The Ties That Bind

#TBT to two years ago.
Today this is dedicated to my sister, on her birthday, and to family. I hope her and I are as close fifty years from now.

Her Headache

When I was a child my grandmother and her younger sister sounded so much alike that I was often confused when they were both nearby. I just couldn’t believe or accept that they weren’t really twins. Their voices sounded so similar and I was sure of it. As I grew I was able to distinguish the subtle nuances that made them separate women, yet still extremely close.

It’s been almost ten years since my grandma died. I used to spend a lot of time with her and other family from her generation. Recently I had the urge to once again spend some time with those who tie me to her and who knew her best. I haven’t seen my two great aunts and my great uncle since my grandfather passed away, since the funeral that cold February day four years ago. There was just no situation in which we had…

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Spotlight Saturday, 1000 Voices Speak For Compassion: Sisters Think Alike

It started with:

We All Need The Village

and it was followed by:

http://yvonnespence.com/all/1000-voices-for-compassion/

With this the train had left the station. Compassion has been spreading rapidly through the blogosphere ever since.

It is a movement which hopes to spread compassion, kindness, support, caring for others, and non-judgment and there is nobody I think embodies all these things more than my very own sister.

She is an extremely kind and caring daughter, sister, friend, wife, mother, and aunt. Not to mention one of the most caring human beings around.

Okay, so I may be a tad biased here, but just read on and you’ll see what I mean.

All this is why I’m pleased she took some time to write about her thoughts on these important qualities and I am thrilled to shine this week’s spotlight on her and her thoughts now.

***

Compassion is a complicated thing. It should be more simple, but it is often more than just caring about the people that deserve it. The hard part is caring for those who do not deserve it, it is those people who somehow need it more.

The problem with that is that it is the other people, who we believe to be innocent, who usually are – that would then suffer. There are also many situations where lines – between those who are considered innocent our not, whether to consider someone a victim or not, or if they are worthy of compassion – are blurred.

Those who do the most horrendous things are usually the most scarred, the ones with the most tragic past.
The hardest line to walk is not excusing their current behaviour; the fact that their father beat them everyday of their childhood – that they had to witness the same atrocities to their mother or siblings, should this give them a pass for their current actions? Does this excuse what they have become?

Of course not. There comes a point in time when any victims they are creating are now more important than the tragic up bringing that turned them into the reprehensible person they have become. Personal accountability has to be taken into consideration, there is a certain point where it trumps even the most tragic upbringing, but even then there is all always room for compassion, though that is often easier said than done.

Does that mean we should not also feel compassion for what inspired this person’s spiral into what they have become?

Herein lies the problem. How do we try to understand the bad part, without excusing it?! There is, unfortunately, no simple solution but it does require to sometimes just take a step back and try and look at the situation from all sides – especially when it seems like the hardest thing to do.

Recent events; terrorist actions, racial injustices, victim shaming in sexual assaults – all things that could use a little, or even a lot, more compassion.

Does free speech excuse being callous with someone’s beliefs? Regulations on free speech, whether legally enforced or from social pressure, are in no way the answer but just because you can do something does not mean you should!

There is, again, no excuse for any reaction that involves a blatant disregard for human life, and it is never easy to balance being able to express ones personal beliefs that are often something we as humans feel very passionate about. No one wins when public discussion and free speech is suppressed – but there is also always room for a little more compassion.

On September 11th, 2001, nineteen men were responsible for the death of thousands. Thousands of people who were living, breathing human beings, with feelings and families. How many children grew up with out a parent – how many parents had to bury their children? Others buried their wives, or husbands – uncles, aunts, cousins, friends.

Now just imagine what went wrong in those nineteen men’s lives for them to feel these actions were justified? It’s not an excuse for what they did, only something to take into consideration. Did one or two of these men – or all of them, experience loss on their own scale? I am not suggesting we excuse their actions, only that we strive to understand them.

To look beyond and consider these feelings, this terrible event brought up, in an attack so close to home, it is hard to look past our own pain and see the pain in others.

That this feeling of vulnerability, that not feeling safe and secure in our every day life, it is the reality in those attackers lives, as well as so many others in their communities. Also that they do not all turn out to be extremists. It’s not always easy to understand for us but like in all parts of the world we are often byproducts in our upbringing and what we are subjected to in our everyday lives. Now imagine this it’s your everyday life but on a much more extreme level.

There is little one can do to make war less horrific than the hard truth of it but a little compassion can go a long way. You may argue that the, us against them, mentality is what gives a soldier their ability to do what it is they need to do, but compassion might just be what is needed.

Most of the people they are fighting are also just people with families, fighting for their country. You may feel they are fighting for a country with unconscionable practices, but we also must remember looking in on another country’s policies (as with an individual’s beliefs) is not as simple as it sounds. Morality is sometimes much less black and white than we would like to think.

Just as, despite what side you may fall on with the out come in the shooting in Ferguson, Missouri, a little more compassion for what is a never ending struggle to feel safe as a minority in North America.

I can not say what the police force, nor the individual officer’s, feelings were behind the shooting but Michael Brown’s subsequent innocence or guilt does not remove what it represents to a community that feels unheard and unimportant.

Michael Brown’s guilt or innocence in any crime in the moments before, is not really what makes the situation so hard to just move on from. The feeling that it may not always matter if he was coming from volunteering at a soup kitchen or from robbing a convenience store, that his death is representative of what it means, to not, be a white man in America.

There are many examples that being guilty of something, is not always requirement for a death sentence – this is not the first or the last time. Compassion is required to understand that, it requires taking yourself out of your own shoes and imagine how different some peoples realities really are.

Victims of sexual assault also feel a similar marginalization – with the burden of the victim to prove their innocence, in favor of not violating the rights of the perpetrator. In that regard, people usually just site innocent until proven guilty for standing up for the accused, but with sexual assault, unlike most other crimes, assuming the accused is innocent often requires implying the victim is guilty until proven otherwise.

