Erin's Journals

Just a thought…

I walked a mile with Pleasure, she chattered all the way. But left me none the wiser for all she had to say.

I walked a mile with Sorrow and ne’er a word said she…but, oh, the things I learned from her when Sorrow walked with me!

[Robert Browning]

As always, you can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

For a month that has only 28 days, this is a big one. I mean, besides everything going on in Ottawa (and it’s a LOT), we have the Olympics beginning tomorrow plus the Lunar New Year – my year, Year of the Tiger – has begun. Black History month is underway. Groundhog day was yesterday (whatever!) and on top of that, all this week we remember my mom.

Here she is with her girls – this was taken a year-and-a-half before she left us – from left, that’s youngest Leslie, then eldest Heather, Dad, Mom, and middle sisters Cindy and me. Mom and Dad and their four girls…always and still their “girls.”

See, it was ten years ago today that we took her off life support. She suffered a fast and basically fatal brain aneurysm on February 1st.  Then my sisters and I flew in and on February 3rd – this day – we said our goodbyes. Tomorrow is her birthday and she would have turned 89. But it was not to be.

I may have told you this – I know it’s in Mourning Has Broken: Love, Loss and Reclaiming Joy – but when I was sitting with my dad and sisters at Mom’s bedside after we’d unplugged her, I’d rub her arm and her heart rate numbers would increase. Now, I’ve chalked it up to static electricity or something, but it’s nice to think she was having a reaction to my touch – to our being there.

The way I deal with grief – the way we have to, I think, if we’re going to survive – is with gratitude. You might not think of those two things as going hand-in-hand, and they certainly don’t at first – or for some people at all – but for me, it’s all part of moving forward, of choosing how to react, as Viktor Frankl so beautifully worded it. So how do you find gratitude in losing a parent, long before you – or they – were ready?

I’m so grateful that her aneurysm took her quickly; the last thing Mom would have wanted was to be what she considered a burden to anyone. I’m glad she didn’t live to go through losing Lauren three years later. That would have broken her heart, and it would have shattered further when her grandson Michael died two years after that.

I’m glad she didn’t have to deal with the rampant ass-hattery that has surrounded us over the past two years during a pandemic. Being a retired RN, she’d have had no patience for those who wouldn’t help their fellow person by wearing a mask, keeping their distance and getting their shots. You think it burns my biscuits? Oh, Mom would have had none of it. Plus, with asthma and a heart condition, a positive Covid diagnosis could have meant a painful and lingering death for her.

So yes, there are things to be grateful for, always, even in having to say good-bye to such an amazing role model. She wasn’t perfect, but the best of me comes from the best of her. The rest of me – like my sense of humour – that’s mostly Dad. When I talked to him on Thursday, I asked him how he was doing. He said, “Well, I’m not sure. I’ve never been here [this age] before.” He’s always got a smile and an easy laugh.

By the way, if you have Netflix and haven’t yet watched Ricky Gervais’ beautiful, vulgar, funny, visceral take on loss called After Life, you’re really missing out. The series, three very brief seasons, has just wrapped up for good, so settle in and enjoy. As a take on grief, it’s – if you’ll pardon the pun – dead on, and has resonated with millions around the world, Rob and me included. See, that’s the thing about sharing: when you’re real, whether it’s through humour or tears, through the written word or a two-minute TikTok video, what comes from the heart goes to the heart.

From my heart, I wish you a gentle first February weekend – and wish the best of luck and all the tiger energy to our athletes in Beijing. The obstacles they’ve faced even getting there have been medal-worthy. We were tense just trying to get to our cruise in November with all of the hurdles: would we pass this test and the next one and the last one before we boarded? Now add to that, having to be the absolute best your country has to offer? On blades, skis, boards…whatever? Amazing. Enjoy it all and I’ll be back with you on Monday.

Just a thought… No one can take away my freedom to choose how I will react. [Viktor Frankl]

You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

I have been wracking my brain how to make sense of what has been happening in our nation’s capital and it took a swimming pool to help me figure it out. Here we go.

I’ll start with one word we’ve seen a lot over the past week: “FREEDOM.” We all want freedom. We want freedom from the fear that Covid has wrought for the past two years. We want freedom not to wear masks every day when we’re out. We want freedom to travel, freedom to visit places and family in other countries without concerns that we might run into trouble getting out or getting back in. We want freedom from the exhaustion that so many among us feel; so many health care workers who keep hearing we’re going to have to “learn to live with Covid” while they have to work with it. We want freedom from worry.

