Erin's Journals

SO…this just in…yesterday afternoon I received an email from Gerry at New Wave Travel and it’s looking like an exclusive taking-over-the-boat Rhine Cruise on the AmaStella in October 2020 is becoming a reality. I’ll keep you posted; right now we’re making sure of details. But I got that note just as I was sitting down to pen this today, so I had to pass it along. More to come when I get back from my little two week sabbatical.
 
Anyway, I thought I’d keep it a little shorter today and share with you a smile, a godwink, a nod from beyond…or, at least, what I choose to think of as such.
 
You know from reading Mourning Has Broken (or just from visiting here regularly) that I’m a fan of looking for signs. Whether it’s a feather here or there, a dime or a special song that comes on at just the right moment, I’m always keeping my eyes (and ears) open in case Lauren wants to send a nudge. There are some, I’m sure, who think it’s a sign, all right – one that I’m losing it – but what the heck. If it hurts no one and makes us feel better, what’s the harm?
 
So it was yesterday that I found myself at the dentist – a lovely lady whose office sits on the banks of a lake just south of us. To look out the window and see a heron landing is just bliss.
 
Once I’d gotten a filling repaired, I took a short walk along the lake’s edge. There were even a few hardy children playing in the sand and water, their mom looking on, while another gentleman sat and read. A lovely spring sight here on bucolic Vancouver Island.
 

 
As it has been and will be for the rest of the week, my mind was especially filled with thoughts of Lauren. I sat on a rock and looked out on the placid waters as I played her singing “Dream a Little Dream of Me” on my iPhone. I stood up to walk some more and as I looked down in the deep, dewy grass, I spotted something black and shiny, barely bigger than a toonie.
 
I bent down and picked it up and turned it over. Here’s what that was.
 

 
A keychain – a goalie mask – for Rob (who plays goal). Sure, he’s never been a Flames fan (try to find a Maple Leafs fan out here!) but I thought perhaps she was saying, “C? I’m thinking of you.” I don’t know…but as I say, what harm does it do?
 
Have a gentle day and I’m just so pleased to hear that so many of the folks who come by here were in 20C+ temperatures yesterday. Not all, I know, but enough that I didn’t feel guilty about my flip flops and beach walk yesterday!
 
Back with you here tomorrow.
 

This is Mental Health Week in Canada and I’m so glad to have something really meaningful to share here, thanks to a former morning competitor.
 
First off, I’ve been more than a little worried about my own, of late. I’ve taken on a lot, and one week ago, I even had an interview fall through the cracks: I hadn’t put my live Facebook chat on the Teresa and Amy Show in my calendar and I awoke literally FIVE MINUTES before we were to go live. As Rob hooked us up, I ran a brush through my hair, dabbed on some concealer and lip colour and jumped into a chair. I put on a bra, undies and a zip-up jacket. Didn’t have pants – honestly.
 
Held up my phone above me for at least half an hour to try to get just my face in – not too many chins – and did the interview. It’s a blur and I won’t be sharing the video (I haven’t even seen it yet) as I’m pretty sure I looked like death warmed over (as my mom would say). Not all of us are as brave as Jann Arden!
 
But that’s just one thing that’s happened. My mental cogs are slipping and I have had a great deal of trouble keeping straight the commitments I’ve made recently. I’m being more careful with my calendar, for sure, but I still don’t love the way it’s laid out.
 
My right hand, Rob, has been busier than usual editing an audio book we’ve recorded (not mine – it’s already out) while I’ve been keeping up with increased requests from the folks posting my Walmart pieces. It’s not a burden, it’s something I signed up for. (Getting snark from people about me using my own time and website to post links to those articles – that’s a burden. Buh-bye.)
 
Don’t get me wrong. I’m so bloody lucky I can hardly begin to calculate it when it comes to nasty correspondence from faceless critics. Yes, I do include a few real doozies in my book and I’ve received more kindness in response to those poison pen letters than you can imagine. But a lot of the reason I don’t actually invite nastiness is that I don’t delve into areas of controversy, therefore the knives don’t usually come out.
 
People know I despise lugubrious liars and con men in politics and if anything they read from me is a surprise, then they’re quite likely in the wrong place. I am grateful not to be on the air in Toronto anymore, lest I sever my tongue daily from biting it.
 
What does this have to do with Mental Health Week? I want to take a moment to salute a fellow morning broadcaster. I didn’t get to know Newstalk 1010’s John Moore very well; we go back and forth occasionally on Twitter, and that’s about it. But I was aware – as were his listeners – when John took some time off for mental health reasons. Just one week ago today, he shared those reasons upon his return and it’s truly worth the listen. Click on the photo below to hear it.
 

 
I am lucky not to have faced the vitriol of people who hate my politics or my face or my beliefs, my skin colour or my sexuality. There’s plenty of that out there and I count myself fortunate. Yes, I’ve blocked some people on social media who were needlessly cruel or rude – and it’s felt great. My playground, my rules. I won’t have my day ruined by someone who won’t even put a face where the silhouette shot is, or include their real name.
 
It was bad enough when a relative (by marriage) posted a Maxine cartoon – not legit – about immigrants to Canada being like birds at a feeder, blah blah blah. After reading her post, which had been copied and pasted to death, I didn’t know what to do except hit MUTE. I was bothered all day by the fact that someone in my own family tree – albeit on a different branch – thinks like that.
 
But was it worth a fight? I didn’t have the energy. My mental health is worth more than trying to change the mind of someone who has spent 50+ years feeling and believing that way. Denying climate change. Hating Trudeau. Condemning people who believe in wind and solar power, because tar sands put food on her family’s table. I harken back to the AA Serenity Prayer once again and its last line: “…and the wisdom to know the difference.” I can’t change anything there.
 
Although my Dad feels much the same way as my Alberta kin about a lot of those issues, at least with him I can have a conversation – sometimes slightly heated – and we both come out feeling respected and heard. Facebook and its ilk offer no such outcome, most of the time.
 
Listen to John Moore’s piece. Hear a man standing up bravely in the face of haters. Pledging to take better care of himself. It’s something I’m going to do and why I’m taking two weeks off journaling after this Friday. If you know our family calendar, you’ll understand why. But I’ll be right back here tomorrow!
 

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.