Summer Adventure

As I look around me at the cherished circle of friends I have gathered over the years, I see that little cracks are forming. An illness here, major surgery there. It has begun, the process of time eroding our collective health and vitality. We shall all fall eventually, of course, but for now it is still a crapshoot with none of us knowing what the future holds.

It is much too sobering to live this way, waiting to see what will befall us next, so the only option is to live in the moment and truly savour what each day brings. While I have followed this philosophy for years, and am thus pretty open to new experiences,  I was completely unprepared for the unexpected surprise that came my way recently; an invitation to spend the coming summer in Dublin with my husband.

I have been wanting to see Ireland ever since my girlfriend took me to see the film "Ryan's Daughter" many moons ago. The movie had a visual impact that four decades have not dimmed in my mind. I am so excited at the prospect of actually being able to see that craggy coastline and those deep green fields for myself in a matter of weeks, that I am starting to pinch myself. My stomach jumps in happy anticipation when I think of all the things that await us.

As excited as I am about my upcoming adventure, I also have a heavy heart about leaving behind my family and friends. Because I know that time and space alter things and that even if everyone is still standing when I return, we will all have changed because of new experiences and things will therefore never again be as they are now. Therein lies the ambivalence; you can't stay too comfortable if you want to experience a full life but in order to have adventures that will add colour and spice to your life, you have to get out of your daily routine and embrace new challenges. Life really is a series of hellos and good-byes and treasuring the memories one creates in between.

While musing over this remarkable opportunity, I happened to come across the following quote by Mark Twain who said: "Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

Dublin, here I come!

International Women's Day

I had dinner with a close friend yesterday, International Women's Day. While looking at old photos and chatting over a glass of wine, I thought about all the women who are out there fighting; for human rights, to be heard, to create change, and this very much includes the women I try to help through Kiva, a micro-lending organization which reminds us that "women perform 66% of the world's work, produce 50% of the food, but continue to earn just 10% of the income while only owning 1% of property."

As  my friend served up organic chicken and roasted vegetables, I asked her....if you could have dinner with any woman you admire, past or present, who would it be?

She thought about it and after a lively discussion came up with Eleanor Roosevelt, (she was ahead of her time) Jane Jacobs, (she made things happen) Katherine Hepburn, (a total original) Queen Victoria (she changed the world) Flora MacDonald (quietly worked on improving social programs even after retiring from politics) and Carol Burnett (she is one funny woman).

On my side, I would also have invited Eleanor Roosevelt but since she was already spoken for I moved on to Golda Meir, (a true pioneer) Audrey Hepburn, (classy, talented, aged beautifully and did good work for the UN till the end of her life) Anita Roddick, (founder of The Body Shop and one of the first to understand the connection between business and social/environmental responsibility) Zanaib Salbi (founder of Women for Women International, an organization that has, to date raised over 24 million dollars in aid to help women in war-torn countries rebuild their lives) and Dorothy Sayers, the English writer and poet who apparently said: "A woman in advancing old age is unstoppable by any earthly force." You have to love someone who can say something like that and believe it!

As an after-thought, my friend added Rachel Carson, the environmentalist and author of Silent Spring while I wondered why we had mostly chosen women who are no longer with us instead of more iconic contemporaries like Oprah. Media saturation may have something to do with that.

There are so many brilliant women out there, doing so many interesting things as they go about their often difficult lives, that our little dinner game was almost silly. But in discussing some of the women who had influenced our thinking along the way, we were paying tribute to many more in our own way. In the end, that is what we must hope for; that we are given the opportunity to do work that is meaningful, that we do it to the best of our ability, and that we inspire others as we go. But what we have to strive for, all of us, is that women everywhere are treated respectfully and given an equal chance at anything they choose to do. And not just on International Women's Day.

Of Dreams and Nightmares

Back in October 2004 I was shocked like everyone else in my town to read about the senseless murder of a young woman named Kelly-Anne Drummond. By all accounts, she had been an out-going, vibrant girl, an accomplished athlete who had just completed her degree in Communications and who had recently worked as a production assistant on her first film shoot.

My reaction to her senseless death was very much coloured by the fact that my own daughter has a birthday in October which we were about to celebrate. I often thought about Kelly-Anne's mother and what she was going through. By what stroke of luck or fate did I get to keep my daughter, while she had so tragically lost hers? It consumed my mind for quite awhile and I followed the story right up until Kelly-Anne's boyfriend was convicted of her murder and sent to prison two years later.

At around the same time as Kelly-Anne died,  I was writing a book (Silent Women) which deals with the subject of abuse and how easy it is for people to lose themselves when they get enmeshed in an unhealthy relationship. Abuse comes in so many forms....verbal, sexual, emotional, physical...and it can be delivered so subtly that the victim, at first, doesn't even realize what is happening. Abuse can happen to anyone, at any age.

