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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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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I took a course from a guy named Larry Byrum in Boulder, Colorado years ago. He teaches classes on relationships and how to find the perfect partner at the Higher Alignment Center. His work is quite interesting and the system he uses has served me well. One of the aspects he talked about was “pace.” Larry used a scale of 1 to 100 to describe pace. I took courses there over 10 years ago, so apologies if I misrepresent his current teachings. He said that for a romantic relationship to work, one needs to be within 20 points of their partner on the “pace” scale. After 20, he said he didn’t recommend it. In our society people make more money if they are faster paced. Those who are slower paced make less money and are sometimes perceived as “lazy” by people who go through life at a faster pace. We have a lot of judgment about pace in our society. Those who are slower paced may wonder if they “should” be doing more. This kind of “should” pops into my work with clients fairly regularly. It is my perspective that there are no “shoulds”–simply lives full of choices, victories and gratitude. I am fairly sure Mel and I are about 20 points apart. When Mel and I are alone together we are fine. We vacation well. Sometimes he gets up early and goes off to do things while I am still hanging out. We are fairly active on vacation so it suits both of us, then I come home tired and rest. Throwing in all the kid stuff can be challenging for me. I am the slowest paced person in my family although Xander may be similar to me in his pacing. The myriad of kids’ activities leaves me exhausted by the end of the school year. Mel does more driving in the evening than I do but the constant comings and goings drain me. I give myself permission to say no to “one more...
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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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Some days I am overcome by love. When I pull up at the school and let my kids out, I watch them tromping off with their lunch boxes and backpacks and my heart fills up until it overflows and fills my eyes with tears. I love being married and seeing how good we can make it and how fast we can recover from when we make it bad–when we mess up and have to fix it or get over it. I read a friend’s blog recently. He was describing the death of his lover. His raw words of love touched me deeply. It was as if he opened his heart on the page–splayed open for everyone to see. It was just love. I loved him for the open-hearted love he shared. I watch my parents aging and I want to ease their way. I want them to stay eternally young like they are in my mind. I want to be able to spare them the agony of growing older. I want to protect them from the elements of time and my heart fills with love and compassion for their humanness and frailty. I love them so much and yet my love can’t keep them from experiencing their challenges. I think of two family members who got mad at me and don’t talk to me anymore. On bad days I protect myself with anger and on good days I remember that their anger can’t make me stop loving them. Memories of them fill my heart and I surreptitiously send loving thoughts their way and wish them well. I love dinner parties. There is something about the echo of laughter over food that fills my heart. I love the people I laugh with. Especially if they think my jokes are funny. I love saying I love you to friends. It was something I realized years ago. It did once go bad when I told my friend Mara I loved her in a phone message. Her husband listened...
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A few months ago, Mel spent the evening making some home-made applesauce with the apples from our tree in the backyard. He used his grandmother’s recipe. The apples are tart and small and delicious if you have a lot of time to work with them. He peeled and chopped about 40 apples and we ate all the applesauce for dinner. I remember my grandmother having containers and containers of home-made applesauce. I wonder how my ancestors managed to preserve so much food. For the last couple of years, I have been working to try to put some food away. I am shocked by the volume of food that is required if I want to eat it during the winter. I buy what I consider large quantities of things–a bushel of tomatoes, a flat of strawberries, and they disappear as I make jam or sauce. That is kind of what happened with the apples. I have been judging myself by a tough standard, I realized. I am the first woman in my family to continue in a career after I married. The women I admire who were fantastic at putting food away were housewives. If it were my job to put food away, I imagine I would be a fair bit better at it. I picture them never really sitting down, but then I think of the handwork my grandmother did–always making something–and I realize she had to sit down for that. And she watched her soap operas. I am not sure her life was quite as full as I thought it was. She had some down time I think. I spend my time in front of a computer. It is ironic that I work and feel lazy because I can’t do all the tasks women from previous generations...
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