Monthly Archives: March 2021

Pandemic Diary: On living life, versus “filling up time”

A text from a friend:

So what are you filling your time with before you start work? Want to go for a walk?

Oh yeah—I’m starting a new gig on April 5th, more on that in another post. This one is about “filling up time.” And, walks.

Let’s tackle walks first. I used to love walks. Walking the dogs, walking the kids, myself, you—I could spend hours being a flanneur, rambling city streets, alone or with a companion, perfectly happy.

One year into the pandemic (unhappy anniversary to us all, again), I am so thoroughly sick of walks as a social activity, I can’t even. If I’ve gone for a walk with you in the last few weeks, it means I really, really love you. And I probably won’t do it again, I just can’t, OMG, no, no more walks, let’s just sit somewhere and talk, please, my neck is already getting a crick in it from its two-hour tilt sideways in your direction, also, I’m getting anticipatory shin splints.

One of my loves wants to go hiking, again, and I’m pretty sure this falls in the category of walks and, honestly, we never went hiking together before the pandemic—actually, it’s quite lovely, fine, let’s do it, just don’t call it a walk through the woods. It’s a hike. Let’s not talk and march really fast, up hills and through the snow. Hike. Not walk. What you call things is important.

Him: You’re insane.

Jane: Pretty sure that, after a year of walks being the one legally sanctioned social activity, none of us are sane.

Enough about walks. Time, “filling up time.” I’ve written before about what the pandemic has done to our sense of time. Today, I want to focus on that terrible phrase—“filling up time.”

I have nothing much on my plate for this Friday. No deadlines, no dreaded Zoom meetings. Some chapters to revise on the memoir I’m ghostwriting, but my plan is to get to them on the weekend—Friday is kind of my unscheduled day off. I’ve got an in-person lunch—the first since, god, I can’t remember when—with a treasured colleague at noon. A “share a bar of chocolate” and “pick up some plant babies” drive-by outdoor visit at a friend’s house. In-between those two events, I’ve got to drive Cinder to work, and in the  morning, before the lunch—well, the usual: morning walk with Bumblebee as soon as I wake up, then morning pages, a writing sprint, some chores, meal prep, then, to the kids’ house to drop off Bumblebee, see Ender, walk the dogs again. I don’t have anything planned for the evening, not until it’s time to pick up Cinder from work. It’s not my night with the kids, and Ender’s going for a sleep-over with his (vaccinated!) grandma anyway, taking Bumblebee with him. I’m feeling kinda low energy and I think I might spend the night on the couch with Netflix and a book… if I feel a burst of energy, I’ll go grocery shopping, maybe go buy some pots for my new plant babies. The Sean texts—he’s working an evening event out of the house, and Flora’s feeling off, home alone. I text her, and we go to Value Village together, then out for Peruvian food. After supper, on my couch with the fireplace blazing, and Maggie the elderly Boston Terrier who didn’t get to go along for the sleepover at Grandma’s, I let Flora convince me to watch the first episode of Hannibal with her.

Flora: Am I still the child most likely to befriend a serial killer?

Jane: Or, be one.

Flora: You’re a terrible mother.

Jane: Or a very honest, insightful one?

I’m sorta kidding—and getting off topic—but also, I’m pretty sure that if Flora decided her grand master plan required the removal or you—or me for that matter—from the Earthly plane, she’d do it without hesitation. She’d feel mildly bad about it, maybe… but she’d do it.

Flora: And they wonder why I need therapy.

Jane: It’s ok. I’d probably help you hide the bodies. Well, unless it was one of your brothers. Please don’t kill them. Also, if you kill me, I can’t help you hide the bodies, so you’d better keep me around.

Mid-Hannibal, I get a panicked text from a client. You wouldn’t think there’d be such a thing as a Friday night writing emergency, but they happen more frequently than, say, Monday night writing emergencies. We pause Hannibal and Flora reads fan fiction while I deal with the emergency—then, yelp!, I’m late to get Cinder from work. Car. Drive. Son. He’s happy—he got another bonus at work. Schoolwork? Ugh, yes, he’ll get to it on the weekend.

We swing by my place to pick up Flora and the farting Boston Terrier (how can something that small and cute be that gassy—note to self, do more research on dog breeds next time you get a dog). I take the teenagers home, leave the family car in their driveway.

