Erin's Journals

Well now – it appears I’m not the only person who was affected by that young woman off to work in BC Conservation (or hoping to be) and who was the subject of yesterday’s journal.
 
There were a great number of comments on my Facebook page that were illuminating and thought-provoking, including one from a woman whose family was helped to survive over the generations thanks to the seal hunt. Just as was the case when I sat down with this young woman, I was exposed to ideas and perspectives I hadn’t considered – and that is always a good thing. A mind is like an umbrella: it only works when it’s open, right?
 
Of course, there was one person who, seeing the Ellen D meme on the FB post, didn’t bother to read the journal and just said if I’m trying to make people become vegan, to “mind your own biz.” Ah, Facebook. Where uninformed opinions go to fester. But the other 98% were well thought-out and, whether or not I agreed with them, intelligently and thoughtfully posited. So, thank you.
 
You got some good chuckles out of my toilet seat humour and some reminded us that the LID has to be down before flushing, as particulate flies several feet when the toilet is flushed. I guess that’s of special concern if your toothbrush is nearby (with lots of other things to take into consideration, too). So thank you for that reminder. I’m sure Oprah and Dr. Oz had that conversation and discussed those warnings, but that was a long time ago and old habits die hard and take a lot of effort to replace.
 
This week you may have read of the passing of a well-known Canadian writer. But before I knew anything of his awards, his Order of Canada and his many fans and accolades, I knew Wayson Choy as a friend. And we came to call each other that, thanks to a CHFI listener.
 
Betty Thiessen, who passed a few years ago, had a gift of gently elbowing her way into and around life. As an avid listener (who wrote when she hated hearing “Walking on Sunshine”) Betty was persistent in her correspondence with me and eventually we became friends outside of the radio world. And so it was that she introduced me to her friend and mentor, whom she’d met when he taught a college writing course. This was Wayson Choy.
 

 
A gentler, kinder man I have never met. He had a softness and a sparkle to his eyes that made every person feel the same, I’m sure. Thanks to Betty, I was introduced to his tale of growing up in the 1930s and 40s in Vancouver’s Chinatown (told from the perspective of three first generation Chinese-Canadians) and was as enthralled by The Jade Peony as many others.
 
But long before I considered writing a book, Wayson encouraged me to do so and promised to introduce me to his agent and publisher. (Fate had me take many other paths.) He believed in me long before I did, and many others who knew Wayson said exactly the same thing of his gentle support. How lucky were his hundreds of writing students over his 25-plus years of teaching at Humber College!
 
He called me “dear heart” when we would meet and would say it with such grace and love; he adored Lauren and – by extension – her dad and her surrogate grandmother, Helen Moase. I cherish the memories of dinners at the Pearl Court, where we would take a round table and Wayson would do the ordering, from the lobster on down. As the staff who seemed like family took our order, Wayson was like the king of the banquet, just the small table of us, and oh, how we feasted!
 
“Feast” is how I would describe my soul in Wayson’s presence. His kindness and sympathy when we lost the girl he had come to know were like a balm to us. When I told him I had been approached to write our story, he generously offered to write an endorsement of my book, but I could tell that it would be a strain on him, and out of respect for his time and health, I didn’t send a manuscript for him to read because I knew that he would.
 
80-year-old Wayson had suffered heart attacks in the past (his book Not Yet: A Memoir of Living and Almost Dying is an engaging account of his illness, treatment at St. Michael’s and the ghosts of which he dreamed and hallucinated – ghosts that had visited Wayson in waking hours his entire life).
 
Just days after his birthday, a fatal attack stilled that warm, generous heart. I hope that, where he is, he dances with spirits, writes with Betty and feasts on the finest and most delectable items on the menu. He was a deeply good man and I am glad that I loved him before I had read his work; I was a friend who became a fan. You can read more about Wayson here.
 
Have a gentle weekend and I’ll return here Monday.
 

Have you ever met or had a conversation with someone – in person or online – who absolutely shifted the way you thought about something? I did, and it happened in the most unlikely way. The discussion wasn’t politics or religion or any of the “heavy” topics of which we tend (or used to tend) to stay clear of in polite conversation. The topic was hunting. And here’s how it came up:
 
As I mentioned to you yesterday, my friend Nancy and I volunteered, along with maybe a dozen others, to do exit interviews with students about to finish their high school education. As we sat across from these bright and shiny young people, some going on to college, some heading to jobs to earn money to further their education and others just planning on working until…whatever…I was enlightened, inspired, encouraged and, in one case, haunted.
 
She came in and sat down on the hard chair opposite Nancy and me in that bright school gym with an air of confidence you would expect to see from someone ten years her senior.
 