We are all fed up. But most of us recognize that the right thing to do is to be adults (or heck, look to the children who don’t complain about wearing masks at school all day) and follow the path to freedom. That path isn’t found on a highway or a congested frigid Ottawa street. It’s in our stalwart Canadian hearts.

It’s stepping up and doing what’s best, no matter how uncomfortable and inconvenient, because it’s not just about us, but the people around us. The vulnerable. The elderly. The young who can’t get vaccinated. Those who are chronically ill and those who are anxiously awaiting treatment for diseases and have had to take a backseat or a bed in a hospital hallway, thanks to the coronavirus.

We want our freedoms, too. But see, we’re going about it a different way. We’re not calling our democratically elected leaders “dictators” or getting our children to hold up signs with obscenities on them. We’re continuing to find ways to stay connected instead of deepening divides that are being preyed upon by outside forces, or by the darkest dregs of our society, no longer in hiding and now brazenly flying their deplorable flags for the world to see.

Side note: when the orange twice-impeached hate monger gives your cause a shout out (as he did from one of his loser tour rallies on Saturday) you might want to rethink your position on things.

While the eyes of many Canadians were on Ottawa Saturday afternoon, let me tell you what I was doing: I was in a huge community pool with Colin, swimming, lounging, playing, laughing, even doing a four-storey water slide three times. The entire outing I had a smile on my face and I realized with some surprise that people could see it because I wasn’t wearing a mask.

I talked with parents and grandparents. I smiled at children. And I thought, Why is this okay? Why am I in a public place without a mask? And then I remembered: because we all had to show proof of vaccination and photo ID before we got in, except for the kids, of course. But I could imagine that many of them had also had their first shot. We were protected, as much as we could be. And for those two wet hours, life felt loud, boisterous and joyful.

That. That is freedom. Would I prefer a playdate to a mandate? Of course. But if that’s what it takes for me to feel free, don’t I – and the 90% of us who’ve been vaccinated – deserve to have a voice, too?

Just a Thought… “Hey, you ever walk into a room and forget why you’re there?”

“Yeah, it’s why I’m no longer a firefighter.” [Add your own rimshot!]

[Author Unknown] 

You can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

Sometimes you read something and it sticks with you in such a big way that you start telling your friends about it. Well, since my circle of friends is a dot, I’m going to tell you, because you’re my friend, too, right? And it’s about something we all do. Maybe you did it today; there’s even a name for it.

How often do you walk into a room and all of a sudden you blank on what it is you went in for? I know that sounds like the start of a lame observational comedy bit; there are a million jokes about it and if they’re not making fun of illness, they’re usually funny because they hit home.

So about that story (I didn’t forget where I was going) the New York Times and BBC have both done articles on just that thing. It’s called The Doorway Effect and here’s a link if you’re interested. 

Not only does it explain why this happens, but it may colour in some of the pieces of the artwork that is our intricate, amazing brain.

So let’s put it this way: we have three categories of things we are doing in a day. The person explaining it likens it to:

1. Putting a brick on top of another, again and again.

2. Planning to build a wall.

3. That wall is going to be a cathedral.

So here’s a scenario: you’re going upstairs to find your car keys. That’s #1. That’s the brick. The wall, or #2 is that you need the keys to take a trip. And #3 is that you have to get to school on time to pick up the kids, or get to work, or remember what you have to buy at the grocery store. That, my friend, is the cathedral.

The way our minds move from the simple (getting the keys) to the complex (figuring out which way the traffic will be best as you head downtown) is how we carry out complicated actions. How we layer all those bricks – keys + car + task completed successfully – that’s how we are able to carry out our day-to-day chores.

So The Doorway Effect is our minds moving from one to three to two to three back to one and so on. It’s a complex set of dance steps that the healthy mind is usually ready to d0, but throw in a monkey wrench like “Why did he leave the bathroom light on?” or “What pants were those keys in?” and suddenly you’re off track. Your whole wall starts to shake because that one brick wasn’t nestled in quite right.