Walk to my home briskly, to finish dealing with my client’s emergency.

A friend texts as I’m finishing. He’s driving by on his way to work, night shift. Time for a quick hi? I just want to crawl into bed, to be honest, but pandemic, I haven’t seen him in forever—the last time he planned to drop by, I had to cancel because COVID scare at Flora’s school again, isolation, precautions. I say yes, and we have a brief but delightful visit. When he leaves, I check in with the client—is she going to be able to sleep tonight? Are we good? Have I pulled the chestnuts out of the fire? (She likes old British metaphors; I like thinking about chestnut trees.)

Yes.

I crawl into bed, with Death in Paradise on BritBox for company. I’m wiped, but happy. It was a very good day.

I realize that I didn’t respond to my friend’s text, you know, the one about how I’m filling up my time.

The answer, I suppose, is “with life.”

I’ll try to remember to text him tomorrow. And to convince him to do something other than a walk. Art galleries are open, outdoor social gatherings permitted. Takeout on the riverbank, coffee on my patio on a sunny afternoon? If you still don’t feel comfortable socializing inside, there are alternatives to the walk now that Spring is arriving, even in this corner of Viking Hell. Let’s do one of those. And let’s… live life, not “fill up time.”

Of course, if you do need to fill up time—by all means, go for a long walk.

Just, like… without me.

xoxo

“Jane”

Pandemic Diary: Maybe it’s time to gaze outward for a bit…

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I have been trying to draft a post for hours—well, 45 minutes—and each of my false starts so far either goes into too much too deep oversharing mode or into an ultra-negative I hate humanity mode. And I don’t, not really. I can’t say y’all my favourite Earth species, but then, who can compete with the Amber Phantom butterfly, platypuses or capybaras?

Not this bipedal ape with its propensity for cruelty and violence.

So I’m thinking that perhaps this is the sort of day on which the truth can’t even be told at a slant. Such days happen: it is for them that abstract art and metaphor gone wild poetry exists. What did Kurt Cobain mean when he sang, “A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido”?

He was oversharing, but he wanted to be oblique about it.

I don’t want to be oblique; neither do I want to overshare. Where is that sweet spot of clarity?

Somewhere between transparency and metaphor.

You: OMFG, you’re reading the post-modernists again. Lacan? Derrida?

Jane: [shudder] Goddess forbid. Never again Lacan.

I’m actually just thinking about baby platypuses, but trust me, that story as an entry-point to this navel-gazing post won’t work.

My new sweater makes me happy too, by Jolanta Fashions

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Speaking of navel-gazing—a friend wants to meet for breakfast, I explain, again, why I can’t—seriously, do you not listen to me? we’ve had this conversation two, three times—breakfast? Fuck, no, I get up early, write, then children and dogs and even now that I don’t live with them, the priorities and the obligations are the same. I get up early when it’s cold and dark, write so that the artist is placated, then, children and dogs, and it’s not that I’m a slave to schedule or routine, it’s just that… what? Radical prioritization, and obligations, and pleasure after all of that, and why are childless people so selfish.

My friend does not like being called selfish.

Jane: All childless people are selfish, including/especially monks & nuns pursuing enlightenment. You’ll see one day.

Him: They dedicate themselves to their god. One could argue that is a selfless act.

Jane: Bullshit. Epitome of selfishness.

If there is such a thing as an all-powerful god, do you really think it gets anything out of a human animal doing nothing except gazing worshipfully into its eyes; worse yet, its own navel? I think not. I think this fetishization of religious devotion and the search for enlightenment is a pathology. If we all sat under the Bodhi tree or on a pillar in a desert seeking perfect communion with God, our crops would wither and our children would die.

Think about it.

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I’m thinking about it because I am surrounded by (lovely) people (whom I love) who are really into self-work—and for whom the pandemic has become a reason to really, really work on themselves and I’m increasingly convinced that way… lies madness, narcissism (the really bad kind) and, also, the end of civilization.

I’m not engaging in hyperbole. Writing in 1930, Bertrand Russell called “the disease of self-absorption” the greatest obstacle to happiness.

