by Diane | Apr 19, 2013 | It's All About Me
So I decided I’d write some postcard stories – micro pieces of fiction or creative non-fiction inspired by a photo – as part of my effort to move away from this having turned into My Poor Dead Brother Blog lately. And this is the first one I came up with. I promise it’s a moment in time and not a full account of where my head’s at.
In the nightmares he’s still alive, and though that should be comforting, welcome, there is always a dark side. He’s alive but didn’t want me to know, hiding in the basement (neither one of us had a basement, but that’s dreams for you), living with his girlfriend in peace. Or he’s alive and I have to watch him die a gruesome death, another, different one, falling off a cliff to the rocks below, and there’s no phone service to call for help, and my clumsy fingers can’t manage to dial (which shouldn’t matter anyway since there’s no phone service, but that’s dreams for you). There was one earlier one, not a nightmare but a long boring nothing of a dream except we were on his couch watching movies like we did, and we were talking like only we could, and he made me a brown cow – or is it a white russian? – like he did for his girlfriend, because he had the ingredients and I liked them too but never thought to have them, except with him. But there’s always a dark side: I woke up and I can’t bring him back except in nightmares.
by Diane | Feb 10, 2013 | Canadian TV, It's All About Me
I meant to write about how Vancouver TV writers and wannabes should come to the Writers Talking TV event I’m moderating with creator/showrunner Simon Barry of Continuum on Tuesday, but it sold out quickly (well, free-ed out, since there’s no charge). That’s a testament to the popularity of the show specifically and sci-fi generally, and the fact that it’s a small venue — the better for writers to get an intimate discussion about the series origins, the rules of the world he’s created and how those rules play out in the Continuum writers room and on the page.
Because people are people and Vancouverites are Vancouverites, there will be inevitable no-shows so there also will be a rush line. If you want to join, the event is on Tuesday, February 12 at 7 pm in Room 1800 of SFU’s Harbour Centre in downtown Vancouver.
The event it about Continuum, not me – my job is to get Simon to do all the talking. But looking forward to moderating a filled-to-capacity event without losing sleep for ages beforehand is one of those moments of personal reflection of how far I’ve come from younger, shyer, anxious-er Diane, from the young girl who took the bus several stops too far to avoid asking her seatmate to move, and the high school student whose English teacher jokingly recommended taking a muscle relaxant before presentations and encouraged me not to jump out of a window during oral examinations.
I’m not saying I won’t be nervous on the day — I’m not dead inside — but I’m more able to see that the event isn’t about me, that I care far more about my own stumbles than anyone else, and that years of putting myself in positions where I had to speak up have led to being slightly more comfortable speaking up, and more able to hide my anxiety.
This isn’t a new epiphany – I wrote about it more extensively several years ago – but I’m constantly amazed at the proof that slowly, surely, I can become more like the person I want to be, more like the person I feel is underneath the me that developed out of circumstance.
There have been people in my life who have used analysis and criticism of my character to try to encourage me to be more like the person they want me to be, and it’s only fairly recently that I’ve had the epiphany that I define friendship as those who accept me and encourage me on the path of being even more me. And yet again, I find myself grateful to have so many people in my life who do, and so many opportunities to explore along the path.
And holy cow did this get sappy from the beginning of talking about the event, but it’s the small adventures in my life right now that make me grateful that this is my life.
by Diane | Jan 20, 2013 | It's All About Me
A few years ago I gave a coworker’s wife a ride to her hotel and we got to talking about the differences between her native Czechoslovakia — she left back when it was still Czechoslovakia — and Canada. About how life was more difficult there. She wasn’t talking about the grander scope of opportunity or political strife, but the minutia of daily life: groceries, transportation, working utilities.
It reminded me of living in Mexico City where my own language and cultural differences compounded the issues of bureaucracy, corruption, crime and urban sprawl.
And the boy in my junior high from Korea — I’m embarrassed to admit even then I probably didn’t know whether it was North or South, and now I doubt my memory that it was even a Korea — who had trouble fitting in and making friends with the “marshmallows,” as he called us. Growing up in Canada made us soft (and, for some of us, white. Pasty white).
