I think we’ve overcome the crashy mccrashitude (note the hidden word!) of the last two days (at least for now), so posting shall resume in earnest in the morning.
Thanks for your patience, everyone. And if you like, just say hello.
I like hellos.
And stars, though they’re hiding for now. Still lots of sky, though.
Well, sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren’t. But mostly — they are. And, of course, there are far, far more than ten. But that’s as high as I want to count tonight.
10. Letting go of something you really, really thought you wanted.
Sometimes you really do want it…it’s not just that you thought you did. But sometimes you need to let go of it, and that’s hard. Today, I saw a girl — a pretty girl, well-dressed, kind-faced — crying as she walked. You know the kind of crying: the “I’m not really crying” crying, where you wipe each tear aggressively, and blink lots, and pretend everything is fine. That’s how I cry when I have to give something up. I hate giving things up. Ideas, dreams, people — anything.
9. Loving someone who doesn’t love you back.
Oy. Yeah. Need I say more? It’s not even necessarily that they’re unkind about it — in fact, it would be easier if they would just tell you off, or say something cruel, or ignore you, or give you the boot. But more often than not, they don’t even know. You do, though. It’s rough.
8. Trusting when your trust has been broken.
It’s not even reasonable, usually, to keep trusting people who break your trust. But you have to, sometimes, because everyone makes mistakes and breaks promises on occasion. Not even necessarily the big promises, either. Even little ones. It really goes against logic and evidence to reinvest in them. It always feels foolish until you’ve healed.
7. Showing emotion in front of ‘certain’ people.
Crying at work? Yep. That never feels okay, unless you’re an actor. Crying when you’ve hurt yourself in a silly way? Yep. Crying over nothing at all, spontaneously? Oh, yes. It’s not easy when it happens in front of people that you’d like to impress, or people that you’d wish only to see your strength and not your weaknesses. But it can happen, and when it does, you have to find a way not to beat yourself up about it, because then you really can’t stop blubbering.
6. Admitting you’re wrong.
This one is easy for me, most of the time. I mean, I’m wrong fairly often. But when my pride is on the line? Oh, gosh. No way. I’d rather argue bad points than give in, on occasion. Usually when I feel compelled to argue, then I truly know I’m really in error. When I’m right, I’m usually just content to smile and know that that’s the case. Usually.
5. Trusting knowledge over sensation.
Ah! This is one of my worst, since I’m horrendously emotional and impractical at the worst possible points. Sometimes I feel something so incredibly strongly, it seems impossible to let it go. I’ll put so much stock in the state of my heart that I’ll barely be able to see around it to how things actually are. But. upon occasion, the facts are key, and you have to give them the victory, even when your gut says no. Nearly impossible, really.
4. Saying goodbye.
Does this need any elaboration?
3. Seeing yourself as others see you.
Now, with this, you can err too far in the wrong direction, for sure. You can lose track of yourself by only looking at who you are through others’ eyes. But sometimes you can’t see your forest for your trees, so someone else has to do the surveying. And usually, you don’t want them to tell you what they see — if it was that great, you’d have seen it that way yourself all along, anyhow.
2. Changing.
Hell, for some of us, replacing the toilet tissue roll seems like too much of a hassle, let alone our lives.
1.Falling in love.
It’s often much harder to hang on than to let go. I can’t always get the hang of letting my heart do what it will. Even when it feels amazing, it’s a loss of control on a grand scale.
Funny how half of these contradict one another, mmm?
No wonder we’re so confused most of the time.
In the space of a day, I pass hundreds of people, and it would appear that there is no set of standards that truly governs how we look or behave as a society. For every dapper guy in a suit or young woman adorned in the latest fashions, there is a harried soul with twenty year-old shoes and a coat that is too warm for the weather.
I see arguments, negotiations, laughter, adoration, frustration, numbness and passion. If you counted every freckle on my nose, my shoulders, and my arms, you wouldn’t even come close to the number of things I see and feel and notice in a day.
Today, I saw a lot of unhappy people living out annoyances and sadness and confusion in loud and quiet ways. Why were you all out today? Why did I see you?
A couple, snarling at one another on a corner.
A mentally ill man yelling at someone who wouldn’t give him change.
An old woman leaning on her walker, catching her breath with a grimace.
