Broke
I am broken. Well, a part of me is broken. I broke a bone (or two) in my wrist almost four weeks ago. I am amazed how this one little fact has effected my outlook on life.
I am broke. I feel broke. I feel wrong. I feel clumsy and stupid and fat all because I broke a bone.
I feel fractured – like bits of me have disconnected from my body and my psyche.
Up until that point in time, the moment that I slipped on the ice and fell on my wrist, I was doing okay. I was meandering around living an okay life. Even though I am not living where I want to be living right now.
Now, I feel clumsy and stupid and fat.
If I wasn’t clumsy, I wouldn’t have slipped on the ice.
If I wasn’t stupid, I would have stayed in and gone for my walk after the newly fallen snow had melted a bit.
If I wasn’t fat, landing onto of my wrist might not have broken it.
Because I am broken I also feel poor.
I feel poor because my clothes don’t feel right and my cupboards are bare.
My clothes don’t feel right because I can only wear about a tenth of my wardrobe right now. I had to buy sports bras because I needed something without clasps. The sports bras don’t support me as much as I would like. I only have one pair of pants that I can do up one handed and only about six tops that I can easily slip in to. I’m doing laundry every week! I wish I looked as good in my clothes as Lesley does (and while were at it I want her attitude as well!).
Dressing like this makes me feel how I did when I was growing up poor. I grew up on welfare. I wore mostly hand-me-downs that didn’t fit right. I’ve never owned a comfortable, perfect fitted bra. Growing up, I had only enough clothes to make it through the week before I had to re-wear something. Growing up, I spent my time fiddling with my clothes and never feeling comfortable.
Which is how I feel now – perpetually uncomfortable! I’m forever fiddling with my bra or pulling up my (too loose) jeans. All the while hearing those voices in my head, you know, the voices of my school peers saying – not good enough, ugly, fat, badly dressed, poor! Careful what you say, children are listening!
I’ve never felt well dressed, put together, and professional but at least, before this, I thought I could pass.
Pass as whole, sane, and middle class. Pass as the same as everyone else.
Not poor! Not stupid! Not clumsy! Not fat!
My cupboards are empty because I don’t want to shop for groceries. It is too much work to shop for groceries. I can’t buy tins; I don’t have an electric can opener. I’m not buying an electric can opener; I like my low tech version! I can’t buy jars or juice because all the lids are sealed factory tight. What do us weak old people do? I can’t buy oranges or bananas or mangoes because they are too hard to peel one handed. Plus, I really don’t want to go to the grocery store every week – it is too far and taxis cost money and I am annoyed! Everything feels like too much work so I am eating too much junk and not enough fresh.
This is not just about broken bones and lack of money. This is a rant about perceptions and attitudes.
I know that I am not poor. I have a decent job. I can afford taxis and trips to the hospital and even new clothes.
Lat year, I was unemployed. Last year, this accident would have cost me money that I did not have. Last year, I was living in the city I love with a grocery store and bakery within a block of me. Last year, I had a better attitude about my life.
Last year, I did not feel poor. Last year, I was not broke.
Last year, I was not sitting around waiting for the other shoe to drop…
Poor, pitiful me!
Equal =/= Same
There is a small debate going on over in the comments to my recent post on feminism. This post is a clarification of my original manifesto. After reading the comments it became clear that I needed to clarify some definitions.
Equal does not mean the same. Same is identical and human beings are fundamentally different from each other. Women and men are not the same, we are different in our biology and are culturally raised with differing norms. Society is a complex organization; not just my society but every society.
I am what I am and no one is the same as me.
I can do things other individuals cannot – sometimes this is relevant to my gender, sometimes it is relevant to my society and sometimes it is relevant to nothing.
Equal means having the same status, rights and opportunities. If a million dollars is spent on exploring men’s health issues than a million dollars is also spent on women’s health issues. If I want to work in construction (despite my supposed lack of upper body strength) than I am allowed to work in construction. If a man wants to work with the elderly (despite his supposed lack of care-giving genes) than he is allowed to work with the elderly.
