My life has become delineated to before and after.

This is not my city!

This city has been bad luck ever since I came down for the job interview.

It stormed the day of my interview. There were tornado warnings and pounding rains. The interview felt endless. The rules were unclear. I hate unclear rules! The interview involved a too long lunch and a road trip out to a secondary site. I got soaked at the end of it as we rushed back to the original interview site. Did I mention the tornado warnings? There were lakes puddled in the road as I tried to maneuver unfamiliar streets so that I could head back home to the city I loved.

I accepted the job even though I knew that it was not a good fit! Some situations just feel like there is no other choice. Unemployed and poor in the city I loved or a barely tolerable job in a new place that might be okay.

Then, the day I came to look at apartments, I caused a car accident that totaled my car. I looked at two places before that and rather than come back another day, I took the more tolerable one which turned out to be (in the light of day) dinghy, run-down and in need of paint and new flooring (but the location is perfect for me – I can walk every where I need to go).

Because of the car accident, I bought my step-father’s truck because everyone (but me) is of the opinion that I MUST have a vehicle. I have not driven the truck since the beginning of last October.

This is partly because of the weather – it has been a long winter; snow has fallen from October until May! I broke my wrist slipping on the ice Easter weekend and the cast has just come off. I feel broken! I can’t do what I want and cannot perform all the tasks of my job any more and I worry (occasionally) that this might get me fired (which might be a mixed blessing).

This is not my city. The weather is different here. I don’t like it. It doesn’t feel like home.

This city, this move, has been nothing but bad luck.

I have no third place to relax at. There is work. There is home. I have no friends here. I have no family here. Everyone is too far away and I am too quiet to start again.

I know that this is partly a self-fulfilling prophecy. I didn’t want to move away from the city I loved. I don’t handle change well. I lived six years in Montreal and spent the first year only traveling between school and home. It took me a year to get comfortable enough to take the Metro and start exploring the city. By the time I left Montreal, I had fallen in love with it. It may not be the city I love the most but I would go back there again.

The Elephant in the Room

I don’t know which straw broke this camel’s back.

I only know that this is not my city.

I should not have taken the job. I should not have moved.

This is not my city!

I should have trusted my intuition.

Why not a space flower? Why do we always expect metal ships?
W. D. Richter

Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We haven’t time, and to see takes time – like to have a friend takes time.
Georgia O’Keeffe

And so our mothers and grandmothers have, more often than not anonymously, handed on the creative spark, the seed of the flower they themselves never hoped to see – or like a sealed letter they could not plainly read.
Alice Walker

I worked in a museum recently and one of the best unnamed perks was the access to all the interesting back rooms like the old bank safe where the pottery was kept and the all too horrifying glimpses of the creepy doll collection that hung out at the top of one of the moving shelves (all of them staring at you as you opened the rolling shelves – everybody agreed they were creepy). We emptied out the gallery a couple of times when I was there. This involved rolling the mannequins to the elevator, down the basement hallway to their temporary storage in the auditorium. You’d start talking to them and apologizing for the inconvenience of the move. We’d also scare the other staff by leaving one of the mannequins (usually the priest) in the elevator because it was necessary to check the elevator as you closed the museum down for the night (didn’t want to trap anyone in there overnight).

Claudia and her brother would find it harder to hide in the museum now. If you ran away to live in a museum, which museum would you run to? I like the Cloisters (even though it is mostly an outdoor place – hopefully, there would be some shelter from the occasional storm).

There is something about books that we read in our youth and childhood. They stick with us, leave lasting impressions and draw us back to them as we travel along life’s pass.

I heard recently that Judy Blume’s son has made a movie version of Tiger Eyes and my heart went wow! Go view the movie trailer and see if you agree. Ms. Blume wrote about people who were real; they had the same wishes, aspirations and faults as me and my friends. I’d say that they don’t write books like that anymore but of course they do. It’s just that I have so much less time for reading than I did as a teen – I tend to read the authors I already love rather than go off searching for new writers to fall in love with.

I love authors like Neil Gaiman, who in a recent talk (scroll down to listen – LBF 2013) spoke about not judging a book by its cover and how, as book formats change and  evolve, we (readers, publishers, bibliophiles) need to find reasons to buy objects and not just content. Do you wonder how a book will be defined in fifty years, a hundred years, or a thousand years from now?

