As of today, there is one month left until Christmas, and only 12 days left until the beginning of Hanukkah. Tomorrow is US Thanksgiving and the traditional start to the holiday sales season happens Friday with the retail event known as Black Friday. Most of the people celebrate something in and around December / January so it’s a busy time of year. Between family events, social events, work related events, and school concerts my December calendar is looking very full indeed.
I have to admit that the holidays are much harder now since the death of my mum. She loved Christmas and the house would be bursting at the seams with decorations, music, baking, and presents (one year we had 3 trees – big one in the living room, small one in the family room, and a child / pet proof one in the basement). Dad on the other hand, has leaned more towards the Grinch side of the spectrum. He never begrudged mum all her decorations but we both knew if left to his own devices, there would be a lot less Christmas in the house. I’m somewhere in the middle. I like Christmas and love finding the perfect gift for friends and family members, setting up my nativity scene, and enjoy putting up the tree, but aside from that? I’m not big on decking the halls. Last year it was about 10 days before Christmas when we finally got the tree up (and that was because we had company coming over). I’m not sure when it’s going up this year.
The Christmas tree last year
I have a tradition of getting all the kids in my life (and there are a lot of them) who I buy presents for, books for Christmas. It’s much easier to keep track of reading levels than it is to figure out who likes Littlest Pet Shop vs Barbie vs Transformers vs Hot Wheels. I do that for birthdays – they’re (thankfully) spread out though the year. I get some books used (but in great condition) and some new – helps the budget and the earth. I find 2-3 books per kid and double check with mom and or dad to make sure they don’t already have it, then I put a post-it note with the kid’s name on it and wrap them in a marathon session. The bonus is that books are far easier to wrap than most toys – straight edges and they’re generally flat. This is about 2/3 of the total books for this year:
At least they’re small and stack nicely
All of this has me thinking about holidays and when holidays aren’t actually holidays. We celebrate 2 Thanksgivings here, although I only cook turkey for one. The US Thanksgiving is a social event with 6 or 7 people dropping by all afternoon and evening to hang out and watch football (starting, of course, with my beloved Detroit Lions game at 12:30). So it’s a holiday here, even if its’ not an official holiday in Canada. Today’s Word Wednesday, in celebration of all of this, is holiday. Holiday is defined as a day of festivity or recreation when no work is done. So I guess neither Thanksgiving counts as a holiday in my house – we’re doing outside work on Canadian Thanksgiving and I work before and during the games on US Thanksgiving. The word holiday comes from the Old English halidaeg which translates to ‘holy day’, reflecting that early holidays were religious observances.
Holiday (hol·i·day) noun
A day fixed by law or custom on which ordinary business is suspendedin commemoration of some event or in honor of some person.
Any day of exemption from work (distinguished from working day ).
a religious feast day; holy day.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get ready for tomorrow’s holiday.
Regular readers may remember about six weeks ago, I published a post about music, depression, and grief that outlined how music helps me through some of the hard moments in life. I heard from many of you that it echoed how you felt about music. Music has always been something that brought people together and made them forget their troubles for awhile. Until it wasn’t.
On Friday November 13 2015, at approximately 9:40 local time, 3 men exited their car and entered the Bataclan Concert Hall where the American band Eagles of Death Metal were playing to a crowd of around 1500 people and opened fire using automatic rifles. According to reports, they fired into the crowd from the mezzanine to kill as many people as possible and inspire terror. 89 people were killed at the Bataclan that night, with hundreds more wounded.
On November 18th, I went with a close friend to see a concert that I had been looking forward to for months – Alan Doyle and the Beautiful Gypsies and Barenaked Ladies. The show surpassed my expectations. Not only did I get a night out with a great friend (who really needed the break), but I got a picture at Intermision with Alan Doyle, and my CDs signed. The music – Where do I start with the music? Alan Doyle was amazing. He sings with such joy that you can’t help but be swept up and be happy. He sang many of the songs off of his new album, including the title track and my personal favourite, 1,2,3,4.
When he stopped to tell the story behind the song Laying Down to Perish, I got goosebumps. Alan is a natural storyteller, and kept the audience on the edge of their seat with the story. The song was inspired by a trip to a museum on Fogo Island in Newfoundland where he saw an odd artifact, and, with the curiosity of a historian, asked questions. The artifact in question was a mariner’s gaff – a wooden pole with a hook on one end used to stab fish either on the ice or on a boat – with four names and the words “lay down to perish” carved into it. It seems the four men went out on the ice to fish and got caught by the shifting tide and realized they couldn’t get back to shore. In order to give their families closure, they carved their names on the gaff along with what they planned to do – lay down to perish – and set it adrift so that when it reached land, their families would know what happened to them and not roam the coast looking for them or hold out hope that one day the men would return. Doyle tells the story much better than I do, and the song he wrote after being inspired by this story is a most fitting tribute to these brave men.
I was crying before the first chorus. Barenaked Ladies came out for the second half of the concert, started with high energy songs, and soon had everyone up and dancing. Those guys sure know how to put on a show! I’ve always enjoyed the band, but had continual bad luck with concert timing and this was only the second time I’d seen them live. I bought my ticket based on Alan Doyle playing but knew both halves of the concert would be awesome. BNL fans are awesome and dedicated – during their song Duct Tape Heart, an audience member tossed a bra made out of duct tape onto the stage, and lead singer Ed Robertson gamely picked it up with his guitar and played the rest of the song with it on the end of his guitar. A few songs later during Pinch Me, someone threw a very large pair of underwear on stage – at the appropriate part in the song of course – and Robertson picked them up again with his guitar.