A round girl lagging just behind her lithe friends, eyes trained on the ground until they told her to hurry up.
A man taking small sips of his coffee, steeling his face not to show what was plainly evident in his eyes.
A young Korean woman being told to “learn the language of the f***** country you’re in!” by someone she asked for directions.
A little boy watching his mom try and explain that she didn’t have the money for the food she ordered.
You know what’s hard for me? Not letting it all make my heart break to the point where I cease to be of use. Not letting my soul cave to cynicism. Not letting the world tell me that I can’t do a damn thing to change it all.
You know what else is hard for me?
Figuring out where to start.
But you know — I figure I’m a bit of the way there if I see all these people, and don’t look away.
It has been said that most people live lives of quiet desperation.
So in my desperation, I shall be noisy.
Because that, heaven knows, isn’t hard for me at all.
So.
300 posts since June 8, 2006.
Woo!
Sadly, we celebrated (and continue to, on and off) with spectacular downtime last night, this morning, and into the afternoon.
Which is making me really bajiggity. Does it make you bajiggity?
Still. 300 posts. Thanks for stopping by.
When you are a child, rain is either magic or tragic.
You’re marveling at the amount of water the sky can hold, or you’re wondering in the window when it will stop.
I remember doing both. On the same day, sometimes.
Usually the rain would wait until the evening to let up, which would squelch plans with friends. Then there would be no time to do anything before dinner and homework and baths and tv and bed.
But then you’d see your parents standing out in the front yard, marveling at some cloud-parting, rainbow-laden, fire-and-violets-and-cotton-candy sunset. Holding hands. Taking pictures. Faces lit up by a giant, fuzzy-peach sun.
And this would make you smile, though you would be too young to say why.
***
When you live on the Prairies, most showers are accompanied by the dramatic spectacle of thunder and lightning. Here, on the Coast, rain is a small-theatre production with no budget for special effects.
But the scripts are ever so much better.
***
When I worked at the camp on the island, there would be a few points every summer where the water tanks would run nearly dry, and shower privileges would be cut off while they waited for the well to catch up.
For kids, this is the final penny that fills up the piggy bank.
Junk food squirreled away in your sleeping bag? Check.
Not having to eat vegetables because no one notices you didn’t take any because your counselor had to leave the table to stop Joey from throwing bits of his bread to the squirrels by the window? Check.
Playing games and running around until you feel like you’re going to throw up? Check.
Falling off your board and almost-but-not-quite losing your shorts in the wake behind the boat? Check.
Being dirty all the time? Check. And cool.
When you’re the teenager in charge of these monkeys? Oh, no.
Try filling a box with filthy socks and damp bathing suits and half-eaten bags of sour cream and onion chips, and then put the lid on said box. Leave it for a week. Open it again.
How does that smell?
Now try it with a cabin.
I was 16 and boy-crazy and I loved my showers with Dewberry Shower Gel from the Body Shop. I loved being at camp just as much, mind you, but I liked it when the two things intersected, because what’s better than smelling good around boys on an island?
Take away the showers, and it becomes a less savoury proposition.
Add ten exceptionally smelly second-grade girls, and it becomes a much less savoury proposition.
Then add rain.
I can remember the exact moment I’d run out of things we could do in the cabin. Activities were shut down because of an apparent monsoon outside. Or at least they were for my girls, who had chosen rock climbing. As much as I enjoyed the idea of tying ropes around them and binding them to a slippery, jagged cliff face, I was bound by my employment contract and fledgling maternal instinct to come up with ways to entertain them indoors.
And Oh. My. Sweet. Nasal. Passages.
They stunk.
Then it hit me like the snap of a wet towel on the dock (wielded by Greg, the veryveryvery attractive lifeguard. Which means you cannot cry. Even if it leaves a red mark that lasts for nine days.)
I ordered them off their bunks and into their equally-smelly bathing suits. I made them put on their flip flops.
I grabbed the Dewberry gel and my shampoo from the shower.
As we trotted out into the middle of the back field, the girls looked confused, cautiously happy and slightly fearful, as though I could be leading them to a table full of banana splits OR a firing squad. They just didn’t know.
What they did know is that they were soaked.
And then I instructed them to put out their hands.
Into each hand, I poured a bit of Dewberry.
And then I ordered them to wash.
After a moment of silence, they began to giggle and lather the gel in their hands, aided by the fierce flow from above.