Equal means expending the same amount of money and resources to explore gendered issues.
Equal means getting the same wage for the same experience and/or education. I don’t care who has a family to support. As a single person, it was a historical precedence that I would earn less because the assumption was that someone (my father) was supporting me. Thinking like this is out-dated. How much one earns should be based on skills, experience or education. What my earnings go to support is no ones’ business but my own!
I have been an avowed feminist for 40 yrs, since age thirteen when I discovered the very first issue of Ms magazine on the newsstand of my very small traditional town.
I’ve done a lot of thinking in those forty years. My views have not been static. I’ve been able to study and clarify definitions and thoughts. I don’t like how my society is stigmatizing/commercializing men either. I want us all to be equal and able to access basic human rights and opportunities.
Let men stay home raising children. Let women work construction. Let us all do what makes us happy; keeping in mind, of course, the precedence “As it harm none, do what you will.”
I started my post on feminism thus:
As I trudged to work Monday morning through four inches of newly fallen, hard packed snow I yearned (once again) for someone to take care of me, to say “no dear, you stay in that warm bed, I’ll trudge out to earn a living and keep you in books and raspberries.”
I don’t necessarily want a man (I just want someone) to occasionally take care of me! I’m tired of being alone. I’m tired of having to do it all alone. I could easily envision a large, communal space – like this – where I have others to rely on when I need to. Sometimes, I think my quest for independence has limited me too much. I worry that this makes me a bad feminist even as I know it does not. We define our own lives within our own terms.
Our lives change. Our definitions change. I recall my grandfather, my mother’s father, stepping up and having to change his life view many times.
As a young father, he came to a new country alone to work for a farmer from the old country who sponsored him. His wife and children followed later. One of the tasks at his new job was to milk the cows in the morning. He had never done this before because in the old country milking cows was women’s work. He sucked it up and asked his wife to teach him how to milk a cow even though it hurt his pride. He did what he had to do. He redefined what his society said was the norm.
This was a skill (this ability to redefine) that would serve my grandfather in his twilight years as well. When my grandmother was ill and they were both in their seventies he learned to cook and do laundry because my grandmother was no longer able to do these (traditionally women’s) tasks.
This tale is not just about feminism and equality, it is also about connection.
What am I willing to do?
What am I willing to re-learn?
What am I willing to re-define?
Equal does not mean same.
Equal does not mean that I take something away from someone else.
Equal means that we all have access to the same rights and opportunities no matter our gender, race, or creed.
Yes, I am a feminist.
Yes, I Am A Feminist
As I trudged to work Monday morning through four inches of newly fallen, hard packed snow I yearned (once again) for someone to take care of me, to say “no dear, you stay in that warm bed, I’ll trudge out to earn a living and keep you in books and raspberries.”
Today, Friday March 8th, is International Women’s Day.
I’ve always called myself a feminist? Even though it sometimes seems that Feminism is a bad word, whether we like it or not. Feminists are constantly portrayed as being hysterical, trivial, man-hating, and just generally insane. I regularly get accused of being a radical feminist (me, me radical – you’d have to know me to know how absolutely insane that statement is. I don’t march. I don’t elucidate excessively. I spend 90% of my time reading, working in a library, and/or hiding my opinions. And then I write. I write it all down. I bear witness. I read. I force books (by women, about women) on my friends and relatives. Maybe, I am radical after all. I am a quiet determined radical feminist!).
What is feminism?
A feminist is an equal, strong, independent woman who doesn’t need anybody to validate herself.
Feminism is Wonder Woman posing heroically on the very first issue and the current 40th anniversary issue of Ms magazine. Even though I’m conflicted over calling Wonder Woman a feminist. She seems too often to be working more for the benefit of a man-made military system. I want her to have more agency; I want her to observe and defeat crime all by herself.