This doesn’t happen in murder cases or most other crimes, it just means they’ve got the wrong person. With sexual assaults, the assailant is most often known to the victim.

The innocent until proven guilty defense also does not apply outside a court of law, and definitely does not remove your ability to show compassion towards someone who is a victim of such a personal and horrendous crime.

Ensuring there are never false accusations may not be possible but there is a much larger number of women who remain silent, due to the reality of what the victim exposing themselves will do to their everyday lives.

It is when we fail the victims on such a large scale that we need to look at how we deal with such a sensitive subject. Compassion when dealing with a woman (or a man) who has been sexually assaulted should be an easy choice but like many things in life – any hostile or judgmental reaction, often tells more of the other person than the victim themselves.

Understanding a person’s motivation can go a long way with dealing with your own suffering. This applies to personal pain, on an individual level, as well as on a larger scale with the pain of a whole community, or a nation. Compassion can also be applied in all areas of our lives.

Instead of throwing away a relationships – regardless of the degree of the betrayal, maybe try and understand what caused them to be so careless with your feelings. Forgiveness is not always an option but understanding it can give way to some compassion for both parties. It can also be just as beneficial to you as it is to whoever hurt you. By your ability to show that understanding, in a situation that is not necessarily your fault (though most things in a relationship do require some fault on both ends) – this compassion will help to strengthen your other relationships, in both the present and the future.

We also see it as a divide between generations. We could all better ourselves if we could try and have a little more compassion for the things we see as insignificant in the lives of others. The idea of a teenager being in love can seem foreign to those who have long been passed this stage in their life, making it easy to pass it off as puppy love. Although it may not be the same, as the love of a couple who has enough experience in love and life, the loss of either relationship is painful to the respective person, both just as valid, even if they are not what some see as equal.

Everyone’s pain is valid, and this is where compassion is ultimately needed. You do not need to excuse behavior to show compassion. We could all benefit from putting ourselves into others shoes. Does this solve all the problems of our world, maybe not. Does it erase the many wrongdoings, of course not – but the only way to change the world is through these small steps.

There will always be bigger events that are credited with shaping our humanity but it is just as important to make these small gestures to continue to push all of us to create a world where we have the best chance to get along, to give all its inhabitants the dignities we ourselves deserve. And it extends to all inhabitants of this earth, from our fellow humans, to the many animals we share it with, as well as the environment and natural resources surrounding us.

Compassion is the answer.

***

I agree. That is why I am participating in #1000Speak and why I wanted to share this topic of compassion, from wise women like my sister.

Thank you Kim, for these deepest of thoughts.

For more information, check out:

1000 Voices Speak For compassion on Facebook

I will be posting a few more times on these topics, leading up to February 20th.

Speeding Up and Slowing Down

“Speeding, ‘cause it feels good.”
—Lights

Lights, Speeding, on YouTube

For the first full week of January and the new year I have moved passed writing a round-up of my 2014 goals and achievements. This is a different post entirely, but let me start here.

I took on a lot of firsts in 2014 and a lot of things I’d always wanted to do and try: started a blog, began writing on a consistent basis (facing rejection and learning I could survive its many forms), walking around the outside edge of Toronto’s CN Tower, and making the leap of starting something for myself and my future with a travel website.

I wouldn’t be able to call skating one of those firsts, but it has been on my bucket list for many years now. Before 2014 would end I would be back on that ice, for the first time in more than twenty years.

***

Out in our back yard (which seemed huge enough to me already), over the fence, through the field, and then we were there.

During the winters, when the snow covered the ground, we would all walk back and back, my younger brother often pulled on a sled, until we arrived at the frozen pond: our frozen pond.

It was our family’s own private skating rink. I have only vague memories of it now, not so clear yet never totally forgotten.

There was the box, on the sled, my baby brother would sit in beside the ice. He hadn’t learned how to skate, but there was always his boots. I marvelled at the fact that this surface was so hard and thick, that we were able to skate over it, water beneath our feet. This all seemed magical to a five-year-old, but first the built-up layer of snow had to be shovelled off and this seemed to take forever, when all I wanted to do was skate.

I probably remember more the lengthy bit of tape devoted to one of these family skates in particular we have captured on record on our home movies.

Okay, so every time we’d watch, my brother and I would fast-forward past this part. It was long and all we could really make out were shrieks and calls of our siblings and the friends skating that day. I was there, sure, but I could never spot myself on the screen, having less sight than I did as a younger child.

I think I was skating, but all I could hear was the scraping sound of the skates on the pond’s icy surface…oh, and my baby brother, at the time, screaming and crying in his buggy. I could detect, even as I fast-forwarded, the dimness on screen, as we continued to skate and the evening grew darker. We had to stop and walk back home then.

I don’t remember my first time on skates, but I think I became pretty practiced at it and it was something I enjoyed as a child, for the first ten or so years of my life.

We used to go to family skates and I would go with school. I would race around the rink, holding onto someone mostly, with the music playing through the speakers. I must have grown quite comfortable with the motion and the movement.

Then one day, something happened that would be the beginning of the end of my love of skating.

My braille teacher came with my class and I for one of those class skating trips. She offered to skate with me and off we went, me holding onto her and then suddenly, down she went …

I remember the ambulance arriving and picking her up off the ice, whisking her away to the hospital. Visiting her there, her and her broken ankle.

“They were skating and Mrs. M fell,” the other girls in my class repeated. “Kerry was skating with Mrs. M and she fell and broke something. She hurt herself. Kerry pulled her down.”

Just girls being girls. I don’t recall for sure if they blamed me directly, or if it had been simply an accusatory tone I heard in their voices. We were eight after all, but I heard them talking there, off the ice, in the stands, as we waited to return to school.

I felt guilty for what happened and I felt responsible. Had I done this terrible thing? It was an accident, wasn’t it? No matter how many people assured me, then and since that time that I had nothing to do with it, something about it stuck with me all these years.

Over time it became less and less about family skates and more about hockey games, our family time at the arena. My brother played for a few years and my younger brother (who never really got the opportunity to skate) and I would spend most of our time in the warm room with the concession stand, eating pop corn and drinking slushies.

