The Blog

Last month, I spent a wonderful week in Newfoundland. I told the immensely helpful folks at the tourist info in St John’s that I’d mention the city and how friendly the locals were. People in Newfoundland are incredibly lovely and kind, their hospitable reputation even immortalized in the theatrical production, Come from Away.

This generosity of spirit definitely helped me navigate my experiences there, which were not without challenges, the main one being the return of a health problem from three years ago, which left me very dizzy and breathless, quite literally waging an uphill battle through the steep streets of the colourful city.

Tackling this issue, along with the usual particulars of orienting to a new place, brought into sharp focus the paradoxical way that travel simultaneously opens you up to new worlds, while forcing you to hone in on the essentials. All kinds of niggling problems and obsessions fade into the background when you’re faced with the need to find food and shelter, or, as in my case, to address a health problem in a strange place. There is also something very liberating about packing all that you need into one bag, with (nearly) everything serving a functional purpose and feeling grateful for having all the basics to hand.

Once armed with all of the essentials, there is nothing comparable to having a new world literally open up before your eyes, putting your own situation into perspective and showing how much more there really is on offer, making travel one of the best and most uplifting experiences you can ever have in your lifetime.

The opportunities for learning and sharing and the joy of discovery are endless. I feel exhilarated by all the challenges I set for myself, pushing myself past my comfort zone and trying out pursuits beyond what I would ever have imagined me capable of doing. And of course, seeing puffins soaring across the ocean was pretty incredible too. 🐧

The best thing about travel is that you can literally do it anywhere – even in your own home town. It’s not about spending a fortune or going to an exotic location. It’s about being open to what’s around you, and being adventurous enough to try out new places and experiences. When you travel – in any capacity – you naturally make yourself vulnerable, which allows you to connect with others, to grow and to gather new ways of understanding.

As a result, you can also develop confidence and skills that you can take with you throughout your life. I would encourage everyone to take a break from the daily routine and live a little – stay out late – do interesting things, take a chance. Your body will recover and your spirit will soar.

The wonder of travel is that it is always available to us if we open our baggage within and fill it instead with the joys of discovery. Travel – of any kind – is one of the best ways to feed your soul and to feel appreciative, expansive, energized and alive.

There has been a recent movement nationally for revamping local historic sites, to ‘decolonize their narratives’, implying that what is depicted in these places is inherently shameful. Instead, the initiative is to broaden the use of these spaces to tell the stories of people about which less is known. I’m not against sharing stories of marginalized individuals and communities, but for me, if they’re not related to the site, then such places are not the best way to do so, as presenting them out of context is misrepresentative and bestows a false association which is confusing for the visitors.

In the current museum world, my views are well in the minority, and as a guide in an historical family home, I have to suppress my need for period consistency and deliver this juxtaposed content. I’m also not peculiarly au fait with the way in which these efforts zero in on specific groups, as ironically, by featuring certain ones in the name of inclusivity, we are actually excluding so many others not currently in the public eye. I think it’s also erroneous when we gloss over the context of how things were understood at the time in favour of our modern sensibilities of how we think things ought to have been.

Another parallel example is the recent push in many places to rename streets and institutions named for public figures now considered villainous. For me, this is problematic on a few fronts. First of all, I think it would be difficult to find any historical figure that is not flawed in some way and many of them, along with some clearly reprehensible actions, also accomplished a great deal of good. By erasing their existence altogether, we can never study their actions and properly evaluate their legacy. We must also be prepared to examine our current paragons of society in a similar fashion.

Furthermore, by investing so much time and money into wiping out the public face of such figures, we are wasting valuable resources that could be better used to solve problems that we have right now, all around us – homelessness, lack of affordability, mental health issues – to name but an obvious few, and where money and energy could be so much better spent. What does that say about us, that we would rather focus on sanitizing our distant past rather than face up to the immediacy of problems that surround us today? 

History is a plurality and simplifying it with reductionist, loaded terms or worse, rebranding it to assuage any residual guilt we might feel over transgressions that transpired, really does more harm than good, by not fully exploring all of the complexities of various time periods, particularly as events would have been understood in the day.

