My 2016 word of the year

For a few years now, I've had the habit of assigning a word – a theme – for the coming year.

2014 was: right-size
2015 was: replenish

I obviously have a real love affair with the letter R because the word I have selected for 2016 is: ROOTS.

Here's a link to the complete definition

There are a number of different ways that I plan to apply my focus on roots:

Metaphorically:

• developing my land 
• building a permanent home (hopefully)
• being able to stay put next winter (hopefully)
• becoming more rooted in the reality of my finances and starting to build a better financial foundation for myself
• working on being more grounded in my emotions
• feeling more rooted in my sense of self

Literally:

• plant a garden
• plant a small fruit and nut orchard

I believe choosing a word for the year can be a powerful tool.

I entered 2015 depleted and depressed. I chose to focus on replenishment. I did a lot of jigsaws, cut back on my volunteer commitments, and took things easy. I made a creative commitment and stuck to it. I focused on learning things that would help me figure out how the well had gotten so dry and how to be more sensible about how I choose to use my resources in the future. The rain came again and I was there to welcome it. I built myself back up and am coming out of 2015 feeling juicy and replete once again.

I have great hopes that my 2016 focus on ROOTS will be just as successful as my 2015 focus on  REPLENISHMENT.

Solar Noon

Well, Christmas is over for another year – Phew! I am not a fan, though I must say that this year has been way better for me than most. I usually experience something that I think of as H-SAD – Holiday Season(al) Affective Disorder, which manifests as low mood and general crankiness that lasts from early December to December 26.

In recent years, I have become resigned to this yearly visitation of misery. But this year, I decided to take a different tack. I essentially pretended that Christmas wasn't happening. I stayed away from stores, crowded parking lots, canned Christmas music and the rest of it. It was a very effective strategy. I felt much more cheerful than I usually do in December and Christmas was over almost before I knew it.

Awesome.

And now that Christmas is over, things are back to normal, which means that I am back doing work to develop my land.

I have been reading up on passive solar heating and had a plan to visit my land to locate "Solar South" so I will know how to orient my tiny house – and also any eventual permanent dwelling on my land.

I was planning to visit on the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. But December 22 was severely overcast. Today, on the other hand, was sunny and +8 degrees Celsius – a perfect day to do a little on-site work.

The clearing on the knoll: December 26, 2015

Solar South at Solar Noon

Solar south is slightly different from magnetic south (as indicated on a compass), and solar noon is slightly different from noon on the clock. Solar south is the direction that points toward the sun at solar noon, which is the exact middle of the day, the halfway point between dawn and dusk.

Solar noon can be calculated by figuring out the number of hours between sunrise and sunset and dividing them by two. Or, one can just leverage the power of the Internet and look solar noon up on a chart like this one.

Today, solar noon was at 12:16 pm.

To identify solar south, all I needed to do was go to my land, pound a stake into the ground and look at the direction of the shadow at 12:16 pm.

Then, pound a second stake in where the shadow fell. The line formed by the two stakes points to solar south.

Easy-peasy! Especially on a December day that was so warm that I could do the work in my shirtsleeves.

After I was finished at my land, I went to visit "my" beach.

And then I visited some friends. And then had a ferry ride back to my winter home.

Needless to say, this was a very good day.

Local Shopping by Proxy

Here's a fun idea for holiday gift-giving – Shopping Local by Proxy.

I got an email last week from a good friend, with a proposition for me.

She lives more than 1,500 km away from her mom, while I live about 20 km away from her mom. And there is an awesome, new, independent bookstore, Lexicon Books, in the town where I am living this winter.

So, rather than order books online from one of the big conglomerates, my friend asked if I would be willing to pick up some books she would order at Lexicon and take them over to her mom the next time I was going that way.

This sounded like an excellent idea to me. I happily agreed.

I picked the books up yesterday and delivered them today.

My friend added a gift certificate for me to her order – which she totally didn't need to do, but which I will gleefully spend – I want to get one of Rebecca Roher's adult calendar/colouring books: Hot Babes Wash Dirty Dogs while I'll put the remainder toward Brené Brown's book Daring Greatly (which I have on order and which should be coming in later this week).

So have a think about friends who live near your loved ones and figure out if you can replace the faceless convenience of online shopping with friendly connections and support of local businesses.

Shame and vulnerability

A dear friend recently sent me a link to watch this long-format (90-minute) interview with Dr. Brené Brown:

http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2015/09/brene-brown-rising-strong/

I've been a fan of Dr. Brown and her work for a number of years. She's a researcher-storyteller who studies human connection, shame, vulnerability and wholeheartedness. I've written about her on my blog before because her work was the inspiration for me giving my tiny house its name: Wholehearted House.

I've mostly come in contact with Dr. Brown's work on-line, in the form of TED talks and podcasts, but watching the long-form interview with Chase Jarvis inspired me dig deeper into her work by reading the books she has written. So, I put in requests for all four of them at the library.

Her books, in order of publication, are 1. I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn't), 2. The Gifts of Imperfection, 3. Daring Greatly and 4. Rising Strong. The first book is about shame, the second about vulnerability, the third about courage and connection and the fourth is about the process of using shame resilience strategies to work through shame triggers and build greater connection.

My personal journey with shame

I grew up with a legacy of shame in my family that came down from my very staunchly Victorian, Methodist great-great-grandparents on one side and equally staunch Roman Catholic great-great-grandparents on the other side (all of whom were no doubt only bringing their beliefs forward from their parents and they from theirs, etc.) Expectations were high in my family – for intelligence, achievement, post-secondary education, morality, etc. And the punishment for failing to always conform to those high ideals (i.e. being human), was often shame.

I'm not pointing any fingers here. I don't think the shame in my family was malicious in its intent, it was just the way things were, the way they have been for generations. As Brené Brown points out, shame is a universal phenomenon, experienced by every human who isn't a sociopath. In North American culture, I would say that shame has grown to be a basic operating principle in a majority of contexts. I have definitely worked in offices/for clients and had friendships and intimate relationships that functioned predominantly in a culture of shame.

Shame is a fear of disconnection, of not being worthy of love and belonging, and as such it strikes at the core of us. Love and belonging are two of our most basic human needs.

The cultures of shame I have experienced have included messages and feelings like the following.

You're no good/not good enough and therefore:

• this is all your fault, or 
• you should feel ashamed of making this mistake, or
• I am better/more important/more powerful/more entitled than you are, or
• you're not getting a raise/not worth the same salary as your equivalent colleagues, or 
• I'm not going to talk to you anymore, or 
• I'm going to say bad things about you behind your back, or 
• I am telling you on your Facebook wall that I despise you/your beliefs, or
• I am withholding love/sex/connection from you.

Shame tends to get around.

Sometimes I have been the one shaming (I include judging and feeling contemptuous here) other people and sometimes other people have been the ones shaming me.

I have often found myself in "shame loops" – where my shame has gotten stirred up and my response is self-righteousness or judgment which I hope will trigger someone else's shame and protect me from my own. The loop part happens when the other person in the dynamic turns around and shames me right back. And so on. And so on.

Shame – and the vulnerability it stirs up – are deeply painful and difficult to bear. Because of this, they are highly transferable. Too painful to accept and process, we tend to act them out and try to get them off our plates – like hot potatoes. It seems easier to pass shame on than to work shame and vulnerability through.

When I am not successful passing shame and vulnerability on, I tend to armour up against them in an attempt to wall them off. Brené Brown outlines three main forms of armour that people put on to protect against the vulnerability of shame: foreboding joy, perfectionism and numbing.

The booby prize of perfectionism

For roughly the first three-quarters of my life, I lived very deep in the realm of perfectionism. For me, the thinking was: only perfect people are worthy of love and connection. Of course, I knew I wasn't perfect, but I sure was trying. (Very trying, as we sometimes joke in my family). I wanted to be worthy of love and connection – and I thought that being perfect was the only way to achieve that.

After a whole lot of therapy, at some point in my thirties I was able to gradually let go of trying to be perfect, most of the time. I learned how to cut myself some slack, but I think I simultaneously gave up on the hope that I would ever be worthy of love and belonging. I changed my behaviour, but I didn't change my thinking. I still believed that only perfect people are worthy of love and belonging. And since I finally understood that perfection is impossible, that I was not perfect and never would be, I did not deserve love and belonging. Plain and simple.