While I continued to work on my book, I was approached by a friend and colleague who asked me to help her with a film she had just finished directing. She had shot it but the storyline wasn't working for her and she needed to give her images new meaning in order to salvage the footage she already had. The film was entitled "Dreams and Mirrors".

The film depicts the emotional landscape of a young girl who is trying to come to terms with her past and the relationship she had with her late father. The breath-takingly beautiful images evoked strong emotions and were a natural outlet, given what I was writing in my book, to further explore the topic of women who choose to be silent about their inner pain. What cannot come out, goes deep within, and in the case of Sara, the character in the film, the end result is a sequence of dreams that eventually lead her to make an important decision. To quote from the narration: "The women always walk without speaking, knowing that silence is expected of them, that all shame must be borne without ever making a sound. This might have been my own fate had I not heard the wave of eloquent anguish coming from these silenced voices, showing me that pain is the force that either keeps you down or makes you rise."


"Dreams and Mirrors" is finally going to be screened this weekend after years of hard work and a tenacious belief in the message from all who were involved in the project. One crew member will not be able to attend the screening. I never knew until yesterday that the production assistant on this film, was Kelly-Anne Drummond.

I dedicate what I wrote for "Dreams and Mirrors" to her memory.

2011

Too much champagne, not enough sleep.


But we made a good start to the New Year, hubby and I, and that’s all I had wished for as we clinked glasses and made our toasts.

Along with mundane thoughts and a tiny headache this morning comes a yearning to reinvent myself. This is nothing new as I get like this every so often, a throw-back to earlier years when it seemed a good idea to always keep moving.

They say that at the end of your life, what you regret the most is what you haven’t done. So reinventing myself while I still have time is simply a way to get back on track with what I want my life to be, by shedding what I no longer want, re-assessing what I actually need, prioritizing, and then taking concrete steps to attain those new goals. I know from experience that sometimes that process leads to chaos and sometimes it leads to peace of mind. I’ve had the pleasure of both and can attest to the fact that introspection and inner-growth can come from either one. Change is always good, even if, especially if, at first it causes pain and discomfort.

As I step into this New Year, I feel that familiar inner pull tugging at my spirit once more. There is a strong sense of urgency this time, a reminder that I no longer have oodles of time ahead of me. I look around at family and friends, some of whom are tackling huge life issues, and I am convinced that the old poster over my bed when I was a teen, held a truth we can only fully appreciate now that we’re older; today is the first day of the rest of your life.

Let’s not waste a moment.

Feeling Grinchy

Last winter, while waiting for a delivery, I offered to give the store directions to my house. They politely declined by saying: "that's ok, our drivers have GPS." Duh.

They say you start to get old when you have trouble adapting to new technology so I guess I have arrived because I find myself commenting more and more on how things used to be. I used to give people verbal directions to my house all the time but now refrain from doing so for fear of sounding....well, like an old person.

Here's another example of how things have changed:  I always looked forward to writing Christmas cards around this time of year and would always send out between 40 and 50 to friends and relatives all over the world. As a result, we always received tons of cards back which provided a holiday tradition that goes back to the first year we were married; when the tree comes down we read all the cards out loud, one by one and share a memory or anecdote about the sender. With family living far away, this was always a bitter-sweet moment of connection, replaced now by the immediate gratification of social networking.

With twitter and facebook, skype and the convenience (not to mention the monitary savings) of e-cards, our old traditions are starting to change drastically. As a result we have received a mere seven cards so far this year. I probably should only admit to five, since one was from our newspaper delivery man and another from our dog's vet! I fully expect to receive Jacquie Lawson e-cards even from them next year.

And the anticipation of going Christmas shopping? Gone the way of the Dodo bird. Walking through stores to get ideas, checking and comparing with other stores, perhaps finding the ideal book for a person, getting them what you think they want, used to be fun and even exhilerating. Of course, you come home exhausted and somewhat cranky after a few hours of that, but it's all worth it if you find the right gifts. "Oh, you still do that?" asked a friend recently. "I do all my shopping on-line."

I concede that it may be more convenient to browse on the Internet but surely it's not nearly as much fun as shopping the old-fashioned way. I know that makes me sound ancient but there you are. I still like to anticipate what I might see in a real store and I like to touch and feel and check out the colours and I love the satisfaction of suddenly finding that perfect something that I know is really wanted by the person on my list and then bringing it home like a secret treasure. Although there, too, the influence of technology is vast. Remember when a nice holiday photo in a frame made a lovely gift? Now you can give grandma 200 photos in an electronic frame she can watch over and over like a bad sitcom. Should I give a book or simply download ten onto a Kindle/Kobi? Does anyone even remember how much pleasure we used to get from giving or receiving a simple sweater or scarf? Not many do.