I would get sick with kidney failure soon after that and was in no real state for skating.

I still remember the fun of skating and, although not much of a lover of hockey, I would occasionally turn to a game being played on TV and listen to those familiar scraping sounds of the players skating madly around the rink.

My father played hockey. I am Canadian and hockey, to most Canadians, is a pretty big deal. I see the cultural pride and feel my share, somewhere deep down.

For a long time I used to watch figure skating on TV, imagining I’d stuck with skating and had become a figure skater like those leaping and twirling athletes I would watch. Figure skating was one of the sports I was able to see clearly enough on television. I would stare hard at the figure skaters, spinning and zooming around, imagining how much fun it must be.

For twenty or more years I have wanted to try it again, to step out on that ice, but never made it happen. Then, I got a new pair of skates for Christmas and it seemed like a good family activity for us all, now that my niece is starting to learn.

I wondered if I could even stand up on skates now. A lot of time has passed and I am no longer that nimble kid. I have terrible balance and my ankles often turn over on the smallest unevenness in the sidewalk. Could I skate anymore? Would I fall on my butt immediately? Would I even be able to move, even a little? I had to find out.

Last year I was starting to seek out those things I wondered if I could do, just to find out for certain. I had been looking for thrills and wanting to try new things, or at least newish. Twenty years seemed like a lifetime ago. What did I have to lose?

I jumped at my first chance, when my uncle offered, to come to a private party skate. Perfect. The rink wouldn’t be packed like during a public skate. I could get my bearings and there wouldn’t be as many people there to see me fall.

I loved the security of the way the skate felt as it was tightened and the laces pulled, fitting snugly around my ankles. the skates seemed to keep my rolling ankles in check and held firmly in place. I stood up and began, one foot in front of the other, to walk in my new skates from the change rooms to the ice. I was surprised at how easy it was to walk on skates.

I loved it immediately. The memories came bak to me as I felt the cool air on my face and saw the bright white of the ice. I always liked that I could see dark shapes of people against the glaringly bright background.

I held on for dear life to the edge of the boards as I took my first steps onto the ice in more than twenty years. I loved to smell the fresh coolness of the rink, that smell I always loved and never forgot.

I had no immediate plans of letting go of the side, but right away I felt something familiar as I began to get the feel of the ice again. I followed the side along, relearning how to move and propel myself forward on these seemingly thin blades. I listened to the scraping noises of the other skaters and I suddenly had the urge to release my hold by the open door and go go go.

I held onto the boards, onto my sister, onto my father. He and I began to skate, him taking my hands and then he was skating backwards. The first fall of the night. He and I were talking and he did not notice the hockey net sitting there on the ice. He backed into it and we both fell. I landed on my knees, getting slightly entangled in his legs. He took the brunt of the fall, but something flashed me back to being eight years old and my poor teacher going down.

My father stood up painfully, my sister rushed over, and the both of them helped me up. I clung to the boards once more, feeling nauseated and dizzy. I knew he was okay and hadn’t broken anything, that once more I hadn’t been responsible for anything, but I was immediately brought back to the past and I felt as close to a panic attack as I’ve ever felt.

Finally I could move again and I began to slowly make my way around by holding onto the side. The skate was almost over and I took my chance, just in case we did not return with the rest of the family the next day. I let go and moved a little distance from the side, but still close enough that I could grab on if I needed to. I had to learn how to move my feet, how fast to go and how to slow myself down and stop. I tried to learn how to keep my balance and how to distribute my body weight.

I moved a little and then I went down, hard, on my behind. This was okay. It was painful, but I was proud that I had taken the chance. Maybe skating with another person would be a good idea, for a while still, but I continued to yearn for the freedom of skating, fast and with confidence, all by myself.

So you might fall, I told myself. So what. Life is like that. You can go through it, never letting go of the safety of the side, or you can let go and see what happens.

Even with the falls and the flashbacks I felt a high as we left the rink and headed for home. I felt strangely exhilarated. I had felt a familiar feeling of comfort. I had felt at home, like an old memory. Muscle memory of some kind. It came back to me, like when you learn something from such an early age. It always stays with you and helps you as you grow older. I felt, even with the ever-present risk of falling, that I was home again.

It seemed, this time, like a much longer and farther distance to fall than as a child. If nothing is risked nothing is gained, I told myself to push this thought out of my head. I never wanted to leave that rink.

We returned the next day and this time I had my older brother too. I felt a certain certainty in skating with both my father and my brother. They were both tall and sturdy. They had a comfort on skates that I could feel the moment I held onto them and we began to round the rink, the side feet away and me loving the feeling.

I noticed how good it felt to work up the sweat, under my thick winter coat, the rink not even feeling cold anymore. It was a good natural high of moving forward on the ice. I wanted to speed around and around the ice, like everyone else there. I wanted to skate and skate and never stop skating. If I slowed down I wanted to keep moving again.

I was actually glad I had fallen. The next day I did not fall once. I took the risk of broken bones because I felt a sense of rightness and like I was somewhere I belonged and where had I been all this time?

It’s hard to feel comfortable and really go for it when I am at a public skate, with people whizzing by all the time. I think back to our private pond now and wish I were back there, on a silent snowy night.

I want to be able to skate and to practice and get better. It feels like the most natural thing in the world to me, childhood traumas notwithstanding. I am home. Skating is ingrained in my memory, part of my past, and hopefully, my future.

I want to make skating a yearly family tradition around the holidays, something we can do together. A totally Canadian pastime for all of us to enjoy. I can and always have handled falling down, as long as I have them there when I get back up.

First Day Of The Rest Of My Life

I made no resolutions for the new year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and moulding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.
—Anais Nin

It’s been one hell of a ride, these last five years in my life. I’ve come a long long way. I’ve found and lost love, experienced a number of firsts, completed goals I have only dreamed of completing, and have gained three amazing new little people in my life.