With that kind of thinking at my core, it is no surprise that the relationship I had been in for a many years collapsed. Looking back now through this lens of Dr. Brown's shame research, I can see how that relationship fell apart largely because of shaming and blaming. Brené has a great line: "If blame is driving, shame is riding shotgun." (Daring Greatly, p. 195) I can see how I wasn't happy and couldn't accept that that was my own responsibility. I needed to work through my own vulnerability and make my own peace with myself and my life. I needed to believe that I was worthy of love and belonging. And I believe my partner needed to figure out similar things for himself. Because we weren't yet able to work through the things we needed to, we resorted to passing shame back and forth between us, stomping on one other's vulnerability, and getting angry and frustrated with each other for not being able to solve/remove each others' difficult feelings. Shame and blame were fundamental to the way we related to ourselves and to one another. And that dynamic went from uncomfortable to intolerable to impossible.

The difference between shame and guilt

Perfectionism is a both an armour against feeling shame and a major re-enforcer of shame. The thinking runs like this: If I am not perfect, I am a flawed/bad person. This is where Dr. Brown's distinction between shame and guilt – between one's essence and one's behaviour – comes in. Brené Brown distinguishes shame from guilt by explaining that shame is experienced as I AM bad in contrast to guilt which is experienced as I DID something bad.

Guilt holds the possibility of change, hope, agency. If I have done something bad, I can make amends, seek forgiveness and strive not to do that bad thing again.

Shame, on the other hand, robs us of agency. If I am a bad person, there is no point in trying to make amends and seek forgiveness. I am simply doomed to a life of being bad, and therefore unacceptable,  unworthy of love and connection.

Framing an incident as I DID a bad thing and am still WORTHY of love and belonging creates a very different experience from I AM a bad person and am fundamentally UNWORTHY of love and belonging. (In the language of perfectionism, this can translate to I MADE A MISTAKE and am still WORTHY of love and belonging versus I AM A MISTAKE and am fundamentally UNWORTHY of love and belonging.)

When people frame their experiences through the lens of guilt, there is hope for a positive outcome. An experience can be turned around.  Something "bad" that threatened disconnection can transform into closer connection.

When people frame their experiences through the lens of shame, the opportunity to transform disconnection to connection is lost. Shame is highly correlated with addiction, depression, eating disorders, and a number of other behaviours that can cause a great deal of damage to individuals and their connections with others. It seems to me that these are essentially manifestations of the main armour tactics Brené Brown lays out: foreboding joy, perfectionism and numbing.

Shame resilience

Since shame is a universal experience, it is not something that can be eliminated or "cured". However, what we can do is develop shame resilience – ways of using courage, critical awareness, reality-checking and vulnerability to work with the shame we experience and move through it more smoothly. We can transform shame from a weapon we use against ourselves and others to a tool/educator that we use to grow into greater connection with ourselves and others.

Dr. Brown lays out a number of tools for building shame resilience that she has identified through her research. These are ways in which people go from thinking I am flawed and therefore unworthy of love and connection to I am flawed and also worthy of love and connection — and not worthy despite being flawed, but because of being flawed and because of finding the courage to accept being flawed and the vulnerability that comes with that.

In our culture of blaming and shaming, we are all faced with the struggle of shame and "shame hangovers". We can deflect, we can wallow, we can resist. Or we can lean in with our vulnerability, accept ourselves, learn how to be ourselves and to have more grace around our humanness and our shame.

I am not going to try to explain Dr. Brown's tools for shame resilience here. I couldn't possibly do them justice in a blog post. If you are interested in knowing more, I urge you to read Daring Greatly. After getting this book from the library, I've decided that I want to own a copy so I can have it on hand while I continue to do work developing greater shame resilience (I feel the need to give a shout-out here to my awesome local booksellers at Lexicon Books – thank you for ordering a copy of Daring Greatly for me to buy).

A postcript about parenting:

I am not a parent, but I have been parented. And so while I hesitate to put this forward because I fear that some people might tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about and that this is none of my business, I'm going to put this forward anyway: I think Dr. Brown's writing about parenting is amazing. She doesn't give specific advice about how to parent – she describes a path to becoming an engaged and vulnerable parent raising children in a family that is committed to creating shame resilience in every member of the family. Even if shame is not a major issue inside a given family, it is so prevalent in North American culture that it is very often an issue from a very young age in schools, on sports teams and on playgrounds (manifesting as bullying, clique-y-ness, shaming power trips – yes, with that last I am thinking of one of my junior high school gym teachers). With this in mind, having an eye to shame-resilience as a parent strikes me as a very valuable thing for children, parents and our culture as a whole. If you want a quick sample to see if Brené Brown's approach to parenting appeals to you, check this out: http://brenebrown.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/DaringGreatly-ParentingManifesto-dark-8x10.pdf

Netflix Prescription for Cold and Flu (Canada 2015)

I've been really sick for the past four days. I got a cold and developed a bad cough. I am prone to bad coughs.

It has been a rare year in the past 30 that I have not gotten bronchitis or an "atypical chest infection" whatever that means. And once I even got pneumonia. 

So, when I started coughing with this cold, I decided to go to bed and stay there, hoping to avoid a secondary infection with the antibiotics that would entail.

So far, so good.

Unfortunately, I am not a fan of lying in bed, doing nothing. Especially for days on end. I get stiff and sore. And sleep has been elusive – partly because of the coughing and partly because after lying in bed all day and all night, I am never really tired. I've been sleeping for 1 or 2 hours at a time during the day. And have felt very lucky to string four or five hours of sleep together at a stretch during the night.

So, what do I do, when I can't sleep, but don't have the energy to work or read or do jigsaw puzzles?

Well, given that I have high-speed Internet access and a Netflix account, the obvious answer was to watch movies, lots and lots of movies.

In fact, 15 of them in the past four days.

I had a friend ask me for my opinion of the ones I had seen, so I thought I would write a blog post about them. Here they are, broken into groups by dominant theme:

Relationships:
Boyhood (2014)+*
The Invention of Lying (2009)°+
Broken Flowers (2005)+*
A Late Quartet (2012)+*
Raising Arizona (1987)†+*
Reign Over Me (2007)
Let's Make Love (1960)

Art (Ego and Achievement):
Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)°+*
While We're Young (2015)
Match (2014)+

Violence:
The Guvnors (2014)
Seven Psychopaths (2012)

Action/Adventure:
The Aristocats (1970)†+*
Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
Gravity (2013)

* passed the Bechdel Test (though some of them just barely)
+films I thought were actually good movies (Aristocats is mostly marked due to nostalgia)
°these films were recommended to me by friends
†Although I'm a big re-watcher, these two were the only ones I had seen previously

Selection was fairly random. A couple were recommended. I also used Netflix keywords (my favourites are "Cerebral", "Understated" and "Quirky"). I searched some favourite actors and directors, like "Christopher Walken", "Joel Coen", "Phillip Seymour Hoffman", "Frances McDormand" and "Marcia Gay Harden." The Disney cartoons totally happened in the wee small hours of the morning. Often, one film led to another, as I frequently selected a film from the suggestions Netflix gave me at the end of viewing the previous film.

Reviews:

Boyhood (2014) 

Richard Linkletter has done something truly interesting by shooting a film over a number of years so the cast age naturally and the kids in particular "grow up" through the course of the film – and some of the adults do some growing up too. This is a portrait of a typical broken American family – broken and blended with step- and half-siblings. A custodial mom who seems largely disconnected from her kids selling them out to her relationships with a second husband and later a boyfriend, both of whom turn out to be alcoholics, and a weekend dad who tries hard to connect with his kids, offer them guidance and talk about the tough stuff, like sex and relationships.

The Invention of Lying (2009)

SPOILER ALERT: This film was recommended to me by a friend. I enjoyed it – in spite of myself. I mean, it has Ricky Gervais acting his little heart out and he's a damn good actor. He made me sob like a baby (not that that is all that hard to do, but still). It was the premise of the film that ticked me off. In a world where everyone always tells the (often harsh and brutal) truth, the protagonist is frankly informed by the woman with whom he is in love that he is an unsuitable mate because he is chubby with a snub nose. Despite her repeated rejections, he hangs in, waiting and hoping that she will change her mind. It being a movie, she eventually learns, grudgingly, to recognize the value of his inner beauty. It frankly annoys me that someone so persecuted by lookism doesn't have enough sense to find someone to fall in love with who has inner beauty instead of (or even as well as) outer beauty.