I’m amazed I got a picture of that. I thought they would fly off
My friend and I were laughing and dancing along with everyone else in the concert hall. It was an amazing 3 hours of music and fun. All of the musicians in both bands came out to do a joint number – 9 musicians on one stage singing If I Had A Million Dollars, one of BNL’s first big hits.
The whole gang on stage
I don’t have any universal answers to offer, but I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to continue to enjoy live music, and I’m going to do it for the 89 music lovers who died doing something they loved. I may be a little trepidatious at first, but I will go, because by giving in to the fear, the terrorists would win. Music is a universal language – whose dictionary does not include the word terrorism. I’m going to fight fear and hatred with love and understanding. Who’s with me?
Dos and Don’ts of Giving Gifts to Special Needs Children
With the holiday season fast approaching, I’ve had a few queries as to how best to alert friends and family members as to what the best gift for a special needs child is. Buying gifts for kids at Christmas is tough, and if the child has special needs, it can be hard to figure out what kind of gift the child (and parents) would like. While there are no universal one-size-fits-all recommendations, there are some best practices to follow.
That’s a lot of wrapping!
Do – Ask the child (or the parents) what the child’s interests are.
Don’t – Buy a generic gift for every kid you know in the age range. (A good rule to use for all the kids in your life.)
Do – Buy items tailored to the child’s interests, even if you think the toys are “too young”. So what if the 8 year old still loves Sesame Street?
Don’t – Only buy things that are labelled ‘educational’. Any toy can be educational, and many of the ones promoted as educational are boring and expensive.
Do – Keep safety in mind – if the child is a chewer, stay away from items with small pieces (like marble runs!) that could be swallowed. Or metal cars if the child is prone to throwing things – they hurt!
Don’t – Buy therapy supplies – while they may be useful, they’re not fun and can make special needs children feel singled out.
Do – Be aware of the child’s limitations and buy accordingly – if there are issues with fine-motor control, the 1000 piece Lego set may not be the right gift.
Don’t – buy kits for projects that the parents have to do most of the work for.
Do – Think outside the box – maybe tickets for an experience (like the zoo) would be better than a traditional gift.
Don’t – Get the child the same thing you got them last year. Nobody needs 10 sets of stacking cups. Nobody.
Do – Get a gift receipt.
Don’t – Be insulted if the parent returns the gift or exchanges it – duplicates happen.
Do – Get your child involved – if your child is friends with a special needs kid, they’ll probably have some great ideas!
Don’t – Buy toys with no volume control or that don’t have an off switch. Again, don’t do this period – special needs or not.
Do – Get games the family can play together.
Don’t – Get games that have complicated rules, or are completely random in the way the game works. (Uno Attack, Ker-plunk, Jenga)The randomness of the games can be a huge source of frustration for kids in general, but special needs kids can have a much harder time accepting the randomness. You can find my list of games for kids on the Autism Spectrum here.
Above all, ask. I know quite a few special needs parents and none of them are insulted or upset about polite questions regarding their children’s likes, dislikes, and abilities. As more than one of my friends with kids who have special needs have pointed out – they LOVE to talk about their kids, so just get them started and they’ll supply you with the information you need (and adore you for being so thoughtful). Sometimes there’s an expensive item on the wish list, and multiple friends and family members can each contribute to it. Finding the right gift for a kid with special needs isn’t an impossible task, it just takes a little time and thought.
Today I will stand at a cenotaph and speak at a Remembrance Day event. I will have the honour to shake hands with veterans who served this country in times of war and peace. Today I will cry for a friend who never made it home after serving his country, and for another who made it home in body but not in spirit. I will cry for every soldier who died in service, who was wounded physically or mentally, and for every soldier who saw a friend, a brother or sister in arms, die or be wounded.
I trained as a military historian, investigating recruiting techniques in small-town Ontario during the First World War. I wanted to know what made thousands of young men travel halfway across the world, to the muddy trenches of Belgium and France, and fight other young men with whom they had no personal quarrel – only the disagreements of their leaders. These young men left everything they knew in order to fight an ‘enemy’ doing much the same thing. What I learned over the course of my research fundamentally changed me. I learned that for the most part, it wasn’t about “King and Country” or justice for Belgian orphans, or one of the myriad of noble reasons that I found in my history textbooks. No, what changed me was that these young men almost a century ago went to war for reasons much closer to home. They went because they were promised adventure. They went because they were going to inherit the same farm that their father and grandfather worked and wanted to see the world before settling down. And they went because their friends were going and they didn’t want to miss out. Reasons I could see my friends signing up. Reasons I would have signed up for war. Suddenly I could put myself in the place of those soldiers. They became more than names on the cenotaph.