I think this is the last Christmas where old traditions that my husband and I have built up over nearly three decades of marriage will prevail. Next year I will try to be more in tune with the times. I will send out e-cards, give Kiva gift cards to everyone and then serve a free range turkey with bio rice ad organically grown vegetables. But I will secretly treasure the way things used to be.

Happy holidays to everyone and may you put 2011 to good use!

A Very Personal Choice

Like most people, I have very ambivalent feelings on the topic of euthanasia.  I have watched as people suffered needlessly and wished privately that I might have done something merciful to put them out of their misery. On the other hand, my experiences have also taught me that quality of life cannot be measured arbitrarily across the board by any one person since everyone has their own criteria as to what constitutes quality.
So it was with great anticipation that I recently attended a lecture on the topic of euthanasia given by a well-known author and ethicist, a staunch opponent of euthanasia. Fair enough.  I went with an open mind and I found what she had to say riveting and thought-provoking. I was disappointed, however, at her inflexible attitude during the Q and A that followed. What I had hoped for was dialogue. What I got instead, was dogma.
All good and fine for someone who is healthy to take an anti-euthanasia stand. But for an elder who might be tired of a long and lonely existence, someone who knows he or she is ill beyond repair and is suffering both physically and emotionally, it might seem like an answer to their prayers.
One of the problems, or so said the lady giving the lecture, is our collective inability to have  meaningful "death talks" on a regular basis as we used to do when we were more religious. With religion seemingly no longer playing pivotal roles in our lives, we have lost both the venues and the traditions that made our impending demise a normal part of living. Death has thus become a very frightening topic.
As well, we have a habit of hiding our frail elderly in hospitals and institutions rather than keeping them at home as previous generations did,  further restricting our daily contact with those in our circle preparing to make their exit. It does not bode well for any of us that we continue to encourage staying youthful at all costs over....pardon me for the obvious....aging gracefully and thereby accepting our eventual demise and even preparing for it.
Personally, I believe very strongly that I have the right to choose the manner of my own exit. Though I am not saying that I would want, necessarily, to be euthanized, and by that I mean having a doctor administer a lethal dose of something,  I would like to think that in the case of great and prolonged suffering, it might be an alternative offered to me.
As I write this, a woman in my neighbourhood is making sure her very old, blind, incontinent and arthritic dog is getting one last hug before being put to sleep. She took her faithful companion to the country over the weekend so he could have one last sniff in the woods, lie in the sun and listen to the lake water lapping on the shore while she gently stroked him.
While I appreciate that one cannot compare a person to a pet,  I think there are instances where animals get shown more mercy than people.

A Rural Approach

Having worked with the elderly for many years, I am always interested in how other countries and cultures look after their seniors.

In small-town France, where I have just spent two weeks visiting family, there is a very clear understanding; getting older means just forging ahead while changes come about on their own and making as little fuss about those changes, as possible.

Case in point: my 83-year old mother-law, quite creaky now and slower than I've ever seen her, still lives independently in a five bedroom house. She has no intention of going anywhere else and doesn't see why she should. It takes her a little longer to get things done. She falls asleep more often during the day. No big deal, she is functioning at a level she can manage and deriving enormous pleasure from her days.

Her 90-year old neighbour, a woman who is legally blind and who now needs help deciphering her mail, also remains alone in her family home. She can be seen, early every Tuesday morning, trotting out to bring the garbage to the curb for pick-up. Both women still shop for their own food and depend on one another for moral support. "Ah, ma pauvre" is a lament often heard, a sentiment which is meant to express sympathy but not pity for all the things about life you can't change. Aging is seen as a normal process and there is no special focus placed on the specifics until an illness comes along which permanently alters the course of someone's life.

So why is it seemingly much less complicated to grow old in rural France than in Canada?

For one thing, they have much more forgiving winter weather than we do. No slipping and sliding on icy sidewalks and the worst of their winter is usually done by February, when the daffodils start to bloom. Another reason might be that people are very open to taking homeotpathic remedies for their common ailments with less debilitating side effects. Finally, there is less interest in how one looks than here, where we are constantly bombarded with ads for products that will make us look younger. I'm not saying the French, don't use lotions and potions like the rest of us. I'm saying that in the small town where my family lives, women seem to have a healthy dose of acceptance about their appearance and their age and they keep on contributing to their family life in whatever way they can which in turn gives them a sense of still being useful.

On the last day of our visit, my mother-in-law was hobbling around in her cluttered and inefficient old kitchen. She was making a tiramisu for a friend down the road who had just come out of hospital.  It took an entire morning to make it and most of the afternoon to deliver, but by the time she was in her chair having a little nap my husband and I could see how she and her elderly neighbours are still a vibrant part of their community.