There is all the ruckus in the media of late about what a feminist actually is, whether we’re allowed to wear heels and stockings, whether we’re allowed to be funny, whether we should do nothing but march and protest, our armpit hair blowing in the breeze. Am I a feminist or a real women? Can I not be both feminist and sexy, feminist and nurturing, or feminist and business orientated?
What if I’m not a real feminist? What if I’m not a real woman? (OMG, I am a fake woman).
As a feminist elder, a de facto member of the Grand High Feminist Council do I turn around and sneer at other women’s bald legs and made up faces? Thank the stars that feminism has solved all the big issues like sexual harassment, victim blaming and the glass ceiling. Now we’re free to alienate one another by proclaiming ourselves to be feminist-ier than thou.
There’s no such thing as a “real” feminist. Even us older (ancient) feminists may not have a vast working knowledge of classical feminist theory; some of us have taken classes and attended lectures while many others have gained their knowledge through life experiences. My sisters (all five of them) have more life experience than me while I’ve concentrated on the book learning. My eldest sister wants to read the literature but has had little time to do so while raising her children and grand-children. My youngest sister knows more about life then I ever will. My mother, grandmothers, great-grandmothers were feminists because of their life experiences.
I am a spinster. I have too much time to think and ruminate.
He travels fastest who travels alone, and that goes double for she. Real feminism is spinsterhood.
Florence King, “Spinsterhood Is Powerful,” Reflections in a Jaundiced Eye
None of my ancestors marched. None were suffragettes. They named themselves women not feminists. But the word meant the same. It meant I have a voice. It meant I count. It meant I have a role. It meant I am equal.
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.To Be Of Use by Marge Piercy
How many waves of feminism have there been? What right do I have to call myself an elder? The theories keep flowing, like waves upon the beach. 1st wave…2nd wave…3rd wave. The women keep marching.
I march beside Mary Shelley and her mother and worry over how much of the manifesto Vindication on the rights of women still holds true.
I march beside Susan B. still declaring:
“We ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever.”
—Susan B. Anthony, Declaration of Rights for Women, July 1876
I agree with Betty that men should not be the enemy (the system should be). It worries me that (maybe) we can’t be strong together. It seems that as women get stronger/more independent, men get less capable.
Men weren’t really the enemy - they were fellow victims suffering from an outmoded masculine mystique that made them feel unnecessarily inadequate when there were no bears to kill. ~Betty Friedan
I stand in solidarity with Rebecca.
I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a door mat or a prostitute.
Rebecca West, “Mr Chesterton in Hysterics: A Study in Prejudice,” The Clarion, 14 Nov 1913, reprinted in The Young Rebecca, 1982
I stand with these five women from Alberta declaring we are persons also! They are why Canada celebrates Women’s History Month in October rather than March.
I march beside and stand with the women of the future and the past. (1902 Postcard link).
Yes, I am a feminist.
What We Throw Away
I moved this summer and now share a garbage container with ten other units (as compared to the thirty I use to share a garbage container with). What I noticed very quickly was how much garbage was being thrown out by the nine other people (mostly students) I share this container with. My own garbage is hardly more than a grocery bag a week. I recycle. I try to not buy too much or anything that is too over packaged or (really) anything at all. I am not a consumer.
Is it just me? Or does going into a big store lately make most people more likely to not want to buy anything?
I am not a consumer. This is mostly by choice but is also influenced by the way I grew up. I grew up poor. There was barely money for necessities let alone luxuries. I learned to make do and go without.
Even now, what I mostly crave is books. If books were illegal I’d be in for life. Books, stories, words have always been my addiction.
Thankfully, this is an addiction that I can easily control by supporting my local library.
If I bought everything I read, I would be desolate, a beggar, and a book addict wandering city streets in search of words, words, words!
But this post is not about that.
This post is about what we throw away as we madly consume, consume, consume!