The year 2014 was equal parts challenging and painful/rewarding and character-building.

I embarked on a long-harboured wish of starting a blog and, through this act, I have discovered several amazing and inspiring writers and bloggers along the way.

I am here to write the expected Happy 2015 post, like most every other blogger has, but I kind of shrink away from the predictability of the act. I want to say something positive, but I can’t just rely on this particular marker of an occasion to find my courage and my positivity.

Here is a post from one of those writer/bloggers I’ve discovered. I was lucky to get to interview her,

here last fall (Spotlight On Saltz),

and she taught me a lot about writing and creativity.

This, most recent post from her is real and honest, less brimming with platitudinal statements for a year none of us can say for certain will be any better than the last.

Alana Saltz: My Only New Year’s Resolution

I realize the above example and mine here aren’t the most resoundingly cheery of them all, but I have to mark the start of this new year, while still remaining the lovely mixture glass-half-full/glass-half-empty I always am.

My sister and I sat talking, during a quiet moment last night, at a house party we were at. We discussed how January 1st isn’t really all that different from December 1st before it or February 1st still to come. It may have all the bells and whistles of a ball dropping in Time Square, but it does not mean any of us must celebrate something we don’t feel or declare anything we probably won’t find worth keeping up in the days and weeks and months to follow.

This can be illustrated by the annual kiss at the stroke of midnight. This was preceded by the Christmas kiss under the mistletoe and the gushy hearts, flowers, and chocolates of Valentine’s Day next month.

These things are arbitrary markers of these winter celebrations. I think they are all nice and everything, but my sister and I are not showy people and I believe we both would prefer to kiss someone, the right someone…be it a husband or a partner, at the time of our choosing and in a not quite so public or posed circumstance.

I have never made a resolution come January 1st: to lose weight, cease a bad habit, or whatever else might make the top ten list of most popular New Year’s resolutions. I am constantly at work on myself and my life. I struggle, sometimes daily, to get through life and to achieve the things most people take for granted.

I didn’t want to wait for the start of a new calendar year to tell me when I should begin working on my life and my dreams. I did not start this blog last January, but let inspiration take hold when it might.

I love such things, but on my own terms. I felt that my 30th birthday was the right time to start a blog and to make writing a priority in my life and this meant starting these things one month and ten days after the start of the 2014 year.

Now the count-down has gone and the party is over, as they say. The often long and cold month of January begins today. That’s all I know at this moment.

I don’t know what I will achieve in the twelve months looming ahead. Yes, I say looming because it feels that way, as of this New Year’s Day night. It feels big and weighty and daunting.

I suppose, if I were to settle on a resolution of any kind, it would have to be to find more contentment and pride in myself and my life and less focus on envy of what someone else has. All I can say is that I am glad the previous twelve months happened and I have taken some significant steps forward since this time last year.

I started my writing blog, as I’ve already said. Plus, I discovered a community of like-minded people in the blogs I now follow, written by the unique voices I now look forward to reading.

I have lost things, yes, but I have gained the confidence to share this gift of writing I love so much with anyone who will take the time to read my words.

I have learned things about myself and a future I only hope I am lucky enough to experience. More to come on all this I am sure. I have a lot of ideas and I haven’t run out of things to say here.

I do look at the beginning of each year I have been given on this earth as a time of reflection, although all this I do every single day, December 31st or January 1st not just.

This year, like all the others before it, I will probably be faced with some difficult decisions and some splendid moments of hysterical laughter, pure joy, and eager anticipation.

I hope to try new things and live life like this could be my last year alive, because the truth is that none of us truly know which year could very well be our best, worst, or last. I have only learned that years are precious commodities and that when they are wasted it is a true shame.

So there you have it: my welcome to 2015 first blog post of the year, but really it’s just another day…the first day of the rest of my life and yours too. I guess we’ll just see what I have to say in one year’s time and where we all find ourselves when 2016 rolls around.

Until that day …

Cheers!

Winter Light, Tim Finn from The Chronicles of Narnia, YouTube

All They’ve Ever Known

A new week and I bring some new perspectives to the table.

Last week I wrote about school and work,

Here.

This week I return to the subject of family.

***

Q: Is your family life affected by disability? In what ways?

A:
I have shown the strength and character of my parents in past answers:

Literally,

Special Magnificence,

and

Diagnosis and Treatment.

This time I thought, with the word “family”, in the question that I would ask the other two I have not asked yet: my older brother and sister.

I have two amazing parents and a younger brother who knows what it’s like because he was born visually impaired too.

My two older siblings have been there from the start and I wanted to share their point-of-view because if anyone was affected, good or bad, it would be them.

I ask my brother and then my sister this question and this is what they said:

***

P: That is a tough question to answer.

At first I wanted to say yes. Mainly because I always felt like I needed to protect/help you growing up and even today though I don’t see you guys very often.
But I would imagine that every big brother would feel that way about younger siblings. Worrying when you were sick or going into the O.R.

Honestly I cannot think of a particular situation.

The only scenario that comes to mind is while viewing a movie or television program, I’d always try to describe in as much detail as possible what you were missing. I’ve always wanted to make sure that you and your brother never miss out on anything that sighted people take for granted.

So to answer your question, are we affected?  Life may have been different for us growing than for most kids. But this is all I’ve ever known and couldn’t imagine it any other way.

***

K: Growing up having siblings with a disability is like anything in life, especially as a teenager, you can feel self conscious – even when it’s by association. No one likes to feel out of place. At the same time, it came with a strong urge to protect and defend.

That being said, that was only part of what it was like growing up in a family that visibly, can seem a little different. More importantly, I think it has helped to show how differently people can be whether outwardly or more under the surface. I think it made me a better person, more understanding and compassionate. It showed me that any disability, big or small, can be overcome by both those around you and those with the impairment.

My parents displayed this with their never ending ability to give my siblings the chance to take on the world with the least resistance possible. It also showed the power those with disabilities themselves can display when given the chance, that all people can thrive when given support and proper circumstances.

