“Here is my secret. It is very simple. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
—The Little Prince
I like alliteration in my titles and I like this time of year. I am busy during the days and try not to think too much, about those things that keep me up at night.
I’m thankful my family and I are safe and far from natural disasters and that my friends are safe too.
Here in Ontario we get tornados sometimes, but we aren’t out west where the fires are, nor are we by the coast where the flooding happens.
Then I woke to the notification of a strong earthquake in Mexico and I feared for my friends living there.
Mexico is big enough that those I care about weren’t touched, but these natural disasters seem to be everywhere lately.
Just not here. Our weather has been beautiful, if not a little cool for this time of year, but I am loving it.
I’m thankful for such a fun and energizing writing group.
A pack of three crayons (red/blue/green) were brought in for the mystery object, those packs you find at a restaurant, to keep the kids entertained. Well, I love crayons, but many of us in the group wondered and commented on the lack of a yellow crayon.
Our group was larger than usual and I liked the energy each person added. I was entirely entertained, myself, by everyone in that room.
The stories were diverse and all about crayons. Ah, the life of a crayon.
There were two new people there and they were both J names. This, somehow, had its own influence on someone’s story. I hope they both come back.
I’m thankful my brother had his adventure and made it safely home from Iceland.
I’m thankful he returned to his radio show.
He is getting better and more comfortable, every time he does it.
I’m thankful for a another Saturday family day.
The guys went to a baseball game and us girls and Max stayed home.
There were family photos taken out in the back yard.
I’m thankful Saturday family day spilled over to Sunday.
It was a lovely afternoon spent sitting in a circle in the yard, with beers, wine, and snacks.
My family are some of the most interesting people I know.
I’m thankful a piece I’ve been working on (from pitch to publication) is finally out, starting all the way back last May.
Read to the end and the part about the drumsticks.
This is a prelude to my audio piece for SiriusXM.
I’m thankful for two more “acceptances” and for the fear that’s accompanying both.
I wasn’t expecting it, in a way, and I am back to square one. I must come up with a piece of writing that they will want to publish. I worry about not coming up with anything and instead letting them and myself down.
The excitement is there too though. I am honoured, after ending last week with a rejection email to a pitch, to hear anything at all to start off a new one.
I’m thankful to have an available store full of food to shop in.
As I meandered through the isles, the shelves, and the freezer section and prepared foods, I know not everyone has such choice right there in front of them. It felt like a lot, but it is an abundance I am thankful for.
I’m thankful I got an acceptance to a pitch within twelve hours.
It’s a nice feeling. It doesn’t always happen so fast. It was a nice start to the week.
I’m thankful I am being given the chance to write about the affect the Yukon had on me.
This is for a Canadian website/App and the editor said she is pleased to have a piece to publish, different from the usual story of seeing the Northern Lights.
They are a marvel, of course, but I am glad I can offer an alternative viewpoint of a place that is more than just one spectacular visual sight.
I’m thankful for essays I read that make me think and put a new spin on the essay form.
I’m thankful for another lovely coffee/raspberry lemonade chat with a friend to distract me from my thoughts.
The news out of the US all week was non stop and ridiculous. I was feeling highly anxious, waiting to hear back about my piece for Hippocampus, and I needed a break from all that.
The place was busy because Ontario’s premier was visiting our town, but things emptied after we were there for an hour or so.
We talked about travel, family, and writing.
I explained to her what it’s like to walk into a crowded coffee shop and try and navigate my way through it. She is like many people who are driven to offer help when they see a blind person. I understand and take them up on that help often. It was just nice to explain how it works because she, like most people, don’t give it all much thought until they hear how it is firsthand.
I’m thankful for the calming yoga session and conversation with the teacher.
I’d heard of NAMASTE
before, but she ended our now weekly session by saying it and explaining why she does.
It is one more thing I feel kind of silly saying back, but we all like to end with something.
I do love the peaceful end to yoga where I stretch out, blocking out all thoughts, other than that I can put up a barrier to the worst of them, while I focus by staring up at my light and listening to the hiss of my laptop which tells me my teacher is still there.
I’m thankful my brother had a successful first radio show.
He has unique taste in music, with a musical mind, and he finally gets the chance to share some of that with others.
When people ask me the type of music he does listen to/play, I do struggle to describe it in a single word. It is a lot of things, though not what you’re likely to ever come across on the radio.
He has opened my eyes up to a whole world of music that exists, even though very few people ever find it. Like writers and writing, there is so much beautiful music out there that never gets the chance to be heard by most of us. His passion for giving the unknown musicians a turn seems important to me.
He has named his show Chin Music
and I think it suits.
I’m thankful for a violin lesson where practice and repetition were points brought home once more.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Rinse. Dry. Repeat. It’s the only way.
I’m thankful for the chance to get somewhere on my own and feel proud of it.
I appreciate the help I receive, for many reasons, as new travel by myself can be stressful and intimidating, but it is also good for me sometimes. The only way I will ever begin to feel any less intimidated is if I practice, kind of like with the violin.
When you can’t see, obviously public transportation is the best way to get somewhere. Then, I like to have an idea in my head of the directions I will be going. I need to see it in my mind and it requires massive amounts of concentration.
No matter the anxiety or the physical pain, the sense of accomplishment at the end is awesome.