Is this making sense? I’m not a psychologist – I don’t even watch one on TV – but for me, a light did go on when I read the story. It’s why I can be pausing a TV show when I find some spiky hair on my face where it shouldn’t be and I need tweezers, but when I get to the hallway, I’m suddenly wondering what I got up for, while also worrying about whether Elliot Stabler is in trouble with the mob on the show I just paused. Then “Squirrel!” (as Doug the dog says in the movie UP!) and there goes my train of thought.

The Doorway Effect: we enter a different room, we change the physical and mental environments we were in, and suddenly the thoughts that were with us in the previous room evaporate.

If you’re like me and you question your sanity nearly every day, this could provide some answers. It’s why after two years of wearing a mask, I STILL get out of the car at the grocery store with mine sitting comfortably, not on my nose, but on the gearshift in the car. When I got out of the car, I was thinking of the parking spot Rob chose, the nearest cart or the thing I forgot to put on the list that I have to remember…and the mask got left behind.

Especially these days, it’s important to cut yourself some slack while keeping your mind sharp where you can. When I was first getting sober again, I would tape Jeopardy, watch the show, and then watch it again to see how many answers I remembered. That was a good exercise. Sudoku. The new Wordle craze. Crosswords. Whatever works for you.

Just know it’s not entirely you. Yes, if you suspect you’re forgetting more than usual, or if you have a family history of dementia or Alzheimer’s, of course, don’t just brush it off. But remember: we’re all going through a lot.

Pay attention, but know that with our lack of social interaction and sleep, increased stress and all of the compounding factors – including depression and Seasonal Affective Disorder – there can be a lot of reasons for the bike chains in our brains to slip once in a while. As in all things that challenge us, you are not alone.

Have a lovely weekend, final one in January – we’re getting there – and I’ll be back with you here on Monday.

Just a thought… Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. [Kahlil Gibran]

As always, you can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

I’ve been having the most complicated dream lately and it took me remembering what someone (I think it was dream teacher and soul coachPatti Allen) told me: “Dreams love a pun,” in order to decipher it.

You know that we all have work nightmares, right? From astronauts to radio hosts, we’ve all had these dreams where something at work goes terribly wrong and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. And as you know, these dreams persist long after we’ve stopped whatever it was that first sparked them.

Over the past two months, during my so-called retirement, which I prefer to call reWirement, there’s been this one recurring nightmare. Maybe it’s because it was the season for Ross Petty’s panto: a rollicking musical comedy, a British tradition, that happens yearly on stage at Christmastime in Toronto.

In 2003 I played the Fairy Godmother in his show Cinderella, and it was the time of my life, one which also taught me a life lesson: when I am dying, I don’t want to spend my final days wishing I had worried less and enjoyed more. I was afraid a lot of those 8 weeks or so of rehearsing and performing my role; I wish now I’d just relaxed, had fun and cherished every moment. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, after all. So I learned from that.

But my terror at blanking on lines (vodka the night before to “unwind” after a show didn’t help my brain at all) or having an ad lib fall flat (which it did on opening night, a gaffe that made it into the newspaper review to my utter horror) clearly never left me.

So about that dream: again and again I’m about to be in a big stage play but I don’t know any of my lines, there has been no time to rehearse and I haven’t met my fellow cast members – the ones I might need to lean on to teach a newbie the ropes or to help me out if I need a little nudge or hint on what I’m to say next. Sometimes I’m on stage reading from a script in a performance; others I’m just going to have to go out there and not have a clue what I’m doing – which, of course, is my fear from every moment of my career and freelance.

I’m loathe to talk about dreams because they’re so personal and, really, does anyone care? But let me tell you why I’m relating this story: because in talking about it, I came up with a reason for it…and haven’t had the dream since.

I was chatting about it when Phil and Brooke and the kids were here, explaining the whole scenario and its variations on a cringeworthy theme and I said that in the dream “I don’t know my role.” And then, like a bolt of lightning or one of Oprah’s aha moments, it came to me: I DON’T KNOW WHAT MY ROLE IS.

Am I grandmothering right? Am I doing reWirement properly? Am I letting one of my freelance projects take over my life? Am I losing connection with the people I loved sharing my day with – you – after five years away? What is to become of me as I enter a new decade later this year? What is my role?

This realization has made me focus on what my future should look like. Yes, it started with organizing (see last Thursday’s vlog) but I have to move into prioritizing: making sure I’m showing up 100% where I’m needed and not letting myself spread out like that mythical, messy watercolour in the rain.