As I continued my research, I discovered that local newspapers regularly published letters home from the soldiers. I spent days searching out every one of the letters from each of the soldiers. I read their queries about their siblings, the farm, and how everything was back home. Things at the front were often described as “fine” or “no change”, without much description. This was partly due to the censors, but partly escapism too. For, when writing home from a cold, damp, and muddy tent behind the supply lines at the best of times, and a wet, rat infested trench at the worst, it would be easier to focus on happier times at home than on the circumstances at hand. One of my professors warned me that personalizing the soldiers was dangerous, that military historians couldn’t be emotionally tied to their research. I looked him in the eye and told him the day I didn’t shed a tear over the death of a soldier was the day I was no longer fit to be a military historian. I shed a lot of tears over the course of my research and produced a paper that was, I hope, a fitting tribute to all of the soldiers I studied. I vowed to never forget them, and, so far, I have kept my promise.
Why World War One? Well that is one question I can answer easily. I walked the trenches at Vimy Ridge at the tender age of 17 thanks to a high school music trip. We saw a lot of impressive monuments on that trip: York Minster Cathedral, Hadrian’s Wall, The Elgin Marbles at the British Museum, the Palace at Versailles, the famous artwork in the Louvre, but it was the trenches of Vimy that changed me. Before that trip, I’d loved history – but it was ancient history that held my heart. The Romans, the Greeks, and the Egyptians – they were what I was going to study. I had plans to go into archaeology and uncover the secrets to long-lost civilizations. I’d done well in my grade 10 Canadian History course, but I wasn’t a fan of the military history – it was all about the numbers, the battles, and the tactics. Those never held much sway for me. In contrast, my ancient history courses had all been about the people so I was interested. Walking the trenches at Vimy, walking up to the monument and seeing the names of Canadians who weren’t much older than I was that day, who were buried in cemeteries that adorn the French countryside. I asked the tour guide why these young men signed up for war, and she gave the well rehearsed answer of “for King and Country”, but I wasn’t satisfied. I wanted to know more, and so I researched. I wanted to know what would motivate someone my age (I was almost 18) to sign up to endure such horrific conditions: cold, muddy, rat-infested trenches for years on end. I was curious as to whether I, or my classmates, if faced with the same decision would make the same choice. I admit that I was fairly confident that we would not. I was wrong. The boys of a century ago were not so different from teenagers today, and that is what I will be remembering today. The young men who served with valour, honour, and courage. Who did not know the horrors they had signed up for, but once faced with them, bravely fought and put on a cheery facade for their friends and family when writing home. These are who I will be thinking of as I mark the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
Inside one of the trenches at Vimy Ridge – I took this when I was there in 1998.
Many Remembrance Day ceremonies end with the words of British poet Laurence Binyon. His poem For the Fallen was published in The Times newspaper on September 21st 1914. The third stanza has become known as the Ode of Remembrance.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them.
I, for one, will always remember and ask you to pause and do the same.
Remember (re·mem·ber ) verb
To have in or be able to bring to one’s mind an awareness of (someone or something that one has seen, known, or experienced in the past).
To cause (something) to come back into your mind
To keep (information) in your mind : to not forget (something).
The grounds at Vimy. The surrounding area is flat… the undulations were made by artillery on both sides.
Tonight is the end of an era, albeit one that many Toronto sports fans (particularly CFL fans) have struggled with over the last 27 years. Tonight the Toronto Argonauts play their last game at the Rogers Centre (formerly – and forever to me – known as SkyDome). I was at the first game at SkyDome on July 12, 1989, and I will be there tonight at the last game. In between those dates I’ve seen around 70% of the Canadian football games played there (including Vanier Cups and Metro Bowl finals but not including the Bills in Toronto series or the NCAA games). I’ve been feeling nostalgic today and reading some of the articles about the best memories at SkyDome including this one by the very talented Andrew Bucholtz, Mike Hogan’s trip down memory lane, and this one from the Toronto Star that focuses on Michael “Pinball” Clemons’ memories of the stadium where he played his entire CFL career and still calls home as Vice Chairman of the Argos.
I’d like to start by addressing the elephant in the room, the notion that Sky Dome / Rogers Centre is not a good place for football. While it’s not one of my favourite places to have watched a game, it’s not at the bottom of the list either. Multi-purpose stadiums (especially ones that convert between baseball and football) are never going to have the same great sight-lines as somewhere like Ford Field that was built for football and football alone. I agree that in the first few seasons, before the team got their act together, there were some truly awful seats available for football. I would know, my family’s seasons’ tickets were moved from being really amazing at Exhibition Stadium to being horrible at SkyDome. The first 10 rows in the 100 level don’t have enough of a slope and left fans staring at the back of players on the sidelines instead of the action on the field. The team eventually realized this and covered up those seats with banners. Apart from that, the SkyDome is not a horrible place to watch football. Sure there have been times when it is agonizingly empty, but that has less to do with the stadium itself and more to do with the people running the organization / marketing and a bad on field product. Toronto football fans are fickle and when the team is crap, they make their opinions known.
That said, some of the most passionate CFL fans I know are Toronto Argonauts fans. People who, like myself, have been there through thick and thin, and have felt the highs of winning a Grey Cup at home in 2012, and the lows of 3-15 seasons (1993 and 2009 are the two I remember as being horrible – though nobody really cared too much about 1993 since the Jays won the World Series that year). Don’t believe anyone who tells you that Torontonians don’t like football. They do, but in recent years scheduling woes have made figuring out when the team plays a challenge. The team had a playoff game re-scheduled for a Wiggles Concert in 2004, were forced to have games on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings in the past 5 seasons (hardly a typical night for a football game), and this season were forced to play home games away from home by both the PanAm Games and the Blue Jays’ playoff run. With Rogers Communications buying the Blue Jays in 2000 and the SkyDome in 2004 (renaming it the Rogers Centre in 2005), the Argos have been given the short end of the stick many times. In 2009, the Argos had to play a game without the availability of Alcohol (and that was the season where fans really needed a drink) because of Rogers Centre infractions. What made it worse was that there were 2 Blue Jay games affected by the suspended liquor license but baseball fans were allowed to trade their tickets in for another game while Argo fans were not.
