• Love Love Love

    • October 31, 2009 5:37 am

    I started this blog little over a month ago for a few reasons:

    One, the cat woke me up at an ungodly hour and, fuming mad, I said a little prayer to help me not to strangle him; Two, I had just seen Julie & Julia, which enlightened me to the idea that a blog could be inspiring; Three, I heard a quiet, little voice from within saying, “Get up and start a blog.”

    I’ve been posting every single day (except Sundays) since then and there are currently 5 followers and an unknown number of other readers.

    The idea behind the blog is simple: Inspire me, inspire you.

    The feeling I get upon waking, in anticipation of writing something, as well how I feel after I post, plus comments I’ve received from readers, confirm the purpose of the blog as being fulfilled.

    So far, so good.

    Though I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t get anxious about posting. “What am I going to write about? What the heck am I supposed to say to inspire people today?”

    This goes against everything I teach when I lead writing workshops: We never have to think of an idea. All we have to do is stay open and let the idea come through us.

    So here is what is coming through:

    I am in Port Hope, Ontario, to visit my maternal grandparents. My grandfather, who is in his mid-nineties, is bed-ridden, which I did not know until I arrived last night. My grandmother is diabetic and chronically depressed. They still live in their own home and have (at the moment) 24-hour care.

    When I go there today I will sit with them and I will be a listener. I will be of support in whatever way I can. I will be present with them in the spirit of unconditional love.

    Believe me, there is a lot that I could say to them. I could tell them what I think about their parenting skills, I could give them advice about spiritual healing, I could suggest many changes they could make in order to feel better.

    But this is not my job. These things are none of my business.

    My only job is to love them. And to be a loving presence in their lives. For one day.

    Not easy. But right.

    And thank you for reading this message, by the way. Knowing you are out there keeps me going.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: It’s easy to tell other people how we think they ought to be living. The more difficult path is to simply be a loving presence. By taking the path of unconditional love I bring peace to the situation and to my own heart.

    Toronto the Good

    • October 30, 2009 5:22 am

    Today is my last day in Toronto. I’m heading an hour east to spend a couple of days in Port Hope, where I lived from 2001 to 2004. My mother’s family is there and a few good friends. I’m looking forward to visiting another ex-home.

    I live in a small town and when I come to the Big City (this could be anywhere, Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto) I like to take advantage of all it has to offer. I have done this in spades this past week. I’m officially overstimulated.

    It’s been a week of listening to endless sirens wailing. I heard a terrible story about a young man who was beaten and then run over and killed. I’ve listened to lots of fearful talk about H1N1 and seen people wearing surgical masks for protection. I saw a someone lying in a sleeping bag on a busy corner and I watched a man having an animated conversation with an imaginary person. His jeans were filthy and did not fit him and his hair was matted and wild.

    I went to the theatre, twice. I saw a couple of brilliant films that made me weep. I took photographs of the sun glinting off the new Crystal at the ROM and the RBC building downtown. I ate vegan in Kensington Market, Thai at a home in the Annex and Japanese at College and Yonge. I connected with friends and family and I people-watched on subways, buses and streetcars.

    This is an amazing city. There is so much going on all the time. It is constantly buzzing with human energy. I’ve had to take a few naps.

    I met a woman yesterday who is really struggling in her life right now. She was full of pain. I am about to go and visit my friend who has breast cancer. My friends’ daughter-in-law and grandson both have swine flu.

    There are 2.48 million stories taking place simultaneously right here in the city. Another 3 million stories in the GTA. There are 25,000 people in Whitehorse, where I live. The contrast is stunning.

    This past week has been more than just a trip I took to go to a wedding and do some business. It has brought me a deeper appreciation of all that I have and all that I am. I’m so alive today. I have perfect health. I am living a life of adventure and freedom. The words “thank-you” just don’t cut it. But thank-you.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Travel can awaken us to ourselves and to the lives of others. Take a trip and see life anew.

    Perseverance

    • October 29, 2009 5:30 am

    I went back to high school yesterday. I have nightmares about high school. Not that it was such a bad experience but the dreams are most often about me being back there at the age I am now. This is what makes it a nightmare.

    “I thought I graduated,” I’m thinking as the dream unfolds. Usually I’ve got a math exam and I haven’t studied for it at all. Or I’m late for class and I can’t believe I have to be there. “Am I not done with this part of my life??”

    It’s a terrible feeling. I suppose it’s because I’m having to do something over again, something I already completed; I’m having to repeat an experience that was challenging for me.

    But being back in high school yesterday was actually really inspiring.

