Anticipation

If I could bottle any feeling, it would be anticipation: that feeling of waiting for something good. It‘s lightning in a bottle, expectancy of a contentment or delight, the prospect of imminent aliveness. As creatures who seek pleasure (and tend to avoid pain), it’s arguably the sensation to which we are most drawn. There’s a looking forward to the moment, a hopefulness tied less to optimism, than a surety, a deeper understanding that a good thing is bound to happen. Anticipation requires that you know ahead of time the experience will be a good one; that’s what distinguishes it from apprehension or anxiety. Fear, concern, worry – fall to the background; they are put out of body and mind. There is no room for trepidation where anticipation is concerned; such unease has no bearing on what’s surely to come.

The certainty with which we can assume a fortunate outcome comes from experience, but also from a broad familiarity with the way of the world, an abstruse comprehension: this is the way things are. The thing itself – the moment of goodness – is the outcome we relish. But it also marks the start of the let-down. Once it comes, that culminating moment, it’s the beginning of the end. Certainly, it’s the memorable moment – the one we hold, keep, store - but our eagerness betrays us: It’s the eagerness itself that has us holding on.

We are sitting in a moment of suspense, with the vaccination roll out having picked up steam (if you can even use that expression to metaphorically describe a train that started off derailed, and whose inertia was then subject to an exhaustive mess of tracks, switches and signals). Our anticipation of “normalcy” rides alongside us, blown too with wind that is created only on account of our own movement.

How do we proceed in this moment? How do we move through the mundanity of a day and still hold tight this feeling of change a-comin’? How long can we sit in anticipation when patience sits at the other (short) end?

If we allow it, each moment can carry an anticipation of the next. Maybe we don’t wait… maybe we treat each moment as whole – and as it should be? It seems we have the power to make moments feel less dormant and more embryonic. It’s a big question, as it affects us critically when we wait. Why else would patience be one of our most trying virtues?

Mindful Boozing

As featured on shedoesthecity.com!

I’ve been boozing mindfully since last October, which is to say, I haven’t been boozing very much. It was a real outlier for me – my boozing – since just about every other aspect of my life I attempt to approach with a certain level of consciousness and equanimity. Booze was the place I really just let go. Perhaps it evaded my attention because it was just so normal, an ingrained part of evening dinner-making, meeting up with friends, settling in for a show. The benefits in many ways could even have been described in mindful terms: it set apart a certain portion of the day from the rest; it carried ritual and a ceremoniousness (in its preparation, the first sip and a “cheers” if someone else was around for the cultural nod to the moment); and I could easily argue that the settling in (imbibing) was akin to taking a seat of stillness – a parachute-soft landing into an almost motionlessness – very unlike the rest of my day. How is that not mindful!?!

Well – here’s how…. I could hear myself on occasion, in the far-off distance, ask whether I needed to have a drink in the first place, but this voice was really travelling from afar. Picture an expanse of desert wilderness, with large dunes and a steady wind: It’s hard to hear. As with anything though, when we do it over, and over and over, we grow weary, and my body was trying to say so. There were other signs too – like sometimes that first, ceremonious sip didn’t taste as good as it sometimes does – didn’t quite have the religious zing I was always anticipating. Oh I’d often get there, but the initial disappointment of it “not hitting the spot” was also something I might have clued into sooner. (Notice here the set expectation, and the way we might adjust to disappointment and just colonize there.)

Then, there was the amount. We all know that “I drink a normal amount” is completely subjective, and I’m wary of us getting into the comparative games we play and the bars we collectively set, so let’s just say – it started for me around 5pm (yes, happy hour) and with the pandemic as the ultimate backdrop, sometimes carried on until bedtime. Filling in the blanks here would get you nowhere, because really the intake in the evenings varied – dependent on an array of circumstances. Also, and ultimately for me, it was about that minute hand reaching for gold as the hour hand sat just so in the bottom right quadrant: the obtuse angle that signalled “reward.” Of course – and certainly not to be taken lightly, but addressed here lightly – was the arrival of what I like to call the “no holds barred” me… the person I was able to assume after a drink or two. You can imagine, this is a love/hate relationship. I love how loose and easygoing she is. She will sing out loud and shake her booty and laugh – OMG is she quick to laugh! But she’s a bit snarky, her patience mercurial and she will occasionally just extend that line to lay out her dirty laundry.

