Comfort and catharsis

Life is an Onion

2011-12-16T05:56:00.000-08:00

As a child of four years old, I was aware of what occurred around me. Not simply did I understand the words but their ulterior intentions. I could perceive irritation, manipulation, subtle messaging. Yet, I was locked within my small frame and spoken to as one unawares. Often, I wondered how long I would have to feign ignorance--until I grew up and realised that the pretense was to endure my entire life.

In my preadolescence, I tested my powers of manipulation. I laid a great trap for a friend of mine and merely observed as she ensnared herself in lies. I did not reveal myself but simply noted that all people will lie and cheat if they deem it feasible and profitable.

Existence is the multitude of rings within an onion. I am on the outermost peel, cynically observing the mid machinations. At times, I have sought to live blindly inside the onion but am always rejected by my perception of falseness. I have tried to numb myself--to overcome the sting of the onion--and to live simply, blindly. It is always in vain.

A few times, I have mastered my own consciousness and internalised my practice so profoundly that I have reached the innermost sanctum of the onion. Those points have been true sweetness: onion divinity. At those moments of nirvana, I have attained what it is for which I have striven with the least effort. It has been as though the circling has momentarily ceased and the rings have aligned into a cosmic pathway. Choices were obvious, delicious. Results were evident and glorious.

But, as with all other occasions, ultimately I have been redeposited at the external trajectory.

Today as I consider the death of Hitch, someone whose body of work speaks to me, I feel more and certain that the onion hardens and bitters. I am rejected by all but the exterior.

Rebuttal from the Other dog

2011-10-02T11:46:00.000-07:00

I know I'm low on the family totem pole.

It's okay, though, because I'm a dog and am comfortable with hierarchy. I'm somewhere after the first dog and people but maybe before the turtles and fish. I guess in the film world, my position would be described as 'below the line'. Not a producer or director but still talent.

There's something to be said for not having a very strong brain. I can't make up my mind on things so I listen to my peoples' guidance. I adhere to every instruction given to me. My people tell me I just got too much beauty and not so much of the other stuff.

Sure, the first dog is beloved but I am obediant.

My people stuck by me when I did all kinds of stuff I wasn't supposed to do, even when I was BAD DOG. I know I'm still sometimes stinky, sloppy, and silly but my people take care of me and tell me I am GOOD DOG. Those are my happiest days.

I had a rocky start to life. I was physically unwell, mentally unstable, and instinctually-delayed. It's not fun having the canine equivalent of ADHD. The Prozac helps a lot. Now, I can concentrate and listen. I promise my people that I'll be the very best dog I can be.

And that's good enough for one dog's life.

Dog Love

2011-09-29T08:21:00.000-07:00

I had a strange thought just now: perhaps I love this creature more than anything on earth. How can that be when I have a cherished child and a reciprocally devoted husband? Someone with a psychological background would surely advise me that I am merely projecting onto the dog. And indeed, I am.

I was born in the Year of the Dog. I have always identified with the notion of dog. I consider myself dog-like. I have even, at times, wondered longingly what it might be like to have a tail. I relate more closely to dogdom than to the realm of any other animal, except perhaps that of the elephant.

Interestingly, the elephant strikes me as very similar to the dog in its emotional makeup. Magnificently, they invest physical locations with their grief for the deceased. The don't have a fantastically functional tail but they do have an awesome trunk. The elephant maintains such a wisdom and a gentleness of spirit despite its size.

And so I truly love this dog, as if she is part of me--an extension who is independent, willful, cheeky, playful and infinitely compassionate.

A Healthy Point of View

2011-08-30T16:40:00.000-07:00

It's funny how simply making a decision can sometimes lead to a change of mindset.

I spent most of the summer in graduate work, looking at myself as an artist and a linguist, and in deconstructing messaging in popular culture. I had promised myself that when my coursework had finished for the term, that I would spend at least a few days of my short vacation pushing my exercise book for postpartum mothers towards publication. I didn't realise, however, that my perception of normative standards of weight would so drastically have been altered.
Sure, I was always aware of media messages objectifying and distorting the female body. But it wasn't until I really took a look at my own insecurities that I discovered how greatly I too, had been indoctrinated. Not only did I rework a section in my manuscript on weight loss, but I made a rather huge decision.

If, as a junior high teacher, I hope to model healthy behaviour through my active participation in physical fitness pursuits and through my clean diet, then I must relinquish my own body image insecurities. Self-acceptance seems so obvious--how could I have missed it? Yet until I made the momentous vow to bare my legs (despite varicose veins) and to wear shorts when running (instead of roasting alive in track pants), I myself was somehow inauthentic.

I ran today, in the local park. Cellulite was visible for all who cared to see. But either no one saw or no one cared. I was comfortable. When I looked in the mirror later, the lumps and bumps that have always taunted me despite my slender frame seemed somehow less visible. How is that possible? By the fact that I simply no longer care. I actually feel good: strong, healthy, vibrant, beautiful, intelligent, successful...

It's taken me forty years to get this. I hope I can persuade some of my teenagers that body confidence really does come from within--perhaps through leading by example.

Requiem

2010-08-26T07:35:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, my mother died.

Her existence consisted of pain and sorrow.
She was the lingering ache of a Beethoven sonata, she was the angst of Brahms; whereas my father is a Bach partita and the happy summer of Mendelssohn.

She taught me to read palms, to embroider, and to look within because spirituality provides more truth than materiality. She shared a secret with me: that the supernatural and the natural are only as distant as we permit them to be.