I’m thankful I made the final decision to not stay home and instead take someone up on an invitation to meet new people and work on my terrible social skills.
I am terribly shy in new situations. I felt unwell and considered turning down the invitation, but I am glad I went.
I was the only girl there, but it turned out to be an enjoyable hangout on a spacious porch, listening to music, and having a few drinks on a beautiful July night.
It’s just too bad I need a few beers to lighten up. I stop worrying about where I am and I relax. This is fine for one night, now and again, but just attending instead of hiding out by myself helps too.
If I’d gone home, I would have kept thinking about what’s in the news, what a week it had been, and I needed to get away from all that.
I met new people, including someone who came here from Mexico to go to school in Canada. Opening up one’s social circle is a good thing.
I’m thankful for a lovely family day in Toronto.
We met in a mall, couldn’t take the subway because the line was closed down, so had to all pile in the van and drive downtown Toronto. It took a while, but what a perfect day, too hot even.
So we got to spend a few hours somewhere cool, with lots to see, and around so much life.
I am conflicted on aquariums, worrying always if the creatures are happy swimming in those tanks. I wish I could ask those sharks, rays, and other fish.
If my nephew learns to love and respect sea creatures and the ocean, I will be happy.
Like standing at Niagara Falls, anywhere with all that water and marine life is where I can stand and tune out all the hoards of tourists and people. I could have stood beside that shark tank forever.
Then we came back out into the warm day and passed jubilant baseball fans. The Blue Jays were losing and then came back with a grand slam at the end of the game, the second in a week. The Toronto streets are full of energetic shouts whenever their team wins.
Then we had dinner at my favourite Toronto restaurant: The Pickle Barrel. Delicious beet and chicken salad, mango bellini, and brownie cheesecake for dessert.
Mmm.
As I’m heading home, at the end of the day, I can’t see the sky or the incredible sunset and so I feel the unfairness of blindness.
I’m thankful I got to celebrate June 5th in a miraculous place.
I wanted to shout it from the rooftops – 20 years baby!
YEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHH!
I spent the actual morning of the 5th, standing on a suspension bridge, overlooking a place called Miles Canyon. The day was a perfect temperature for me, wind and sun, blowing my hair all around and warming my face.
I thought about where I would have been, exactly twenty years earlier. I was so glad to have that hospital and those doctors then. I was so blessed to have all those years of a dialysis free life, thanks to my father. I was lucky to spend that moment, twenty years on, up on that bridge.
I’m thankful for a truly eye opening week.
I thought the Yukon seemed so far out of the way of most of the rest of Canada and thought of it a little bit like the Canada of Canada.
By that, I mean that in North America, to me at least at times, Canada goes somewhat unnoticed or under appreciated by the United States and such. We are here but can feel invisible. We are a small world player, in many ways, not making a whole lot of noise or commotion, but that’s how we prefer it to be. We are here and we are strong.
Then there is a part of Canada that is tucked away, far from what a lot of the gathered population ever sees. I wanted to go out and find this place.
By the end of my time there, I’d learned so much and was blown away by all of it. I heard stories of the people who have lived in that climate (months of mostly all light and then months of continuous darkness) for years upon years. I learned about myself and what travel can mean to me, through seeing places of intense and immense beauty, while not actually getting to experience the spectacular visuals of the north.
I missed out on a to, but I gained so so much.
I’m thankful I had the chance to see a part of my country of Canada, far far from my place in it.
I have never traveled out west through Canada before, spending most of my time in the central part, the middle area, always curious about what lay in all that northern part. As we flew, I heard about the Rockies as we passed over them.
Though I could not see the snow capped peaks, I felt such a deep sense of wonder as we headed for the west coast. My country is so vast and amazing.
I’m thankful for pilots.
I am somewhat anxious when flying, but it is a true miracle that a plane can even get up in the air, let alone stay up there and take people so far across the skies.
I hear their announcements on the speaker and they sound like they know what they are doing. I hope, every time I fly, that that is the case.
I really did enjoy my experience flying WestJet.
I’m thankful for local tour guides.
Big bus tours can be fun, like the one I was on in Ireland, but this time we had a smaller and more personal experience with a local tour company I’d highly recommend.
They have had it in the family for 100 years and the woman in charge and her employees (one being her daughter) are highly knowledgeable about the region and so very proud of their homeland. They know about the environment, the terrain, and the people. They are Yukoners, through and through..
I’m thankful for the chance to learn about culture and nature.
Culture:
I could smell the wet wood as they worked, using a tool called an adze. They had to keep the wood moist so it wouldn’t cracked as they worked on it. They only had it dug out a tiny amount, with a lot of hours of work still left to go.
It is one of several cultural events and demonstrations happening, there at the riverside, sponsored by the Canadian government and Canada 150 in 2017.
Nature:
I missed the bright colours of the water. I missed the white caps of snow atop the mountains in the distance. I missed the severe cliffs and vistas.
I smelled the fresh Yukon air. I felt the wind. I instinctually detected the wide open spaces. I listened to the ripples at the lake’s edge. I compared the silences to the sounds of rapids far down below.
I felt it all in my bones.
I’m thankful for the kindness of strangers while traveling.
I started the trip being given someone else’s seat on the shuttle bus to the terminal and I ended it with a generous gesture by a flight attendant.