As a concept, I don’t believe in abstinence. I’m mindful, remember – I like balance, and thoughtfulness and conscious choices, bolstered with accountability and showing up, obligation and willfulness. I like fumbling and regaining our footing, and the ball: I believe this is how we learn. I don’t want black and white; I want to navigate the gray. So here I stand, entering the world of mindful boozing, where in fact the world of alcohol is quite clearly black and white. Booze is part of the fabric of our socializing. It’s the lubricant that allows us to be together when we want to be around others, and when we don’t. It kind of makes all of it ok – or “better.” Choosing to remove oneself from this culturally accepted norm is seemingly more black-and-white than I’d like, and so I’m going gray. Hard gray.

One might think that amidst a pandemic is a difficult, if idiotic, time to withdraw from alcohol – and if you had spoken to me a year ago, I most certainly would have slapped you a high five on that one. Yet remarkably, half-way through, I suppose I felt otherwise. (Admittedly, pandemic-justified overindulgence may have had a part to play.) In fact, I was bolstered by the isolation: I wasn’t going out as much; social engagements (even on zoom) were few and far between, so while I’ve never been one to shy away from drinking on my own, I did only have myself (and occasionally my husband) to contend with in terms of exposure.

Here’s the thing: I grew tired of booze being a knee-jerk response for me. It’s so not mindful. And when I considered why I was drinking, I realize I was doing the opposite of all the things I evangelize about on my very non-religious soapbox: Coming into a moment with all my senses, exposing myself to what arises, facing and bearing all that shows up, and then creating a container to hold it all – using the space as a place from which to emerge with thoughtful words and wise action. I thought I could do this with booze – I thought I was doing just that… but it’s a bit of a ruse. Alcohol numbs our senses: it allows us to skip over or avoid the painful stuff, even if we intend to address it at some later stage. The anesthetizing buys us time, but really – we don’t get around to it. When 5pm strikes the next day, we’re want to ignore it again.

I’m early in my journey, but for what it’s worth, I’m appreciating it. You who know me know that I like science and experiments, and this is most certainly a big one. Do I feel better having, for the most part, cut out the booze? No! I mean, intellectually yes: I realize I don’t like the feeling of running from something, but truth be told, when the things you’re running from catch up with you, they don’t feel great either. So I’m slowing down my pace, letting those things catch up and walk beside me. The more I get to know them, the less frightening they seem. Although, on occasion, I am very clearly reminded of the reason I took off in the first place!

Laughter Is The Best Medicine

Years ago (when I was quite a bit younger) a therapist told me I was “practical and earnest.” For someone who, at the time, was desperately aspiring to be more “easygoing and spontaneous,” it felt suffocating and offensive: a deflating reminder of how serious I am. (Certainly there was no intention on the part of the therapist to offend, nor pigeonhole me.)

I’m grown up now; and, I’m practical and earnest. However the latter part of this pandemic has had me feeling very serious, if austere. There’s a lot of heavy stuff going on, scenarios demanding careful consideration and cause for concern. I’ve noticed that its called to the forefront my “seriousness,” where - in earnest, and practically - I carry out my days. These tendencies have a propensity to hold me to a level of stringency that can be effective; I can see how they come to my rescue. Also, they can calcify into armour, that either smothers the good humour within, or refracts the levity we all so desperately need.

Last night, on the phone with a friend, she mentioned something that made me crack up, tears pouring out of my eyes. It felt amazing. Almost instantly after, I realized: “I haven’t had a laugh like that in ages!” It weighed on me that I’ve been missing my smile and my laughter - two things I’ll bet those living with me would prefer to my oft furrowed brow and (I want to say “occasional” here, to save face) grimacing. I also quite quickly noticed my shame and resistance to what I see as my “stick in the mud” side. We have to be careful not to judge our tendencies, else we bury ourselves in them, rather than use them as fodder for change. It was only moments after this unfolded that I knew I had to act - to invite more balance.

If we shame our tendencies - it can seem like we need to eradicate them; whereas sometimes they require just a bit of subduing. That said, I was also made aware that I am lacking in the “levity” department, and so I’ve written myself a prescription for laughter. I’m starting easy – reading jokes and watching some comedy - and working my way up to laughing in the middle of my serious days, at the silly stories and antics the kids, and life in general, can offer up. The reaction of my body to smiling and laughter cracks the armour I otherwise feel in my chest, the front part of my shoulders, the anterior line of my arms and forearms, and my hands (that to the naked eye aren’t clenched, but may as well be). North of my chest too are the hardened brows, and rigid jaw that signal “all work, no play.”