I won’t be leaving this space; I feel that I’m just the right amount of connected now to you – and grateful for it. For others, I’ve faded away or was never there. But sometimes we need to listen to the message in dreams and find out why they’re not just mirroring our thoughts, but perhaps holding up a big neon sign to an off ramp to a better place.

May you have a gentle ride this week and I’ll be back with you on Thursday.

Just a thought… Clutter is nothing more than postponed decisions. [Barbara Hemphill]

As always, you can watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, or here on YouTube.

I don’t know what’s come over Rob and me the last few weeks. Maybe it’s our tenants leaving the lower part of our house, which is now where my studio is. Could be it’s a matter of hitting five years in BC and seeing a whole lot of disorganization where we should be settled in, with everything in its place, a place for everything. Or perhaps it’s the whole “new year” mentality of “out with the old…” but in this case, do not replace it with “the new.” Do not.

And yes, what you see here…

…is our closet. I’ll explain in a moment. Perhaps I need this “before” shot to set the scene.

We’re on a tear: getting dressers and ordering cloth baskets to help make that closet look less like the police have tossed our place for evidence. Ridding our home of things that never should have made the move from Ontario in the first place. Does anyone really need four flippers (the pancake not the scuba kind) one of which has a broken handle? I think not.

Take my so called “travel closet,” which I spent hours clearing out yesterday. In it, I have two tiny old hair dryers to take on trips. Side note: if I’m going to a place that doesn’t have a hair dryer, I’m likely a hostage. So one of those got sent off in the bag marked Donations. Probably should have been both.

I’m also a hotel toiletry hoarder, which was remedied last week when we took an enormous bag of shampoos, soaps and lotions – the nice ones – to the centre for which we deliver meals weekly. I also had no fewer than 18 boxes of Uncle Lee’s Green Tea, a freebie that came with our vitamin shipments, and they’re now off to the food bank. Not quite “all the tea in China” but it looked like it in our pantry.

Stuff is easier. But the clothes are a much harder and more emotional decision. You’ve seen me supporting Declutter.Diabetes.ca here and I have indeed put my Mackie where my mouth is (okay, I don’t have any Bob Mackie stuff, but it’s better than the “muumuu” or “mukluks” that Rob suggested for that line to replace “money”).

But here’s the thing – and you may have faced this over the past two years – is life ever again going to look the same as it did? I mean, working from home, noticing our bodies change, seeing our whole existence altered. Someday it has to be reflected in our closets and dressers.

I have long dresses. Only a few fancier outfits, because I was always fortunate enough to have stores that would allow me to borrow something pretty amazing if I had to do a big event, one at which the dress matched the occasion. Thankfully, I haven’t invested a ton of money in clothes; anyone who knows me will agree that fashion was never that important to me.

Now I have work pyjamas and sleep pyjamas. A few nicer tops that I put on to visit here with you. My best purchase of 2021 was two pair of Lululemon yoga pants. (I have to trust they’re good for yoga; right now they’re great for chasing a two-year-old around the house.)

Shoes? What are they even for now other than comfort? I’ve put supports in my slippers because my feet are falling faster than my boobs from not wearing supportive footwear. And yes, I wear a bra almost all the time, but bought one without underwires because – well, why the heck wouldn’t I?

Here’s the emotional part: am I ever, EVER going to need a gown again? A pair of shoes with a bit of glitter, a dress that shows a tad more skin, with a hem that skims the floor? I’m seriously doubting it. As for that mother-of-the-bride dress, which I still adore, I’ll part with it this year, I think. Brooke has suggested giving it to a girl who needs it for prom. And that’s fine by me.

The hardest part is not giving up the possessions; it’s giving up the dream. Another door closing on a pretty wonderful life, going from a spectacularly decorated ballroom and into a quiet, hummingbird- and deer-filled garden.

It’s not giving up clothes, it’s gaining space. It’s opening a window to the future and seeing me without high heels. I never liked them anyway.

It’s the me I was when I wore them I guess I miss the most.

I’ll hope to see you here on Monday and thanks for coming by. Lisa loved your comments on her blog yesterday and I’m so glad to see that you shared it from my Facebook page. A lot of wisdom.

Now…back to my closet.