Even with the frustrations of the past decade, the SkyDome has been a good home to the team for the past 27 seasons. The 2012 Grey Cup, won by the hometown Toronto Argonauts had an electric atmosphere and the fans who packed the stadium were loud and proud.
For the past 18 years, I have been attending Argos home games as a member of Argonotes, the official band of the Toronto Argonauts. For someone like me, who adores football and music, the band has been an amazing part of my life. It allows me to combine two of my passions and the people in the band are some of the most fantastic people I know. Skydome has been Argonotes’ home since the band came into being in 1995. Over the years, we’ve played in different locations from section 124, to the stage in the end zone (my favourite location ever), to our current “not real seats but amazing view of the game” seats. Not that the pleasure of listening to us is restricted to those with seats within earshot. Nope, we’re an equal opportunity band and wander the stadium (usually during the 3rd quarter of the game) and entertain the fans [except the 200 level where we haven’t played in a couple of years because some people complained that we were annoying them]. The band has been a big part of the game day experience in some years, and almost forgotten in other years but the fans always get a show at gate 2 after the game. Win (Argos Rule!) or lose (Heartbreak Hotel), the band plays a post-game concert after every home game. I’m going to miss our gate 2 concerts almost as much as our beloved pregame ritual of playing in bars and restaurants along Front Street on our way to the SkyDome from our meeting point at Front and Simcoe Streets. Most of the bars love us, some forget to tell their weekend managers that this happens (which is always fun – the look of shock on the hostess’ face at Lonestar one Sunday afternoon was priceless), and some demand we not play on the stairs close to their restaurant located at the base of the CN tower.
Argonotes outside gate 2 – our traditional post game concert location
Starting next season, the Argos will have new ownership and a new home at BMO Field. I’m excited for an open-air stadium experience, thrilled to be getting away from the scheduling nightmare that has been part of the Argos’ season of late, but also sad that all of my familiar landmarks (and favourite stadium food) won’t be part of my game day experience anymore. The memories, and there are so very many of them, will continue to live on though. Whether it was Pinball’s Last Run in September of 2000, Rickey Foggie’s amazing game in 1990 (7 touchdowns and 100 yards – and he was the BACKUP quarterback), the hometown heroics of the 2012 Grey Cup, Rocket Ismail’s 87 yard kickoff return int he 1991 East Final, or watching Doug Flutie and Pinball Clemons join forces in the 1997 Eastern Final to lead the Argos to the Grey Cup, the SkyDome will always have a place in my heart. Next season, marks a new era for the Toronto Argonauts, one that will hopefully return the excitement the city used to feel about the oldest professional sports team in North America still playing under its original name (and the oldest professional football team in North America). BMO field will be the Argos’ 5th home in the team’s 143 year history and I’m hopeful that the team will re-capture some of the magic I remember from Exhibition Stadium.
Tonight, however, I’m heading into Toronto, making the familiar turns towards the SkyDome, meeting up with the band at Front and Simcoe, doing a little bar crashing on the way into SkyDome, playing during breaks in the game (and watching the game when it’s on), and heading outside for one last Gate 2 post game concert, trying to pack a few more SkyDome memories into my heart. ARRRRRGOOOOOOSSSSSS!
Photo (I think) by Wayne Dawe – from Argonotes.com. Our pre-game warmup spot in warmer weather circa 2002. That parking lot is now a condo building.
Canada got a new Prime Minister today. Just 16 days after Canadians voted decisively for real change, Justin Trudeau was sworn in as Canada’s 23rd Prime Minister at Rideau Hall this morning. While not everyone is happy about this (but honestly no government will ever please everyone), I am excited for the change. I think that the gender equal cabinet (there are 15 female cabinet ministers – the largest percentage of women ever) that is also the most diverse cabinet ever is going to ultimately be a good thing. It’s not like cabinets in recent memory have ever been about putting only the most qualified people into the portfolio that most suited them. There has always been an element of regional parity in cabinet making which already hampers the “best person for every position” philosophy, and I don’t think that any of the 14 women chosen weren’t qualified for their portfolio (besides, the only portfolio that you really need prior qualifications for is Finance IMHO).
It has been said that Canadians don’t vote a government in, they vote one out – which I think is true. We’re a multiparty country that vacillates between two governing parties in cycles ranging between 8-12 years. Part of me, the political idealist who is mostly hidden, wants to think that this election wasn’t just about voting out a leader who had overstayed his welcome, it was about something much bigger – possibility.
The new Prime Minister being sworn in. Photo from @JustinTrudeau on Twitter
The possibility of a different direction for the country. One open and honest and accessible to everyone. My amazing friend, (I still can’t believe I’m her friend… I feel like she’s going to wake up and realize I’m nowhere near cool enough to be her friend) Amanda, wrote a heartwrenchingly honest letter to our new Prime Minister asking him to keep his promise to make transgender rights a priority. I feel like if anyone is going to be able to help Alexis grow up in a country that affords her the protection and respect she deserves, it is Mr. Trudeau. And if he doesn’t follow through on this promise, I will be right there with Amanda and all the other allies protesting and holding him accountable.