“One of the great drawbacks to self-centered passions is that they afford so little variety in life. The man who loves only himself cannot, it is true, be accused of promiscuity in his affections, but he is bound in the end to suffer intolerable boredom from the invariable sameness of the object of his devotion.”

Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

He also argued that the cure for depression and ennui is not, as the current gurus would have it, a steady gaze inward, but orienting oneself outwards, both towards the needs of others and towards one’s passions and work.

In a similar vein (although he spends a great deal of time gazing inward), Stephen Cope, in The Great Work of Your Life, writes that if we don’t find the “great” work of our lives—and this, really, is a purpose bigger than self—we make ourselves the work of our lives… and this isn’t, you know. Healthy.

I guess I’m taking this a step further and suggesting that spending too much time gazin inward and working just on yourself is selfishness run rampant.

But hey, if it’s making you feel good…

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The thing is, it probably is not making you feel good. Is it? For so many people, the thing they call self-work is just another addiction—the currently socially acceptable crack, laudanum, alcohol—Netflix binge.

You: Really? You’re going there?

Jane: I’m going there.

Her: Don’t listen to her. She’s just feeling guilty because she still can’t meditate.

There is truth in that. Can’t pray, can’t mediate, feel like shit when I spend too much time gazing inward at my flaws and imperfections.

Know what makes me feel better? Making supper for my kids, picking up pistachios for you from Costco, helping a student “see the light” of story structure, writing a story that illuminates an experience other than my own.

In other words… taking my head out of my ass—I mean, er, navel—and looking outside.

But hey. Whatever makes you happy.

Are you happy?

xoxo

Jane

xoxo

“Jane”

My new haircut makes me happy. 😉
Hair by Rose Mossa 403.283.8281

Pandemic Diary: Some very bad advice about anger

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What I most appreciate about Bumblebee—that’s the bear that thinks it’s a dog that we adopted back in February 2020 as Flora’s emotional support animal—is how she seems to be this negative energy neutralizer. I feel angry, frustrated—she stares at me with those liquid brown eyes, presents a fluffy head or rump for petting, I start to pet her wool because how can I not, and, true thing, you can’t feel angry while you’re petting a fluffy dog.

I am not generally an angry person. It is not my default state and it takes a lot to get me angry. And that’s good, because when I do get angry, there are no filters. Heads roll. Relationships end. I’m, to be honest, afraid of my anger. I back away from its precipice often. And when I’ve made myself with with it, just sit with it without smashing things—or people—my main takeaway is, fuq, I don’t want to feel like this, ever, go away, be gone.

My friend the Buddhist nun probably has some things to say about this; maybe you do too. Hush. I don’t think it’s a bad practice to step away (run away?) from things that make you feel angry. Really, you only have two choices: flight or fight. Leave… or work (fight) to change the circumstances that make you angry. Because just sitting in anger, staying in anger, living in anger—unbearable. It will consume you, destroy you.

I think a lot of us are living in anger right now. Righteous anger—or do I mean self-righteous anger? Frustrated anger. Helpless anger (that’s the worst). Unfocused anger. And we can’t leave because the thing that’s triggering our anger is, well, everything—it’s all around us.

(Spoiler alert—there are no words of wisdom at the end of this post—no three steps of moving past your pandemic anger. No call to action that solves everything, or even empowers you. Sorry.)

 I’ve been dealing with my anger by choosing actions and focus whenever possible—when not, choosing sleep. Also, petting the dog. And also—just trying to let it burn out without trying to assign it a cause—not naming the “because.” You know? We do this all the time. The feeling comes—I feel angry (or sad). Why? Because—we make a list. Of such very, very good reasons for the feeling. We feed it. It grows stronger.

Instead—I feel angry. Period. Burn, evil feeling. Ok. You’re gone. I can do shit again now.

I’m pretty sure this is a conflict-avoidant, dysfunctional way of dealing with anger. But when you don’t have the energy to deal with its root causes—why waste energy you don’t have even looking for them?

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I’m not angry right now. I’m… flaccid, deflated, limp. I’d say spent, but that suggests a state post-effort, post-climax, and I don’t think that’s happened. I’m just… you know. Limp like dirty dish rag, flat like a punctured bicycle tire. I’ll be better soon—the sunis out and I have plans and things to do. But right now, I’m limp.