    The first thing I saw when I walked through the doors was my name painted on the wall in gold letters underneath the words “Ontario Scholars.” A miracle. I had to work really hard to get good marks after failing Gym in Grade 9 and getting asked to leave my first high school because of too many absences.

    After we all stood for O Canada, I spent the next couple of hours with the students in the very same theatre where I’d directed a play for the first time at age 17. I read them one of the plays I’ve written and we talked about acting and writing and where to go after high school is over. Their dreams of being professional actors and dancers and musicians shone from their eager, young faces.

    When the reading was done and it was time for me to leave, I looked outside at the “smoking section” where we used to hang out before, after and between classes and smoke cigarettes and I saw an empty yard. Times have changed.

    On my way back downtown, on the same bus I took every morning all those years ago, I reflected upon my own success as a writer/performer. Twenty years ago our drama teacher had looked around the classroom and said, “Statistics tell us that only two of you are going to make it.”

    In that moment, I’d sworn to myself that I would be one of those two. And 20 years later I am. Not because I’m rich and famous but because I’m a working artist. I’m still at it. I didn’t give up. I persevered. What a feeling!

    Inspiring Message of the Day: “If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying. “Here comes number seventy-one!” Richard M. Devos

    Carpe Diem

    • October 28, 2009 3:19 am

    It’s early folks. Don’t ever believe the time it says I posted the blog, for it seems to be wrong no matter what time zone I’m in, but it’s the crack of dawn nonetheless.

    I’m heading out to the high school from which I graduated to read some of my work to the students and to talk about what it is like to live as a professional theatre artist. I haven’t been there for 20 years.

    I see in the news this morning that H1N1 has killed a 13-year old boy and last night I learned of the death of my cousin’s mother-in-law from cancer. She was not old and she lived a healthy lifestyle. It was fast.

    Death is on the front burner today. But it’s okay. It’s scary but it’s okay.

    There is a documentary out there called Griefwalker and the protagonist in the film is a man by the name of Stephen Jenkinson, a theologian and leader in the hospice movement who has some radical things to say about death and dying.

    I heard him speak in Whitehorse once and his talk has stayed with me. He believes that if we are not acknowledging every single day that we’re going to die then we’re not really living. He argues that we will only ever know the profound joy of living by truly embracing the grief that accompanies the acceptance of our dying.

    I believe he is right. Every day I pray for the courage to live this day fully as though it were my last. It’s terrifying to confront death so matter-of-factly but boy does it make life rich.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: When I am truly awake to the fact that I may not get another day to live I can then live more fully, rejoicing and celebrating the fact that I’m alive today.

    Two Wheeled Joy

    • October 27, 2009 5:09 am

    I know that car ads tell us that the automobile will bring us freedom and independence and, to some extent, this is true. But I have found even more freedom and independence recently from the humble bicycle.

    Not coincidentally, I attended a recent workshop production of a show about bicycles wherein the performer, Evalyn Parry, presents the audience with stories and songs about the evolution of the bike. Part of the bicycle’s history is connected to the women’s movement and how it changed us and our attire.

    Evalyn and her historical sisters equate riding a bicycle to being free of the constraints of patriarchy and consumerism. Yesterday, I felt that equation most deeply.

    As a traveler, I am at the mercy of public transportation and taxis. This is fine, I do well with it and I get to where I need to go. But “at the mercy” means I have to follow bus schedules and wait for cabs and leave extra early for events and do a lot of planning. It’s not horrible, it’s just energy- and time-consuming.

    At the bike show the other night I ran into a friend who works at a fantastic bike shop here in Toronto. They rent bikes and he was adamant about setting me up with a bicycle for the rest of my trip.

    The next day I went into the store and he did just that. I am now riding around on a Batavus Bicycle, AKA a “Dutch Bike” and though a heavier bike than most it is a sturdy and safe ride, which sits the rider fully upright. Straight back, legs pumping jauntily, I feel like Mary Poppins with a helmet.

    I am now able to leave when I need to leave, get to where I am going for free, and whiz by taxis sitting in traffic. I am free. I am outdoors in the fresh air, getting exercise, enjoying the sights. It’s marvelous.

    Best of all, I ran into a friend from junior high in the bike shop and we got to reminisce and catch up while our bikes were being serviced. Hail to Curbside Cycle!

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Looking for a feeling of freedom and independence? Go for a bike ride!

    Taking the Sabbath

    • October 26, 2009 5:03 am

    I don’t blog on Sundays.

    I even try not to open my laptop on Sundays, unless it is to watch a movie. No email, no web surfing. I take a break from technology. I don’t do it perfectly, believe me, but I really commit to the practice and work it to the best of my ability.