It can feel uncomfortable to laugh or “let ourselves go” when it otherwise feels like the world is falling apart, but using humour for healing is age-old medicine, and doesn’t cost the healthcare system a dime. It helps us cope, offers perspective, reduces conflicting (or uncomfortable) emotions, softens our judgments and it straight up feels good. The laughter won’t diminish tragedy or trauma, but already I can see it’s giving me reprieve, comfort and catharsis. That, I’m taking seriously. And so should you.

Connie

It started as a casual affair: one hobby gardener waiving across the street to the other as we watered our hardy perennials out of their winter slumber. Neighbourly nods and smiles ensued, and the occasional compliment or pointing at a certain shrub or flower. The intimacy grew furiously one early evening when she walked over with deliberation. There was no telling her intention when she’d first laid her hose on the ground and started in my direction. She walked right up and grabbed my hand firmly: she was indicating I should come with her, back across the street - and not to her garden at the front, but she was almost pulling me through her side gate and into her back garden. She paused at a large planter and said “you.”

Turns out she’d been propagating, on my behalf, a plant I had admired. Now, she indicated, I was to take it. She directed me as I dug it up. She then shuffled me back across the street and pointed to the particular spot in my garden where I was to dig up the soil and plant it. Her specific instructions continued: how deep to lay the roots, how firmly to pack the soil atop and how much water to add to seal the deal. She nodded that grandmother nod of a job well done, and I smiled.  

There was a language barrier, you see. We spoke with eyes and hands and wrinkled expressions that offered the essence of questions and elicited effective enough responses. Each engagement, one of comportment and generosity. Then I didn’t see her for a while - for a long while. Too long, it felt. She should have been out watering, tending. I crossed the street again, of my own volition this time. I knocked and she came - half her size, the marbled face of a person who is distraught. Her husband had passed away; and when I asked if she was ok, she said in a word we both understood, “no.” The only thing watered now were her eyes.

After that time, I visited her; kept making my way over. Once, I toured her house and was introduced to her family through framed pictures: her parents she left back in the Azores as a young girl, her husband with whom she’d immigrated to start a life together, their children and their children. She lives alone now, and I think about what that means. I think about a life propagated, and I think too about what a garden can give a person in its spring and summer, and what it means when the hoses get put away in winter. When we’re no longer required to sustain something, when we retreat to our homes, we can be suspended somewhere between embracing our circumstance and longing for another. And so she comes by now too, and in our way, we sustain, and we tend, this unlikely friendship we’ve propagated.

Gratitude Season

It’s gratitude season, and being that I identify as both Canadian and American, I get to celebrate Thanksgiving twice. Canadian Thanksgiving just was (October 12) and I have to admit I came by my gratitude in an unusual way. While we can all tick off some of the more conspicuous things to be grateful for, this Thanksgiving was tinged with a sense longing – for people with whom we traditionally celebrate. In fact, more broadly it served as an upsetting reminder of those I can’t see, haven’t seen and likely won’t see when US Thanksgiving rolls around in November.

Let’s be clear – our lives are marked by these types of separations. My own trajectory took me away from home as a young student. My husband – for as long as we’ve been together – has travelled for at least 50% of the year. Our families (and friends) are dispersed all over the world. Even as our own kids are coaxed into the world, we eventually spend our days apart from them. I’ve been missing people I love for as long as I can remember!

By caprice or self-protection I stopped counting the separations. Intellect helped me to see the value in distraction, management, the brighter side – about saying not goodbye, but farewell. And indeed we’d soften the blight of periods apart by talking about when we might be together again, scheduling and securing plans. But we can’t quite do that now; there is the distance, restrictions and uncertainty.

This time of not being with ones I love – in the way that I love (to travel to, to sit close, to touch, to embrace, laugh, cry and hold tight) – this touchless experience has me feeling again all the things of really missing – like the separation anxiety of a child: “I love you, and I’m scared I won’t see you again.”

This emotion – call it grief, longing, pining – whether acute as it is now, or more broadly perceived, is always with us. It is in our nature to hold it at bay as it can be a painful one with which to become entangled. But here is where I found my gratitude…

A profound or sorrowful “missing” is the mirror image of love: The depth of our longing is in fact a reflection of the extent of our love and affection for those we miss. In fact remembering what you love, channeling or mimicking what you experience in someone’s presence, even connecting virtually with those people (if possible) becomes the antidote to being apart.