If we reduce, edit and label our historical past with convenient simplifications, we will never truly understand or learn where we have come from, and the challenges overcome in order to progress. It also blinds us to our own continuing and urgent need to progress towards future improvements for all in our human and non-human world.

One afternoon, while I was working at an historic house museum, a group of six friends came in for a guided tour, which is the only way of seeing the house. The maximum tour size is fifteen, with a preference for groups of six or more to pre-book. This particular tour was only half full and could accommodate these six, which I was happy to do, but a senior staff member stepped in and insisted they would have to split up into two groups, with half going on a tour an hour later. After much kerfuffle, they were eventually all allowed to join the departing tour.

I later posited to the site manager that surely the primary goal of the museum was to provide our visitors with a positive experience, which we could most successfully achieve by accommodating them to the best of our ability, within reason. She agreed and promised to look into the matter.

That evening, by coincidence, I experienced a similar ‘barring of entry’ at a free community clothes swap, having neglected to pre-register for a specific entry time slot. I’ve been going to these swaps regularly, and timed entry was only ever occasionally requested but had seemingly now become a hard rule. I was asked to wait, but even after half an hour of watching the pre-registered flutter in, the gatekeeper still refused to let me enter, though there was clearly plenty of space. She was completely unsympathetic and I left, disappointed, with my big bag of clothes in tow.

It seems that amidst our claims to be a freer and more inclusive society, we’re becoming more and more bound by rules. Rules are a set of logical guidelines to follow, reflecting a space or institution’s values, principles and practical considerations. Such rules are meant to provide a safe and equitable access, though many rules often seem to exist more for litigious or even arbitrary reasons.

While rules clearly have a legitimate function, they should not be inflexible, and there should be scope, within reason, to adapt them to meet individual, real-life circumstances. The danger is that if we become so wedded to the rules, our kneejerk reaction is to defer to them dispassionately, rather than to consider if there is a way to exercise compassion and help find a more favourable solution.

Last weekend, for instance, I asked a ‘water refilling station’ booth at a festival if they would watch my bike for a minute (there being nowhere to park it) while I ran to the washroom and they said no, they were not authorized to do so. Fortunately, the adjacent booth said, ‘sure, no problem.’ What a difference it makes when we bend official rules in favour of helping someone in need and to provide a better outcome.

Even with our best efforts to ‘follow the rules’, we are all imperfect and make mistakes, and I think, particularly as service providers, we should all endeavor to try and help members of the public with their individual needs as best as possible. A desire to help and to provide a positive solution should truly be the number one rule governing our actions.

As I write this, I am immersed in the clamor and noise of construction across the street, preparing to build yet another apartment block no one seems to want, but which invariably keep popping up all across the city. ‘Condo cancer’, as I’ve long called it, spreading without warning everywhere you look. It feels as though soon this city will have little else other than these towering structures blocking out the sky.

Crossing the street the other way brings me to a busy shopping plaza, with pedestrians darting between the cars which narrowly avoid hitting one another in the cramped parking lot. At the end of the plaza, I catch an often-packed bus to connect with an equally packed subway train.

Everywhere I turn there seems to be increased activity, people, traffic, construction and noise, all of which are becoming harder for me to bear, especially as I get older. I do seek out the panacea of nature regularly, but even then, I’m often met with noise from traffic, building or the ubiquitous leaf blowers. Large sections of two parks I go to have been under construction for months and remain inaccessible.

It feels like everywhere is getting filled up, taking away the space. We all need space to breathe – as much as we need air, because without it, we cannot achieve a sense of perspective on our place in the world and what truly matters.

One of the things I love about landscape painting is when an artist depicts figures in the foreground, dwarfed by towering mountains or the endless swell of the sea. Recognizing that we are tiny creatures in this universe, we can begin to feel our vulnerabilities and the precariousness of our existence.

In cities, we skew this perspective by filling up all the space, thereby inflating our own sense of prominence and place. And by filling up our outer space, we’re also cluttering up our inner space, so we literally have no room to grow or to reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re going next. Our phone addictions compound this, beaming out imaging and messages that permeate our souls. We need to put down our phones and look out in the distance, but we need to be able to see into the distance in the first place.