Already there has been change. Today’s swearing in ceremony was different from any other one in Canadian history – with the public being invited to the grounds of Rideau Hall and with Mr. Trudeau going out and mingling with the crowd. Another amazing woman I know, Amy Boughner, was fortunate enough to be able to go and she got to meet the new Prime Minister and get this picture of him when he was out meeting with the people who came out to witness this historic event.
Photo Courtesy of Amy Boughner
I was trying to decide what my Word Wednesday word was going to be, and flipped on the television coverage of the ceremonies, and the words “hope”, “change”, and “new beginning” kept coming up. I think the perfect word to encapsulate the feeling from today is possibility. So that’s my choice for Word Wednesday on this gorgeous November day. Possibility. It’s a word that has positive connotations, and I think it’s a great thing to have positive thoughts at the swearing-in of a new cabinet.
Possibility
Possibility is another word with Latin roots (I always come back to the Latin roots), coming from Latin to French to English – a fairly straightforward etymological progression. The Latin root word is possibilis meaning “able to be done”, which inspired the Old French word possibilite, from whence (yes, I’m aware that “from whence” is redundant, and I’m going with it anyway because it’s less awkward and Shakespeare used it) we get the English word possibility. Possibility – it even sounds positive, and full of hope and opportunity.
Possibility (pos·si·bil·i·ty ) noun
A thing that may happen or be the case.
The state or fact of being likely or possible; likelihood.
A thing that may be chosen or done out of several possible alternatives
Unspecified qualities of a promising nature; potential.
So there’s a definite possibility that next week’s Word Wednesday post will have something to do with the word whence, because it’s awesome and makes me happy, and there’s an air of possibility in the new government that took office today.
All my life I’ve been a tea drinker. There are pictures of me with tea in my bottle (thanks grandma!) and with my British heritage, not drinking tea wasn’t an option. I came to coffee very late in the game. I was well into my 30s before I could stand the taste of non-specialty coffee. You know, the kind without all the artificial flavours and sweeteners that costs an arm and a leg and has half of your daily calories in a venti? Yeah those didn’t count in my “I don’t drink coffee” phase. Now, I quite enjoy a nice cup of coffee with milk and a very small amount of sugar with my breakfast. Until Wednesday that is. I’d brewed a pot of coffee, and gone to my “office” (currently the couch in the family room in the morning because the dog likes to snuggle beside me and I quite enjoy that) when I caught whiff of the unmistakable aroma of burning plastic. The coffee maker had set itself on fire. The torrential deluge we experienced was good for something as I took out the carafe and put the whole thing outside on the porch, then dropped it into the bin once it was well and truly out. I should mention that the fire was contained inside the machine at the time.
That dealt with, my attention turned to the new problem. No coffeemaker. If it was just me drinking coffee, I’d use the French Press and make a single cup, but my household goes through a 10 cup pot (because coffeemaker cups are not the same as actual cups – I can easily fit 2-3 in a decent sized mug) every day. So I posted on Facebook and Twitter asking for recommendations for a new coffee maker. Several people had wonderful things to say about the single serve coffee machines, but I worry about the environmental impact of them, plus I like brewing a full pot of coffee in the morning. A few recommendations came in for machines that I’m pretty sure you could launch the space shuttle from. All I want out of a coffee maker is the ability to set a timer for the days when I need to be out of the house at the crack of stupid, the ability to keep coffee warm for an hour or two, and it not to self-combust leaving me in a state of caffeine withdrawal. After sorting through all the options and checking for sales and price matching and reading way too many online reviews, I finally found a replacement which I can get in a couple of days. Sometimes living in the middle of nowhere sucks.
So I’m writing this post without the benefit of my morning coffee and let me tell you, I miss it. So in honour of that, today’s Word Wednesday post (appearing on Thursday because of the whole coffeemaker debacle) is dedicated to coffee (also known as “writing fuel”).
Coffee
Coffee is actually a fairly modern word, and the first historical evidence of humans drinking coffee (or knowing about the coffee tree) is mid 15th Century with the word coffee tracing back to the mid-late 16th Century. (No wonder the Dark Ages come to an end around 1500 – coffee was discovered!) The word coffee comes either from the Dutch word koffie, which was then translated to the Arabic word kahwa, which begat the Turkish word kahveh, which finally led to the Italian word caffe – which is pronounced much like the original Dutch word. I suspect that linguists are also fueled by coffee.
Several of my friends are far more dedicated to coffee than I am (though I suspect with time I will be just as addicted to a good cup of steaming hot coffee as they are) and take pictures of their daily brew or write hymns to the beverage and I’m going to close with those.
Coffee (cof·fee) Noun
A drink made from the roasted and ground beanlike seeds of a tropical shrub, served hot or iced.
the shrub of the bedstraw family that yields the coffee seeds, two of which are contained in each red berry. Native to the Old World tropics, most coffee is grown in tropical America.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to have a cup of tea and hope for the best.