When she learned I hadn’t known I had to download a certain update on my phone, one that would be able to work with the inflight entertainment system, she offered tablets (free of their rental charge) so we could watch a movie on the four hour flight.
I watched Beauty and the Beast, the 2017 live action version that I’d been wanting to see since it came out back in March.
Also, there was the politeness of many I met while there, the polite drivers letting me cross streets, and the woman at the glass blowing factory who showed me around and was so helpful.
I’m thankful my mom and I weren’t eaten by bears.
We stayed down at the roadside, overlooking the lake, while the rest of the group walked a bit up the mountain. They were going up some to get a better look, but it was the two of us that got the show.
My mom was taking a panoramic shot with her camera when she suddenly told me of the mother bear and her cub only forty or so feet down from where we stood. She got a few pictures and then couldn’t see where they went. It was at that moment that she grew nervous and we were glad to have the unlocked van to retreat into, until she spotted the pair once more, making their way along the edge of the water, far off into the distance.
This was a good thing in my mind, as I couldn’t remember what action to take when approached by a grizzly bear vs a black bear.
Was I to play dead or fight back? I’d probably just fall to the ground and curl up into a ball either way.
I’m thankful for the comforts of home after being away from it.
I could choose to feel all down and depressed that I had to leave a place I may never return to or a city I felt at home in, or I could be glad to have my own things back.
I both love going out into the world and exploring what else exists, but I will always love having a home to come back to.
Just hearing a little baby crying on the plane coming home made me miss my baby niece.
I’m thankful for family and neighbours who agree to watch my dog and check on my cat while I explore the world.
I love to travel, but having pets makes that difficult. My dog is very attached to me and my cat is not one of those cats that likes his solitude.
I don’t like to put it on my family to take care of my animals, those I chose to have, just so I can run off galavanting. It’s just that I do feel the pull to wander sometimes, though I try to space it out somewhat. It is a responsibility on them when I dump my dog at their house, but I know our family looks out for each other. We help one another out when and where we can. I would do the same for them.
I’m thankful I got to see my nephew’s baseball game.
He is still learning (Lucky Number 13) and yet he may grow to love it. Only time will tell. They are all so cute though. The coaches and volunteer parents have quite the time, wrangling all those kids, shouting instructions to run or catch or pay attention. They are distracted easily and I can’t blame them. A lot going on.
It was just strange to return to the neighbourhood park where the game was being played. I hadn’t been there in years, but sitting on that bench, by that baseball diamond, it brought back a lot of memories of summer days long gone.
My sister and brother both played in leagues and we’d go to their games often. My favourite part was the snack bar, but being back there now made me remember old times, old friends, and things that felt forever ago, compared to the life I am living in 2017 and my transplant anniversary is a part of that.
I was going along, having a hard time, with putting one foot in front of the other. Then I found myself, suddenly and pleasantly surprised by just how thankful I could feel again. Spring come early. But…wait…it’s still winter.
This song captures that energy Mya brings into the picture, a fresh and new perspective on so many people and things I was already thankful for. Blue skies as I look toward the horizon.
I was thankful for a violin lesson where my teacher seemed happy with some of the progress I’d made.
I know, for some, it’s hard to see this. I challenge them to pick up a violin and give it a try sometime, to see just what I’m up against. Yet, still I forge ahead with it because it is the most beautiful thing.
I’m thankful for pleasant surprises that come along to remind of what hope looks like.
My sister gave birth a week-and-a-half ahead of her due date. All was well enough, but I am still thankful things went smoothly, once they were helped along some.
I am thankful that my family have each other, that we live in a country like Canada with the healthcare available, and have access to safe medical facilities.
I am thankful for reminders that there is beauty and sweetness, whether that be the sound of a violin or the feeling of peace and calm holding a newborn baby brings.
I am thankful my nephew is a big brother to a beautiful baby girl. He is so proud and, at the same time, indifferent, depending on the moment he’s in, in his four-year-old world.
He can’t wait to be able to play with her, brother and sister, to jump in muddy puddles and go to the park with Grandma and Grandpa.
I am thankful both mother and daughter are doing well.
I am thankful that I get to share a middle name with my niece.
She brought good luck it seems, first with the warm weather on the day of her birth.
Not that I really think such weather is appropriate in February. So many celebrated getting to be out on patios and wearing t-shirts, but I wasn’t celebrating, if it hadn’t been for my other news.
I am thankful for that luck I speak of, as I sent a writing pitch out, quite unexpectedly on the day of my niece’s birth, and received what seems like an acceptance.
Nothing is for sure yet, but after my piece being published in Bustle last month, I am taking all of it as a sign of the kind of year I could end up having, though I had a few bad days recently where I feared none of that would ever again happen.
We have over a dozen family members born in the month of February and now we add one more to the list.
Mya arriving in this most excellent month, to be born as far as I am concerned (and her uncle Paul and her daddy too) in the best month of the year, only the second in any calendar year,
I am taking this as proof positive that anything is possible. Really, anything can change from one year to the next, one month to another, and even from start to finish of a single day.
We started out 2017, February, and this week without her in our lives, for real, and within a day of the news she would come early, there she was.
Introducing: Mya Lynne
Here she is, a forever part of our family, and that’s really the only thankful I need.