It’s Psych 101, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in action: when your attention is on basic survival, you have less time to think about whether your favourite show is being cancelled … or whether your life has meaning.
I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately but that doesn’t translate to writing here. I don’t want this to turn into the My Poor Dead Brother blog but any significant thoughts in my head revolve around him for now, from the trivial fact I’m rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation on Netflix (guess who I watched the original with, and swapped thoughts on the reboot?) to the meaning of life thoughts swirling in my brain.
Grief has a tendency to bring us down to that basic survival instinct. Get out of bed, take a shower, eat something, go to work. In time it gets a little easier, and the rest of normal life is slowly layered back into the daily routine. There are good days and bad, and I’m still more negative than usual, angry more than usual. But two things have proven more therapeutic than chocolate and wine: focusing on nature and survival.
I’ve been spending some weekends these past two months in a float house on Quadra Island and it’s the perfect remedy for my tendency to avoid thinking things I don’t want to think about. The isolation, surrounded by little more than water and forest, means all I have is my thoughts — and an iPad to write them down (and watch Netflix on).
When I was in Edmonton with Steve this summer, knowing these were our last weeks together and dealing with issues bigger than my brain could process, when there was nothing anyone could do or say to help, nothing I could do or say, a friend helped with these words: “Go for a long walk. Admire the water and trees. They’re big. And sometimes more meaningful than pain here…”.
I went for a lot of walks. It didn’t take away the pain but it did help me see outside it.
And now, when life is back to the new normal, and I’m staying on a house on the water on a remote-ish island, I still have no answers to anything. But standing in a rain forest watching the sun set beyond the distant mountains across the almost-ocean clarifies the swirling thoughts about life, legacy, and getting eaten by cats; and writing them down captures them for examination – whether that’s “pfft what a load of nonsense Diane” or “yeah, that makes sense.”
Even more helpful is having most things reduced to basic survival. Cold? Light a fire. Out of firewood? Chop some more (from the pile — I’m not at the chopping trees stage yet). Want tea? Refill the propane tanks. Have to use the toilet? Hold your nose and research what you’ve done wrong with the compost toilet. Oh, and watch your step as you come and go or you’ll step off the dock and no amount of fire-building will take away that chill for days.
The lesson I’ve taken away from the last couple of months is that sometimes survival is all we need to expect of ourselves. The rest is out there waiting when we’re ready. And the best therapy can be to feel small amid the trees and mountains and stars, a part of something bigger than ourselves whether we agonize over what it all means or not.
Though the psychic benefit of warmth and a flush toilet shouldn’t be underestimated either.
by Diane | Oct 7, 2012 | It's All About Me
It’s Canadian Thanksgiving. A couple weeks after the death of my brother, a couple days after his memorial, and the point at which I had decided to make myself resume a normal life (normal for me, anyway). I feel especially thankful today that even now I feel an enormous amount of gratitude. Here’s three categories that encompass so much:
Friends and Family
I couldn’t have made it through the last few months with my sanity (relatively) intact without the support of everyone around me. There were the few who I heard from nearly daily, allowing me to vent, be comforted, be distracted, or feel some normalcy. The many who let me know they were there for whatever I needed, or offered specific practical help, but didn’t overwhelm me with demands on my time and attention. The friends and family who gave me the means to stay in Edmonton, including catsitters and financial helpers. The boss who let me drop in and out so I didn’t have to sell kidneys to survive but could prioritize what I needed to in the moment. The people I hadn’t heard from in years or decades, or who I mainly — or only — know virtually who offered moral support. My mother, who was stronger than anyone should be expected to be.
I’m grateful for every one, but I have to tell the story of my oldest friend Teresa.
It started with an inelegant text out of the blue, from me in Vancouver to her in a distant suburb of Edmonton:
Hey – I probably shouldn’t do this in text but I can’t talk about it without bawling yet so … Steve has cancer, spread to his lungs, admitted to hospital and his phone is at 4%. I’m trying to order him a charger and have it delivered by cab to Misericordia today but am stymied by no one wanting to take a credit card over the phone. If I gave you details and sent you the $ electronically is there a possibility you could get to a Telus/Rogers/etc store and buy one and have it sent by cab there? I know it’s a huge favour and I can ask around if it won’t work for you …
Her instant reply:
Yes I can… I’ll go drop it off actually as I have to drive into the city to get one. On my way already.