I’m not sure if this happens to everyone but every time I head to a conference, like the fabulous Blissdom Canada Conference, I return to utter chaos. It’s not necessarily the house (though it wasn’t as orderly as I’d left it), it’s more that my life seems to be tossed upside down by the new things I learn at the conference.
I want to implement things right away so that I don’t forget them. At the same time, I don’t want to jump into changes too quickly so I spend a lot of time thinking over (and overthinking) everything. I come home full of amazing ideas and wanting to keep up with all of the new friends I made. This being the digital age, that means a lot of time spent online. Given my ADHD squirrel tendencies, online time tends to devolve quickly into a never ending Facebook spiral with the occasional Youtube or Reddit interlude. Chaos, I tell you, chaos.
Meme based on the original Hyperbole and a Half meme
Inspired by all of this, today’s word Wednesday word is chaos. Chaos comes to us via 14th Century France , taking the word from Latin. The Romans, as they were wont to do, took the word directly from the Greeks. The Greek word in question was khaos which means: abyss, that which gapes wide open, [something that] is vast and empty. The modern definition of chaos, meaning utter confusion, came into being circa the 16th century and comes from a theological interpretation. The Vulgate version of the book of Genesis (circa 1530) used the word chaos to mean “the void at the beginning of creation”.
Chaos
It was the Roman poet Ovid who gave us our current meaning of chaos in his epic, Metamorphoses, when he juxtaposed Khaos with Kosmos – the ordered universe. So the modern meaning of chaos came to be orderless confusion. Which pretty much sums up my life right now. Orderless confusion and plenty of brain squirrels.
Chaos (cha·os) noun
Complete confusion and disorder : a state in which behaviour and events are not controlled by anything
The state of the universe before there was any order and before stars and planets were formed
Hopefully I’ll restore order to my little piece of chaos soon. Until then, I’ll be out chasing the squirrels.
It’s no secret that I’m an introvert by nature. I like people and once I’m comfortable with you, I’ll never shut up, but groups of people, make me seriously nervous. I get overwhelmed and then all I can think about is running away and hiding in a corner. Give me a group big enough that I can’t possibly interact with all of the individual members though, and I’m perfectly fine. I loved lecturing to large undergraduate classes, but for the first few weeks of classes, whenever I had to lead a small group seminar I wanted to hurl. Fortunately, I never did, and by all accounts I was really good at being a Teaching Assistant – at least if my feedback sheets were anything to go by.
Last year I attended my first BlissDom Canada conference. I was so nervous before going in to the hotel that I sat and cried in my car for at least 15 minutes, then spent another 5 trying to restore my makeup and make my eyes less puffy (so I wouldn’t look like I’d just spent 15 minutes crying in my car). I finally took a deep breath, and went in and had an amazing weekend. I made some amazing connections that have helped me immensely as I started my freelance writing and editing business and some great friends who have become a huge part of my life.
This year, when the call for speakers came around, I decided, with more than a little apprehension to go in with a couple of other editor friends and propose a session on editing. While we aren’t doing a panel discussion, together, we are all presenting at BlissDom Canada this year. I will be leading a Mentor Microsession in the #BlissWrites time slot on Friday about editing and how to self-edit effectively (and when you might need to hire a freelance editor like me). Even though I’m presenting about something that I’m super-qualified to talk about, I’m still quite nervous because the microsessions mean presenting to small groups (gulp). Which brings me to today’s Word Wednesday: trepidation.
Trepidation
Trepidation is one of my favourite words to use, because it rolls of the tongue so beautifully. While I can’t say that I’m a huge fan of feeling like a thousand butterflies have been set free in my tummy, I am used to the feeling of trepidation before any small group speaking engagement, social event, and even calling someone for the first time. Some would call me a worry-wart, I prefer to think of myself as trepidatious (yes, in part because a lot of people don’t actually know what it means so it sounds cool). I try to go through all the “what ifs” – What if my laptop doesn’t work? Can I do everything without a cheat sheet in front of me? (No – I am printing a copy and putting one on my BlackBerry too for good measure.) What if nobody comes? (I sit in the corner and weep openly? This one has actually kept me up at night. I’m up against some pretty awesome other sessions.) What if I screw something up? Everyone there will be very socially connected, it could be a disaster. (I’m pretty sure nobody would do that, I mean, we’re all very socially connected and everything but it’s not like we need to post EVERYTHING right? RIGHT?)
Anyway, trepidation is another Latin word (I know, I’m in a rut) coming to English straight from the Latin instead of via another language. The Latin root of the word is trepido, and the present active infinitive form is trepidare which means to tremble or be afraid of. The meaning hasn’t changed much over the years, in fact, the archaic definition of trepidation is “a trembling or quaking motion”. I may be experiencing some trembling out of pure nervousness right now.
It’s almost time to leave, I have a few errands to run in town and then I’m heading down to the airport to pick up my friend Brandee (who I’ve never actually met before but who I feel like I’ve known FOREVER) and we’re going to go to the Vaughn Mills Concierge experience before heading up to Blue Mountain. I’m hoping the fall colours up there are as awesome as they were last weekend at the cottage.
My favourite tree in the fall – Love the red and yellow
Trepidation (trep·i·da·tion) noun
A feeling of fear or agitation about something that may happen.