Through her, I suffered more than enough for one person's life. But at least I have a clarity she did not. I see beyond the mist and am not immobilised by its cloying, moist dullness. I do not regret anything that has facilitated who I am.

Mama,
In death, rest in peace, as you never did in life.

Value

2010-05-18T16:14:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about possessions recently. Not just material things, but also the memories and feelings with which we endow objects.

I hold onto memories the way a child grasps a blanket until it is soggy and filthy from having been dragged on the floor. I still wake up, gasping for air, at romantic blunders I made in my adolescence. In fact, I try to will those tortures away using every meditative and hokum purgative technique I can muster. But those nasties refuse to be vanquished. They maintain their rightful place beside triumphs, first kisses, and cds.

What is value? I value certain attributes of myself, of my personality. Surely, that is mere self-esteem. (I don't think I'm a narcissist...) I also value my relationships with my husband and daughter--those are not possessions; they require reciprocity. Were they,they would be stagnant and lifeless. So how then, can I use the same word 'value' to describe the way I feel about purchasing a hoodie for half-off or a deal I got one time when some meat was under-priced. (Still feel a tad guilty about that one, to be honest.)

Sometimes applying value to an object can be detrimental. Any Buddhist monk will tell you the same. We hold on beyond the usefulness of a memory. Valued possessions are only worthwhile as long as you continue to move forward. When you are bound, it's over. My body has taught me this with years of chronic aches and pains that I can isolate and connect back to particular incidents.

I am posting this message, incomplete. These were the thoughts I was having days before my parent died. I was unable to finish this draft and have decided to let it hang, still, in the ether.

First run of spring

2010-04-07T16:15:00.000-07:00

Today, I took a moment of pure bliss to jog beside a river full from spring runoff. As the water dashed down, I heard the roar in my ears and the dull thump of my feet on the path. It was ten meditative seconds of replenishment for my soul.

That was, of course, before the searing pain in my lungs and throat.

I am a runner but you have to understand: in Newfoundland, the snow has only just melted. One cannot run outside with the winter -25C windchills. (Well, some sickos do, but there is no accounting for those weirdos who not only force themselves to breathe through balaclavas while running but also willingly negotiate ice covered sidewalks, roads narrowed by two metre-wide snow banks, and drivers who don't scrape their windows.) So, this was my first run of the year outdoors. And it's different than being on the treadmill, with no one to watch me, as my steps got narrower and narrower.

Spring in this part of Canada is about waiting for one elusive bird to sing and the masochism of the return to Standard Time. (It hurts but it feels so good.) It is also when three metre snow drifts in the backyard melt to reveal layers of near-fossilised dog poop, previously hidden by flash snow storms. And once the ground has begun to recuperate from that trauma, it is time for a jog.

The jog is a paradigm. My mind versus my body is the dichotomy. I read recently that the best way for runners to stave off shin splints, is to take smaller strides. I cling to this fact for justification when I am tempted to collapse and curl up in a ball rather than finish the last hill. Another memory that goads me on is the recollection that I ran this very same trail when I was seven months pregnant. It's been almost three years since then, surely I can do the same route now! The eternal battle intensifies as the internal wimp retorts that I am almost forty. Whew, that was a low blow.

Suddenly, I emerge from the forest near the road. Traffic whizzes past, witnessing my puffy red face and sweatline down my chest. I, huff, must, huff, not look like an idiot in front of these people.

Pathetic, isn't it, how it's vanity that ultimately pushes me to succeed?

I wish I could run with my dogs. Yes, the same ones responsible for the nauseating detritus that is my backyard. But one is from champion field trial stock and is too much of an instinctual hunter--she'd pull me off towards the ducks, swans, and squirrels. The other one is from champion show stock and is um, pretty. So, one is too smart and the other not enough. I would love the company though. Now that I say it, I wonder. Jogging, like hiking, is a spiritual experience for me. I enjoy the solitude and the opportunity to commune with nature, reflectively. Stooping to scoop would kill the flow.

I feel virtuous as I write this. I've done my exercise for the day. Thank goodness because I have a nasty headache, a vague urge to vomit, and a slight dizziness. As the battle threatens to begin anew, the addicted runner finally reemerges with a reply to the 'forty-year-old' insult, "Maybe I will feel better when I try it again tomorrow..."

The Gross-out

2010-04-04T18:04:00.000-07:00

Why is it that one feels so liberated after having grossed someone out?

I have a theory: that this is the very notion behind the success of all horror literature and film. It feels titillatingly delicious to really crank it up, I mean, sensing when you have crossed the line with a story and then going totally overboard. Moreover, we love to be disgusted. It's naughty.

The other day, I was recounting to a colleague one of my dogs' disgusting habits. As I sensed her squirming, I found myself delving deeper and deeper into heinously unnecessary detail. I left her in a state of half-scream/half-laughter. Yet, I had to go one step further and exit the room while making sound effects relevant to the anecdote. When I heard her climactic groan, I could no longer erase the grin from my face.

I felt tremendous success and catharsis. I was now relieved of the hideous memory, having divied it up amongst other beings in the universe. I no longer have to independently carry the burden.

We may actively hunt down creepy moments to relieve our over-active imaginations, to free our stressed psyches, or to simply to feel more than we do in daily life numbed by societal pressure. Perhaps we are attempting to connect with some now-forbidden archetypal instinct. Whatever the reason, I'm sure my friend felt just as rejuvenated after hearing my story as I did after telling it.