Broken Flowers (2005)

I've been wanting to see this movie since it came out. I am a fan of Jim Jarmusch movies. And this is a good one, one of my favourites of the films I watched during this fevered marathon. The way Jim Jarmusch captures the hollow emptiness of his main character, played by Bill Murray, is absolutely chilling, and also SO INTERESTING. I once saw an interview with Gabriel Byrne in which he says that he believes film is actually able to capture thought, and I felt that happening in this movie. Murray's performance is subtle and nuanced. He conveys so much: just sitting silently or driving. I found it fascinating to see how Jarmusch portrayed how his protagonist's selfish visits to the lives of his past lovers affects each one of them.

A Late Quartet (2012)

Another of my favourites from this bunch, this is an excellent movie about a string quartet starring Catherine Keener, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Christopher Walken. Christopher Walken's character is ill and he needs to retire from the quartet, leaving his younger colleagues to continue – if they can survive the unraveling of their relationships in the face of this major change. I wept and wept and wept. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is particularly good.

Match (2014)

I'd never heard of this movie before. It came up as a Netflix suggestion, probably after A Late Quartet. It's one of those movies that is very obviously based on a play. There are few location changes and almost everything is dialogue. Patrick Stewart plays the main character and he is excellent. The movie is about art, ambition, fatherhood, responsibility, love, anger, rejection. It's good stuff.

Raising Arizona (1987)

This is one of the two films I had seen before, but I hadn't seen it since 1988. If you haven't seen this, and you like madcap comedy, I can't recommend it highly enough. It is absolutely charming. The young Nicholas Cage is at his quirky best and Holly Hunter is magnificent. It is also the best use of a book (Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care) in a supporting role that I have ever seen.

Reign Over Me (2007)

Don Cheadle and Adam Sandler in a post 9/11 buddy movie. Compelling, despite being sort of boring, over-written and preachy about PTSD in particular and mental health in general (boundaries, communication skills, emotional intelligence, etc). It is compelling because of the performances and also the loving cinematography of New York City. Though I thought the film was seriously flawed and lacking in depth, I enjoyed the acting – and essentially getting to spend a couple of hours in NYC.

Let's Make Love (1960)

It was strange how I selected this movie late one night. One of my friends had posted a video of tap dancing on Facebook. That inspired me to search for Fred Astaire on Netflix, which came up with nothing. No Ginger Rogers, either, but a search for Gene Kelly came up with this film (Gene has a cameo). The film is a typical sexist bullsh*t movie from the sixties, but it is worth watching for Marilyn Monroe's performance: she plays one of the most generous and kind-hearted characters I think I have ever seen portrayed on film: interested in education and helping out everyone she encounters. I fell madly in love with her character in the first 10 minutes she was on screen and that helped me forgive the arrogant male protagonist for falling in love with her too.

Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) 

This is another film that was recommended by a friend. I found it thought-provoking – It's about a washed-up, Hollywood star of a super hero film series (Birdman – bearing a striking resemblance to Batman), whose mental health is rapidly deteriorating while he tries to mount a play on Broadway – a terrible play that he has adapted from a Raymond Carver story. Michael Keaton plays the over-the-hill Birdman and Edward Norton shows up as a last-minute replacement for a bad actor. Edward Norton plays a great actor, but a deeply-flawed human being. Emma Stone does a fabulous job as Birdman's daughter, Sam, who is just out of rehab and working as his personal assistant. While this is a play-within-a-play set-up, the judicious use of special effects makes it feel like a movie and not like a "filmed play".

While We're Young (2015) 

SPOILER ALERT: I liked this movie, right up until the ending. It's about a middle-aged couple: he's a stalled-out documentary filmmaker and she is a film producer who works for her father, who is a famous and successful documentary filmmaker. All of their friends in their mid-to-late-thirties are having kids, but they are not - she's had a couple of miscarriages and feels like she has missed her chances. They start hanging around with a couple of kids in their 20s – an aspiring documentary filmmaker and his gourmet ice-cream-making wife – and they feel enlivened and rejuvenated by these new influences in their lives. Until it all goes sour and it turns out the young documentary filmmaker has been using them and is a completely disingenuous opportunist. The solution: make up with their old friends and adopt a baby from Haiti. BLARG.

The Guvnors (2014)

I'm not quite sure how I wound up here or why I decided to watch this one. It's a mediocre film about generations of violence on a British housing estate: power struggles, revenge and karma kicking people in the ass. Yawn.

Seven Psychopaths (2012)

A second-rate attempt at the Pulp Fiction genre: a movie about a guy writing a movie about seven psychopaths. The film tries to be cleverly self-referential: there a couple of nice moments when we realize how several of the psychopaths' stories overlap, and there are some memorable performances: Tom Waits shows up as a psychopath stroking a white bunny and Woody Harrelson and Christopher Walken play two of the other psychopaths with style and grace. Christopher Walken delivers an excellent critique of the script-within-the-script's wooden, one-dimensional female characters, but no attempt is made to remedy it in the film (although I did like their joke about a prostitute discussing Noam Chomsky). The film totally fails the Bechdel test. And basically fails at everything else – except being gory, explosive, blood-spattered eye-candy. 

The Aristocats (1970)

This is one of the two films from this set that I had seen before, but I hadn't seen it since I was a small child in the mid 70's and I thought I would revisit it for old times' sake. It's actually pretty cute. I hadn't remembered that Maurice Chevalier sings part of the theme song in French. I mean, really? When did Disney think that a bilingual English-French theme-song would be appealing? In 1970, I guess. Duchess is a loving mother, the kittens are cute, artistically-talented and well-mannered – obviously early influences for me. Also, I think Thomas O'Malley, the bad-boy alley cat, may have been an early influence of Harrison Ford's, coming in handy when he got the role as Indiana Jones. I especially noticed the similarity between Madam smoothing down Thomas's fur and Ford's attempts to do the same thing at the behest of a Nazi officer on the deck of a U-boat.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

This was one of the suggestions the came up after the Aristocats. It's one of several Disney films I had never seen before. The topic appeals to me; I thought Atlantis was pretty cool when I was a kid. And the protagonist of this film is a linguist, which is a major point in its favour. Other than that, it's pretty typical Disney clap-trap, but at least it promotes knowledge, courage and teamwork ahead of beauty and material success, so it could be a lot worse than it is.

Gravity (2013)

SPOILER ALERT: So badly written. Clooney and Bullock are competent, charming actors, and I watched to the end because I wanted to know if Bullock was going to make it. However, after listening to her deliver all of those terrible lines, I started rooting for her to burn up on re-entry. And how many times is Hollywood going to cast Ed Harris at Houston Mission Control?

Permissions #2: Black Eyes and Feathers in my Cap

The last time I posted about my process developing my land, I had just submitted my application to approve the proposed location of my driveway.

It was a case of putting the cart before the horse, I'm afraid.

As I have already shared here, some wonderful friends had been available to help me cut trees off my land before the application went through. But, when I got the application back, I learned that the Department of Transportation doesn't want my driveway to meet the road at the point where we cut down the trees. They have determined that the lines of sight will be better if I move my driveway from the middle of the lot to one side of the lot – and as luck would have it, it's the opposite side of the lot from where I want to put my home.

Since my lot is about 300 feet wide, we're talking about having my driveway be an extra 150 feet long. 

A picture is worth a thousand words:

The area outlined with the pink dotted line is where we've already cleared the trees. The path outlined in green indicates where the department of Transportation wants my driveway to intersect with the road – and the most reasonable path for me to get from there to the area where I want to live on my land – a sweet little knoll with elevation and privacy which backs onto a south-facing slope for gardening and solar gain.

When I first learned this, it felt like a major setback. A "black eye" in Catch-22 parlance (vs. a "feather in my cap").

My friends who helped me cut out the trees are now too busy to give me more help this fall and at least one of them, if not both of them, are going to be away for much of the winter.