I like my meanderings to have a purpose.
I shop for the necessities. I run errands. I feel virtuous.
I am a hypocrite because I see the pretty toys (tablets/ereaders) that I want and don’t need and I yearn for them.
They consume my thoughts.
But this post is not about that.
This post is about what we throw away as we madly consume, consume, consume!
What we throw away:
- Time better spent with friends and family
- Earth’s limited resources
- The ability to spend time alone doing nothing
As I observe what my neighbours throw away, I resolve to limit my consumption and spend my time enjoying this holiday season both alone and with my friends and family.
May this season of light be about connection and not consumption.
Moving: Again!!
I am moving. Again!! (I want to add many many more exclamation points here).
As you read this (if you read it on the Sunday I post it or the Monday after) I will be moving again.
Ants go Marching
I am tired of moving. I have moved approximately 30 times in my lifetime (so far). I was almost one the first time we moved. That move was a big move; we went from Germany, where my dad was stationed with the Canadian Air Force, back to Canada. We went back to the small town in Saskatchewan where he had been born and from which, not soon after, he would leave my mom to raise four children (all under the age of five when he left) by herself. My eldest sister went to Kindergarten in Germany.
Obviously, I do not remember this move.
I’ve written about the Hahn house which is the first home I remember.
I’ve also written about my second family moving experience when I was thirteen.
I’d move once more, as part of my mother’s household, just after finishing High School.
lost, lost, lost
I have moved approximately 25 times from the age of twenty to the age of forty-five.
I have lived in four provinces and nine towns/cities.
I have lived in seven different Saskatoon apartments; this is the city I most often seem to be moving in and out of.
Up until my last move I was mostly moving suitcases and boxes.
With each move I kept less and less stuff.
I gave away books and lost my attachment to things (for the most part).
Up until my last move, important items stayed in my mother’s basement!
Envious Heart
I moved into my current Saskatoon apartment with a bed, a side cabinet and a rocking chair. Slowly I’ve acquired more stuff (mostly second hand).
And books…I never completely purged my personal library.
Well, I didn’t do most of the moving. My nephew moved in the heavy stuff. All my stuff, six years ago, fit in a car and a half-ton truck.
I have much more stuff now.
I have just enough stuff for my one bedroom comfortably furnished HOME.
I’m so tired of moving, of not having a permanent place that is all mine!
I envy my sisters’ more permanent places.
Torn Open
My eldest sister and I were discussing our childhood aspirations recently as we drove back from the auction.
She mentioned how her goal was to have a home that no one could take away from her.
I mentioned that I had wanted to travel and see the world.
(I’ve not seen the world but I’ve seen a good portion of this country I call HOME).
I still want to see the world, but the older I get the more I also want a home base, a place where I can keep all my stuff and feel safe coming back to recharge in.
I had hoped that this would be my last apartment.
I have never lived here…
I know this current move will not be my last.
I am moving for work because I got the perfect job outside the city.
My ultimate goal is to be closer to family (I want to see the babies grow up. I want the babies to know me not just see me on holidays and in the summer. Children grow up so fast! I miss everyone not just the babies.)
So, hopefully after this move is over there will be only one more move in my future.
I Want A House Dress
It is still too hot. Even though I live in a semi-basement apartment, I am too hot. All that the fans seem to be good for is to circulate warm air and even opening the windows in the evening is doing little to cool down my space . I wish I could sleep with the windows wide open all night but I don’t feel safe doing that. If I did maybe then the loud thundery night air would cool down my apartment so that it would be livable during the day!
I sit here in my hot apartment not cooking, not reading (the light-bulbs get too hot), and not doing much of anything except spending too much time on the computer as television is crap 90% of the time during the summer.
It doesn’t help that I live in jeans and own few summer clothes. My wardrobe is a fall/winter/spring wardrobe. It’s as if my mind refuses to believe that Summer exists at all.