And it’s a lesson, in life, that as a child is born, someone will die.
RIP Bill Paxton, director of this epic 80s music video, among his other notable film credits.
“They can’t play baseball. They don’t wear sweaters. They’re not good dancers. They don’t play drums.”
—Fish Heads, Barnes & Barnes
So much going on in the world, so much that I can’t write my way out of. I know what I am thankful for, as always, but recently my stress has been building and I couldn’t bring myself to post anything about gratitude last week.
I wasn’t even going to be back now, but I am one of those who believes both these are true:
“The only thing worse than knowing the truth is not knowing the truth, and yet, “the only thing worse than not knowing is knowing.”
By next Sunday we will know, not all “the truth” really, but the reality.
I don’t like where the world and more specifically the US is heading, but I am, in this case particularly, unable to do anything directly about it either way. Emphasizing what I am thankful for is the least and the most I can do now and we will face next week when we get there, like a rickety bridge, but I don’t speak of burning anything.
Those familiar with the stylings of Frank Zappa, you may recognize the stringing together of those four words in my title. I didn’t know of his recording studio and the rather odd name it possessed, until I heard an interview with Lady Gaga, who has purchased the house and now makes music there and shares it with other musicians. I liked the random word choice and thought it fitting for things at the moment.
For a little Halloween fun, with October behind us and November, the US election, and the holidays still to come this year, I begin with this here tale of terror.
Here is one song I came across this week that had the sort of feeling I am experiencing right now. I have the one picked out for next week, if a first female president is elected that is. If the worst does happen, the following song feels fitting, for my mood.
I heard it in the final Harry Potter movie (well, Part One of it anyway). It felt sombre. Lots of people feel this added scene (not found in the books) was awkward and unnecessary, but I felt the opposite, that sometimes the movie takes a gamble on a little something extra and it touches a viewer like me.
So, Ron had just run out on Harry and Hermione and the mission they were on to defeat evil. Hermione was devastated and Harry suddenly gets her to dance with him, to this song, and something feels optimistically hopeful, for their friendship and humanity, like not all hope was lost.
Somehow, I felt a connection here, to the current climate. I don’t think I’m wrong.
I am thankful, first off, for small favours which are really just what ends up happening, but sometimes they can prevent something much worse from occurring.
My brother had a seizure this week, but he is fine now.
He has had several since he fell, last December, and hit his head. He had a few last summer and then not until the other night.
The worst part about them, like what I say above, is you don’t know when they will come, but yet would knowing really be easier?
I guess because you could plan for the most optimal situation. If he is in the wrong place, doing the wrong action, it could be worse for sure. If he’s out in the street. If he’s in a place where a secondary injury could cause more damage. It’s scary because he is so smart and so much of what makes him Brian is his amazing mind. He was, only a few hours before, playing the most beautiful music with his band in my basement. Each time they play I change my mind and a different one of their songs becomes my favourite.
He is himself still, thank God, but my fear is that something will change. Seizures are hard on the body and on the brain, obviously. He was alone, but he was sitting down, we believe. He will be okay. My heart stops each time I hear he’s had another.
I am thankful for those little Facebook reminders of what happened exactly one year ago. Well, okay, not always, but this time for sure.
One of my better/best decisions ever. I am thankful that I have a place where I read my writing out loud. It is excellent practice.
I am thankful for a fun-filled writing group this week.
November first was the start of a month of non stop writing, for some, as it’s National Novel Writing Month once more.
Only two of our group are doing it this year and I’m not one of them, but we had a party of sorts, while we chatted, wrote, and read our stories out loud. I know how much I can handle and how much I can’t. I hadn’t had that positive breakthrough with my violin yet and I knew I couldn’t add anything more to my plate right now.
I know things out of my control should never stop me, if doing something like writing a novel were what I really wanted to do, but this just isn’t the time and I know it. I sometimes trust my instincts to show me the way forward.
I do have a story I’m dying to tell, but not yet. This doesn’t mean I must wait a whole other year, for NaNo to come around again, but we shall see.
I just need to see what happens in the US on Tuesday and the aftermath of that. I need to get a year of violin practice under my belt. I need to focus on my goals for at least the next three months. That’s what is most important to me right now.
But back to writing group. The stories, minus my own, were unbelievably satirical and hilarious. We had to roll a pair of giant dice and we received a matching setting and character description for both the numbers we rolled.
Mine was: “beach with a prudish dress code” and “woman who is upset because her imaginary friend dumped her for another woman”.
Maybe I will share that story one day.
I am thankful that NaNoWriMo exists.
It got me writing back in 2013 and I wrote the quota of fifty thousand words in thirty days that year.
I achieved what would have seemed and sounded impossible to me at the time.
I fear I lost that beginning to a story, but even if I did, I now know I can do it again and I will. I now have two novel ideas to choose from when I do.
I am thankful I got to hear my violin teacher performing live with her fellow musicians. Brass, wood winds, strings, and percussion. It was a remarkable thing to witness, so many performing in unison and the pieces played were introduced by professors of the music school at University of Western Ontario, in London. The quote about comfort and courage was from one of those introductions and I made a note of it and liked the sound of it when I heard it.
I am thankful for a better week with the violin.
For the last few weeks I’ve felt like I was not making enough progress with the song I’m working on. I worried I was wasting everyone’s time and money and belief in me, especially my own hope, with all I’ve put of myself into this dream.