Mostly though, it was just my family, at the end of the day (and really at the beginning and in the middle of the day and all the moments in between). They’re just your little sister and brother – and as you get older you no longer notice those stares, and that feeling of self consciousness becomes an awareness that our differences need to be celebrated and not a cause for feeling out of place. All people have their own disability, some are just more obvious than others.

***

When I asked them this question I knew it could be a difficult one. You have to understand that this was a difficult question. Just think of anything or anyone in your life that has always been there. That is “normal” for you, in a way that might not be true for someone else.

As for my siblings, I wondered if it would be hard for them to think of any actual examples or if they could possibly be hesitant to say something that might hurt my feelings if I knew it because, honestly, I have felt guilty in the past.

I know people stare and I know, children especially, don’t like to feel out-of-place. I never wanted to be the source of resentment.

I know jealousy is just a part of being a sibling, at one time or another, and there were four of us. Being one of four in a family teaches you to wait your turn and to be patient and flexible.

I know that a lot of attention had to be given to me and my brother at certain times, and that couldn’t have been easy.

For me I can say it is comforting to no end to know there are at least two people in my life who accept me for me. I am just me to them. They know the little things about me, as I do them, good and bad. I feel a reassurance around my brother and sister that I do not get anywhere else. I have always been there for them and they for me and I hope that will never ever change.

My sister and I have real discussions about the things in life that really matter and that everyone goes through. She has helped me fit in with my surroundings and to feel like I am worth knowing and loving.

My brother, like he said, has always described anything visual in a way that I could understand, allowing me to enjoy such things like everyone else.

I hope I could have given them both even half of what they’ve given me.

No matter what, no matter what may happen, I know I will always have them, even if we go our own ways as adults and have our own lives.

To us, our childhoods were full of love, fun, and all the normal ups and downs that siblings have, but we did it all together and we have memories we will never forget and that have made us the people we are today.

Feeling a part of a family is something we all need. That is the first place we find acceptance and security. I hope we will always have each other to lean on.

***

Next Memoir Monday, for the

Redefining Disability Awareness Challenge,

I will answer another question.

Are your leisure activities or hobbies affected by disability? How do you work around this?

What is “normal” for you that you think might not be that way for someone else?

I hope you all have a pleasant week and I hope you all have family to lean on like I do.

“He For She” and EQUALITY

An article on TheAtlantic.com (The Unsafety Net: How Social Media Turned Against Women) says:

“A 2013 report from the World Health Organization called violence against women “a global health problem of epidemic proportion,” from domestic abuse, stocking, and street harassment to sex trafficking, rape, and murder.

Last Saturday, October 11th, was The International Day of the Girl. The United Nations declared it thus back in 2011 and this year this day just so happened to follow the announcement that was years in the making.

After all she went through at such a young age, all for the basic right to get an education, Malala Yousafzai was awarded as the youngest ever winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. with her advocacy and bravery when speaking up for girls and their right, everywhere around the world, to receive the same educational opportunities as boys, this equality is key for a bright future for both sexes and I have found it a hopeful sign.

I recently found myself growing more and more interested in speaking on gender equality. I often feel like I have a double burden placed upon my back, being both a woman and with a disability.

I guess I used to feel like I couldn’t say anything about my thoughts and feelings on the subject, for fear of sounding like a whining, complaining victim. Oh poor me! Poor her…the poor blind woman!

I feel I am not that far off from being born in a time or a part of the world where I would be less lucky than I currently am and this thought gives me chills. Where would that leave me then? What would my life be like if I had not been alive and brought up at this time in history, in Canada? A blind girl wouldn’t historically or culturally be given all that many opportunities or rights.

I guess it’s only been a coming together of very recent events, first the speech Emma Watson gave at the UN with her “He For She” campaign. And then with Malala’s award. These two aren’t keeping quiet and neither am I for that matter.

Check out the Atlantic article,

Here.

***

I found myself in a fast-food restaurant today with my two-year-old nephew and sister. As my sister got up to dispose of our tray, I remained by the table with my nephew. I held my white cane and he examined it with great interest. He needed to be reminded not to pick it up and let it fly in the air, risking bodily harm to other customers, but then he grabbed my hand and led me carefully out of the restaurant.

Any aggressive little boy behaviours such as playing with a long white stick indoors were instantly switched up for a more intuitive, thoughtful, and sensitive act like helping me out of the restaurant. Just these very gender specific behaviours are valid ones and we can teach both young boys and young girls to be whatever they want to be. That is what we should truly be fighting for, both men and women of the world.

It was the second time he has done this and as I cautiously walked with him to the door, through the entrance, and out and safely crossing the street to the car I felt again a growing awareness in him. Perhaps I am imagining this because I know how smart he is, but he seems to be developing an understanding beyond his years, a thoughtfulness he shows in wanting to help his auntie. This is what I hope, that he receives something many other children don’t, that I can give him an outlook on life through my relationship with him. I will always just have been his aunt first, but his blind aunt with the white cane too.

It’s not about him having to drag me along with him, relieving me of any responsibility for myself as the adult, but that he knows what a white cane is and what it means to hold out a hand and help someone. I see, in him, a growing empathy and kindness that more of the world could stand to learn for themselves, boys and girls from a young age and into adulthood.

I am a big fan of symmetry, more it seems, as I get older. I found this mid-week, Wednesday, Mid-month, October 15th to be highly satisfying. Speaking of equality, for disability, October 15th is International White Cane Safety Day. I want to be taken seriously as a woman with something to offer and as a person, who just so happens to carry a white cane. I hope that campaigns such as Ammas’ and awards such as the one given to Malala and the occasions such as todays’ will make our world a more tolerant place, full of opportunities for us all equally.

***

And finally…

For Ronald McDonald Children’s Charities. Today I remember my memories staying as a patient with my family and, years later, giving back as a volunteer. I celebrate the house that welcomes sick children and their families with open arms, during some of the more difficult moments in life.

I continue to hope for a “Day of Change” all around.