Almost two years ago, my mother passed away very suddenly. I will never forget the moment I found out, the pain in my father’s voice, or the task of calling my grandmother to inform her. I had some amazing friends who stepped in to help, but that didn’t stop grief from enveloping me. The program I was in at the time was not what you would call supportive of the grieving process. They grudgingly gave me a week off but after that it was full steam ahead, and keeping busy is one thing but trying to juggle a tough academic curriculum while your brain is hazy from grief is almost impossible. I was made to feel abnormal for taking “too long” to mourn, which helped send me down the rabbit hole of depression (again). Post-secondary institutions talk a good game but when it comes down to it, their mental health programs aren’t exactly stellar and even in a program that talks a LOT about mental health there were faculty members who openly suggested that maybe it wasn’t grief or depression, maybe I just couldn’t hack it.
So down I tumbled into the rabbit hole. I couldn’t sleep properly, began to doubt my ability to do anything correctly, and the gremlins in my mind that feed on negative thoughts grew fat and bloated. I began to contemplate suicide, but knew my dad and the dog needed me and I couldn’t bear the thought of bringing them more pain.
Most days I’d leave school and cry in my car for the whole way home. I lost interest in pretty much everything since it took all my energy to simply get through the day. School friends would try to cheer me up but I was beyond ‘down’. I wondered if I would ever feel a spectrum of emotions again. There were days when it hurt slightly less but I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t even close to happy. Happiness was something reserved for other people, I felt like happiness was an island but no matter how hard I swam, I never got any closer to it.
Before mum’s death, music had been a big part of my life. I was in an amazing concert band with tons of great musicians and friends; I was also a member of the Argonotes – the official band of the Toronto Argonauts, which I adored because it was a fun side of music. There weren’t any long rehearsals or complicated scores to learn but there were team songs, rock standards, a musical puns like playing “hold that tiger” when the team got a holding penalty against the Hamilton Ticats or the Jeopardy theme when a play was under review. Mum’s death occurred right at the end of the football season, and I’m forever thankful for the band members who came out to the visitation, because it was something to remind me of who I had been just a few days before.
With no more football games to play at and being too mentally drained to keep playing in the concert band, music slipped away. I stopped listening to it because a song would come on the radio or a CD that would remind me of mum and it would feel like the wound on my heart was ripped wide open again. In not listening to music, however, I lost a huge piece of myself. I’m that girl you see singing in her car at a stoplight. I often joked that I’d seen Great Big Sea so many times (24 – number 25 was supposed to have been the night of mum’s funeral and I couldn’t go) that I sometimes feel like an honourary Newfoundlander. I memorized songs and listened for the little extras that made songs stand out – the tin whistle over a guitar line, a bodhrán being played with a feather light touch, a harmony that was not quite what you expected but was so much more complex than you believed possible. I was a junkie and with mum’s death I went cold turkey. (I’d been to a number of Great Big Sea concerts with my parents and there were a lot of memories tied to the songs). I thought that by cutting music out I was preventing pain, but what I was really doing was preventing joy.
I did keep checking Facebook during this time, even if I didn’t post as much and it was a Facebook post that put me on the road to coming to terms with, and helping me cope with my depression. It was on Sean McCann’s Facebook page. I remember the date clearly – January 23, 2014. The picture showed up in my news feed – with Sean resting his head against a wall. The text talked about how those “banging your head against a wall” days were actually the best days because they teach us how to help our selves. That was my light bulb moment, when I realized that nothing was going to get better unless I actively worked to make it better. The post went on to say “We can’t control the world, but we can control our own actions”. It ended with the best advice I’ve seen on Facebook: “When in doubt always look for the Love”. What was odd about the whole situation was that I hadn’t seen ANY of Sean’s postings about Help Your Self – even though I had liked the page, Facebook’s algorithm had done its thing and had hidden the posts from me. I don’t know what it was that made this particular post show up in my feed – whether it was fate, kismet, or a little nudge from my mum – but I believe I was meant to see that message at that moment.
Sean McCann on Tuesday October 6, 2015
The first step to helping yourself is admitting that you have a problem, and as Sean himself said on Tuesday night during his concert at the Kitchener-Waterloo Little Theatre (KWLT), it’s a hard step to take because nobody wants to admit that there’s something wrong with them. I knew that there was definitely something wrong with me – that the grief I was feeling had snowballed out of control and morphed into depression. I knew I needed help, so I called my family doctor, who managed to see me within a few days. She agreed that this wasn’t grief, it was something bigger. My medical history is somewhat complex, so we chose to explore some non pharmaceutical interventions (with the exception of a sleep aid since I’d been sleeping less than 3 hours a night for 3 months and exhaustion was not helping my mental state at all). I found a counselor to talk with who specialized in grief counselling.
The funny thing about all of this is, that while I have quite a few friends with depression and have never judged them for it, I did judge myself. I gave those little voices in my head (made stronger by my program’s administration’s lack of support) power over my self-worth. With the help of my counselor, I told those nagging little voices to shut up. It felt so good. One session, about a month or so into the process, I mentioned to my counselor that I was worried about the narrow range of emotions I was feeling – I wasn’t as down as I had been when I first went to see him, but I wasn’t happy either. I wasn’t even content, I was simply existing. My counselor is a very pragmatic man and when I told him this, he looked at me and asked “well, what made you happy before your mum died”? My immediate response was music. He then asked why I wasn’t still listening to music, and I explained that I was afraid it would hurt too much. He told me it would hurt but that if we want to experience joy, we can’t be afraid to experience pain.