Her hair tied up, she wore earrings and just a hint of makeup and remarked almost as soon as we met that we wouldn’t believe what she “really” looks like. (Okay, I thought, that’s one hell of an opening line for a “job” interview, which is what we were simulating on that Tuesday morning). She wore a shimmery satin sleeveless blouse and looked to all the world like a receptionist or a store clerk. And then she told us she rarely comes to school and has completed most of her courses online. But she had to come in for this. 
 
Our conversation blew wide open from there. She’s an avid hunter and learned it from her dad and her grandfather (until the elder family member became a vegan). She hunts in the rugged BC interior and she listed off all of the animals she’s killed, dressed and eventually eaten. She hates beef because it tastes “watered down” and enjoys venison, moose…and on…. 
 
I think she may have lost me at venison.
 
Keep in mind, I’m the girl who whispers like she’s seen a vision of the Virgin Mary almost every time a deer ventures into our backyard. Last week, one was lying down below our kitchen window, its chin on its front hooves. I could have watched it resting all day. There’s another that limps and one I think is expecting. These neighbourhood deer are the most blessed and welcome guests in our lives (although they are the bane of gardeners everywhere in horticulture-crazy Victoria). I get that, but I just adore them.
 
And here’s this young woman whose passion is killing them. She was telling us that she wants to work for BC Conservation to stop poachers. She went on to tell us that she also believes that the government stopping the grizzly bear hunt was a huge mistake, as they’re proliferating and are getting more fearless by the day. (She agreed that trophy hunters are the worst, but that hunters who are helping keep the count down or who eat bear meat are to be encouraged.)
 
She was so completely sure about what she was saying, with the security and laser focus on the future that only a young person on a mission can have, that I was left shaken by the power of her confidence. Was I wrong about my feelings surrounding hunting my beloved deer? And is that why I dreamt that night of eating bear meat?
 
Then we asked her what her second choice would be if she wasn’t accepted into following what she considered her calling. She said she’d like to be a veterinarian but…and follow me here…couldn’t stand to see animals suffer. That’s what I have trouble with.
 
I am not for a moment saying that proper and ethical hunters want animals to suffer. But without getting into the whole food chain argument, what, then, is killing an animal before its time? I didn’t ask her, but I’m pretty sure she would have had an answer ready. This young woman was completely prepared to defend herself and had done so a great many times among her fellow students. Perhaps that’s why she preferred being in the dense BC interior, watching and listening for grizzlies, than in the jungle hallways of a high school.
 
I have no doubt that she will be exactly what she wants to be. I have rarely seen such determination in a young person’s eyes. I was happy not to be a deer in her sights and I’ll think of her the next time I see a woman in camouflage who isn’t just wandering the aisles of a store. I don’t understand what makes her tick, but she doesn’t need me to – and that’s not what that day at school was all about.
 
Speaking of store aisles, since it’s Thursday, here’s the link to this week’s Walmart piece I wrote about the sweet promise of May days outdoors.
 

Today, as we begin a brand new month, I have to share with you something that has been eating at me for a couple of weeks now.
 
Just two days after we arrived home from Amsterdam, my new friend Nancy and I were guest interviewers at a local high school. I signed up through the Rotary Club of Sidney, to which I belong, and knew that Nancy, with her background in PR, would be perfect at this task: we were to do “exit” interviews with grade 12 students.
 
This is part of their curriculum: come into the school’s smaller of two gyms, sit at a desk across from an interviewer and answer questions. After 20 minutes, we would write a few notes on a small piece of paper, they would take that note with them, and while we wrote our thoughts, they’d sign a “thank you” card and then give it to the interviewer as they left.
 
We arrived at the school at 8:30 am and met up with a few of the other non-student volunteers for the day. Some were former teachers, others business people and even a few were recent graduates themselves. Another was a Rotary volunteer and there were a few local cops in uniform, too. As if these kids weren’t nervous enough! And, oh, they were nervous.
 

 
We were seated in the boisterous gym and, at times, as students sat across from us, it was almost impossible to hear what they were saying. Some were more soft-spoken than others, while a couple said “like” so often that I wished I was having trouble hearing them.
 
A few expressed battles with mental illness (which I thought was remarkable, in that not so long ago, those kinds of difficulties would likely not have come up with strangers like Nancy and me). More than a few had already been accepted at the local community college where they hoped to lay the groundwork for their future education and careers.
 
That is reason #1 why Grade 13 was a good idea, in my book! Neither Rob nor I decided the paths our careers should take – both radio – until the final months of that final year! Lauren was one of the very few at her Grade 12 convocation who wasn’t taking a “victory lap” and going for more high school credits, which is exactly like Grade 13, is it not? And good on them, I say!
 
