As I walk along the beach, I look out over the horizon. I gaze for a long time, dipping deep into my mind, into the nothingness, free-falling and letting loose of the stresses from the last month. I am tired but the wind in my hair and the gooshy sand under my feet and the salty wet wind refresh me. I am starting to feel alive again. I can feel my mind emptying and the joy nipping at my heels as I walk. As I look into the distance, I see something in the water. I can’t quite see what is floating my way. I walk and I wait and I eventually sit down in the sand and watch it floating in. It feels gritty on my skin to plop down in the sand and it is warm under my legs. I sift the sand through my fingers as I sit watching and waiting. The bobbling thing floats toward me and then away again as the waves wash in and out. I realize the tide must be coming in, or whatever it is would be moving away from me and not toward me. I feel timeless propped up on the sand watching and waiting. I have nowhere to be and nowhere to go. For the first time in a year, my time is my own. So, I sit and wait. “Oh,” I exclaim. I am a little surprised to hear myself speak out loud. I realize it is a bottle floating on the waves. Now I am super curious. I continue watching and I start calculating when I can run into the water to retrieve the bottle. Dreams of genies and notes in bottles whirl around my consciousness. My cynical side rears, “Don’t be silly. It’s probably garbage,” says my critical voice. I roll my eyes at my own unwillingness to play and race splashing into the water. The water is cooler than I expected and makes me catch my breath. I slow down...
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I had the opportunity this week to stay at Toronto’s Drake Hotel and we had a fantastic time. I had never heard of the Drake Hotel although it has the sort of name that sounds familiar to me. I found it on Trip Advisor and every other hotel in Toronto was full. I never did figure out why everything was booked, but the Drake Hotel seemed like a good fit for us. I picked up my chef daughter from her job in Muskoka and we spent 2 nights and 3 days together in Toronto. We checked in on Sunday afternoon. The hotel is small, charming, and has multiple restaurants and bars full of trendy, interesting people. We were given a room on the 3rd floor. We were surprised to find out there is no elevator so we trekked up the stairs and found a lovely but small, very cool guest room. We were greeted with complimentary sparkling wine on ice and the room was full of interesting items for purchase as well as a fun “mini-bar” area full of tasty beverages and snacks. The design concept really stood out and we felt like we were not quite cool enough for our hip accommodations. That said, Jonathan the manager greeted us warmly every time he saw us and made us feel incredibly welcome. He hugged us when we left–we felt loved and cared for in this fun hipster hotel. I am not sure we were cool enough for our surroundings, but we felt welcome and enjoyed its charm. We ate breakfast twice in their cafe and the food was fantastic. I only wish we had the energy to explore more of what was going on. There is a roof-top bar that looked very fun. We heard happy people partying late into the night. This didn’t bother us, it was kind of fun–like falling asleep on the couch during a really great party. During our stay, there was an open mike and a pickle contest...
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I am angry. Yup. Just plain mad! And I’ve changed my mind about something that I used to be wrong about. I am a fairly conservative dresser. I don’t ever wear sleeveless things and I rarely wear shorts. I am fairly modest in my choices even though I like bright colors and I like things that are a little bit funky. I notice if my children wear things that look “tacky” and I have been known to send all three of them back upstairs to change for various reasons. That said, I am fed up with so-called “dress code enforcement” in schools that only gets applied to women. I read an article the other day that talked about “students humiliated for dress code enforcement.” I want to point out these weren’t just students, they were all young women. Young girls were asked to “bend over” to see if their skirts are too short. Women are being sent home in schools all over the place. You can see the video here of one school. Another mom fought back when her daughter was sent home on the last day of school because her dress was allegedly too short. She wore the offending dress to her daughter’s graduation ceremony. You can see that here. In Quebec this week, a 3-year-old girl was called out for swimming without a top and asked to leave. Read the article here. The child’s mother was told the child couldn’t be topless because they didn’t want her to be targeted by pedophiles. Are you kidding me? What? Are we really going there with our children? After further consideration, I think we need to examine our policy on dress codes altogether. Everyone is talking about whether the schools are being too strict and whether the clothing really is offensive. I think everyone is asking the wrong questions. The question we should be asking is why can’t women drape their bodies in whatever they want to? We have laws for public nudity. I am not...
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Watching my parents age is excruciating. They are kind and lovely people and I want them to defy aging. I want to choose a moment in time and freeze them, exactly like they were, at their best – healthy, full of energy, and happy… probably in the early 1990s and keep them exactly like that forever. I want them to be whole and perfect and not to feel any pain–much the same as I feel about my children. My mother has had Multiple Sclerosis since she was in high school. She’s fought it bravely her whole life and has been happy and very healthy. She has used a cane for most of my life and is now using a walker. When I’m with her, I cannot accept the changes that are happening to her. I want her to fight harder and to defy the aging that is happening to her. I don’t know if she can fight hard enough–start physical therapy again, do exercises, build strength, and stay out of the wheelchair for a couple more years. I know she’s struggling to accept the changes that are happening to her. It is the proverbial “bad thing” that has been looming over her for my entire life: The Chair. Immovability. It is the thing to fight against and I am watching her give up. I am pushing her to fight, fight, fight. Maybe what I need to be doing is telling her it’s okay. Some of the agony is in me not wanting to say the wrong thing and I don’t want to contribute to her giving up. Years ago when I trained to be a hospice volunteer, they taught us to be willing to just talk about death. So many people in our patients’ lives wanted them to get better and sometimes they needed someone to just be with them to talk about dying and what they were experiencing. I wonder if this is the same for my mom–that she is facing losing her ability to walk and...
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My friend is dying. No matter how many mental gymnastics my brain does, no matter how sad I feel, no matter what I do every day, this underlies my thoughts all the time.
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Changing the toilet paper roll is sometimes sort of like a spiritual practice for me–at least I try to make it a spiritual practice. Sometimes it is okay. Sometimes other people change it. Sometimes I don’t even notice it. Sometimes, when the world is throwing me a few more curve balls than I was planning on, or if I am tired, then the toilet paper starts to get on my nerves. When we are busy and we have lots of guests, we have to change the toilet paper more often so it becomes a symbol of impinging overwhelm in my life. It becomes a tangible indicator of feelings of too much life in my living.
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