Of course anything that marks a “coming between” – separations, splits, even death – can trigger in us a sense of loss. But on the flip – we only stand to lose if we didn’t already gain. Look to the gain, look at the abundance of love that you miss having by your side. Conjure the glory in the relationships you hold dear, to balance the emotional encumbrance of missing. It’s not the same as the real thing, but like everything now, an iteration: I am grateful for those (not with me) whom I love.

(Please note I have posted to Instagram a complementary meditation on topic. Find it @thedropinproject)

My Little Guy

He came bounding downstairs in his skivvies. My husband and I looked at each other because we were both about to lose it. It was Sunday night and we’d been pressing hard, for over an hour now, to get our three boys on the Bedtime Train to its final destination. The list of station stops sounds like this: “Upstairs / Shower / Prep School Bags / Brush Teeth / Pee / Bed.” If you’re a parent you well know the dawdling that may be involved at each stop, never mind when a passenger completely disembarks at the wrong station. As he ran across the kitchen toward where my husband happened to be sitting in the sunroom, I kept my eyes on the dishes I was washing. When I do this, it’s to keep myself contained – to bury myself into my task at the moment, so that I can collect myself. Whether by intuition or generosity or both, my husband took this one, and it came out kindly – certainly more kindly than my state of depleted patience might have permitted. He asked: “What are you doing back down here!?!” As if it were obvious, my son replied “I’m releasing this bug outside.”

Easily, either one of us could have been caught in a situation of shutting him down and turning him around and back up the stairs without posing the question. We had our agenda (to get them in bed!) and as parents, we tend to deem our agendas to be of utmost import. This moment was a cue that all of us – parents and children – have agendas, and prioritize. In this case, my little guy – whether conscious of it or not - was placing this little bug’s life above the threat of his parents’ disapproval. For him, imminent bedtime or not, it was pretty clear this bug just needed to get outside. It was a stop-us-in-our-tracks moment for the important reminder it is: It’s better to ask (why?) than to assume (belligerence). It’s better to recognize another’s agenda (no matter their size or age) and to be respectful of it, than to block and ignore. And it’s the absolute best if we can engage in a tone that is pleasant (thank you husband). And frankly – how damn far does it go with any of us when compassion is at the heart of an action. I know this one hit me hard.

Words of Wisdom

Remember that weekend when it was minus twenty out? On the Saturday I welcomed staying home – not running around doing carpools, but rather being “forced” into the luxury of cooking all day. (A warm pot simmering on the stovetop is the pinnacle of coziness for me.) But then there’s reality – kids in each others’ (and my!) hair, the endless cycle of preparing food, feeding, cleaning, and the constant jaw-clench inducing question: “Can I go on my ipad now?” (I’ve mastered saying “no” with a non-smirk smile; I kinda sing it.)

On Sunday, when the temperatures were still so frigid that being out for longer than ten minutes might translate into a shooting headache, I made the kids bundle up and walk nine minutes to take in some of Toronto’s culture in the form of the Design TO Festival. We landed at Artscape Youngplace with a load of energy, and as is common in these situations I had to stay on high alert to ensure this energy didn’t squelch the beautiful quiet that is often the inside of that building, with it’s exposed brick, old bones and a heaviness much like a grandfather’s embrace. 

Our first exhibit was called Never Never Land. The artist drew on childhood games and the colour blue for inspiration. Some of the installations were hands on – a beautiful thing for the kids in tow – and others created conversation that surprised me. It wasn’t their curiosity that caught my attention – kids are naturally good at that – but the tranquility they emanated being with the art. Perhaps they were feeling as caged up at home as I had been, and welcomed this stark contrast in time and place.

Their stillness, however, was most noticeable as we entered another exhibit entitled “Dying.” Here, there were multiple installations, all surrounding our relationship with death and dying:  a “constellation” where you could use a ball of string to map your experience with the death of a family member you lost; a cage filled with umpteen prescription bottles – a nod to the medicalization of sickness and dying; and there was a tongue in cheek video (and a model) of a DIY coffin – made from a heavy cardboard that promised comfort, ease and was “mostly free.” Wary at first of what this exposure might mean, I was blown away by how the children received it….again: tranquil intrigue and interest.

The final installation of this exhibit was a wall where you could write on an index card and post your thoughts on death, dying and the nature (tenderness) of mortality. Without hesitation the kids penned their ideas about the imminence of death (“death can make you look back on the great things in life”), about how to live in the face of it (“live while it lasts”) and about what death may really mean day to day (“I miss my Zaida so much, he was the best”). 

I took pictures of their words for posterity. I read them again and again. Out of the frigid cold that day came warm wisdom.