Space, like time, is another disappearing commodity for many people, as it is, most pressingly, for wildlife. Humans need homes but animals do too, and this planet belongs to them as much as it does to us. I wish with all my heart that we would stop building and start re-wilding, so we can truly experience the wonder of living on this earth and to be able to find some peace.

I am sitting in a silence that has enveloped the space since my mother’s recent death.

Sometimes it is too silent, our home having gone from a hive of activity, of caregivers bustling about, to my now being completely alone, immersed in an unending loop of reflection over her final days and whether things could have gone any differently.

 I am blessed that my mother’s passing was peaceful and anchored in support and loving care. I was with her until the very end, listening to the laboured rasping, as her body shut down, the final quiet intakes of breath, the movement into a complete stillness and immobility. Witnessing the finality of death, the incontrovertible expression of the fragility of life.

Now I am engulfed in the silence of her absence, the imposed solitude and overwhelming introspection about her life and our time spent together. What I need most is for the people in my world to hold this silence with me, to dwell in the sacred space as I come to terms with the ending of her life and the resulting transformation of my own. I’ve also been immeasurably tired, depleted and disoriented, while immersed in the endless tasks of disassembling a person’s existence.

Immediately following my mom’s death, I received many messages of condolence and support, charitable donations and gifts, all of which I’ve genuinely appreciated. But what I’ve needed even more over the past few weeks is the gift of people’s time, of being with me as I navigate this new and uncertain reality.

It’s a very difficult road to traverse alone and no one wants to feel that they’ve been abandoned or forgotten at such a sad time of their lives. Companionship, however, is not an easy thing to ask for, and as grieving is an ongoing process, I will always be grateful for those who are able to listen to my uncertainties with empathy and compassion.

It’s been a further reminder to me that we should all endeavor to check in with each other more, especially at hard times, but at other times too. Life is difficult enough without feeling isolated and alone. We can really make a difference by reaching out and giving of our time and our humanity, with acts that will always be appreciated and remembered.

Experiencing the death of someone you’ve loved is a journey that takes time, patience and healing. Paradoxically though, the loss of my remaining parent signifies to me how limited my own time is here on earth. I have been filled with immense gratitude for all the gifts my mother has given me, while also feeling now, more than ever, the precious and precarious gift of life itself.

While Valentine’s Day has come and gone, I wanted to discuss the pursuit, not so much of someone else’s heart, but the importance of following your own.

Like many people, I regularly struggle feeling conflicted between my desires and my obligations, of fulfilling my own needs versus meeting my responsibilities to others. The sensible ‘must dos’ often win out over the deeper yearnings of fulfillment and connection.

The other day, for example, I needed to run some errands for my elderly mother, while I desperately wanted to go to the riverside park in the opposite direction. I decided that, despite the hassle of all the extra transit time, each were equally important and so I did both. It was tiring and  I didn’t see anything particularly special in the snow-encased park, but the saliant point is that I overrode my mind telling me how impractical this was and made time to honour my inner needs as being important as anything else going on in my life.

Following your heart can feel scary, as it is often times involves going against logic and the goal-oriented behaviour we are so regularly conditioned to follow. But it’s always worth trying, listening to that small voice inside of you, even if the outcomes are not what you expected or even wanted, because the more you get used to trusting your intuition and exercising the muscle of listening to your heart,  the better it will lead you to places in life that are resonating and uplifting.

Conversely, the times I’ve not acted on my intuition or followed the longings of my heart, the regret has always eaten me up. Over time, if we suppress our deepest desires and needs long enough, we may become chronically depressed and even physically ill.

The greatest gift we have is the ability to live our lives with health, dignity and the freedom to make good choices. And honouring and fulfilling who you truly are as a unique individual is the greatest gift you can give yourself – not just for Valentine’s Day but every day – and the clearest pathway to living a life imbued with integrity and inner peace.

I was hoping to start the year off with an uplifting story, but just before New Years, I got swindled. I booked a ‘charming apartment away’ for a few days after Christmas on Booking.com, at a price which seemed too good to be true, and clearly was. A couple of days before I was due to depart, the accommodation informed me that unfortunately, the last guest created a plumbing problem that couldn’t be fixed in time for my visit. As soon as I cancelled my booking, the owners re-listed my dates at double the price.