This week something began to make more sense I suppose. I felt better, walking out of that practice room, than I have in a while. It is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but definitely one of the more rewarding things I’ve attempted in my life.
I am thankful for family to hang out with when I need to smile and distract my rushing thoughts.
I watched the final game of this season’s World Series with my parents, brother, and uncle. I’m glad I got to think about baseball instead of world happenings, even if Toronto had lost out days before, for another year. These two teams deserved a shot.
I had to spend this past weekend around one who knows nothing about politics, elections, or world events yet. He is only four, so plenty of time to face these things, to learn about them, but I wish he never had to.
I feel the need to phone and speak to other children in my family, as I did after my aunt died, even with my feelings of not wanting to bother people, with their busy schedules and hectic lives. I know I should not ever allow that to hold me back. It’s silly really.
I am thankful for a ride home from my uncle after we couldn’t quite hold out past the rain delay to go home and call it a night.
My uncle is someone I can talk to about the struggles and the thrills of learning to play an instrument later in life because he plays and he gives it his all when he does.
He introduced me to another violinist from Canada on the brief drive home.
I am thankful for the baby kicks I’m not certain I felt.
My sister has felt them for a while in her second pregnancy, but getting over my weirdness with such contact, I tried for really the first time this time round. I felt nothing really, but it’s still early enough, and as long as the mother feels them I am okay to wait.
It really is miraculous and to think of that baby growing and moving is one of the best things in a mixed up, topsy-turvy world.
I am thankful for comedians to make me laugh about the things that, if I don’t laugh about, the only other option would be to cry.
I am thankful for the vast array of autumn weather we’ve been having.
It was so nice to step out my door the other day to bright sunshine and warm temperatures, for November anyway. I stop, on the stairs, multiple times a day, in my favourite place in my house. I stand and take in the view, with my remaining senses of smell and hearing. I loved the cooler weather of Halloween. I loved the dank and the rainy and the better days as we fell back one hour, ushering in darkness earlier and earlier going toward December, and we’re on our way toward winter. Glorious that I live in Canada and get to experience all four seasons.
Okay, so perhaps a couple additional TToT items this week, to make up for missing a few recently. I needed to write and find all the ways I possibly could to keep my mood from crashing. On into another week however.
And, with that I conclude by saying, America, please be careful.
Good luck to all my American friends and to all of you from this here TToT, for the week that’s ahead of you. We, the rest of the world, will be praying and crossing our fingers and watching closely.
Utility, muffin, research, kitchen. And comfort and courage to us all.
It hurts, threatening to burst under the weight of it all.
It’s just another speech on the US 2016 election campaign. Still, underneath that, there were parts that were all, essentially about human decency.
Michelle Obama spoke and I listened and I felt the familiar stinging of tears starting to form in my eyes.
I put off listening, as Facebook’s newsfeed blew up with people sharing the speech and lamenting its sincerity and harsh reality. Finally, after a bad day of becoming choked up on New York Times Modern Love essays about children and adoption, I thought, “why not?”
Every day I can’t believe it. The days are constant: International Day of the Girl (which Michelle mentions), World Sight Day, Blindness Awareness, White Cane Awareness and people can never seem to settle on the correct word order for some of these. But I guess it doesn’t matter what you call it. We’re all just trying to get by and to be heard and valued.
I see less and less and yet it’s what I hear that I can’t believe.
I hear things on my television screen
that I can’t believe I’m hearing.
I doubt my own hearing, one of my strongest remaining senses.
I feel vulnerable every time I walk out there, a visually impaired woman with her white cane. Am I standing out? Or am I invisible?
The line she spoke that most caught my attention and left a lump in my throat, my eyes burning, and a ringing in my ears was: “We’re drowning in it.” I believe she was referring specifically to sexism and misogyny. It’s no big deal to most people, most times, but it’s always there, somewhere. How much does it matter?
Women should feel it. Men should feel it. Over and over again, people talk of daughters, sisters, wives, mothers. What are women, even myself, what are we supposed to think? What lessons have young men learned? What do those calling themselves politicians think they’re doing anyway?
I even doubt my ears here in Canada. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been in charge for one whole year now, since the last time Canada’s baseball team made it to the play off’s. I had hope then, as someone finally starting to feel somewhat better about the state of my own country, hope for a future where women’s rights, all rights of people might continue to improve, that we here could be a living embodiment of what is possible. Nothing but a naive girl’s silly hope?
His reputation as a feminist has only grown here and around the world. But then I think about possible leaked tapes, recordings, information in the future.
We believe forward-thinking men in politics like Justin Trudeau and Barack Obama are decent, would never treat women so disrespectfully. Then I imagine a time in the future where I will hear, with my own ears, something that could shake my confidence in these two men as concerned fathers and sons and husbands. Maybe they aren’t who they claim to be either. Power. Is it all one giant power trip?
A black man ran the country that supported slavery, segregation, and the targeting of black men as criminals. A woman may soon run a country where women who were black couldn’t even vote fifty years ago. This must represent change and growth, but not all want it, require it, hope and pray for it. Some attack and demonize it.
As for progress and decency, men in positions of power and capable of making sweeping and lasting change, I don’t want to be let down in that way, not ever.