What is a house dress? Well, obviously it’s a dress you wear mostly around the house because you don’t want to be seen wearing it. My grandparents had clothes they wore at home and clothes there wore in public. Me – I’m past the point (actually never really cared that much) where I acknowledge others’ judgments. Right – so why won’t I wear shorts in public? My grandmothers mostly wore houses dresses.
According to Gertie (don’t you just love that name. Isn’t it such a grandmotherly name?):
My mother does not wear house dresses. She wears shorts and goes about bare footed as often as she can or slips on flip flops. My mother is a summer person. She is a gardener. She loves the heat. She loves the long days.
She was raised on a farm and has lived in small towns for ninety percent of her life. I don’t know if this is why she prefers shorts to dresses. She used to dress up. She used to wear dresses and high heels. I have pictures. We use to play dress-up with her old heels and even then I knew I would not be wearing those things every day!
I hate shopping. I am not a girly-girl. Was I ever a girly-girl? They use to make us wear dresses every Sunday to church and on special occasions. We had to wear not just dresses but tights and pantyhose as well. Thus, I’ve always viewed dressing up as torture not fun.
I can’t remember the last time I wore a sundress or owned sandals.
I can remember the last time I owned a house dress. I paid ten dollars for it. I was in my twenties and living by myself. It was a black, sleeve-less cotton dress that flowed to below my knees and was easy to put on. I wore it around my apartment and on the days I did laundry because it was cool and I could put it on and forget about clothes and fashion and the weather. I never wore it outside the apartment building! I never wore it except when I was alone.
Here are my three reasons to wear a house dress:
- A house dress is cool. That is, it allows the air to circulate and cool your body. Though, on the other hand, because of shows like Mad Men, house dresses are also COOL.
- A house dress is easy; easy to put on, easy to make and easy to forget about.
- A house dress is quick; slip it on and you’re done dressing in one or two easy steps.
Here are three reasons I won’t wear a house dress outside the house:
- A house dress needs accessorizing. You have to think about what to wear on your feet especially if you plan to leave the house even if you’re just going down to the communal basement to do your laundry.
- People judge you. I feel more vulnerable wearing a dress, especially this one. In my jeans, I blend into the crowd and nobody notices me.
- I haven’t worn a dress comfortably in public since I was 7. That’s when people started to feel that they had the right to comment on my appearance. I don’t care what you think of my fashion look and I’d prefer that you keep all comments, good or bad, to yourself.
Now, I want a house dress. I want it for practical reasons – I’m tired of being overheated. I want it for the comfort and because (part of me) wants to feel as pretty as that seven year old use to once upon a time.
I’m off to buy this dress. Don’t tell me how I look in it (please)!
Opening Jars : An Elderly Rant
I am old. I am feeling old. This winter, my right knee has been acting up almost every day. This is new. It used to be that my right knee would on occasion (once a year maybe) freeze up on me. I would baby it a day or two and than I would be fine. But this year! Arthritis runs in the family and my mom has had both her knees replaced and I really don’t want to go there (not for decades). Oh my achy bones! Everybody (all together now) say, with a sigh, “Poor me.”
My body has never been perfect. I was a scrawny kid and an iron-deficient teen. From the age of thirteen on, it was almost a given that I would sprain an ankle sometime during the year. The one constant in my first aid arsenal is a tension bandage and I know (without thinking about it) the best treatment for a sprained ankle – RICE it; that is, Rest, Ice, Compress, and Elevate.
Getting older is annoying in the littlest ways. What I know about my body changes daily and I had just started to figure it out. Finally, my body was getting enough iron and my monthlies were fairly regular. Now it’s like I’m back at the beginning as the pain/annoyance factor equals how my body reacted when my monthly cycle started. All the literature I read says that this means I’m entering Peri-menopause (o joy, o fun).
I didn’t want to be this type of little old lady – complaining of all my aches and pains and concerned about ice and falls.