I have other wonderful people I can engage to help me with this work. But with this response from the Ministry of Transportation, I felt the wind go out of my sails. I felt disappointed and overwhelmed. I felt self-judgmental and stupid for cutting out those trees before I knew for sure whether I would be allowed to put my driveway there. It went from feeling easy to feeling like it is too much to do (and too much to afford) before winter.

I called my driveway contractor to let him know about the hitch and that I would have to do the driveway work next spring instead of this fall.

Put some ice on that thing (recovering from a black eye)

Fortunately, time is a great healer – and so is trying to be kind and understanding toward oneself after making a mistake. A couple of weeks on, I have gained a better perspective.

My land is entirely mature forest and needs more diversity, so cutting out a stretch of trees and letting in more light is not a bad thing. Now, instead of covering that swath of land with shale and trying to discourage re-growth, I will have the fun of watching natural succession take place along that corridor.

I have decided to view the Driveway that Shall Never Touch the Road as a practice driveway, a folly, and a symbolic path, like in a Japanese Zen garden (such as the Nitobe garden on the UBC campus which contains a Dead End of Teenage Rebellion). Mine shall be more of a symbol of the sanctuary I seek to create on my land, one that will not always connect with the busy world of cars – the Dead End of Comfortable Seclusion.

And it may well also be the path for the power company to bring power on to my land. They will only come in 92 metres for free, and traveling along my new, less-direct driveway may well be longer than 92 metres.

So, I can see advantages to my "mistake" and ways to view it as a more of a "happy accident".

How about a feather in my cap?

In the step-by-step approach to my land development process, I have been procrastinating about the next step: contacting engineers to discuss an on-site sewage treatment solution, also known as a septic system. I think I have been scared of getting more bad news. I've heard that even with a composting toilet, one still is expected to have a system for greywater treatment, and there is no legal option for that except a septic system. I'm not against having a septic system. It will be a definite asset if I ever want to sell my land. It will make it easy for me to – one day – have hot and cold running water. It will keep the powers-that-be happy and make it easy to get building permits and an occupancy permit. I want this to be my home – insurable, legit, etc.

Back in the spring, I contacted my Grade 7 boyfriend, who is now a "Qualified Person" (that's the title given by the Ministry of the Environment to engineers who are accredited to design and inspect/approve septic systems). He was unfortunately too busy to help me; or perhaps he is still harbouring some resentment from Grade 7, or maybe from the one other date we went on in our early 20s. I was not exactly a delightful person when I was 13 and probably even less so when I was 21.

Since he was unavailable to help, I resolved to contact one of the larger outfits around here – one which had been recommended to my by a couple of different people. But I had been seriously procrastinating about it. I use Google calendar as a way of scheduling tasks and events and the "Call engineers" task has been dragged forward from week to week to week. For months now.

Finally fate took a hand. Lately, I have been trying to walk more and drive less when I run my errands. This is easy to do in Lunenburg, where I'm living for the winter. Unless it is raining, I just leave my car at home. And even when I need to drive to Bridgewater, I now try to park in one spot and walk to my various errands. This serves three functions: I get some exercise, the world gets a little less carbon and, while one of Bridgewater's two bridges is closed for construction, I don't have to waste my time sitting in stupid traffic waiting to cross the river.

Last week, while walking from the grocery store to the optical store to get my glasses adjusted, I walked right past the office of the engineers/surveyors I had been meaning to call for months. So, I went in and chatted with a staff person who took my number. One of the "Qualified People" called me the next day.

Many people had told me that hiring engineers would be brutal, that it was exorbitantly expensive, etc, etc. And I have my own reasons to be wary of engineers, having spent far more time in their company that anyone should have to – at least anyone who is not an engineer themselves.

However, I've had an excellent experience so far. The whole cost for a septic assessment, design and inspection is a thousand bucks all in and the permit is good for 3 years. But, since I'm not sure of my timelines to install a system, they were able to do a site inspection for a couple of hundred bucks and the news is good. My topography is appropriate for a cost-effective, small footprint (only 40 feet instead of 120 ft), gravity-fed, sand filter system. I have to dig a test hole for a drainage assessment, but they did an assessment nearby last year and anticipate favourable soil conditions.

Yay, good news. 

Also, they have staked out where the septic system would go, so that even if I decide not to install one for a number of years, I now know where not to put anything else – and most importantly, how to position my well so that it is far enough away from my septic system that it will not become contaminated.

So, one Black Eye and one Feather in My Cap.

I am quite content with that.

Now if only I could shake this darn autumn cold and get some sleep – but that is another story.

Sexism #5: Entitlement

I haven't added to my series on sexism in several months. It's not that I haven't been thinking about it, but there have been other things going on – summer, markets, festival, moving, house-sitting.


In some ways, I lead a life that is relatively sheltered from sexism: I don't consume a lot of advertising, many of my friends and neighbours are not sexist. But I still have encounters with sexist behaviour that are too frequent for my liking. This behaviour takes the form of jokes (about feminists or fat girls or sexy girls), discussions of who's hot and who's not, obsessions with weight loss, weight gain and relationships and occasional, casual, conversational references to women as floozies or sluts. (Yes, I live in rural Nova Scotia, and yes, it does still feel like 1956 here some of the time).

Some of this behaviour is engaged in by men I know, and some by women I know. And some of it is engaged in by me. I have my own internalized sexism, my own set of beliefs that I am trying to work with all the time, to revise and rethink and transform.

I try very hard to remember that sexism is bad behaviour and that people who indulge in it are not bad people. We are all products of our culture.

That doesn't mean it's not still frustrating and hurtful to encounter unexamined and unapologetic sexist behaviour. As I discussed in my post about sexism and protagonism back in April, there are some people who do not not seem to understand that people can be protagonists in their own lives even if those people are not men (or not white, or are living with a disability, mental illness, etc., etc.)

It's pretty easy to spot those people. When I'm having a conversation with another person, it's  clear to me when I'm being treated as an equal human being and when I'm being treated as an objectified "woman", an entity that is being assessed for its potential usefulness to the other person, a person who assumes they are the only protagonist in the conversation.

And that assumption about who counts and who does not, is closely related with today's topic: entitlement.

We're entitled to tell you who you are and what you want

Here's a recent example from my own life of being subjected to someone else's sense of entitlement.

Some friends who have headed out west for the winter hosted a farewell-for-now music show a couple of weeks ago at our local community hall. They invited a number of people, including me, to join them on stage to sing or play a song or two.

I was introduced along the lines of "Our friend, the lovely and talented Alex Hickey" or something like that. And as I got up on stage, I heard a male voice heckle from the audience, "and she's available."

"That's debatable," was the response that popped out of my mouth.

But what I wish I had had the presence of mind to say, was, "Why do you feel entitled to decide what my relationship status is – or should be – let alone shouting it at me in a room full of people?"

I'm pretty sure I recognized the voice of that heckler and I don't think he has any specific, hostile feelings toward me as a person. I don't think he was trying to be mean. Maybe he was even trying to be helpful, thinking he could help me to hook up with someone.

The problem is that his heckling didn't take me into account. I wasn't a protagonist in that moment; I was an object. A thing. An available thing.

That comment was based on that man's beliefs and ideas, projected onto me. I'm a single woman and a single woman is obviously "available", à la carte, for men to peruse and either accept or reject.

I have to admit that I have felt that way during a large portion of my life. And at various times, I have traded away some important parts of myself in return for feeling loved and/or sanctioned by the hetero-normative, pair-bonded system that dominates our culture.

I don't feel that way right now. I've learned the hard way that the cost of being in a relationship with someone can be much higher than the cost of not being in a relationship with someone. And that the rewards of loving someone else can be much slimmer than the rewards of loving and valuing oneself.

Who's Entitled?

I admit that I was furious for a couple of days after being heckled like that. My inner monologue ran along the lines of How dare he?, railing against his assumptions, sense of entitlement and down-right rudeness, hurling his assumptions at me while I was trying to do my job, for Pete's sake! Oh, I had my outrage worked up into a fine, self-righteous frenzy, I can tell you.

It took me a while to calm down about it.

It took me a while to calm down about it because I felt hurt and vulnerable. I felt humiliated by that comment. It took me right back to high school, back to the smart, geeky, emotionally-wounded girl I was in my teens, who didn't have a boyfriend, who felt rejected – and rejecting – and pretended not to care.

