sake of what again?)

Oh yeah. Because winning is fun.

Right.

I get that. I do.

It just seems so trivial. The players and owners, I understand why they want to win. (And it’s not for the joie de vivre.) But what do we get?

(I know that certain players and individuals contribute privately to various organizations with their time and money… it’s not about individuals. This really is about the owners, the corporate aspect of sports.)

So I was thinking, what if we got something too… what if the corporate aspect, the people that make the ten trillion dollars from our love of the game celebrated each win by donating some of their gold to the community. To feed those kids or build some housing or offer opportunities to people who’d otherwise have none. There are agencies in every city that would gratefully accept a few thousand bucks. A few hundred thousand, for every game won during playoffs… well, that could change a city.

Now that would be worth cheering for, winning for, no?

“Big Sports” (and it’s always ‘male sporting events’) are a powerful vehicle. By adding this element we lose none of the fun. All we do is add ‘goodness’. It stuns me that we don’t demand it.

Just an idea.

From your neighbourhood party pooper.

(p.s. go jays.)