    A few years ago I was introduced to the notion of a taking a Sabbath day and I began to integrate the idea into my life. One day of the week where I do no work.

    No work! That means if you’re a gardener you don’t garden. If you’re a writer you don’t write. It’s a day of rest, a day to rejuvenate your spirit. A day to enjoy your life without the burden of do-ing.

    Yesterday was a wonderful Sabbath day for me. Not completely restful but absolutely uplifting. I attended a spiritual service in the morning and a post-wedding tea in the afternoon. I went to hear John Irving read/speak at the International Festival of Authors and then I attended my friend Evalyn Parry’s workshop performance of her new show Spin at the Hysteria Festival.

    I was alone and I was with good friends. I was quiet at times and laughing my head off at others. I didn’t need to check my email. I didn’t need to be on line, staring at the screen, checking, checking, checking for what? It took me a while to learn that the world wasn’t going to stop if I didn’t turn on my computer.

    It’s a new day today. It’s Monday. I’m on-line and I have a full morning of business. But I am spiritually prepared for the day and for the week because I took a Sabbath day yesterday. I highly recommend the practice.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Taking one day a week to let go of work, of do-ing, of checking email and being plugged in, is a form of deep self-care. It allows us to recharge our spiritual batteries and see the world anew.

    Ce-le-brate Good Times, Come On!

    • October 24, 2009 7:42 am

    Since I am on the road and do not have the cat waking me up at 5 a.m. I am posting these blogs a little later than usual. I’m also feeling a bit jet-lagged. Three hours is not a huge time change but if you believe that it takes as many days to recover I’m only on Day 2.

    My friend is getting married today. I blogged about her a while back. She’s the gal who was more interested in taking stock of her emotional process than her guest list. Two other friends of mine are turning 40 today. It’s a big day.

    I am not yet 40 and I have never been married. I’m imagining what it would be like to be my girlfriend, the one who is getting hitched, right now, this morning, a few hours before she says “I do.”

    I’d be freaking out!

    Well, maybe not. Maybe I’d be cool as a cucumber, ready to seal the deal, commit for life, tie those two loose ends into a knot.

    No, I’d be freaking out.

    I’ve been proposed to twice in my life. Once by a man in a bar in Dawson City and once by I man I truly loved and had a strong desire to marry.

    Neither one worked out.

    My mother, who has been married to my father for 41 years, raised me and my three sisters to be fiercely independent. She actually warned us against getting married for as long as the four of us can remember.

    “It’s a patriarchal custom meant to secure property and wealth,” she’d tell us.

    All four of us are now in our early-to-late-thirties. None of us are married. But the first one of us will be by next year.

    We’ve come a long way, baby.

    Today is a grey day. It’s not ideal for a wedding. Or a birthday party. But I will celebrate with my friends these rites of passage despite the gloomy atmosphere. The birds are still singing. I can hear them through the window, open just a crack.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: This is a wondrous life. There are so many possibilities. What is worth celebrating? Find something and rejoice in it. Look beyond the grey into the fullness of be-ing.

    Tell Me A Story

    • October 23, 2009 7:45 am

    It’s a wild and woolly day here in Toronto. The wind is whipping the leaves off the trees and grey skies blanket the city. I’m glad to be back.

    The airport taxi took me along a familiar route and memories from my Toronto life came back to me as we drove through the dark, passing various landmarks I’d known in my younger days.

    My early years were spent in the Yukon but Toronto is where I grew up. Here is where I left childhood and became an adolescent. I then left adolescence and became a young woman when I moved back to Whitehorse at the age of 18.

    Tonight I’m telling a story at the Festival of Oral Literatures – FOOL (www.foolfestival.ca), a new storytelling festival organized by an artist friend I know. The story is a stylized tale about a little girl whose innocence is ripped away after she moves from a small town in the far north to a big city in the south east.

    It’s an autobiographical piece. When I was 7 years old, just turning 8, I was sexually molested in a ravine near the elementary school I attended. It was the lunch hour jogging program and I was with one other girl. Somehow we’d gotten separated from the pack. My family and I had only been in Toronto about a month.

    You may be shocked to read this. It’s not a secret. I’m open about this part of my life. It’s been a long road of healing and every time I think I’m free of the shame that comes with this kind of abuse I discover yet another layer to discard. And so I do the inner work and find an even deeper sense of freedom. But it’s been a lot of inner work!

    The story I will tell tonight is about moving from darkness to light, from shame to acceptance, from blame to gratitude. It’s a privilege to share this part of my life in this way and I’m excited to have a new audience. The listening, too, is part of the healing.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: When we share our burdens, they are halved. When we listen, we invite transformation. The exchange is often sacred.