There is a lot to be said for not paying an exorbitant amount to figure out who or what you want to be. Some parents agree and some don’t. That happened to be our opinion and it worked in our lives as students, and later, as parents. But I digress. The point of the exercise was to give students a “real world” sort of interview, but I don’t know how useful I was in this exercise.
 
While I believe Nancy DID write in one student’s note about not chewing gum in an interview, and also mentioned the constant use of “like” in another, I treated it like a pep rally. I didn’t stress the importance of making eye contact to one young woman who was seemingly without any interest at all, and I could have gently suggested to another that she perhaps not scratch uncontrollably when she was nervous.
 
I didn’t tell the young woman who loved rock climbing and photography that her hopes of a career as a journalist were going to be as far out of reach as the pinnacle of Everest, given the climate for journalism in the 21st century when scores of professionals and veterans – Pulitzer Prize winners included – are being mercilessly put out to pasture.
 
I remembered how Lauren hated when broadcasters would come to lecture her radio classes at Algonquin in Ottawa and tell students that most of them were not going to make it in the business. Were these guest speakers right? You bet your employment benefits cheque they were. But was it the right thing to tell these kids they likely weren’t going to succeed – to strafe their hopes – like that? I couldn’t and didn’t.
 
Here’s the one “hack” I did pass on as they were getting up to leave: write a thank you card. Not the one they were perfunctorily signing on the way out of the high school gym that day, but for any potential employer. I said that after they’d completed an interview for the job they really, really wanted, go out and buy a thank-you card. Go home, look up the person’s title – and spell their name right – and MAIL them a card.
 
Why? Because no one else does it. Because four days later when 50 other people have been interviewed for the same job, your card comes in and moves to the top of the pile. That’s why. Lauren wrote her first radio employer a thank-you card after he interviewed her. She was probably going to get the job anyway, so impressed was he by her maturity and confident air (the latter was a good front, anyway). But sending this card – something she was good at – sealed it.
 
I don’t know how much of an impact that day in the high school gym will have on the young men and women Nancy and I tag-team interviewed on that busy, long Tuesday, but I think someone along the way is going to get a thank you card. And I hope that it pays off.
 
Tomorrow: the student whose interview stayed with me to the point of haunting my dreams.
 

I need to talk to you about something. It’s directed at men, but don’t worry if you aren’t one; you likely know or have lived with one, so I think you’ll relate. And it has to do with toilet seats.
 
Let me take you back a decade or so when Rob’s older brother, who lives now as a bachelor, came to visit. I would be slightly agitated everytime I went into the guest bathroom to find the toilet seat – not just the lid, the seat – in the up position. When I brought it to his attention (more than once) he put on his fighting pants and asked me why the seat should not be left up ALL of the time. Why shouldn’t we, who sit, have to put it down, rather than vice versa?
 
I didn’t bother fighting with him, but I did point out how gross it would be to be constantly moving that seat into the down position. No thank you very much. Besides, bro, “my house, my rules.” Of course, living alone, he has the freedom to do whatever he wants. He can pee in the waste paper basket or the rhododendrons at his own home, for all I care.
 
That conversation – whether he was (if you’ll pardon the pun) pulling my chain or not – has never left me. And it came back with a big thud while we were flying to and from Amsterdam this past month.
 
On the way there, I went to the lav, which had just been vacated by a gentleman in a uniform. He might have been a pilot. He might even have been a flight attendant (I didn’t really pay attention), but he was definitely crew. Imagine my joy to walk into the tiny washroom and see the seat up. First thing I did was kick it down with my foot, making a nice big noise before I closed the door. (Don’t worry, I wasn’t disturbing passengers: the lavatory was in a galley. That was just for the gentleman leaving to hear.)
 
On the trip home, however, I wasn’t quite as astute. This time I used the lavatory near the flight deck. I’m not sure who was the offending party this time. I just know that it was daylight outside, but my body thought it was middle of the night. I was sleepy enough that when I enclosed myself in the lav, I didn’t take a moment to check on the seat. Instead I sat down. Odd, I thought, this seat feels really cold. And wet.
 
There was a reason for that. And why do you think that was? Because. The. Seat. Was. Up.
 
I hadn’t noticed that some “upstanding” passenger hadn’t bothered to put the seat down out of consideration for the next visitor. Infuriating! They have signs in most airline lavs suggesting you take a moment to use your hand towel to dry off the basin after you use it, “as a courtesy to the next passenger.” Why not a similar sign about the toilet seat?
 
You see (and I think, as friends, I can be honest with you here) THIS is why I hate sharing bathrooms with the other gender. Even my dear Rob, who always puts the seat down, uses another bathroom rather than share one with me. It’s just the best thing for our marriage. And our idea of heaven? A hotel room or even ship’s cabin with two bathrooms. It’s a rarity, but oh, what a treat!
 