I felt entitled to judge and be angry at people back in those days. It was my survival. And being thrown back into those feelings threw me back into my judgment and outrage.

A humble and gentle heart is an antidote for entitlement

I went to a concert in Halifax last Friday, a benefit for Syrian Refugees that was put on by a number of my friends in the folk music community. There was some awesome, hard-core, traditional folk music, the kind of music I love: Vince Morash, Ann Fearon and James Crouse, Clary Croft and Dan McKinnon. And there was also a theatrical/musical piece about rights and responsibilities, performed by the youth theatre group, Project ARC. It was excellent: moving and fun and sincere and wholehearted.

Their piece held a big message for me – and for everyone – that none of us are entitled to anything, that our varied assignments in terms of class, gender, sexuality, ability, etc. don't make us more or less human than anyone else. The only things we're entitled to are our inalienable human rights – rights that are extended to every human equally, are ours from birth and cannot be taken away. Coupled with those rights, we each have responsibilities; we all make choices and take actions to either hurt and belittle other people or to respect them and treat them as equals. Or to do nothing.

Sometimes the world feels to me like a wilderness of assumptions and needs and compulsions and demands and expectations. I am trying to build a life that is centred in authenticity and peace, but I  often have experiences that pull me from the path – experiences that stir up anger and outrage, frustration and the risk of being totally overwhelmed by the hugeness of the task before me.

And in that place of feeling overwhelmed and vulnerable, it is far too easy for me to resort to feeling entitled to judge others and to hold them in contempt.  

I was very grateful to receive a reminder last Friday night that I am no more entitled to my judgments than anyone else is to theirs. And that the task of living an authentic life is not overwhelmingly large, but simply the same size as I am. No bigger and no smaller.

It is my responsibility to keep a firm grip on my own sense of myself. No matter what forces push me in what directions, it is always my choice: whom I decide to spend time with and how I want to talk and think and behave toward myself and toward other people.

I believe the best road through the wilderness is not broad, straight and paved with outrage and hurt feelings, but is narrow, winding and organic, delicately picked out between trees, using empathy and compassion – toward others and toward ourselves.

Body Wisdom Part 5: Artificially Sweetened

I've been feeling pretty depressed over the past couple of days.

My first thought is: Uh-oh.

I don't want to go back to where I was last winter. I was just congratulating myself last week on how great it feels to not be depressed like I was last year.

So what happened?

Well, partly it's state of the world: refugee crises, mass shootings, the Canadian election. With my return to unlimited high-speed internet, I've been spending too much time focusing my thoughts on things I'm not happy about and feel mostly helpless to change.

But there's another factor: this week, I cut way back on the amount of sugar I eat.

My personality would probably be described by many people (not everyone, mind you) as bright and sunny, energetic and giving.

I like being that way. But I think I've been achieving that result artificially.

Yes, that's right, I believe my personality is artificially sweetened — and has been for most of my life.

On a typical day, I consume somewhere between 20 and 80 grams of sugar.

That's FIVE to TWENTY TEASPOONS of sugar.

Imagine eating 20 teaspoonfuls of sugar.

Even 5 teaspoonfuls.

It's kind of sickening, isn't it?

But when I'm tired or cranky or even not feeling adequately joyful and gregarious, sugar, neatly packaged in a chocolate bar or a can of pop, cheers me up and keeps me going.

"There, there," says sugar, "you are not really tired (or sad or frightened or lonely or frustrated or angry). You just need a little pick-me-up. You can use me to simulate energy (or comfort or safety or love or satisfaction or peace) and you will feel ALL BETTER."

Which maybe wouldn't be a problem except that my standards for my mood are high and it takes a lot of sugar to get me to feel how I want to feel. And that much sugar is simply not good for me. Every year, the amount of sugar I eat packs on a few more pounds and it's getting out of hand. I don't want to develop diabetes, or wear out my hips, knees and ankles (at least not before the rest of me is ready to head off into the sunset anyway).

So, with my move to my winter accommodations, I decided to cut out the daily pop and chocolate bar habit. I started concentrating more on mindful eating (which naturally reduces my overall food intake, because being mindful means I actually notice when I'm full). I picked my yoga back up where I left off a few months ago.

Returning to yoga feels great.

The mindful eating feels challenging, but good.

Cutting back on the sugar feels horrible.

I know what I have to do if I want to be able to change my sugar habit. I have to FEEL my feelings and find more genuine ways to feel energetic, comforted, safe, loved, satisfied and peaceful.

And/or I need to lower the bar and accept that I am going to be way more cranky and tired, and feel way more sadness, fear, loneliness, frustration and anger, without my sugar crutch than I am going to feel with it.

I want to change.

I want to create better health for myself.

So, I'm cutting back on shortcuts. Cutting back on pretending. Cutting back on simulations.

And that scares me. Because I predict that it could mean a very bumpy winter for me indeed.

Damn.

Winter Accomodation: Resolutions and Perspective (and Sondheim?)

I'm just about to move into my winter accommodations. Salinger and I should be relocated by Sunday.

We had a beautiful September – warm and sunny with very few chilly mornings. Really, it was everything I could have asked for when living in a converted trailer with the R-value of a sieve. And I've had so many good times with friends, at the West Dublin Market, at the beach.

And yet, I feel more excited than loathe to leave. I'm renting space from a friend in Lunenburg and I'm looking forward to being in town for the winter.

I'm looking forward to being able to leave my car at home when I go to the Farmer's market or – gasp – a restaurant or the pub. I'm looking forward to having real high-speed internet access again and running hot water.

Resolutions

I am starting to make winter resolutions. I have decided:

• I am going to become a member at the Lunenburg Makery and finish off as many of my half-completed quilting projects as I am able to complete over the next 6 months
• I am going to knit in the evenings, make some socks and maybe even complete an unfinished sweater or two
• I am going to get back into a regular yoga practice with YogaGlo
• I am going to read all of the books I have gathered about organic gardening and solar/sustainable housing
• I am going to practice my new DIRA habit
• Salinger and I are going to do more jigsaw puzzles (I currently have 20 puzzles that I have won and not yet assembled)
• I am going to keep up the good work budgeting with YNAB; I think I'm finally getting the hang of it!

 

Perspective

I have to say how deeply grateful I am to be feeling well this autumn. 

A year ago, when I was moving into winter accommodation, I was a mess. Heartbroken and depressed and not even sure I wanted to make it through the winter. Grim times.

I got a lot of support from my friends and family and I've had many epiphanies over the past year+. Some of them I've written about in this blog (Here's one. Here's another.)

But I haven't yet written about my most recent epiphany. It happened a couple of months ago when I read this article – that, yes, I saw on Facebook. The article has kind of a stupid title, in my opinion, but the body of the article is not stupid. It basically says that the crappy times are where the growth happens and are therefore are some the most important and most fertile times we have.

The article is focused on intimate relationships. But I think it applies equally to our relationships with ourselves. Relationships are not just about the good times. When we go through something really challenging with someone else, it either strengthens the relationship – or breaks it, depending on how much people are able to show up for one another and and how well they are able to bear the situation. The same goes for our relationships with ourselves. I can see now that I really showed up for myself this year. I didn't do it perfectly or anything. I spent a lot of time feeling mad at and disappointed by myself. But when I read that article I could see that, on the whole, I stuck by myself in The Pits. I didn't abandon myself into another harmful relationship or booze or drugs. And even my relationships with eating and work – two of my favourite, safest hiding spots – didn't take over too much.

I kept going with my goals at the pace I could manage. I kept trying to be kind to myself and others. I struggled to let other people's kindness in and accept help. I let myself cry – a lot. I figured a lot of things out. I hung out in The Pits and I feel like I gained a lot in understanding, in tolerance, in forbearing.

I grew.

And Sondheim? 

I'm reminded of some lyrics from Sondheim's Into The Woods:
And I know things now,
Many valuable things,
That I hadn't known before:
Do not put your faith
In a cape and a hood,
They will not protect you
The way that they should.
And take extra care with strangers,
Even flowers have their dangers.
And though scary is exciting,
Nice is different than good.
Now I know:
Don't be scared.
Granny is right,
Just be prepared.
Isn't it nice to know a lot!
And a little bit not...