But how sure can I be? When may the other shoe drop, the floor drop out on me?
I appreciate varied viewpoints and healthy discussions, but I too shy away from disrespect, inhumanity, bickering, anger, discrimination, the refusal to see beyond the nose on one’s own face.
I don’t call myself a believer in feminism lightly.
I try to find a balance. This isn’t easy.
I have not suffered at the hands of abuse by men in my own life, but I feel a wider societal pressure. I know only the most decent men in my own life. My father. My brothers. Those I have learned from about love. Those I have loved. We all make mistakes, say foolish things in a moment of weakness or ignorance, both male and female. Goodness can still thrive.
I’m just afraid to believe what I hear. Perceptions are realities.
I wasn’t around during slavery, but what slavery still occurs, and what can I do about it, if I happen to see it or if I hide from that which still exists?
How free am I personally? What am I a slave to in my own life? How dare I even ask, even think?
The 13Th Amendment. The 19Th Amendment. What can 100 years, 150, what can that passing time do? How slow is change really? How far have we really come with rights for all? What is truly being amended? What am I seeing, hearing, witnessing, neglecting to admit about this time I’m living in?
I recommend 13TH. It covers a long timeline of events and not just the small snapshot of time we’re currently living through. It’s not easy to see back into all the preceding time, into anything other than noticing the glasses on our own faces, even mine where no more literal glasses sit.
Trump. Hillary. Bill.
Reagan, like Trump, an actor/performer. Nixon, known, as Hilary Clinton, to be a liar. What really changes? What can we count on as the years pass us by?
I hear suffering. I feel it more and more as I age. the echoes of ghosts long gone. I recognized all their voices at different times.
I hear what I hear. I doubt what I hear. I know what I hear and wonder who may have isolated each clip, what it meant, as an overall statement of any intention. I believe it has all contributed and brought us all to where we currently are.
I did not need anyone to Tweet those selected Trump clips, used to illustrate a wider point, to know how awful I’ve felt at having heard them myself over the last months. I already felt ill upon hearing them.
I know much of the history. I know how humans have treated other humans. I felt my headache worsen as 13TH went on, but I watched the documentary all the way through.
So then why exactly did I put myself through that pain?
What else should I do? How else should I handle what I can’t un-know?
Politics. Pride in one’s home. Culture. Religion. Propaganda, all of it?
It is more than six months since I really last wrote about these things here.
I thought that the 2016 summer with unending stories in the news about the US election would never ever end. But it did and here we are. Less than a month to go, thank God! But I am so tired and I know I’m not alone. Speaking up is seen as “incendiary” and immediately turned into a political opinion, when really, all I’d like to make is a human one. I don’t write about it on Facebook, trying to be sensitive to my American friends. Here on my blog I feel somewhat safer, but I can’t agree with the sort of patriotism Americans often speak of, like Michelle in her speech most recently: that the US is the greatest country in the world.
I regret to say this Mrs. Obama, but go ahead and say whatever you need to say, to feel better about things.
I shake my head at such love of one place, run by capitalism, socialism, whatever you want to call it, from whichever country you reside in. Globalization. I am not a politician and never will be, but I care about not only myself and my family, but my country, and all others. I care about people, no matter where they live.
I love Canada fiercely, but I can’t just keep hearing people speak of their own country being the best, as pride gets us nowhere. I am lucky to live here and yet I fight to find my way. Canada has treated people just as poorly as any other country.
I stand on the border of my Canadian, English-speaking province and into the French-speaking province next door and I feel the wind on my face and in my hair. I smell the river. I hear the cars. I trust my senses in that moment, but rarely do I trust all else I’ve seen.
All politicians are caught saying things, things that have furthered their political purposes at one time or another, eventually revealing true intentions or previously held beliefs, hopefully altered. I don’t know how they really feel. Suddenly, thanks to an actual reality TV star coming this close to winning, it all feels like a huge reality show, like more and more politics and entertainment are melding, like we can’t tell them apart and there is no going back from that.
Human lives are at stake and 13TH makes that point extremely well. This isn’t a game. Or shouldn’t be anyway.
I can hardly believe what I’m seeing/hearing, but I suppose sensible people have always thought that way, and yet what was really done about it? What will the answer be now?
The thought that any one country is “the best country in the world” or that there ever existed “the good old days” is false to me, no matter the intended meaning behind either stated belief.
The “good old days” spoken of weren’t quite so good for us all. I just hope we can stay afloat going forward.
Every single day that my vision fades, no matter how slowly over time, I remain, to some extent, a visual person. The sights I once saw, colours which used to be so bright, they have never left my brain. I attempt to bring what I still can’t help seeing in my mind’s eye out or else I go a little loopy.
This is what I like to call “BlacK and Yellow”.
“I’ll be yours instead in my head. I’ll be yours instead.”
Of course, this song doesn’t sound nearly as thrilling here, but the line from above seemed to fit with the visual images in my head of which I am attempting to do my best to bring forward through visual art.
Nothing is so black and white or, in my case, black and yellow.
🙂
I’m thankful for black and yellow, the darkest and the lightest colours that I can only now see such a vague idea of, compared to how I will always remember them.
I am thankful that I had a few moments of pure blissful peace. All I did was play Braids on top quality sound and let that stereo sound take me away from everything. It was as close to meditation and drowning all my other chaotic thoughts out as I ever get.