When I was in my late twenties, I lived downtown on Third Avenue. I was in the right-side front apartment on the third floor. A little old lady lived in the left-side front apartment on the first floor. The apartment building mostly consisted of university students who moved in in September and out in April.
About once a week, this little old lady (click on the link to learn more) would trudge up to my apartment and knock on the door. She would stand there with a can and non-electric can opener (see pictures) and say “please, could you”. She didn’t say much else. Even though I found her annoying, I helped when I could. I was young. I was callous. I preferred to solve my own problems and let others solve theirs. I just wanted to be left alone! Hopefully, I didn’t convey that attitude to her. I’m sure it was hard enough, for her, to just ask for help.
Top View of my manual can opener
Now I have the captain’s voice from Wall-E echoing “Man-u-al”.
Bottom View of my manual can opener
I also understand why everyone else owns an electric can opener.
Jars & cans have become a weekly annoyance. Commercial jars are not just hard to open they are also annoying as one must first remove a plastic seal before commencing to twist the lid off. At least with my mom’s canning jars all I usually have to do is soak them (upside down) in about two inches of hot water and they’ll open right up.
I have found that turning a jar upside down and banging on the counter will break the seal but I’m always worried that I’ll also break the jar and then I’ll have a mess to clean up. My first solution is always to bang on the edges of a stuck lid with the handle of a dinner knife hard enough to leave dents. Again, this usually breaks the seal and I then can open the jar.
I may be old and weak but I still have my smarts (tapping my head).
I’m starting to get it. Why old people are always going around muttering annoyingly, I mean.
This is now me. A cranky, annoyed old lady muttering evilly half under her breath about the things she no longer finds easy to do (like opening a jar or getting a pill out of a new package for the headaches that simple tasks cause).
Which is better than the alternative (which would be – not getting older)!
A Rant or Two
It’s been a week, a very, very long week. It seems like there’s been ten days squeezed into the seven. I am exhausted and want to go find a cave to crawl in.
Actually, I completely know what cave I want but it is in Banff and I am here. 
It is a very spacious cave; I can stand up in it and have lots of room for furniture and guests. I would have tons of room for books and would not need a stupid, annoying computer.
My computer got sick this week. It caught a virus on my birthday and I had to spend four days babying it and had to spent money I did not budget for on making it well.
Stupid, stupid people who create stupid, stupid malware should be denied the internet altogether.
Deny. Deny. Deny.
Then, on Friday morning, at work, I discover a very big (hand sized: fingertip to wrist) hole in my black work pants. Thankfully, on the inside seam so no one else noticed it but now I am down to two pairs of work pants!!
I am an awful shopper. I completely understand this woman’s (Caitlin of Broadside) point of view. All I can reiterate is “here, here.” I HATE shopping. I would rather mountain climb (and I have a fear of heights).
I do not know how to shop. I have no clue of what to buy for work. By default, all my work pants are black and I have 5 work tops and three sweaters. I so need a more professional wardrobe.
I have no idea how to define a work wardrobe. Somebody needs to nominate me for What Not to Wear. Actually, please don’t – the last thing I need right now is to have a complete emotional meltdown on television!
This is my mostly empty closet.
.
This is my favourite shirt. I love the colour. I love the style. I hardly ever wear it because I am afraid I will damage it.
Sad. Sad. Sad.
I am a big woman; big busted and plus sized. No I won’t be using the F word here, even though it is accurate.
I have been changing my eating and exercise habits over the last twenty years. I walk five days out of seven on average. I eat healthier. What did it get me?
I have gone down two sizes over twenty years and am about to hit the brick wall of menopause where all the facts say to beware of gaining weight.
I am tired of clothes that constrict and annoy. I am tired of being judged as lazy because I can’t control how I look.
Tired. Tired. Tired.
Wish me luck as I try to figure out how to nurse my computer back to health because though she is no longer sick, the poor thing is still feeling wonky.
:-0 big sigh…