I wonder. I spent the last few days at a library conference and saw some of the changes coming for the delivery of story and song and information. I don’t ever want to not have a library but I do think the concept needs redefining. What do you think?

We need better swag…

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!

Make Love Not War, it said, and beside it was the ubiquitous peace symbol. 

And I remembered…

When did I first see this symbol and hear this slogan?

For me, it goes back to the Vietnam War, when I was a teenager.

When I thought the solutions were simple.

I never marched. I listened to the peace anthems, I avoided the television news and I thought war was like an episode of M*A*S*H – easily solved.

I was naive. How many wars have we had since then? Why didn’t I march?

Why did seeing this yesterday on a white fence (someone still believes) make me smile?

These are my stories. Will anyone ever ask for them? Will anyone ever care what my life was like?

I have no children to embarrass with my tales, my memories, and my life. I tell my stories here into the endless void.

Do you tell your children stories?

Do they know what your traditions are? If you light candles at the window, do they know why? I walk. Why do I walk? The stories are numerous.

Do they know your family history? Who was Uncle Fred? Why did he live with Grandma Smith? Who is Grandma Smith to me?

My father died this week. I know fewer of his family stories because I did not grow up in his house. I know more of my mother’s stories.

Grandma Smith was related to my father; I think she was his mother’s mother or step-mother. I do not know. I knew my father’s parents but not well even to be gifted with their stories.

I was a quiet child. I read more than I talked. I never asked the right questions.

There are gaps in my family history and now I will never know what he could have told me.

The first stories I read were fairy tales – we had a copy of the Red Fairy book by Andrew Lang – a Christmas gift from I know not who. I’d like to know.

I read somewhere once that you should tell your children both stories; that they need to know all of it. They need to know mother’s stories and father’s stories or they will go through life unbalanced and out of sorts.

I am the child of a broken home – I grew up in my mother’s house and don’t remember meeting my father until I was almost a teenager. My mother never spoke of my father and her parents hated him. His parents lived close by and stayed involved in our lives but kept secrets – like where he was. Plus, it was obvious that we were not the favoured grandchildren.

It doesn’t matter who my father was;
It matters who I remember he was.

Anne Sexton

I don’t know if my father attended the same elementary school that I did? Did he like to run up the fire escape? Did he climb up on the roof? I suspect he would have; he was that kid of boy – reckless and adventuress.

I don’t know!

I don’t know his stories. I hear rumours. I hear snippets – who died in the fire, how were they related to me – I know they were important to him!

I don’t know who he was as a child, a teenager, a new parent or why he felt he had to leave the way he did.

I don’t know and now I’ll never know.

My dad did not tell me his stories. My Dad did not read to me. But he understood why I read. He understood that stories were important to me.

I didn’t tell him out loud – instead I wrote him poems and sent them through the mail (accusations, recriminations, apologies -  silent, deadly love letters). He never answered them but I have confirmation that he kept them and maybe treasured them. I wanted him to write back. I wanted him to tell me stories. He wasn’t ready when I was ready.

While we pay lip service to the virtues of reading,
the truth is that there is still in our culture
something that suspects those who read too much…

How Reading Changed My Life
Anna Quindlen

My father fell and broke his leg days before I broke my wrist.

He had surgery and seemed to be doing fine.

My eldest sister and I just went to see him.

He told us stories.

He told us about throwing a sixty pound bag of potatoes at my mother’s mother. I could picture it happening – they were both stubborn people who needed to be right and neither would have given an inch to the other.

And he told a story that I already knew, a story that my mother had already told me, about me.

She tells my story, thusly:

I was born overseas on an army base. When mom and dad headed back to Canada they had trouble proving I was theirs – Mom had been pregnant when they left Canada and so had papers for my older sisters but not me. She says that they almost didn’t let me on the plane with them. She never elaborated further then this but obviously they let me on the plane because here I am.

He says the trouble didn’t happen until we were on Canadian soil. He said we were held up at Customs by the custom’s officer. There my dad stood holding me (a cranky, stinky, fussy one year old) as we were questioned about who I belonged to. My dad basically said to the custom’s agent “if you want her, you can have her” and the agent waved us through – because obviously no one wants a fussy, stinky baby to deal with.