    Toronto Bound

    • October 22, 2009 7:02 am

    Today I set forth on a travel adventure, heading “Down South, Back East” to the Big City of Toronto.

    I spent ten years of my youth in Toronto and a couple of years in my 30’s living just outside of it, commuting into the city for work and play, and I find great comfort there.

    Lots of people do not like the place but I still love Toronto with all of my heart. It no longer feels like home but rather like an old friend I can return to who will take me in and entertain me for as long as I wish to stay.

    I will also spend a few days in Port Hope, a little town about an hour east of TO. That’s where I lived for two and a half years after leaving Montreal and before moving back to the Yukon. My mother’s family lives there and I still have close friends in the region. It, too, will be a homecoming of sorts, and I am looking forward to re-connecting with folks.

    Travel, as I have mentioned before on this blog, can be an anxiety-inducing experience. The loss of routine is challenging. We’re out of our comfort-zone, we have to rely on other people, we have to get inside large metal tubes that fly through the sky. My prayer life becomes very rich when I travel!

    I once wrote an article about walking through fear and in it I described my experience of being on an airplane and being terrified to die. My only recourse was total surrender. I let go of my life. I accepted that it was time for me to go. I said good-bye to all I knew and loved (sobbing as quietly as I could so as not to alarm the person beside me) and I actually grieved my own death.

    It was a life-altering experience.

    What was most amazing is that out of this came a desire to be of use. As my fear fell away I found myself asking for the courage to help someone else. The removal of my self-centred terror brought a genuine willingness to be of service.

    To know that I could take action against fear by serving the greater good of my fellow passengers was a revelation. That sense of purpose I discovered, and not just on planes but in everyday life, can truly free us of our fear.

    Of course, we didn’t crash and I’ve since been on dozens of other flights. But the experience has stayed with me and whenever I’m on a flight and get scared we’re not going to make it I re-visit this healing process. It works on the ground, too!

    Today’s Inspiring Message of the Day was sent to me by a friend. It’s lovely.

    “…When you travel

    A new silence

    Goes with you,

    And if you listen,

    You will hear

    What your heart would

    Love to say.”

    “…A journey can become a sacred thing:

    Make sure, before you go,

    To take the time

    To bless your going forth,

    To free your heart of ballast

    So that the compass of your soul

    Might direct you toward

    The territories of spirit

    Where you will discover

    More of your hidden life,

    And the urgencies

    That deserve to claim you.”

    ~ excerpt from John O’Donohue’s “For the Traveler”

    Hair Today

    • October 21, 2009 6:43 am

    I buzzed off all of my hair yesterday. Well, I didn’t do it, Stacey the hair stylist did it for me. It’s not the first time I’ve done it, either. I took some clippers to my hair about nine years ago and experienced the radical change, both on the inside and the outside, that can come with such a drastic move.

    Though the word “drastic” conjures up images of measures taken in extreme situations it really means “likely to have a strong effect” and that is exactly what occurs when a woman has a #1 buzz cut.

    The cut I sport today is not a #1. Stacey did a very careful job with scissors and though she did use a little device that made a buzzing noise the resulting effect is more of a #4.

    Here is the breakdown of lengths and corresponding blades, taken from Wikipedia, FYI:

    • #0 or bareblade (shortest)
    • #1 (3 mm)
    • #2 (6 mm)
    • #3 (9 mm)
    • #4 (12 mm)
    • #5 (15 mm)
    • #6 (19 mm)

    Yes, my hair is now 12 mm long. And boy does it feel good.

    I remember experiencing this feeling the first time I took the plunge and went this short. It’s freedom, pure and simple. Freedom from hassle, freedom from vanity, freedom from hair in the sink, on the sweater, in the food. It’s a joy.

    It’s also intense. It’s not easy to be a woman with a buzz cut. People have very strong reactions. I was having coffee with an ex-lover back when I had the #1 and he told me flat out, “I can’t look at you.”

    The Globe & Mail even went so far as to publish an article featuring a couple of high-profile women who’ve gone the Sinéad O’Connor route of late. The piece talked about how empowering it is for a woman to have a shaved head but how the style ultimately challenges people’s expectations of what femininity is supposed to look like.

    Funnily enough, I feel more feminine with this cut than the one I had previous, which was still very short but long enough on top to spike up or comb down. I felt really masculine with that cut. I felt like a guy.

    Now, with no hair, man, I feel like a woman.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Despite the fact that I think my attractiveness has something to do with how I look, I am mistaken. We are not our hair. Our light comes from within. Shine your beautiful light!