As with anger, sitting with my limpness is not a state I enjoy. But at least, it doesn’t hurt, me or others.

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This post needs a third verse—threes make for a more powerful, emotive narrative technique than twos, that’s just the way it is. But I don’t want to circle back to anger, and I’ve already told you (spoiler alert redux) that I don’t come bearing solutions. Except, I suppose, the one about petting a fluffy dog—although I suppose a non-bitchy chihuaha or a cuddly cat will do in a pinch too.

Hey. So I do come bearing solutions. Pet a dog. Maybe a soft blanket if you’ve got allergies.

Breathe. You’ll be able to act, change things, eventually.

For now—breathe. Pet that dog. Go limp.

xoxo

“Jane”

Sweater by Jolanta Fashions

International Women’s Day: I’d rather raise a bitch than a nice girl. Here’s why.

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It’s International Women’s Day—before you ask, International Men’s Day runs March 9 until March 7 each year, enjoy. Sometime today, my dad will call me with wishes, maybe deliver flowers. Women’s Day was a big deal in Communist Poland while he was being indoctrinated into the ways of the world, a sop to reward the female half of the workforce for putting in a full shift at the factory and a full shift at home. It was still celebrated like that in Cuba, which has survived its decades of the American trade embargo and Castro Communism chiefly because women—more specifically, mothers—will do whatever’s necessary to make sure their children are ok. (Fine, the steady influx of US dollars from Floridian Cubans has helped too, but let’s stay on topic—women.)

I don’t talk about feminism much with people because, well, it’s a concept as poorly understood as the theory of evolution (don’t get this anthropologist started) and as triggering a construct as the patriarchy, capitalism, and God. But on International Women’s Day, it’s hard to avoid making the observation that on much of this Earth, in most situations, it’s still sucks more to be a girl and a woman than a boy and a man and so, like… we still need feminism.

Even in the Northern First World, where the situation has improved the most, we’re still fighting for basic equal rights, be they political, reproductive, economic or social. This is depressing, until you consider how far we’ve come and how quickly. Some of our grandmothers couldn’t vote. My mother wasn’t allowed to wear trousers in school. The birth control pill wasn’t approved in the UK until 1963; in Canada, doctors could prescribe it for “therapeutic” reasons from 1960 on, but it wasn’t freely available until 1969. Equal pay for equal work—well, we’re still working on that. And sexual and domestic violence—by men against women—fuck. Seriously, people. How is this a thing?

(The answer, btw—to “How is this a thing?”—is, very simply, patriarchy.)

“Not all men,” someone says.

And, “My Uncle was an abused husband.”

And, “You think it’s easy to raise boys these days?”

Like the All Lives Arguments, these reactions miss the point—which is, simply, that we are far from being an egalitarian society. An egalitarian society is one in which the genders are equally valued. Not the same—equal. And there is no need for an International Women’s Day, any more than in a patriarchy there is a need for an International Men’s Day…

Why is this concept so hard to understand?

Wait. I know—patriarchy.

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Two true stories:

I’m texting with a dude, and I make a suggestion of when and where we should meet. He’s thrilled. “It’s so refreshing to meet a woman who takes initiative,” he writes. I raise my digital eyebrows. It’s intended as a compliment—it sounds patronizing. I dig  into it a little, elicit a bit of a rant about the passivity of women in the dating context, how hard it is to be a man and do all of the work. It disturbs me.

“Don’t blame my more passive sisters,” I write. “The patriarchy burns women who know who they are and what they want.”

Cut to the second story: I’m doing an interview, for a gig I really want, that I’m mostly qualified for, maybe it’s a bit of a stretch and a jump, but that’s my whole career, so I’m stretching and jumping here because I really, really want this gig. I’m giving the VP a quick synopsis of my career, which consists of a lot of stories such as, “So this opportunity comes up and I think, well, I haven’t done that before and I don’t have the qualifications they ask for, but I could totally do this job, and…”

“You break the mold,” she says. She’s pleased, because so does she. “Most women, they only apply for jobs if they meet all of the requirements. Most men, well…” She doesn’t finish the sentence; she doesn’t have to. We’ve both read the studies.