And that, after not having seen my brother for maybe 15 years, started a journey that would see her be an emotional and practical support for him and for me. By dropping off the charger she was there when the doctor told him plainly but not unkindly that they could not treat for a cure but for comfort, and other later, terrible landmarks in his struggle. Instead of feeling like this virtual stranger was intruding on some of his most private moments, he was grateful for her calm, kind presence. She was there when he needed rides to appointments and radiation treatments and I was in London. She was there when he needed a laugh, making him a “rum cake for a liquid diet” that consisted of a flask with a ribbon and balloon. He asked for her during his last days, and she was there to hold his hand.
She was there for me when I was away and needed for my own sake to consider her my surrogate. She was there when I needed a place to stay and an ear to confide my fears and frustrations. She was there at the memorial when I needed to borrow her strength. She is still there for me.
Also, I’m pretty sure I never paid her back for that phone charger. I owe her. For so much.
Humour and an appreciation of the surreal
Steve and I shared a love of black humour to get through some difficult situations. While he lost that at times during the ups and many, many downs of the last few months, our last emotional words to each other started with him grasping my hand and apologizing for being a pain in the ass, at which we both laughed. So I think he’d find it pretty funny that he continued to be a pain in the ass just after his death.
While I left to tell our mother that he’d taken his last breath, Steve’s girlfriend, who had taken him in and cared for him so he could die at home, dealt with the logistics of the pronouncement and having the funeral home take him. Later, she texted me to ask me to go to the funeral home to do the paperwork. When I got to the place she specified and mentioned his name, I was greeted by blank stares. “No, he’s not here.”
My eloquent reply was along the lines of: “Um. What?”
We established that she had indeed phoned them, but only for information and not to pick him up. I scrolled through texts where she’d mentioned their name more than once as the place that had picked him up, confused and not able to process anything beyond “um, what?” Knowing she was distraught and needed someone else to take care of things at that moment, I didn’t want to bother her unless I had to. As I stood in their lobby and tried to get my brain to restart, the funeral home workers suggested she may have called another funeral home by accident.
So I phoned around, and waited for a positive callback, and while I was doing that … I was getting texts from the dead brother whose body I was searching for.
The girlfriend’s phone battery had died so she explained she was using his phone — but it was all so surreal, and I could imagine myself telling him the whole story and us having a good laugh about it. So I couldn’t help but laugh, hours after I felt like I’d never laugh again.
I credit him with instilling some of that sense of humour in me, and I’m grateful for it now more than ever.
My brother
I wrote about what he meant to me, and I can think about that as the huge loss it is. Or I can take comfort in what I gained — 42 years of the love we shared, the memories I have, and the legacy he left me. And right now, that’s what I’m feeling this holiday weekend, his memorial weekend: lucky to have had him in my life.
by Diane | Sep 26, 2012 | It's All About Me
This was going to be the summer I had back-to-back adventures, working in London for the Olympics and vacationing in Iceland. In addition to the former and instead of the latter, this was the summer I watched my brother Steve die, in the last couple of weeks helping take care of him so he could die at home as he and his girlfriend wanted. Diagnosed with metastasized esophageal cancer at the end of June, he died on the last day of summer.
A stark description of our childhood sounds too Dickensian to feel right to me — father died young, mother with schizophrenia, moved from relative to relative. Those obscure the other details that we were always loved, always had someone to take us in, always had each other.
He was — he is — the most important person in the world to me. The only one who’s been there always. Even as kids, maybe I didn’t know I’d end up happily paying long distance charges to talk to him and voluntarily going on vacation with him, but he was my only stability in a scary world. All my life he helped give me the confidence to go out in that world and be who I am, because I knew there was someone who knew me better than anyone, who loved me anyway, who was proud of me.
He helped me appreciate music, science, scifi, computers, and “dumb comedies” that weren’t as dumb as I’d snottily dismissed them. There’s a reason I’m drawn to people with smart, sarcastic and slightly goofy senses of humour. And why I never quite believe them when they tell me tall tales.