(Read more: Into The Woods - I Know Things Now Lyrics | MetroLyrics)

Actually, Sondheim obviously knows this stuff inside out and backwards.
How about these lyrics from Merrily We Roll Along:

All right, now you know:
Life is crummy.
Well, now you know.

I mean, big surprise:
People love you and tell you lies.
Bricks can fall out of clear blue skies.
Put your dimple down,
Now you know.

Okay, there you go —
Learn to live with it,
Now you know.

It's called flowers wilt,
It's called apples rot,
It's called theives get rich and saints get shot,
It's called God don't answer prayers a lot,
Okay, now you know.

Okay, now you know,
Now forget it.
Don't fall apart at the seams.
It's called letting go your illusions,
And don't confuse them with dreams.

Yes sir, quite a blow —
Don't regret it,
And don't let's go to extremes.
It's called what's your choice?
It's called count to ten.
It's called burn your bridges, start again.
You should burn them every now and then
Or you'll never grow!

Because now you grow.
That's the killer, is
Now you grow.
 
(For all the rest of the words, go here.)

How did I end up writing about Sondheim? I don't know. It's raining. I'm procrastinating packing for my move.

I think it's time I put a little Sondheim on the speakers and started making breakfast and getting this rainy day underway.

The moral of this story: difficult things happen and they are difficult. If you can get through them with a mostly open heart, you will grow. If you get through them with a mostly open heart inside a relationship with a partner who can also keep their heart open, the relationship will grow.

Easier said than done, I know.


I wish you and me and all of us lots of luck.

D.I.R.A. (Do It Right Away)

Like many people, I'm a chronic procrastinator.

I keep meaning to change my ways, but well, maybe later, eh?

The trouble with that is that I keep making problems for myself.

Here are a couple of recent examples:

1. Back in the spring, I had a money order made up to include with my application to put a driveway in on my land. I postponed submitting the application and I have since misplaced (i.e. lost) the money order. It's for $300. Enough to make a typical south shore person conform to the laws around driveways. Enough to hurt. (Except the bank was able to reissue it, phew).
2. A week or so ago, I received a new credit card to replace one that is about to expire. I thought, I'll activate that later – and now I can't find it. 

Apart from these acute examples, there is also the chronic condition of my home, my car and my finances to contend with. Drifts of things tend to mount up and deteriorate into chaotic messes.

I'm getting better with my finances. It's taken me a while and there have been some bumps along the way, but I am sticking with YNAB and it is now rare for me to go for more than 2 or 3 weeks without taking stock of all of my income and expenses. When I'm having a really good week, I track almost everything on the spot, using my phone. This hasn't really helped me make better decisions about my spending yet, but I'm hopeful that as I continue to get the hang of it, I'll start being happier with the ways I choose to spend my money.

And losing that credit card has motivated me to reconsider the number of credit cards I have. They are just making work for me to track and reconcile them. It's not worth it for a few lousy points toward whatever.

I'm going to try to adopt the acronym, D.I.R.A. (Do It Right Away) as a simple way to remind myself to take care of things (especially little things) immediately, instead of letting them mold and fester. Another possible acronym is R.A.P. (Right Away, Please). I would use A.S.A.P., but As Soon As Possible is too open to interpretation. Except when my clients use it, ASAP just means "when you want to", which in terms of me taking care of little things is basically never – or only when I'm forced to.

I've also thought up an expanded version of the DIRA acronym:

D – Documented: there is no point putting thing in a safe place if one doesn't know where that safe place is. So from now on whenever I put something "somewhere safe", I'm going to send myself an email with an easily searchable subject line, like "Where is my Passport?"
I – Intentional: think about the right place for something and put it there. (In other words, stop dropping things carelessly on the passenger seat of my car and later tipping them carelessly onto the floor of the back seat because I want to give someone a lift. Upon arriving home from my mailbox, each piece of paper needs to be dealt with – sorted into recycling, acted upon and/or filed.
R – Resolute: be consistent. Do It Right Away. Every Time.
A – Accepting: I know that this is going to be challenging for me. If it came naturally, I'd have been doing it all along. I will need to jolly myself along, with lots of humour and affection. And get gently back on the wagon each time I fall off.

With present moment consciousness, anytime I see a piece of paper (or anything else) that I haven't dealt with promptly, I always have the option to DIRA. Even if it has been kicking around for months or years, right away can be right now.

Permissions #1: The Driveway Application

(No doubt the first in a long series of posts about seeking permission to do things on my land...)

I submitted my driveway application today.

I had been going to submit it way back in March when I was going through the process of buying my land.

The application needs to be accompanied by a $300 refundable fee. You submit the application, they tell you what you need to do in terms of culvert size and (re)location (if the placement you desire is not okay with them), and after you put the driveway in, they come to see if you have complied and if you have, they give you your $300 back.

(Something in me finds it very funny to think that $300 is the price of compliance around here. Well, now we know.)

Anyway, I got the money order made up in March - and then, I couldn't decide where I wanted the driveway to be. I hemmed and hawed, waiting for all that snow to melt. In the end, I accepted that I had no idea what I was doing and needed more time. I postponed doing the application, waiting until I had a better sense of what I wanted to do.

At some point between then and now, I lost the money order. 

Damn, I do stuff like that all the time. 

I live in chaos - usually busy, often tired, often rushing, and chronically resistant about putting things away (or indeed putting things anywhere other than where they land when they arrive in my life, which is why my car is always such a mess).

So many pieces of (necessary administrative) paper end up buried, misplaced and/or completely lost. 

The last time I saw that first money order, it was in my wallet. I thought I cleaned it out onto my desk in early May, but it seems more likely that I would have taken it out before I went away on a trip in April. Who knows? I have conducted a fairly extensive search, but it has never been seen again.

It definitely didn't help that I lived in three different places in April, in addition to traveling for 10-days. Plus, I burned a number of boxes of papers earlier this summer, clearing out a lot of useless things – but perhaps accidentally, a few very useful things?

Fortunately, the bank is able to put a caution on the money order and retrieve the funds. And all my carelessness cost me was an extra $7.50 to have another money order issued.

Once I got the replacement money order today, I went (almost) straight to the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal with my application and submitted it.

This is me trying to turn over a new leaf – the Do It Right Away leaf.

But more about that later, I think.

For now, I'm just happy to report that I am one step further ahead with my project.

My friends and I cut down more trees on
my land last week. Here is a photo of the
clearing where I think I'm going to put
my Tiny Home.

Driving In Stakes

There's a frequently used expression that was on my mind the other day: Pulling up stakes. 

It's what people do when they give up on a place where they've been for a good while, for one or for many reasons, tear up their roots and start over somewhere else.

I've pulled up stakes more than a few times in my life.

But it occurs to me that I'm doing the opposite now.

This week, I staked my property so that when I submit my application at the Department of Transportation, and they come to inspect the site, they will know where I want my driveway to meet the road.

The first-driven stake, photographed along
with my beloved 6-pound hammer, the first of several hand tools
purchased so I can do work on my land.

After driving the stakes, it was time to give the areas
around them a little haircut, to make them easier to see.

This is a funny feeling. It is a feeling I haven't had for a very long time, the feeling of belonging to a place.

I felt it when I was a kid, essentially because I didn't know any better; I didn't know the upheavals that were to come. I thought the shag carpeting and bean bag chairs were mine and would be there for me always.

(An Aside about Bean Bag Chairs)

It's a funny thing about bean bag chairs. They are very lovable. When my sister and I were little we had one each – a red one and a beige one (to go with the orange, brown and beige shag area rugs with the large geometric shapes on them). As an adult, I bought an acid green bean bag chair for my studio. When I told my nieces that I was moving away from Toronto and wouldn't be able to see them as often anymore, my younger niece, who was about five-years-old at the time, immediately asked, "Can we have your bean bag chair?" I believe she requested it because it was something cozy and cuddly that she associated with me. So of course I gave it to them. 

I'm thinking it might be soon time to buy another bean bag chair. Or two. 

Back to belonging

So, yes, I feel like this land is now something to which I belong. Messy and chaotic after years of being left to its own devices, it is very beautiful to me.