And it’s not wiring. It’s patriarchy. Conditioning.

Comments on my Canadian school report cards, from age 10 to age 16, when I finally escaped high school, early, with an obscenely high average, and all the scholarships out there: “She’s too confident in her abilities.”

My first performance review at a Corporate Canada job: “A little more humility and diffidence would make her more effective at working with our partners.” (Followed, incidentally, by a critique of my choice of clothes.)

Patriarchy.

Back to the first story. Remember? Dude telling me how much he likes my initiative, confidence, that I know what I want and I express it? We make plans for an afternoon ice cream date. I propose noon; he says, that might be a bit tight, can he check in with me in the morning when he knows how his morning is going?

Ok.

At 1:16—pm, not am—I take the initiative again. “Good afternoon… how’s it looking?”

An hour later, I get an essay of apologies and excuses, including—this is a direct quote—“I also didn’t want to stand you up or worse shown up inauthentically.”

Implied somewhere in there is a request to reschedule, I think, maybe—it’s hard to parse essays full of shit. In any event, it doesn’t matter. I exit stage right, politely but forcefully. The only consistent predictor of future behaviour, in my rather rich life experience, is past behaviour, and I’m too busy—too old—too, er, dare we say, confident—to dally with unreliable people, disorganized people, or people who do not honour their commitments.

I express this sentiment succinctly—but, I think, politely. Decline to reschedule; say goodbye.

Dude no longer appreciates my initiative or ability to express and assert what I want.

I am now a bitch and that four-letter word, because I don’t politely, meekly, eagerly accept his excuses.

Thank you, patriarchy.

(I am reminded, again—Flora loves this—that straight and bisexual women are proof that sexual orientation is NOT a choice. No woman, enby or queerdo has ever called me a bitch because I’ve chosen not to sleep with them or decided not to see them again. Cis straight men on the other hand…)

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I have a daughter, and on this International Women’s Day, I remind myself that I’m raising a bitch and a cXnt, not a nice girl, and I’m doing this on purpose.

I’d rather she was loud, abrasive, pushy, aggressive—did I mention loud?—than “nice,” a people-pleaser so terrified of giving offence she was forever violating her own boundaries, herself.

It’s hard.

I find myself, constantly, on the verge of telling her to tone herself down—and I do not do this to my two boys.

Patriarchy.

Social programming runs deep.

Flora: Finally! You admit it!

Jane: The fact that you see it and are able to call me on it and I am able to hear you means I’m largely doing my job here.

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I’d like to end this International Women’s Day rant with a shout out to my parents, who also raised a bitch and a cXnt and, for the most part, did not clip my wings. I was not an easy girl to raise, and they were growing me in a very hostile world. They taught me to take up space and to fight and to not play by unfair rules—then were a little shocked by how much to heart I took those lessons. But they had my back, they helped me fly.

And to my daughter—Keep on taking up space, keep being loud. And fighting. Shouting. Rewrite the unfair rules—call them out, break them. Continue to dismantle this unfair system until we need an International Women’s Day as little as we need an International Men’s Day, and we’re all just equal humans.

(Equal. Not the same. Seriously. I need to explain this again?)

I’m pretty sure you and your generation, you’re gonna do it.

Mom is so proud of you.

xoxo

“Jane”

Pandemic Diary: Set the Bar Low

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As March 2020 morphs into March 2021—how has this damn month lasted a year?—I’m trying to gather myself into a mental health check in. People, we did it—we got through this year. Perhaps not well—but we did it. We’re here. When you’ve danced with darkness and despair, being here is victory. Don’t forget that.

All my most beloveds are still here and, if you know me in real life, you know that it’s been a fight to keep one of them tethered to the world for a while. But less so in the year that was March 2020 than in 2019, 2018, and for that, I am beyond grateful. And I’m thinking about bars.

Not pubs and restaurants—although they are open now in Viking Hell, have been for most of February. Also, cafes and my beloved sheesha lounges. And you know what? I’ve been a few times—mostly in the first week that they opened—and now, well. It’s not like before the pandemic, I went to the pub several days a week. Or even, like clockwork, once a week. And it’s like that again. I’m not at the Kensington Pub or the Ship and Anchor every week, and I haven’t even been to Betty Lou’s yet—although I do kind of feel like I live at Vendome—but I just really, really like knowing that they are there, open, available to me to go to when, if I want to go…

But I digress—bars. The bars I’m talking about are the bars we set ourselves and how the secret to contentment (I’m starting to think there is no such thing as happiness) is to recognize when you’ve got to drop the damn bar because clearing a low bar is more important than slamming into one that’s just too high.