We share 50% of our DNA, but that’s the least of it. He will always be an important part of who I am.
by Diane | Mar 21, 2012 | It's All About Me
I had to buy a dress for my uncle’s wedding at the end of the month. (And by “had to” I mean “wanted to,” of course, but our inability to distinguish wants from needs is a whole other post.) I made the choice of where to shop based on two considerations:
- Nice but not outrageously expensive clothing;
- Locally made.
That first consideration is always the case, but the second isn’t usually.
At the risk of having my girl card revoked, I hate shopping. I especially hate shopping for clothes and shoes. I would like magic elves to make a fabulous wardrobe appear in my closet and replenish it regularly. I guess a personal shopper would do.
So when I want new clothes I wait until I’m in a patient mood (and wait, and wait) and dash in to one of the stores I know carries clothing I generally like at a decent price and get out of there as fast as I can with whatever fits. Tim Gunn would not want to be my friend. That’s ok with me.
But my new office is in this great neighbourhood with local boutiques I pass by every day, including one I realized has not-too-expensive clothes I love that are casual enough for everyday but nice enough for work (or an afternoon later-in-life wedding), created by their resident designer. I need some new work clothes, and I liked the idea of shopping locally and paying a little more than I normally would for a few pieces that would make me feel happier about my appearance than some of my current “it seemed like a good idea at the time” clothing. And, bonus, no sweatshop labour.
I think.
[pullquote]If I blog or Tweet or Facebook or even expend more than a few words in real life about a cause, I want it to be a cause I believe in enough to take action. Otherwise it’s just more noise.[/pullquote]I try to live an ethical life, but you need a PhD in consumerism to figure out the complexities of most buying choices. Take this Made in Canada skirt I’m wearing today, from that locally owned store (yes, I went in for a dress for the wedding and came out with two dresses and two skirts. Come on, I’m still a woman). Does that mean the fabrics were made in Canada, or just the garment? What about the dyes? Or the threads, zipper and buttons?
I’m pretty sure it means it was just assembled in Canada, but I don’t know. I don’t even know how I could know. And if I tried to find out before I bought, I would never buy anything ever, because my life isn’t organized like that and my decision-making abilities are paralyzed when I have more than two options on a menu.
So I go through life making an approximation of an ethical choice — at least it was somewhat made in Canada! — and, above all, I choose to care about a finite number of causes in the world and focus real energy on them.
I chose a career primarily in non-profit and health care. I’ve given to Doctors Without Borders monthly for going on 15 years now. I’ve provided microloans through Kiva and support other charities. I’m becoming a Big Sister. I organized an auction to benefit Kids Help Phone. I don’t say that to say I’m a great person — any posts I could write about how not-great I am would overcompensate for my altruistic side — but if I blog or Tweet or Facebook or even expend more than a few words in real life about a cause, I want it to be a cause I believe in enough to take action. Otherwise it’s just more noise.
Saying we’re “promoting awareness” when we ourselves can’t be bothered to act on that awareness is the definition of slacktivism. We don’t deserve a pat on the back for doing nothing meaningful. As sarcasm kings Someecards.com would put it: “When you care enough to hit send.”
Buying locally and advocating cruelty-free labour? I can’t promote those causes without being a hypocrite. My closet has some Made in Bangladesh labels. I own a smartphone and an iPad, a flat screen TV and a computer. I have no idea where most of my furniture came from. I eat meat and can’t stop eating high-carbon-footprint raspberries and cherries out of season. I own a fuel-efficient car, but it’s still a car. I have no idea what materials were used to build my condo, or what was done to the land it was built on. And on and on.
I’ve unfollowed people on Twitter who hector their followers to pursue a vegan lifestyle, not because I don’t think there’s value to veganism but because it’s not the right choice for everyone, and it’s one choice of the plethora we’re confronted with all the time. Tell me about your experiences and decision making, sure, but don’t imply I’m unethical for not making the same choice.
Most of us muddle through life trying to do as little harm as possible, knowing that the mere act of existence, especially existence in an urban, industrialized, consumerist environment, makes us all guilty of something. All that’s left is for us to choose what our individual somethings won’t be.
I’ll continue to shop at this local boutique when I can afford it, but to be honest? The choice comes down to how much I love this skirt I’m wearing more than where it was made.