I’m thankful for siblings, such as an older one who is understanding and does not mind helping me out with a writing project which has the potential of being huge. All it took was a request and my brother was all ready to go. I trust his insights and impressions after all this time. I appreciate that more than he knows.
That my younger brother makes such breathtaking music, with his friends, with his own talents, and now with his sister.
😉
He plays, unafraid, loudly and I feel the vibrations of that music’s power through the floor under my feet and into my heart and soul. He is so cool, his outlook on life and on getting on with it, as best we can, and not allowing negative thoughts and feelings to drag you down, no matter how hard they try.
And also for the pictures that show a new life and my sister’s own strength in giving that new and developing life a safe and healthy place to grow, for as long as it needs.
I’m thankful for fresh peach soft ice cream sundaes
.
I’m thankful for women who speak up on the most vital matters that I wish I myself could do/say more about,
She is one of my heroes, in feminism, in literature, and in the art of just being a decent human being who stands up for what’s right. She spoke most recently at this United Nations 2016 meeting for World Humanitarian Day.
I am thankful for the thing which happened 25 years ago this week.
Happy Internaut Day. With the creation of the World Wide Web,
I would soon be able to find out anything I could ever wish to know and a whole new world of possibilities would open up to me, so many others, and especially the visually impaired.
I am thankful for the violin lesson I had, even for the rain that soaked me and made my shoes all squeaky as I stepped inside the music school. I am trying to get past feelings of silliness when my teacher shows me another technique she learned as a child. I am improving, slowly but surely.
I am thankful for the kindness and compassion shown to me by a nurse practitioner. She took the time to speak to me, not making any attempt to rush me, and I felt like she was really listening to what I had to say about my own years of illness and pain. I did my best to explain my many medical issues and how I’ve dealt with them. I tried to explain how far I’ve come, in making an effort in spite of the pain and the stress, to live my life. Not all medical professionals are nearly as understanding or empathetic. I don’t take such an attitude for granted when I come across it. I am lucky to have the medical clinic to reach out to in my town. It wasn’t so easy getting there.
I am thankful the Toronto Blue Jays are doing so well and that they won the game my brothers and my father were at. Here’s hoping for more of the same, as we head into autumn and a possible second year-in-a-row of playoff potential for our only Canadian baseball team in Toronto.
I am thankful my nephew is so big into the planets right now, just like I’ve been since childhood.
We enjoyed singing along to his favourite planet tune, even though I told him:
I leave off this post with what I’m calling “Circulation” even if those I’ve asked all guessed I was trying to draw the planets, but I originally began with only the images of coloured circles. I don’t mind. I love the planets.
Things change. Nothing stays the same. I am thankful that I have learned to recognize my thankfulness.
“April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.”
–T.S. Eliot
Think this quote has been taken to mean “taxes” more recently, but I like to take the entire quote at its original wording.
Okay, so it’s more snow than rain around here at the moment. Lousy April Fools’ joke if you ask me. That was two days ago you know!
I don’t have a lamb or a lion, but Lumos is still a feline. I’d hoped to have a humorous shot of him to include here, but I seem to have misplaced it.
From the sounds of things around here this week, lots of regulars with the TToT are having trouble coming up with 10 T’s. Mine are to follow, minus any photos this week I’m afraid. Ooh, except for one…because we were celebrating him this week. It was taken back at Christmas, but you get the idea.
🙂
As for the TToT, some are borrowing thankfuls from other members. I am scrambling, somewhat and after a week of feeling sick, for mine, but here goes nothing.
She died this week, but she is remembered, for me, as Helen Keller, plus all her work as a mental illness advocate.
For my younger brother’s existence, while celebrating his birthday.
He’s the best brother anyone could ask for, one hell of a musician, and the strongest person I’ve ever known.
Can’t believe this is the final year of his twenties. Due to some extremely unforeseen events since his previous birthday, we came close to losing him, or at least the “him” we’ve become so accustomed to.
🙂
On this birthday of his in particular, I am thankful for the brother I know, better than nearly anyone else.
For organ donation and the newest friend to receive a new lease on life.
My brother has had this gift given and is making the most of it for the last three years now, but now it’s been another person’s turn.
My family have known her and hers since she was only a few years old and since I was first diagnosed with kidney disease. It’s been twenty years, in fact, since our families met.
She has gone through more than many people, a lot in her life, and she is finally free after years of endless dialysis treatments.
The whole organ donation thing is, I fully acknowledge, a touchy subject. If you’ve never known someone who was truly in need, you can’t possibly understand what it means to be free of machines and fatigue and fear.
I struggle because it means someone lost their life. I don’t celebrate that. I only see the good that can come from something so awful. I will forever be torn, even though my brother and myself have and will probably benefit from organ donation more in the years to come, barring major medical advancements.
For a lovely walk, fresh air, after being sick and cooped up for what felt like days.
It was growing dark and all it was was a short walk down the block in my parent’s neighbourhood. My nephew loved tossing stones into the water that had accumulated there.
The wind was biting, but it was also refreshing. I needed the air to flood my recently so stuffy lungs.
For not being sick anymore.
I was sick and tired of all the aches, coughing, and the monster.