“Faces!” I yelled.
“Armpits!” I yelled.
And then we danced around wildly while the rain rinsed us clean.
I squirted shampoo onto their palms. This was greeted less enthusiastically.
“My mom takes forever to rinse the shampoo out of my hair, ” Brianna said. And I could see why. Five days worth of camp life in her locks had turned her into the spitting image of Cousin It.
But I instructed them to lather up, no questions. And they did, making mohawks and curlicues and ice cream cone-shaped buns on top of their heads.
Then we proceeded to the corner of the cabin roof, where a steady stream of cool water rushed from the eavestrough above. One by one, they stood squealing beneath the makeshift tap until I’d worked all the suds off their heads. As soon as I was done, I would tell each girl to rush inside, towel off immediately and get into their sweatsuits.
I built a blaze in the little stove fireplace and crowded them around it like multicoloured slugs in their sleeping bags. Then I spritzed their heads with Aussie Leave-In and combed out their tangles while they perched in my lap, giddy and sleepy all at once.
I don’t know how much cleaner they ended up, really.
But I do know that one of them came up to me in a restaurant in Vancouver — 12 years later — and told me it was one of the best things she’d ever done.
***
The best first date I ever had, we walked the sea wall in the pouring rain and got horribly, horribly soaked. The worst first date I ever had, we did the same thing.
Coincidence?
Nah. Lightning never strikes the same place twice.
***
Which isn’t true, by the way.
And I know a dog with a limp who can verify.
(And no. You can’t say “neither!” or “both!” or “depends!”)
California or Florida?
Bed early or bed late?
20’s bungalow or brand-new loft?
Flowers or chocolates?
Sarcasm or sincerity?
Dinner party or dinner out?
Orange juice or grapefruit juice?
Tony Bennett or Frank Sinatra?
Phone call with your mother or phone call with tech support?
Sunrise or sunset?
Sushi or pad thai?
Clive Owen or Zach Braff?
Pearl Jam or Nirvana?
Gum or mints?
Pajamas… or not?
Fly or drive?
Record an album or write a book?
Marinara or alfredo?
Dave Chappelle or Will Farrell?
Ask on the date, or get asked?
Fish or chicken?
Fries or salad?
Roller coaster or bumper cars?
Beautiful or brilliant?
Bach or Mozart?
Quiet or loud?
Dance or sit it out?
Ketchup or mustard?
Stars or sunlight?
Digital or analog?
Jeans or… anything else?
Hug or handshake?
Love at first sight, or slow burn with a friend?
It’s raining.
I bought closed-toe shoes.
One of these things never happens in Vancouver in the fall.
Can you guess which one?
Today I’m venturing southward with my parents, giant coffee in hand, and newly renewed cold threatening them from the backseat.
My dad and I will spell off our iPods on the stereo, we will laugh, I will snooze, and then we will do some shopping, because I own exactly two shirts and one pair of pants. And a skirt. With a hole.
I’m not going nuts, I promise. Just trying to appear slightly more elegant… and warm.
By the way — WINE GUMS. They’re just like jujubes, only slightly more firm, and less sweet. They have a fruity flavour, and don’t actually taste much like wine at all. They are, however, wine-coloured, like a nice burgundy, or a port, or a claret. (Thank you to my mom for help on this description.)
Do you say soda, or pop?
Do you say bathroom, or washroom?
Do you say grocery sack, or grocery bag?
Do you say sneakers or tennis shoes?
You Americans? Freaky.
I just went out and bought the following for my department:
Peanut Butter M&Ms
Peanut M&Ms
Chocolate M&Ms
Sour Skittles
Sour Wine Gums
Regular Wine Gums
SweetTarts
And then I poured them all out on the absent Rob’s desk, and let them at it. Everyone’s been pretty giddy and agitated ever since. It’s kind of awesome to watch the sugar-related breakdown of sanity.
Almost as awesome as trying to type when you’re trembling slightly and giggling to yourself.
Unhealthy? Perhaps.
Fun? YES.
What kind of candy do you love? What indulgences can’t you do without?
I’m more of a salt person than a sugar person. In fact, most of the time? I can take or leave anything sweet besides fruit. But some days, sometimes, you just gotta let it ride.
And now, I will attempt to stop hovering in midair.