Day in the Museum: Part One, Four Senses

I spent this past Sunday afternoon surrounded by a lot of old things and one incredibly old book. This week I will break up my afternoon at the Stratford Perth Museum into three separate blog posts: today, Wednesday, and Friday.

The Stratford Perth Museum sits on seven acres, its present location, in a big old brick house. It is out of the town of Stratford a ways now, for the first time, when it moved away from the Stratford Festival and the flurry of excitement, to a more peaceful spot. In 2008 they felt they needed more space and made the move and the transition.

I had never heard of this museum, but I suppose I hadn’t really thought about it. I don’t spend as much time in museums as I wish I did. I think most people think of the town of Stratford for the Festival theatre, but there is a rich culture and history in the area. It felt like one however, on entering, but I tend to have my idiosyncrasies with these institutions.

I enter a world of previously owned or used things. I love the history and the mystery of these items I find myself surrounded by, but I am without the ability to appreciate these collections with my eyes. It is my other four senses (excluding taste because it really doesn’t apply here) that I’m left with.

Immediately I realize I probably won’t be able to touch these precious and often times delicate pieces. I assume, rightly from the start, that this Shakespeare folio will not be the exception. The woman who greets us confirms that for me, no doubt spotting the white cane in my hand.

I want to stress that I love history and to imagine where something has been and who may have owned or handled it in the past. I can’t explain my strange discomfort with old things, starting in my childhood and with my fear of pioneer villages on school trips.

I have been to Europe and I swore I wouldn’t miss out on anything truly memorable while there just because I was afraid of…I don’t know what (an experience for another day’s post.)

I do not see as I walk through the museum and these buildings are like libraries, in that there is a sense of hush on the place. That only leaves one more sense: smell.

Smell is such a strange thing to relay to others through words, but it fills me with so much sense memory.

Smell can be nostalgic and it can be distasteful. It can be a distraction for me, totally taking me out of the moment and away from what history and treasures I find myself surrounded by.

Our special exhibit priced tickets give us access to the entire museum and my sister locates things I could actually get a feel for by touching. I spent my time in the Shakespeare exhibit and, unable to feel anything, (I was left with a museum headache) trying to grasp in my mind and imagination, what others were seeing with their eyes.

Festival Treasures: Creating the Wild Kingdom

“The Stratford Perth Museum, in conjunction with the Stratford Festival, presents a special exhibition called Festival Treasures: Creating the Wild Kingdom, showcasing unique pieces from the festival archives.”

It’s here my sister tries to show me the props and masks for view. I feel the strange materials and plastics and she knows not to place my hand on anything made of fur. I have a reactionary reflex alive and well that takes control of my hand, but I tell myself silently to take it easy and not pull away so fast. I’m sure it still shows in my behaviour.

“This fun-filled safari explores inventive ways of bringing birds and beasts to the stage. It will feature costumes, props, design sketches, audiovisual material, documents and photographs to illustrate the process of creating pieces for festival productions of The Birds, Peter Pan, Alice Through the Looking Glass, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and many others.”

I am curious about how these items have all remained in such good conditions for so many decades, through countless performances and I speak to an Archiveist Assistant:

I work in the festival archives. I’ve worked for a long time in the festival but I only recently went to the archives, I was a stage manager before that. Stratford Festival has the largest theatrical archive in the world, devoted to one theatre.

I ask her about how these things have managed to survive for fifty or so years:

Purpose-built facility…climate-controlled atmosphere. Archival friendly tissue paper and acid-free boxes. It’s kept at the right humidity, that’s why it’s so cold in here.

How does this work with keeping all these items from past performances?

We have the advantage of having props and costumes. Most theatrical archives don’t have the room or the money.

We have all the asses heads from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the strawberry handkerchief from Othello, the casket from Merchant of Venice

We recently celebrated the sixty-second anniversary. Back in fifty-three we’re lucky there were people that were far-sighted enough to keep things, especially because they weren’t sure there was going to be a fifty-four season or a fifty-five season, let alone two-thousand-fourteen.
We started in a tent.

How much is kept?

We take two costumes and the main props from all the productions each year.

I ask her specifically about something from Shakespeare’s time period and how that survives:

Bugs, moisture, heat…those are your biggest problems.

For four hundred years it was okay in somebody’s house. In order for it to last that long…biggest thing is moisture and sunlight…just to keep things from fading. That’s why you keep the lights down. It’s quite extraordinary.

So what is one way costumes and props are preserved over the years, in the festival?

For things like sweat and body odour…the best thing is vodka. You spray the costumes with it.

All the blood, sweat, and tears that go into that…all those performances.

This museum was once someone’s home and is now an old house, storing old things. It now houses so much from a past long gone. In Shakespeare’s case, long long gone.

Next time I will write about the reason I went to the museum in the first place: Shakespeare’s First Folio.

Lumos

It has been an emotional month, or a few months actually. I don’t know how I am feeling from moment to moment still. When what I thought my life was going to be suddenly changed I had to pick up the pieces from a broken heart and decide what I would do. This might all sound cliche, but it is true nonetheless.

This is why when I suddenly decided to get a kitten and when I told my family they thought I was nuts, even a bit concerned for me probably. I have been thinking about getting one in the past. We talked about it. So last week when the opportunity suddenly presented itself, I jumped at it.

We were dog people growing up in my household. There was the mysterious stray who would magically appear out of the bushes on our back patio when I was young. It only seemed to like me and my brother and would run away again when other members of the family would come out. We played with it and fed it and I even started bringing it inside. This came to a tragic end when we came home one day to find the door of the bird cage wide open, our bird nowhere to be found, except for some scattered feathers. Oops!

Then there was the stray who showed up a few times when I was in high school. I begged my mom to keep him and I named him Homey, but he didn’t stick around for long.

Finally there was the neighbourhood cat who began sunning itself on the warm stones of our front walk last summer and soon moved on to the comfort of the front porch swing. I began to come out to find it hanging out, every day at around noon and we became fast friends. It never made it into the house and soon the coldest of cold winters would drive it back to whichever nearby house it lived.