When I first bought my land, I hesitated to alter it. I didn't want to cut any trees. I knew I was going to have to cut trees if I wanted to put my tiny home on the land and live there, but I didn't want to. I actually considered hiring a crane and getting my tiny home lowered into a tiny clearing. Now that my friends and I have cut off most of the trees necessary to put in the driveway and my tiny home, I feel differently about it. I can see how selective cutting is enhancing the beauty of the land for me. How letting in more light will give opportunities to trees that have spent their entire lives in shadow. How the brush piles will rot and give themselves back to the land, nourish their brothers and sisters.

And I see how this piece of land is something I can boss and cuddle and manage and love.

I didn't want to do this with a child. (I have many, many reasons for deciding not to have children. Someday, when I'm feeling brave enough, I'll write a blog post about that.) And while my cat is very available to love and cuddle, he is not available to boss or manage. He is a cat, after all, and they don't much like being told what to do. Being in charge of a child didn't appeal to me, but being in charge of this piece of land really does.

If I'm totally honest, I'm experiencing a bit of possessive, control-freak euphoria. It's all mine. I get to do whatever I want there. My decisions. My consequences. My life. My roots. My home.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

I feel very, very lucky. And maybe just a wee bit drunk on power.

See the purple asters like a smoke upon the hills.
In the spring I saw mayflowers on my land;
this fall there are asters. Both flowers are
potent reminders of my Nana,
who was a passionate devotee of
Nova Scotian landscapes, plants and birds.

Menopause and Misery

Back in February, I wrote a blog post about Menopause and Euphoria. 

Today, it is time to write about the other side of the peri-menopausal coin.

The Dark Side.

Yes, this is the part of the menopausal experience that gets all of the bad press. And I understand why.

I once worked in an office in which about 75% of the employees were women going through menopause. I have never been exposed to so much random screaming and crying. Seriously, there were so many damn feelings around the place that it was often difficult to get any work done. Responses to every little thing were over-the-top, melodramatic. And as for the BIG problems – well, there was more than one all-out, cataclysmic meltdown during my time there. At the time, in my late twenties and early thirties, I rolled my eyes and sighed a lot.

Now I have a much deeper understanding.

Wow, but the feelings that come with these hormonal ebbs and flows are big. They are inarguable, irrational and often very, very unpleasant.

The voices in one's head say terrible things like "Why do I even bother to keep on living?" "Nobody loves me." "Everyone is taking me for granted/trying to screw me over."

The voices are loud and insistent. And they make me want to do terrible things: send out vicious emails, fire clients, tell people exactly what I think of them, weep all everybody, complain, wail, bemoan, etc., etc., etc.

I cannot imagine having to hold down a 9–5 job while this is going on.  I also can't imagine trying to have an intimate relationship. I am grateful that I don't have children. I can only imagine the damage I might do.

A few days a month, the best thing I can do is keep myself to myself. Try not to post on social media (unless it's something innocuous like a picture of the beach), try not to hit the Send button on any email that is not strictly routine (As requested, please see attached file. Best regards, Alex), decline invitations to social events and hang out alone repeating to myself:

"This is not real. This is a mental state caused by fluctuating hormones. It will pass. Ride it out."

An innocuous photo of the beach.
Posted on social media with the inoffensive comment: "Low tide:"
When in doubt, try to stay rooted in reality. If reality seems entirely
awful, go back to bed for a couple of days, or until you seem to
have regained your sense of perspective.

As hard as I've tried to avoid taking action when I am in a state of emotional distress, I have definitely slipped a few times and done some dumb things this summer, damaged some relationships, hurt myself and others.

I'm hoping that I'll keep learning and that I will get better at surfing these waves of feelings.

I'm prescribing myself another winter of jigsaw puzzles and rest.

And reminding myself of a few basic tenets:

If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.

There is a time and a place for everything.

Count to ten before responding to something upsetting (which translates to waiting AT LEAST 24-hours before sending any email with emotional content – or even with emotional undertones)

To abstain from action is well – except to acquire merit. (Rudyard Kipling, Kim)

Tiny Home/Land Report: From Overwhelmed to Confident (in about 4 hours)

I admit that I have been dragging my heels most of the summer, not doing much of anything about my land, except thinking about it. (And by thinking, what I really mean is worrying, fussing and spinning my wheels).

A couple of weeks ago, I decided that I needed to accept that I wasn't going to be anywhere near ready to over-winter in my tiny home this year. So, I began the hunt for a winter rental (and I think I've got that just about sorted, which is good).

Three days ago, I called a (known and trusted) contractor about putting in a driveway. Two days ago, he and I went to look at my land together. I explained my two or three tentative plans, we ixnayed one of the ideas but didn't see any major impediments to either of the other two. The estimate is forthcoming. The deciding factor between the two plans will be cost. Depending on how much money will need to be spent, I will decide on Plan A or Plan B and also whether I can afford to proceed this fall or if I will have to wait for the spring.

From OVERWHELMED...

After the meeting about the driveway the night before, I woke up yesterday morning feeling completely overwhelmed. I had intended to go to the municipal planning department to talk about building permits, but I just couldn't face it, even though I know I have a two-page list of questions I need to ask, trying to narrow down my options.

As I understand it, in my municipality, if I leave my house on wheels, I don't need to get a building permit to put it on the land and it doesn't have to meet code. The first building I put on the land, regardless of its size, does need a building permit and does need to meet the code, but anything after that does not, as long as it is smaller than 210 square feet.

One of the biggest decisions I face is what kind of building, if any, I want to put on my land.

Do I want to put a building on my land that is low-serviced? Basically a combo garage/firewood storage space, with on-grid electricity, but no heat or running water? Or do I want to build a small "water house" with running hot and cold water, a kitchenette, bathroom and washing machine hook-up (with either a full septic system or a greywater system and composting toilet)? Or do I want to build a full-on, rooted-to-the-earth tiny house with power, heat, running hot and cold water – everything contained in one place. Or would I rather not build anything at all and just perch on the land in my current tiny home either three seasons a year or year round (with the latter option obviously requiring a number of winterization measures).

Each of these options will entail very different things in terms of permits and cost.

And I don't know what I'm doing. I've never done this before so I'm learning at a great rate. If I'm not careful I get overwhelmed and I feel very lost and scared.

It's a big challenge for me to go slow, not get ahead of myself or try to take on too much at once.

And while I'm doing this project solo, by and for myself, it's important for me to remember that I don't have to do it alone.

Yesterday was a perfect reminder of that.

...to confident.

After my dismal, stressed-out morning yesterday, I was in town in the afternoon, running errands, when my phone rang. The call was from a couple of friends for whom I had done a substantial favour earlier in the summer. They had offered to return the favour with a day of work (meaning two person days of work – an agreement that seemed more than fair to me, especially since they are super-handy and work in the field of forest ecology, offering skills that I really need). I understood that they were having a busy summer and that our work party would need to wait until late summer, or even early fall.

When they called yesterday, my friends said they were unexpectedly free for the afternoon and since it wasn't too sweltering hot to work, was I available to come take a look at my land? I was mostly hoping for their knowledgeable advice about what trees to cut and what not to cut, but I got way more than I was hoping for! They brought a chainsaw and after four hours of work, we had cut out and cleared about half of the length of the planned driveway at a width of 16 feet!

It was an amazing transformation! My land has not been cleared or tended in any way in a long time. It is a stand of natural, mature forest – very little undergrowth, lots of standing and fallen dead wood. I find it remarkably beautiful, but what I was not prepared for is how much more beautiful it is with a swath of it cut out. The space for the driveway is now framed and canopied by trees. The trees look much taller now that one can stand back and really get a look at them.

The clearing sets off the trees to better advantage!
Look how tall and majestic they are!

And the things I learned about forest ecology were useful and fascinating. We selected the path for the driveway with an eye to preserving certain trees – favouring hardwoods (which are less common on my land) and a couple of beautiful old, super-straight tamaracks and pines. We mostly took out the small, crappy fir trees, many of which were standing dead anyway from a lack of light under the canopy of taller trees.

My friends explained how brush piles and piles of dead wood act as nourishment for existing trees and how they could be positioned to regulate water drainage on the property. And that I could transplant baby trees from the middle of the planned driveway to other spots on the property, where they will get more light – and not be decimated by the excavators.