This is a very counter-intuitive conclusion for me, because I’m all about the high bar, the higher, the better, the more unreasonable, the more adrenaline, the more difficult, the more satisfaction when you actually do it.

But in the year that was March 2020? The only bar to clear was “get through it.”

Done.

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I have a text on my phone that I’m delaying answering right now.

“How are you? I feel that you are not asked this question in earnest most times. Correct me if I am wrong.”

I’m not fine—none of us is, unless we’re Fucked Up, Insecure, Neurotic and Egotistical, thank you, Ruth Zardo—but none of us is, so it’s a frustrating question to answer. “I’m fine” is a conversation closer, also, a lie. I don’t much feel like disclosing the messy truth, which includes moments of pure happiness interspersed with significantly more moments of panic, fear, frustration, and stress (none, incidentally, related to the infectiousness or fatality rates of COVID-19 but many the result of what the pandemic has done to our lives), against a background of overall exhaustion.

But I have plenty of people in my life who ask, how  I am, in earnest. Who are willing to hear the complex answer. I’m just, for the most part, not willing to give it to them. Why inflict more confusion and negativity on a friend who’s already struggling to keep it together? I don’t want to talk about it—that’s not my way.

I write it down instead.

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On Wednesday, I cook. The desire to create and make is intense, and coupled with a need to be real, practical and grounded. So I start chicken stock in the slow cooker in the morning, and I marinate bulgogi for the kids’ Sunday supper in the afternoon before freezing, and I research chicken wing dry rubs for their Thursday “looks like junk food but Mom made it so it’s kind of good for you” supper. Then I sweat and roast eggplant for one of those easy-but-finicky recipes about which I’ve learned, through trial and error, that ALL of the damn finicky steps matter, and the order in which you add the ingredients to the pan matters.

My apartment smells like heaven. I am… content. Almost happy.

But not fine.

Which is fine.

Shots of happiness will come a few days later, in the form of a voice mail from an elated client, a whipped mascarpone cheese dessert, a happy teenager. Not all of February sucked (although it was so very hard) and so far, in March, we’re all holding the line and then some, and soon, days will be longer than nights, and maybe we can even elevate the bar a little.

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It’s Sunday, and I’m making plans. To do things. Like, actual things that don’t involve Zoom or live streams.

A Vivaldi concert that we booked back in the fall of 2020 has been scheduled and rescheduled and it looks like it’s actually going to happen at the end of the month. The Van Gogh Immersive Exhibition in Edmonton is a-go, and I’m betting against a third wave, getting tickets. I feel revitalized, alive.

Her: I’m going to continue isolating for a while more. You just can’t be too careful.

Jane: Fair enough. I pressure you not, I stop you not, I interfere with you not. Do you think that you could, in return, just take a deep breath and recognize that as much as you need to do everything possible to feel safe… I need IRL stimulation to feel alive?

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In a moment of pure happiness, I burst into tears and cry. My love holds me. So many feelings. What a year.

Jane: I’m not sad, I just really, really need to cry right now.

You: I got ya.

Jane: You think it’s gonna be a good spring? A good summer?

You: Who da fuq knows. But we’re gonna get through it.

Set the bar low.

Seriously.

Jane: Jane?

Yo. I’m talking to you. Er. myself. SET THE BAR LOW. I see the sun energizing you, and I see you fantasizing and dreaming and planning—not just concerts and outings, but the real, big ass stuff—and maybe don’t, not just yet. SET THE BAR LOW. Get through it. Survive. You hear me?

I do and I don’t—I’m trying, ok, yeah, set the bar low, but I think, maybe, it’s almost time to take a running jump at something harder, don’t you think?

How many curveballs can life throw at us in one year-long month?

You: Don’t ask. Set the bar low.

Jane: Maybe.

😉

Here comes the sun.

xoxo

“Jane”