Ozzy Osbourne sings a line in one of his songs that I love about “being sick and tired of being sick and tired” and this is not totally gone away from my life, but after a bad cold finally vacates my body, I am often able to realize how happy I am to have one less thing to deal with.
For the return of my normal voice.
It sounded, for a few days there, as if a monster had taken over my body, specifically my vocal cords.
I hope to finally have another violin lesson. Unforeseen events, my feeling unwell, these have resulted in me only getting one lesson this past month or so. Not cool.
For old memories, nostalgia, and endless laughter.
My brother and I listened to old tapes he is digitalizing. All the laughter was hard on my body, after the cold, but it also felt nice, like shaking off cobwebs in the corners of a room that has been shut up to the open for too many consecutive days.
For the passing of yet another April Fools’ Day, for another year.
I am the first one to advocate for more humour in the world, as was one of my 10 from last week, but the day set aside for jokes and pranks is more of a nuisance than a laugh for me now.
I am highly gullible. Although a lot of the jokes played by and on me in person were a thing of my youth, now it’s all on Facebook. So much so, that I may stay off of Facebook entirely next April 1st.
For baseball starting up for the 2016 season.
Today was the first season game and Toronto won!!! Keep that up boys.
I seem to remember something about a book of rules for the TToT and there’s one of those for baseball, not that I understand it, but more about that later.
It was a difficult week, in some respects, but only because I am finally putting myself out there, my writing and myself, and receiving feedback. This translates into criticism and that can be difficult to take sometimes. Doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it.
Ten Things of Thankful:
For my immune system.
Mine works for me. Okay, so I may be singing a different tune come the middle of winter, but at the moment I think all’s well.
I have been around several sick friends and family in the past month and I just assumed I would catch their colds, etc.
I haven’t. I have a lower immune system, as a transplant recipient, and it can seem to permit multiple colds each winter, every year, but it is unpredictable. I can’t predict when or if I’m going to get a cold.
I am visiting a friend in Toronto tomorrow and her niece is there recovering from a bone marrow transplant. As long as I don’t jinx myself and come down with something in the next twenty-four hours, I will be happy and thankful. Not to mention, my immune system hasn’t decided to completely attack my father’s kidney, in nearly twenty years, so that’s something to be grateful for.
For a delicious cup of coffee, some relaxing Lorde inspired tunes, and a couple of hours at the salon.
The coffee and the half hour I sat there, listening to music playing and the hustle and bustle of my cousin’s salon, while my hair had foils in it and waiting for the dye to do its thing made for a most relaxing break.
For the chance to feel like I was dressed up and with somewhere to go for the evening.
For the deliciousness that is movie popcorn.
Who’s with me?
For a totally eye-opening documentary experience.
“Our voices are our most powerful weapons.”
I went to see He Named Me Malala and I found it to be every bit as inspiring and moving and sweet and real as I thought it would be.
This film needed to be made and it needs to be seen around the world. It makes me cry, but it forces me to be thankful.
For the game that kept Toronto in the running, for the first time in over twenty years.
It was a real rush to know that we had little chance, at that point, but that I never lost faith. It ended up being one for the record books, and I don’t pretend to understand all the little ins and outs of the game and its rules, but I know the tension and the energy felt, sitting there watching.
We were losing two games in a five game series. Nobody thought we would go on to win the next three, but I believed.
What is it about rooting for one’s sports team that can cause such strong feelings and stress?
For my white cane.
October 15th was White Cane Day or White Cane Safety Day. I feel like a lot of these days are more US based, a lot of the times, but it doesn’t really matter where or what day.
I will admit that I have had my battles with the white cane. I have truthfully felt embarrassed about it, like a little brother or sister, always tagging along, but being forced by a parent to let them join in the fun.
Yeah, I’m working on getting over my issues because without it, I would be in more danger and would have been left without the means to get somewhere, anywhere, unable to see my surroundings well enough. I can’t deny the importance it has played and must play to me in future.
It’s Saturday and that means it will soon be time for Hockey Night In Canada. I know I am Canadian, but I take baseball over hockey any day. I prefer the slower pace of baseball over the fast paced slapstick, scraping sounds on the ice. It’s time for transition from summer, to fall, to winter.
I remain still, more often than I probably should. Still as a…well, I wouldn’t want to become known for using too many cliches.
Let’s just say that my mind is hardly ever standing still, even if my body is. I see myself running, not writing, not staying still so much, but only if it could keep my mind from running ahead of the rest of me.
People tell me I should learn and practice meditation, if I want to still my thoughts a little. I guess they are right.
I can’t stop the thoughts from running amuck. They bombard me, like my own thoughts are clubbing me over the head. Yeah, just try and picture that. Strange image I know.
I love autumn. I love the crunching leaves, after they’ve fallen. I can’t see them fall, but I know they have because I step on them and hear them as they dry out on the cold ground.
But although many here in Canada like hockey but dislike the cold winters, I tend to look forward to them. The stillness of a winter night, as the snow drifts down, in flakes to the frozen earth is the only time my whole body can catch up with itself, to truly feel as still as the snow.
I keep getting rejections. Oh, poor me, right? In my life, in my writing, I grow tired of them all, but I need to write, to love, to find the sort of peace that stillness brings.
I’m still standing. I won’t let anything knock me down for long.
Her Headache 