There is debate now why I got Lumos and if I truly know of the extra responsibility this will place on my shoulders. Dobby is already a handful and sending him to live with my sister and brother-in-law is no longer an option like in the past. I love them both now and it’s the three of us against the world.

I ask myself why like the others. Is it because I had been drinking at my brother’s open mic the night before and I was still a mess from a hang-over, not thinking clearly? Is it because I am still reeling from loss and rejection, causing me to made a rash decision which I will one day regret? Is it because I fear I will never have children, a family of my own, and someone to love and Dobby and Lumos are my way of having someone to take care of? Or is it that I am one step away from turning into

Crazy Cat Lady

from The Simpsons?

Perhaps it is some of this or none at all. We all have skeletons in the closet, monsters under the bed, and those voices inside our heads. Mine nag at me and taunt me and tell me I am no good and destined to end up alone. I have been using writing to help me cope and perhaps having the two of them to wake up in the morning for, knowing they need me…maybe that is what I need right now. Whatever else is to come I want to be someone who takes chances and experiences life. I know a lot of times I am the introverted writer who writes and reads about other people experiencing all the world has to offer, but I am constantly working on putting myself out there to have the kinds of experiences, in love and life, that will help me write with more clarity and direction.

I was reminded about all the cat hair I would have to clean up and I hear that person’s reminder loud and clear. Sometimes I care and I see how it is important to clean, if I ever want to have guests over. It is hard though, sometimes, to care too much about it. When I go about my day, most times, I don’t see the hair building in corners and all over the floor. It isn’t until I get down on the ground that I notice it. I often go about my day and think there are more important things to worry about. I am often stuck in my own head and unaware of my external environment. I look at the big picture and I now have one of each.

I debated over the name and, predictably, I went with a literary name to match the dog. I decided, in the end, to stick with the Harry Potter theme. I have previously written )on HerHeadache) with such titles as:

The Dark Mark

and

Dementor

I thought it was time I used a term from J. K. Rowling’s novels for something sweet and adorable. Lumos is a spell which is used to produce light with a wizard’s wand. I like to think of my new little kitten as a bright spot of light in some of the darkness I have been experiencing lately and hope, with the love and companionship of both animals, to climb out of some of that darkness and find my way forward.

Mirror Image

“I look in the mirror. Wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face.” – Bruce Springsteen

I wore makeup, for a short time, when I was in my late teens and early twenties. I did it grudgingly and just barely. I asked my sister to help me pick out a basic colour Lipstick, Eyeshadow, and blush. Each time I would apply it, remembering what my sister had told me, I looked for someone sighted to show myself off to before I would dare step out in public, fearing I had made an obvious blunder.

Growing up I never liked to wear brightly coloured makeup on my face on Halloween and I never got my face painted at a carnival. I didn’t like the smell and the feeling of the thick paint on my cheeks. I was a sensitive child, if not overly so. Was it just me being silly or was it something more?

Even when I was older I did not long to wear makeup like the other girls. I would stand by my friend’s locker in the ninth grade, each and every morning while she applied all that makeup before class. I had no interest in following suit. I supposed if the boys didn’t like me for that I would have to make due, or that is what I told myself at the time, but was it about the boys at all or is it only us women who care? The question baffled me as a teenager and still does to this day.

I wore makeup when I would attend a wedding and my sister would apply it for me. I knew better, but I couldn’t help picturing myself as a clown with dark colour covering everywhere and I felt uncomfortable and awkward. My eyes would itch and tear. I just didn’t get it (clowns having always scared me).

I know why women wear it and I too have the urge, sometimes, to be one of them and to do what they do. I know it is permeated in our feminine culture to want to look our best and I want the same. I stopped doing it, in the end, because I couldn’t be bothered. I told myself it was vanity anyway and I didn’t need that, but I understand it still.

I sometimes think it sad that we are so desperate to cover up every blotch, blemish, and freckle. I wish my fellow women did not have to feel like they were less than perfect, but it is the reality we live in in today’s society.

I’ve heard that guys don’t like girls to wear too much makeup, but I do believe all things in moderation can’t possibly be bad. I sometimes wonder how many hours, a woman spends over her lifetime, putting on her makeup. I know there could be other things to do with that time, but peace of mind is a small price to pay I suppose.

It’s hard to not have a clear idea of what you look like. Every day, morning and night, I look into a mirror I see less and less of myself. I begin to forget what my own face looks like, staring back at me still. I know I am in there somewhere, but I feel a disconnect. This makes it easier and harder, all at once, to do the things that most women do to look their best. I can’t ever get a good idea what I might look like and this often causes feelings of doubt in my physical worth as a woman. I am left to my imagination to picture what I look like. Sometimes what we imagine is worse than the truth (the clown in my mind’s eye). I have only my memories and vivid imagination for my daily reassurance.

I love colour and miss it. I love fashion especially and wish I had the money for a huge wardrobe to choose from. I feel my best when I am wearing something I love. This helps me to understand why makeup matters so much to women. I can’t possibly use the word “vanity” without putting that title back onto myself. I care just as much. Self image and body image are so very intertwined. I know there is nothing wrong with the confidence which comes from the things we do to attain it.

Sometimes I work so hard to recall what a bright blue or a striking red look like. I listen to a fashion show and the descriptions of the outfits and I strain to remember what, visually, that would appear as.

Other times my memories of the colours I love are as sharp in recollection as they were when I saw their beauty with my own eyes.

All of this adds up to my stance on fashion and beauty. Do I think we care too much and let it rule our lives in all the wrong ways? Yes. Do I wish we valued a little more of the substantial and a little less of the irrelevant? Yes because I know we all grow old in the end.

Do I want to be just like every other woman and to look my best for myself and for others? Of course I do. I long for all of this.

The image of a blind girl who has no interest in looking presentable is one of Helen Keller as a child, before she was taught decorum. In the film adaptation of her life she is seen with tangled dirty hair and dishevelled clothes. This is an extreme example of course, but I don’t know what most people think of when they think of blind people and all these things.