In the midst of scrambling to find a new place to stay, I also reported the property that was clearly committing fraud. To their credit, Booking.com were exemplary in their response. They assured me they would investigate the matter and offered me a few options by way of compensation, one of which was to reimburse me for any difference in price of a new booking, charging the excess to the ‘charming apartment away’ as a relocation fee. So in effect, I was able to upgrade, at no extra cost. 

Since that experience, I’ve had a few more dubious incidents that I’ve had to report and thankfully, my concerns have been met favourably by companies striving to keep their services reputable and above board. We live in an age with such a lack of accountability, especially through online platforms, where it’s easier to conceal truths and lead people astray. You can take such companies to task by leaving reviews, expositing any wrongdoing, but making contact with the business or site directly, where possible, is equally as important.

Often folks will just write off this kind of bad experience, but I would encourage people to reach out where they can because our increasing passivity is making us less vigilant – or able – to act in a myriad of situations that require some kind of response.

 I sat on a packed bus the other night that had stopped for a long while – without any explanation, and not a single passenger inquired as to why we were stuck there – except me, of course, and I then relayed the situation to everyone on board. I worry more and more about how inert we are becoming as individuals and as a society, and how much provocation we need at times to be stirred into action.

Of course, we have a greater incentive to act regarding a personal transgression, especially if there is some kind of compensation or reward for doing so. But surely, the greater reward should be acting in the name of decency, trying to improve a situation, not only for ourselves but for one another.

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Recently, I realized somewhat belatedly that my condo neighbour hadn’t been paying over the past year for the parking space that he rents from us. I started to imagine all kinds of negative scenarios about why this would be, along the lines of his taking advantage of our not noticing. But I decided to try and keep an open mind, and when I approached him about it, it turned out he’d had so much going on that he’d simply forgotten. He was very apologetic and contrite and paid the full amount promptly. We moved on to other topics and positive relations were restored.

I think there’s much to be said for giving someone the benefit of the doubt, as well as initiating direct and clear communication, rather than making up all kinds of assumptions about what might be going on. We all seem to be so quick to judge one another these days, sometimes on the basis of images we’ve seen online or other kinds of unsubstantiated evidence.

Without doubt, the ability to communicate technologically in such a myriad of ways has countless advantages and benefits, but the downside of doing so with such regularity is that we’re rapidly losing our ability to communicate meaningfully face-to-face, and even less so with patience, kindness or compassion.

Our online activities have primed us towards transactional interactions delivered swiftly, and this level of expectation often migrates to face-to-face interactions, forgetting that people don’t operate like machines and that we need to allow for human idiosyncrasies and error. Individuals might also act erratically due to health issues or personal circumstances.  I’m not saying all manner of behaviour is excusable, but to try and approach a situation accounting for human variables.

 We’re also losing the capacity to just hang out and enjoy each other’s company, to respond sensitively to the physical cues of an environment and one another, and to allow for silence to be present without rushing in to fill the space.

One of the better things about the holiday season is that people tend to reach out more to one another in various thoughtful, heartfelt ways, not only family and friends, but also displaying more of an openness and generosity to strangers and those in need.

We should always strive for clarity, kindness and respect in our communication, to try and see the other person’s point of view and to approach one another with empathy, rather than condemnation. This time of year in particular encourages us to make more of an effort to be nicer and more compassionate with one another.

But remember that communicating – with kindness – is for life, not just for Christmas. 🎁

I was in Montreal for a few days last month, to re-energize and to enjoy the resplendent fall colours. On my first evening, quite suddenly, I started getting flashes out of the corner of my left eye, which, over the coming hours, morphed into a cascade of black dots and thick lines obscuring my vision. I tried not to panic and hoped I could sleep it off and it would all magically disappear by the morning. Of course, it did not. At 8am, while battling intrusive floaters, I fashioned an eye patch out of a hairband and ventured out to seek medical attention.

Of course, being in another city – and a French speaking one at that, I had no idea where to go. Fortunately, a kind local pharmacist directed me to a nearby hospital. I spent the whole of the morning and early afternoon in Emergency and at a busy ophthalmologist’s office, trying to communicate in ‘Franglais’ and to remain calm.