Here’s another story between friends. Sometimes back at the radio station, where we had small solo bathrooms for the use of on-air people with very tight deadlines, the single HIS washroom would be occupied when a male co-worker needed to go. So he did something I wouldn’t do, even if I was about to burst: he’d use ours. Which I get in an emergency. I mean, I know how that “news wheel” at 680 can catch you in its spokes and leave you for road kill! But I lost count of how many times I’d walk in, only to find that HE had left the seat up, so rushed was he to get back to his sports, business, news or…whatever.
 
There you go – my rant for the day. I can’t imagine someone being in such a hurry that they could forget something like putting down a toilet seat, but then again, they might be the same people who don’t wash their hands either. Me? After I’ve encountered one, there isn’t enough sanitizer in the world – or up in the sky.
 
Ew. Tomorrow: doing interviews of a totally different kind for me. And boy, were they eye-opening!
 

Tax Deadline Eve. This is a time of year that brings a familiar sense of dread – no matter whether we now have someone else doing it or have wised up to the software that makes taxes so much easier – and we never quite shake it.
 
We talked about taxes with one of our tour guides in Amsterdam. He says there, in The Netherlands, the government has all of the citizens’ numbers; people just sign in online, sign off on the numbers and send in whatever the government is owed (if they haven’t already paid it). Makes great sense (to me) although, in our case, it would never work with freelance, etcetera.
 
The fellow we spoke to said that the exact same ability exists here in Canada and in the US (where he went to university) but, of course, everybody would be all up in their Constitution-decreed arms about the gub’mint having their numbers. Whatever. I’m all for keeping it tidy, above board and as simple as humanly possible.
 
Poor Rob’s been up to his eyeballs the past few weeks trying to keep several stacks straight, both on the table and in his head. My shift from being an employee for so many years to strictly gun-for-hire has had its challenges, but he manages. He uses software and even helped our octagenarian neighbour to switch to StudioTax, a free program, after he went to visit and saw her with paper, pencil, great big eraser and that familiar stressed-out look. It makes you wonder how many other seniors just haven’t taken that step yet.
 
On the other end of the age spectrum, I still hear of many younger folks who just haven’t done taxes in years. It seems they miss one year and that rolls into another and another, until the fear of reprisal (and financial penalties) becomes this great scary monster that no one wants to face. If only that first step towards finding the receipts and just paying what the government is owed could be taken! The relief from stress alone is worth the price.
 
It hurts to see people feeling so far behind and so very hopeless. What can we do to change this, as a country, do you think? How do we go about offering, if not amnesty, then certainly leniency to help young people to get back on track with their contribution to our country’s operation?
 
I can’t end today’s journal on that note, though. I have to talk a bit more about flowers, as they tie in with this time of year so very perfectly. When we were living in Leaside, Rob would take the odd break and sit at the table and look out at a magnolia tree that stood alone in the backyard.
 
Every spring he knew that tax time was approaching by the size of the buds as they prepared to burst into blossom. Just a little gift to take the edge off of the pain of writing a cheque we would undoubtedly be sending out when his careful toiling was done. I think to this day he still has a bit of a stress flashback when he sees magnolias getting ready to bloom. Luckily for us, they’ve come and gone already where we live.
 
Now at this time of year, I look for lilacs. A house around the corner from us in North Saanich has a tree that is bearing their blooms already and every time I walk Molly, I take a few timid steps into the driveway, check for bees and then cup a handful of blossoms and bring their sweet fragrance to my nose. I inhale deeply.
 
That is a smell I will always associate with Ottawa. You see, between May 11 and 19 four years ago, we were there making arrangements for Lauren’s first (of two) memorial events. We wanted to make sure, you see, that her and her husband’s friends and co-workers, as well as fellow recent radio grads, could come and remember her with us.
 
But when the reality of making plans for something we should never have had to hold to begin with became just too much, Rob and I would step outside of the Hulse, Playfair and McGarry Funeral Home and go across the street. There, we could take solace and hide our tears as we walked with our heads, not bowed in sorrow, but raised in gratitude for the sweet scent of lilacs everywhere.
 

 
For that reason alone, those flowering trees will always mean so much to me. Rob chooses not to take in their powerful perfume, but it’s my time to be in Ottawa again, as I will be in just over a month. The lilacs will likely be gone by then, as will May’s riotous tulips, but I won’t be going for the flowers. Not when a grandson awaits….
 
Have a lovely Monday and I’ll be back with you here tomorrow as we wrap up April with a story of a gentleman – who obviously wasn’t!