I sat in my car for awhile after the appointment, cried a little, and then turned on the CD player. It’d been almost 4 months since I’d listened to it so I had no clue what was going to come on, and given my car CD collection contains everything from The Beatles to Metallica and Great Big Sea, it really could have been anything. As fate would have it, it was Sean McCann’s former band mate Alan Doyle’s debut solo album Boy on Bridge, and the song was My Day. This is the final verse of My Day:
Can’t say what’s Fortune’s drumming Can’t wait to see what’s coming Hell or Highwater I’m off and running Either way
I started crying again, but took it as a sign from the musical powers that be. I digitally ordered Sean McCann’s Help Your Self (there weren’t physical copies of it at that point even though I’m still that person who loves CDs over digital downloads), and spent a lot of time listening to Boy on Bridge, Help Your Self, and the Great Big Sea album that saw me through heartbreak and change – Something Beautiful. (I’m not even going to attempt to pick a favourite GBS album, but Something Beautiful came out during a really rough period in my life and I played the whole album on repeat for a few weeks straight until I knew every word to every song, so I’ve got a really strong emotional connection to the album). I fell asleep to them, I woke up to them, I listened in the car, I listened while doing homework. They became my constant companions, and while some of the songs on Something Beautiful reminded me of mum, the more I listened to them, the less it hurt and the more I could smile at the memories. Music became my salvation. I took up the bodhrán again – I found that while I’m still not very good (and should not use a tipper without a ring to prevent it from flying out of my hand), it brings me joy.
One of the many pictures I took of Sean’s bodhrán.
Awhile back, I was fortunate enough to see Alan Doyle on his current tour for his new album So Let’s Go. It’s impossible to go to one of his concerts and not leave a) hoarse from singing at the top of your lungs and b) pumped up – many of the songs have an upbeat tempo and fun chorus (my current obsession is 1,2,3,4 because there’s a quick part in the middle that I’m determined to get all the words right for). On Tuesday, I was sitting at home and lamenting the fact that I couldn’t go see Sean McCann in Toronto for the You Know I Love You tour on Friday because we are heading up to the cottage for Thanksgiving like we always used to do before mum died, when my friend sent me a BBM message about having a spare battery for an old BlackBerry device I’m re-homing to a friend. We were discussing how I could get it from him, and he mentioned that he’d be at the Sean McCann concert that evening at KWLT. I remember hearing about the concert from multiple sources when it was announced but it conflicted with an Argos home game so I’d promptly forgotten about it even when the Argos game got moved to Ottawa.
I figured there weren’t any tickets left, but to my surprise, a quick search confirmed there were. I immediately went to work on finding a place to crash for the night, since I needed to be in Kitchener the following evening for my Pathfinder meeting, and once that was secured, had a record fast shower, threw overnight stuff in a bag, packed my laptop up so I could work during the day on Wednesday and hightailed it (at a safe speed) to KWLT. I found seats, found friends sitting beside me and had a 3 hour sing along with Sean McCann and his amazingly talented opening act Matt Wells. The night was pure magic, for starters, I love that building, having been a (small) part of the rebuilding efforts after the fire in 2002 – helping with painting it and volunteering at fundraisers for the theatre before its grand re-opening in 2009. So to see a star like Sean McCann in the building was awesome to begin with. The way he walked on stage after intermission, doing an a cappella version of Safe Upon the Shore (which has some serious memories for me and made me cry) in a strong, powerful voice, gave me goosebumps. He invited the audience to sing along to a number of songs, basked in the knowledge that he didn’t have or need a set list because it is just him on stage, and at an audience member’s request sang Danny Boy. Of course I cried again during Danny Boy – but not just because that’s what one does. It had more to do with the tenor (pun only slightly intended) of his voice and the purity of the sound. It takes guts to stand on a stage and belt out Danny Boy on the spur of the moment, there’s so much that can go wrong with that song but didn’t on Tuesday night. The whole night was amazing. Sean talked very candidly about his battle with addiction, encouraging us to donate to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health because they do amazing things, but could do even more amazing things with a bit more funding. He talked about the split with Great Big Sea and how letting go of the anger he felt helped make him whole again. He seemed infinitely happier on stage than when I saw him at the Dakota in Toronto in 2011. He still put on a great show but there wasn’t the sparkle in his eyes I remembered from the first Great Big Sea concerts. That sparkle was back in abundance on Tuesday, and everyone in the audience felt it.
After the show, both Sean and Matt graciously went out into the lobby and took pictures, chatted, and signed CDs for the audience. I waited at the back of the line, knowing that I wanted to thank him for the role he played (and that his music continues to play) in my recovery. When it came time though, I couldn’t make the words come out. Instead I asked a lame question about bodhrán tippers (though it was also on my mind because his tipper looked very different to mine and seemed to be an extension of his hand), which he graciously answered. I hung around and helped clean things up, mentally kicking myself for chickening out. I firmly believe in thanking people who have an impact in your life, and I froze simply because he’s a star to me. I haven’t had the chance to meet Alan Doyle yet but I suspect I’d freeze just the same when trying to thank them. So instead, I’m doing what I do best, writing. Though putting all of this out there is actually scarier than saying “thank you” would have been. To all the musicians out there, keep at it because you never know how you will affect someone. To Sean and Alan, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