We care about our hair, nails, skin, and clothes just like everyone else. I could write a whole other post about my hair and I will, but this weekend I wanted to focus on fashion and makeup specifically.

Coming up tomorrow I feature a woman who is doing her part to dispel myths and to help blind women feel better about their appearances and themselves as beautiful women. I will be partnering the interview I did with her about the work she is doing with my view on the subject today. I hope you will check it out.

Double Concert Review: The Music That Soothes My Soul

From Goulding to Legend

A lot can happen in a week and music is the soundtrack to my life, always has been. Whether I am happy or sad, celebrating or trying to take my mind off something, seeing any musician I love in a live setting is a treat. I forever link a song or an artist with something I have experienced. Music is a wonderful thing for that. There is just something about being there in person for a show, with the music right in front of me. It is a feeling indescribable, but the two shows I saw recently deserve the chance.

The first was in a casino. The night began amongst the noise and commotion of the casino floor. With all the slot machines surrounding me, it was definitely an assault on the senses: all the bells and chimes going on and on, all around me.

Ellie Goulding performed after an opener: a DJ which, in my opinion, went on too long. He performed almost longer than the main attraction I paid to see.

Ellie’s second album “Halcyon” was the main reason I wanted to see her live. That album was the theme to my life for more than a year, through some of the most important moments thus far. I could not pass up the opportunity to hear her perform it in person.

I felt her voice and her lyrics and the music flow through me in my seat. Her powerful voice reverberated through the bleachers, at times the whole grandstand moving from every person up on their feet.

One of my main thoughts as I listened, eagerly leaning forward in my seat or sitting back paralyzed in awe, was how I wish I were one of the lucky voices getting to be her back-up singers. I wished I were up there.

She performed for a short hour-and-a-half that seemed to fly by. I stood and swayed along with her haunting melodies. All the racket of the casino and the DJ were left behind and worth the feelings her songs produced in me. I felt her words and her beautiful lyrics burrow through into my core. Her songs have an aching sadness to be found in almost all of them, the perfect songs for a life that’s not always easy. Songs like “Figure Eight” and “Explosion”, some of my very favourites, made me smile from ear to ear, as I didn’t want the night to end. As she encouraged audience participation, I waved my cane up in the air.

I was hoping she would perform her cover of Elton Johns’ “Your Song” and, to my delight, she did not disappoint.

“I hope you don’t mind…I hope you don’t mind, That I put down in words, How wonderful life is, now you’re in the world.”

A performance like that I will never forget, harder on my legs than on my ears. Walking out of the casino after the show I felt like I was on a swaying rocking ship. All the movement and the power of the music coursing through my body caused an unsteadiness and a wobbly lack of stability. I was shaken, moved down deep. I will never forget the performance she put on in that casino, or the person I experienced that moment with.

***

A rather clear difference from one show to the next: next came John Legend.

I had a chance to see him live a few years back. He was the opening act for Sade in Toronto. At the time I wasn’t all that familiar with him or his music and arrived mid performance, not in a hurry to see him when Sade was the real reason I was there.

Jump ahead almost three years and I almost missed him altogether.

I first heard his current hit song “All Of Me”, when he performed it live in studio on the Howard Stern Show. He sang, just him and his piano, and I realized I had missed out last time. When I heard he was coming to a venue close to home I had to make up for my past mistake.

It’s funny how things work out: for good or for bad. I believe in symmetry in life because I look at life that way. I didn’t think I would once more be listening to John Legend live with my sister, but like the first time, here I was again. Life is unpredictable like that and predictable all at once. The person I thought I was meant to see this show with wasn’t the one I was meant to see it with at all in the end.

This time it was a two-hour concert with no break. John was touring with a string quartet: two violins, a viola, and a cello. All that mixed with his superb piano skill and a guitarist and musical arranger made up a beautiful evening.

My only complaint: A few moments during the show I thought I was at a Justin Bieber concert or a boy band of some sort. Directly to my left sat a group of girls who clearly thought Legend to be quite the babe and they didn’t hold back in showing it. The atmosphere of the evening was one of cool jazzy rhythm and soul, which only brought out this group of hooting fans, making them stand out. That coupled with a few of their irritating acts of audience participation was enough to make me want to push somebody off the balcony. I understand the urge to tap your toe along with the music, but their decision to snap their fingers loudly along song after song caused me to want to bend a few of their fingers back, if it would allow me to enjoy the show in peace. Thankfully my ever-trusty sister knew to pat me on the arm in an attempt to calm me down and remind me to relax and not let a few inconsiderate girls ruin my evening.

The second song he performed live on Howard Stern was a recent cover of “Dancing In The Dark” he had been requested to perform for a Bruce Springsteen tribute:

“I check my look in the mirror, Wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9eENOjCLOw

I am even going to go so far as to say that, from the first time I heard him sing his version, I preferred it to the original. He has taken a classic and made it his own, singing slowly and hauntingly sad. I felt so much, as I listened to him sing and play the piano as to make Bruce proud.

John Legend’s music is infused with passion and heat. His lyrics often revolve around themes of love and romance. This, in itself, was enough to have kept me away at a time when those were the last things I wanted to be reminded of.

As I sat and let his soft, warm voice soak in, I let his beautiful tone and words sooth my weary soul. While others were, no doubt, enjoying their date nights and Legend’s atmosphere of sweet romance, )the one I was supposed to have), I began to feel the weight of the previous few days be lifted off my shoulders with every note.

The violins, viola, and cello were achingly and heartbreakingly beautiful. His piano skills were better than I remembered. The guitar rounded out the performance, no need for percussion at all.

Due to recent events, very recent events, I hesitated and almost missed the performance of a lifetime. An evening that I thought would only serve to pour salt in newly torn wounds turned out to be cathartic and the perfect way to move forward. The hit love song I went to see him perform live took on a whole new meaning. I couldn’t escape it and I am sure glad I didn’t try.