What I note are the differences in their stories about the same incident – how she leaves the story unfinished and he makes himself the hero. The way they tell the story reinforces what I already know about my parents. How, at that point in her life, she was looking for someone as capable as her own father always was and how he (then and now) was always the hero of his own story – right and capable against all odds.

Perhaps there no such thing as a true story,
just the echoes between different versions,
and the desire to know, that keeps us speaking,
and listening, at all…

Honey and Ashes: A Story of Family
Janice Kulyk Keefer

So, tell your children your stories. Even when they groan and moan and roll their eyes, they are listening.

As a parent, as a grandparent, in my role as an aunt – it is our responsibility to make sure that they know both sides so that they do not go through life unbalanced and out of sorts.

In even the best of caskets, it never all fits
- all that we’d like to bury in them:
the hurt and forgiveness, the anger and pain,
the praise and thanksgiving, the emptiness and exaltations,
the untidy feelings when someone dies (p. 191)

The Undertaking: Life Studies From the Dismal Trade
Thomas Lynch

How do you like my fancy new cast? I slipped on the ice on Easter Sunday and fell on top of my wrist which broke, of course. This was not the change I was looking for. But I am learning a lot!

Like how hard it is to get dressed with only one operable hand and forget hanging up jeans at all. Forget hanging up anything or making a bed or sweeping a floor. I’m becoming a slovenly teenager late in life! Didn’t I just mention a few posts back how I wanted someone to take care of me  – send applications to .

I had to get my sister to open the jam when she was here last weekend but I was able to figure out how to open the juice today by myself. I held it under my armpit and used my good hand to untwist the lid. It wasn’t too messy and now my armpit smells like mangos.

And did you know that regular pill use gets you constipated! Not fun!

Plus, it would be a good idea to cut your long hair before you break your arm as it is very hard to wash it one-handed.

I’d ask how Pirates did it but then they were never known for their cleanliness!

And the more expensive the toilet paper the easier it is to tear at the perforations.

I’d show you pictures of my bruises but they’re on my good hand and I can’t use the other hand to take photos right now.

I only have four button down shirts and on three the buttons are too small to do up with one hand. Let’s not even talk about bras and how hard they are to do up even in the best of circumstances.

Breaking bones leaves you very tired and the resetting is worse then the breaking. The emergency room doctor was impressed that I didn’t swear when she reset my wrist even though I had permission to do so. I guess I wouldn’t make a very good pirate after all.

My blog posts, for the rest of April may be shorter than usual as I adjust to this change!

And learn what it is possible to do mostly one-handed.

Are you ambidextrous? What can you do one handed? I can turn on the bath tub taps with either foot but that is not helping me now (can’t shower, can’t take a bath, can’t get my cast wet).

I wish I were a cat and could lick myself clean as sponge bathing is annoying  (but there are certain parts you don’t want to lick)!

Can Winter be over now, she asks, as she watches the snow come down (once again) outside her window?

This was not the change I was looking for!

Inspired by The Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge.

(Click on the second photo for a book recommendation).

]]> http://solitaryspinster.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/weekly-photo-challenge-change/feed/ 10 solitaryspinster Long Cast Cast Clsp http://solitaryspinster.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/here-there-everywhere-and-back-again/ http://solitaryspinster.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/here-there-everywhere-and-back-again/#comments Sun, 07 Apr 2013 23:41:40 +0000 solitaryspinster http://solitaryspinster.wordpress.com/?p=4375 ]]>

plus I have a major owie (broken left wrist).

I plan a much longer post next week!!!

This is an Alice in Wonderland door; small, compact and leading I know not where! To the right is what looks like a small winter forest path. Winter has been too long and I have lost my words and my will.

With luck, I will have them both back by next week!

Read more entries at Where’s my backpack.

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.

I don’t mean it to.

I’ve forgotten how to love unconditionally.

The way I’ve forgotten laughter,

The way I’ve forgotten touch,

Why do I still remember tears.

How can i remember,

Nobody touches me anymore.

I am but a shadow -

Over looked, seen through, Invisible…

Nobody sees me.

My heart dead,

My heart ignored,

My heart murdered.

I grew up, faded from your consciousness, aged and became invisible.

The Breakfast Club

Daily Prompt: Silver Screen