Plus, we piled up a good start on next year's firewood!

One of several piles of firewood,
ready to be bucked up!

All in all, it was an extremely satisfying, informative, fun and uplifting afternoon!

In one short afternoon, I went from feeling stuck and stymied about my land to hopeful and heart-lifted.

It is very good to have good friends.

I am very, very grateful.

And I am strongly reminded to be open to receiving help when it's being offered.

Where once there were only trees...

PS: because our work party had been planned so spontaneously, I had to take off around 6:15 pm to keep a commitment with some friends who are visiting from out of town. My friends said they would continue cutting and clearing for another half-hour or so. When I went back today to take the pictures I had forgotten to take for this blog post, I was amazed to see how much more they had done. They must have stayed much longer than a half hour, and they cleared about the same distance again that we had cleared in the first four hours. I am amazed and humbled by their hard work, efficiency, diligence and their generosity with their work and talents. 

And I am even more grateful than I was yesterday, if that is even possible. 

9 interesting things I've learned about forgiveness

I'm a bit of a grudge-holder.

This is not my favourite part of my personality. But I can see why and how it developed and I can try to have compassion for myself when I'm feeling bitter and resentful.

I used to hold on to and fuss over:

 Every. 
 Little. 
 Thing. 

I've gotten a lot better about that. I don't sweat the small stuff much anymore. Little things tend to roll off my back pretty quickly and easily.

And I'm getting better at expressing myself when I'm upset. I have been really pleased (and kind of surprised, actually) to have been met with a lot of kindness and understanding recently when I've had exchanges that have upset me that I needed to talk through with other people. Very often, hurts are unintentional and if both parties are willing, it can be an easy matter to sort things through and get back on a comfortable footing. In fact, working through a misunderstanding often brings us closer together with our friends, family members or lovers. Being able to work things out and salve hurt feelings builds trust.

However, when someone hurts me severely, and is not interested in trying to make amends or sorting things out, I usually feel like I'm falling apart. When that happens, anger and judgment are what I use as binding agents to hold myself together. It's a proven strategy for me. I've made it into my 40s without disintegrating into a chaotic mess — and frankly, I am grateful for the coping mechanisms that have enabled me to do that.

The unfortunate thing about that is that it can take me a long time to forgive major injuries.

So far, I have mostly succeeded (eventually) in forgiving people who've hurt me badly.

I feel like I have learned some interesting things about forgiveness over the years.

Here are my nine favourite things that I have learned about forgiveness

1. Forgiveness can take me a very long time.
   
2. I can work toward forgiveness, but I can't force it. It comes when it comes.
   
3. When it arrives, major forgiveness arrives all in a rush – an epiphany that feels a lot like a religious experience. Even if I've worked and worked and worked toward it, when it arrives, it feels like an instant transformation.
   (Incidentally, this is also my experience of deciding to let go of relationships. I'll be struggling, struggling, struggling trying to make something work that just isn't, and then I'll have what feels like a sudden realization that it is time to move on; that I simply need to remove myself from the situation.)
   
4. I believe I have experienced far greater benefits from letting go of my resentments than have the people I have forgiven.
   
5. It is easier for me to forgive someone who is making, has made, or has even attempted to make, amends.
   
6. Time and distance are essential components for me; it is really hard (perhaps impossible) for me to forgive someone who is in the process of hurting me in the present moment. I mean, I'm not Gandhi, or anything (although, from what I hear, Gandhi wasn't necessarily Gandhi either).
   
7. Forgiveness does not heal the wounds that have been inflicted.
   This is perhaps the most interesting thing about forgiveness in my mind. Even once I forgive the other, I still have to deal with the consequences of the wounds that were inflicted. Forgiveness for me is only the first step. On the plus side, forgiveness frees up a lot of energy to put toward working to heal those wounds. On the downside, the older I get, the more I understand (and believe) what my Nana always used to say about how the hurts we have experienced stay with us forever. She said to me many times: "There will always be a scar there." And I think she was right. At least for people with personalities like hers and mine. (She also advised against picking at those scars. I think she was right about that too).
   
8. Often, the people we feel have hurt us don't see the events that took place in the same way that we do.
   I don't think very many people set out to be the villain in someone else's life. And even when people are extremely harmful to others, it is often not in their best interest to admit to others or to themselves the harm that they've done. I find that most people have good stories/reasons/excuses for why they did what they did. They might even think the whole thing was the fault of the person who feels hurt! (And maybe part of it was. Owning up to one's own share in a dynamic can be an important piece in the forgiveness puzzle.)
   
9. Forgiving someone doesn't mean that you ever want to be in contact with them again.
   Some people are just not good for us. As a friend once wisely told me, "Hurt people hurt people." Often, if we keep certain people in our lives, they are just going to keep hurting us and keep needing to be forgiven. Now getting some practice with forgiveness can be a good thing, but there's a point where we are just beating our heads up against a brick wall. And, if we don't want ourselves to become the hurt people who hurt people, we need to protect ourselves from people who know how to hurt but who don't know how to heal or repair damaged relationships and broken hearts.

I may never become a master of forgiveness. Forgiveness might always come to me slowly and grudgingly.

But I have learned to trust that it usually comes.

Eventually.

In its own time.

And for that, I am very, very grateful.

Because forgiveness, when it finally arrives, unshackles my heart and sets me free to heal.

5th Annual Pennybrook Festival Report

The 5th Annual.

It sounds so official, doesn't it?

But this year's festival was the least official yet, I think.

With a busy summer (and a little bit of volunteer burnout) happening, we decided to be very casual in our organization of the Pennybrook Festival this year. With the stage already built, the preparations were not as physically demanding, which was good.

There was still a lot to do – site and food preparation mostly – getting the field bush-hogged, raking, setting up the tents, making food for the musicians and for the potluck. Sadly one of our three core volunteer organizers had to be away for work during the festival itself, so there was lots of multi-tasking going on. Fortunately, a few good friends volunteered to give us a hand on Friday night and Saturday.

Despite the generally lackadaisical approach to the festival, we had a stellar line-up: Sahara Jane and Daunt Lee came back for a second year. Steve Keith participated in a set of smoking hot bluegrass with Kevin Roach and Jude Pelley and then came back up on stage again for a set of smoking hot jazz. John Muller cracked us up with this awesome anti-Harper song:

Even I played a set – a rare occurence for me these days.

Half of the audience consisted of super-talented musicians themselves and once the stage wound down, there were two separate after-hours jams – the folkies sang around the campfire while the bluegrassers tore it up in the green room (which was not located in my house this year). As usual, I collapsed way before the festivities ended, but once again I had the joy of listening to the fun as I drifted off to sleep in my Tiny Home, comfortably situated about 40 feet away from the bonfire with all of its windows open to the warm evening air.

Sunday morning was all chat and bacon and caffeine. After we got the cobwebs shaken out, we settled in for more tunes – well, I say "we" but I'm afraid I was mostly listening from my house while I plowed away on some desk work to meet an unfortunately-timed deadline that I had committed to months ago. I had begged the client to try to steer work away from this past weekend, but to no avail.

Oh well. Sometimes it goes that way. I was feeling a bit emotionally shaky on Sunday anyway, for one reason and another, so it was kind of soothing to sit and zen out with my work, with an amazing soundtrack unfolding in my front yard.

We're not sure if we have another festival in us, but if this was the last Pennybrook Festival, we ended on a high note. And it certainly has been an amazing, fully-alive five years.

I always have a favourite moment in each festival. This year it was listening to Sahara Jane recite an English translation of a Rumi poem right before she sang it the poem as a song in Dari. The tears streamed down my face as I listened to her speak Rumi's words: so thoughtful, thought-provoking, complex and unexpected.

I can't find the exact translation that Sahara recited online, but here is a link with several translations of the same Ghazal: http://sunlightgroup.blogspot.ca/2010/06/sunlight-i-was-dead-i-became-alive.html

It was a truly beautiful weekend – so many big warm hearts and hugs. Songs of truth, heartbreak, hope, giddy joy.

I came away filled to the brim and utterly exhausted. My heart is full of gratitude and love – for my fellow organizers, our volunteers, musicians and audience.

We made something beautiful happen.