Though the situation was very scary and upsetting, apparently, the retinal hemorrhaging that was diagnosed was not that unusual (for my age) and there was little that could be done while I waited for the intense floaters to gradually dissipate in the coming months. I muddled through the remaining days of my trip with eyepatch and sunglasses in place and tried to enjoy myself as much as possible, gaining some relief from the evening’s darkness.

It was several weeks before I experienced any sign of improvement and the ability to use both eyes (though my vision is still somewhat impaired as I write this). During my recovery, spent largely on the sofa – I learned a number of valuable things.

First of all, the importance of allowing the body the time and space it needs to heal. I succumbed to the fatigue and headaches and gave up so many of my regular activities, like pickleball, piano and reading. It was depressing and hard but I had to give my eye the best chance of recovering.

When I did venture out, especially on public transit, I discovered just how challenging it is to navigate around the city with one eye and how little people are aware of one another. I could really empathize with the issues people with disabilities face on a regular basis, not just in physical barriers but in other people’s lack of awareness. It was a stark reminder about being more sensitive to one another’s’ needs.

I’ve also been in awe of the incredible medical innovations we have and how I just expect more and more these days that whatever condition I have, there will be something to ‘fix it’.

Mostly, of course, I’ve appreciated the incredible privilege of being able to see and how grateful I am for a faculty that allows me to engage with the world with discernment and joy. The first time I could safely venture out again on my bike into nature and properly see the birds was an incredible moment of reconnection and bliss.

 It so often takes losing something and regaining it to appreciate it in its entirety, and the experience has literally opened my eyes to the gift of sight as one I will no longer ever take for granted.

Some weeks ago, I was thinking about what to write this month and a few hours later, my wallet was stolen. Of course, there is nothing in the world that would have induced me to wish this incident upon myself, but since it did occur, it has given me a lot to process and reflect upon.

The evening began normally enough. I popped into a supermarket to buy some granola bars, put my wallet back into its usual backpack compartment and zipped it up – though possibly not fully – and got on my bike and crossed the street to the library to attend a lecture. It was only after the talk when I went to borrow a book, that I discovered my wallet was missing. I emptied out my bag – twice – and searched the library and street on my way back to the supermarket, expecting that someone would have handed it in.

This was a decent neighbourhood and I like to believe that people are generally honest, as has mostly been my experience, even in this notorious city, but there was no sign of it anywhere. The wallet, which was special to me, as it had been given to me by my parents when I was a teenager, contained about $30 in cash, my debit card, and other cards like my library and transit card, though nothing with my name on it, other than some Measure of Light business cards.

I became increasingly frantic – it was now getting dark and without any money, I was wondering how I was going to get home  – a distance of over 7 miles. On my second trip back to the supermarket to make further inquiries,  I ran into the speaker and his wife, who had already helped me search at the library. On hearing that I still hadn’t found the wallet, the speaker, without hesitation, handed over $20 to help me get home, asking me only to pay it forward. I was incredibly moved by his kindness and generosity and promised to do so.

A clerk gave me change and when I was counting it out at the subway kiosk, having explained my situation to the transit staff, they waived my fare. Subsequent calls to the bank and other places to replace my cards were met with people who were equally helpful and kind.

Even after weeks of following up, I never did recover my beloved wallet (nor have found an adequate replacement) and have had to move on. There are many ways I could choose to reflect on this incident and I’ve gone through a range of emotions, from being upset about my wallet being stolen and how underserving I was of this happening, to anger and disgust over people who cruelly take things that clearly belong to someone else. In the end, I’ve decided to focus on the people who so readily offered help, especially the speaker handing me money to get home. Their kindness is what has stayed with me most and what I choose to carry with me going forward.

We can all frame our narratives and decide to take from them what we wish. Of course, I desperately wish this incident had not occurred, and the way in which it has contributed to my changing views of this city. But I’d rather focus my energy on the lessons I can learn from it, such as being more mindful and vigilant, but most importantly, the real difference that reaching out and being kind can make to other people who are in need of help.